Andrew Haglund

Apple Photos should be way better at duplicate detection (and other library cleanup features). Here’s how Apple describes their duplicate detection in the Photos app (and knowledge base article):

Duplicates are classified both as exact copies that may have different metadata, as well as photos that appear to be the same, but may have unique resolutions, file formats, or other slight differences.

The Duplicates tool is a permanent sidebar item on Mac (no clue where this lives on iPhone) but it doesn’t seem to detect “like-photos” which I would define as: I just took 10 very similar pictures of my kid at the playground and please please please phone help me choose the best 1 or 2 to keep in my library until the end of time (and throw away the rest).

Aside from the passive Duplicates tool, it would be great if Apple introduced a “daily cleanup” reminder with suggestions on the photos to clean up. After having a kid my spouse and I created a Shared Photo Library and now we have so many cute photos of our kid each day.

Like a garden, tending to a photo library is best done frequently! At the end of most days my wife culls the photos and deletes “like-photos”. I am terrible at this task as I worry about accidentally deleting “a good one”. It’d be fantastic if the Photos app would have a cleanup suggestion at the end of the day to identify “like-photos” and even zoom in on aspects that differ (ex. eyes open vs shut, smiling vs not) so you can quickly and confidently clean up. This could be a great ritual for people to recount the day, see pictures of your loved ones, and tidy up your library.

This feature would provide plenty of control to the user by leaving them in charge of which photos get discarded. Or you could ignore these suggestions entirely and keep your library as messy as the old shoe boxes of yore.

I loved hearing Cory Doctorow going off on everything wrong in the tech industry on Decoder while promoting his new Enshittification book.

I want to work on projects that are part of the antidote — open source, fun, free, and built to solve problems not be gross and make billionaires richer.

Guillermo del Toro’s CBS interview is incredible and well worth your time if you create (or want to create). He puts everything into his projects and it’s incredibly inspiring to hear about why he loves Frankenstein so much.

You are born to sing one or two songs in your lifetime. This is my song.

And:

What is beautiful about monsters is they become patron saints of imperfection.

I saw Guillermo speak at the Roger Ebert Festival during a Q&A session after a showing of Crimson Peak at the Virginia Theater and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. His films like Nightmare Alley, Pinocchio, The Shape of Water, and Pan’s Labyrinth are incredible and so I was thrilled when I learned he was making Frankenstein.

Last Thursday night, on Halloween Eve, no less, I drove an hour to see Frankenstein in theaters (curse you Netflix for your limited theatrical runs!) and absolutely loved it. The sets, performances, costumes — it is clearly the work of an auteur who loves this story and it’s a beautiful rendition of a story so seeped into our collective minds.

I came to the movie a bit naive to the myth and story of Frankenstein. I read Mary Shelley’s 1818 book (did you know Shelley was 19 when she wrote it?) on the original 3.5” iPhone when I was 16 and I’ve seen Young Frankenstein a dozen times (and even performed in Young Frankenstein in group interpretation in high school) but somehow I had never seen a true Frankenstein movie before Guillermo’s.

I highly recommend seeing it in theaters. But if you’re not near a major city I guess just stream it on Netflix on Friday? Highly recommended.

I cannot find the quote now, but I heard Guillermo say something like:

My entire life I dreamed I could make the best Frankenstein movie. Now that I’ve made the movie — I don’t know if I achieved that goal — but it’s no longer a dream, I did it.