Issue #156 | Subscribe

I learned something incredibly interesting while watching a clip from Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show.

One of the sounds in Billie Eilish's song Bad Guy was inspired by the sound traffic signals in Australia make when the walk sign comes on.

Finneas, Billie's older brother, found this music rhythmic, recorded it and introduced it in the song as one of the background sounds of the track.

This reminded me of the movie Begin Again, where a band records an entire album inspired by the sounds of the city:

We search so hard for inspiration when there's inspiration all around us — in the mundane.

They appear when we get out of our heads and pay more attention to our surroundings.

I'll leave you with this thought to ponder over the weekend.

Now, before you move on to the rest of this newsletter issue, here are a few words from:

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Apps & Services

Letterly

Convert unstructured speech to formatted text

While there are many AI speech-to-text apps in the market, I liked this one’s rewriting presets better. You can ramble about a list of things you want to do or need, and it can clean everything up and give you a formatted list. Available on most major platforms and is free to start. Hulry Plus members get flat 30% off for the first year. Become a member to access deals like this.
Foqos

Block and unblock apps with NFC tags

Instead of blocking and unblocking apps through a button, do it using an NFC tag that you can place in a room away from your workspace. This makes it slightly difficult to return to distracting apps in the middle of a work session, as you have to physically reach the NFC tag to do it. Available on iOS for free.
Vellum

Have a live reference for your photos

A tiny app that makes capturing before and after shots easier. Choose a reference photo from your gallery, and the app will overlay it over a live camera feed to click a new one in the same style. Perfect for those home makeover photos or making progress timelapses. Available on iOS for free.

Handy Shortcut

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Minimise

Quickly minimise all open windows of an app in macOS.

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