A simple mono recording app where the audio stays on your phone. No ads, no subscriptions, no remotely-generated transcripts, just basic recording.
Iâve found it useful for making quick voice notes I can come back to later, and for recording audio observations for iNaturalist when I can hear, but canât see noisy animals. It should work for longer recordings too: thereâs no time limit as far as I can tell.
Thereâs a setting to start recording as soon as you launch the app, and a widget in case you want one-click recording sometimes, and some simple options for choosing a bitrate and file format (M4A, MP3, or Ogg).
Wallabag is a service for saving articles you find on the web to read later. Itâs built on open-source software that you can run yourself if you want (but you donât have to). Not as polished as Pocket, but you know itâs not using your saved bookmarks to train a recommendation engine.
And now that Pocket is shutting down, itâs worth taking a look at switching.
Setup is a bit clunky, even using the hosted service at wallabag.it, and itâs not quite as good as Pocket at extracting the content of an article. This varies according to site, of course. Sites like this one that just show you the article will work better than sites that break into the middle with a 12-image carousel and a âsign up to read moreâŠâ dialog or a redirect through CloudFlare.
You can also export articles to various formats ranging from plain text to PDF or ePub. So if you have a super-long article you want to read on an e-reader later on â or a group of articles? Easy!
At first, the web app ran quickly, but itâs been a lot slower lately. Two things happened around the same time: Mozilla announced it was closing Pocket, and I imported 15 years of Pocket archives (without cleaning the export first). I donât know if theyâre getting substantially more usage, or if itâs just that my account ballooned from a couple hundred items to over 25,000.
Feeds and Automation
Both incoming and outgoing feeds are supported. You can set it up to follow RSS/Atom feeds to add posts to your reading list. And in the website config, you can enable full-text feeds for unread, archived, starred, or all articles so you can read them in any feed reader. Outgoing feeds include any tags youâve added, but not annotations.
This also means you can use feeds for automation: You can use another service to aggregate keyword searches, and as long as the results are readable as a feed, you can pipe that into Wallabag. Or pull from a blog, or a Fediverse account, or anything else that generates a feed. For example, Iâve got it automatically adding anything tagged ToRead on my Postmarks by following the /tagged/toread.xml feed. Wallabag doesnât use the tags from the source, unfortunately.
Or you can use Wallabag as a source, using IFTTT to send your starred items to another bookmarks service, or build a linkblog out of articles youâve given a particular tag, or create a draft post. You wonât want to just give out your starred feed URL, because all of your outgoing feeds have the same access token.
Another cool feature for automation is tag rules: Like custom email filters, you can create rules to automatically tag articles based on the title, estimated reading length, content, and various other elements. This is especially useful when following feeds.
Browser Integration
Chromium/Firefox Browser Add-Ons
Chromium-based and Firefox-based browsers that support WebExtensions (and Orion!) can use the Wallabagger extension to save an article from the toolbar. (Here it is at the Chrome Web Store and Firefox Add-Ons. And Edge Add-Ons if thatâs your thing.) It also lets you add tags if you want, and it can (usually) extract the content from the view youâre looking at, which helps with paywalls and login walls. (Otherwise the Wallabag service doesnât necessarily have access to your logged-in view.)
Setting it up needs API keys, and the UI doesnât make it clear when itâs actually ready to use. Once youâve got it working, though, you can save it to a file and load that config in the extension on another device or browser. Mostly.
Safari Extension
Safari can use the Wallabag QuickSave extension (App Store), which is similar but just silently adds the page. You can always add tags later on.
Though I did have trouble setting it up on my old home MacBook: the setup window was twice as high as the screen, with all the fields way down at the bottom. I had to use the overview to see what field was selected, return to the window, type or paste, hit tab, repeat until I could validate my credentials.
Bookmarklet
Other browsers like Falkon can use the bookmarklet, which you can find on the web app in the âHowtoâ section under your account menu. (Here it is on Wallabag.it.) Though I find myself missing that drop-down option for adding a link directly instead of browsing to it first.
Mobile
The Wallabag Android app handles offline sync well once you enable the right settings. I have it set to run a âfastâ auto-sync every 12 hours and on start, with the separate auto-sync for local changes, and the âdeleted article sweepâ after fast sync. One problem reared its head after I imported around 25,000 articles: That sweep can take minutes now, and local actions have to wait for it to finish before theyâll upload.
Not only can I read articles while offline, I can share a link from my email app to Wallabag while offline, and as with Pocket, itâll add the article once the device is connected again. Iâm still trying to determine under what circumstances it actually caches images, since Iâm still seeing placeholders after enabling âPut article images in cache.â It also has a theme specifically designed for e-ink displays, which is a big help on the Boox Poke3 I use as an eReader.
The mobile app doesnât seem to have a way to manually tell it to try re-fetching the content of an article.
Text to speech is at least OK for listening in the car. I havenât used it enough recently to know whether it has the same kinds of oddities in Pocketâs speech back in the day!
I assume the iOS app is similar at least, but Iâve never had the opportunity to use it.
I recently read a review of Frigoligo, another Android app, that has me thinking I should give it a try also. (TODO)
Other Apps
The website view works well installed to a desktop as a progressive web app (PWA) using browsers that support it. Links open in the app, which isnât necessarily what I want all the time.
Linux Desktop / GNOME:Read it Later (on Flatpak) is fairly basic: It lists your unread, starred or archived articles and you can read them in the app. You can also add an article, or move articles between these lists. Links in articles open in your default web browser. Other than that, thereâs no support for tagging, search, or any other features that would help you find a specific article if youâre using Wallabag for more than just âread this thing I saw yesterday.â On the plus side, it does seem to keep articles cached when you go offline, which would make it useful for Linux laptops, tablets, or your desktop if you live somewhere with unreliable internet access.
Some others that I want to try out, but havenât yet:
Wallabag is able to import from bookmarks, Pinboard, Instapaper, Pocket and a few other backup formats. You can even import your Delicious archives if you still have them!
Tip: Clean up the list before importing it if you can! Especially if youâve been using the other service as long as Iâve been using Pocket (more than a decade). I now have thousands of âsavedâ articles that Wallabag canât retrieve because of new paywalls or site deaths. And quite a few that I only really cared about short term. HTML and CSV exports are usually one line per item, which makes it easy. But donât try messing with a JSON file unless you really know what youâre doing.
It used to be possible to import directly from Pocketâs servers, but that stopped working sometime during 2024.
For a while, the workaround was to rearrange Pocketâs CSV export to match Instapaperâs column order. This had the downside that it wouldnât import fields that Instapaper wouldnât give you, like the unread/archive status or the date you added an item. Thatâs how I ended up with 25,000 âunreadâ articles, all ânewâ on the day I imported them!
To Wallabagâs credit, it was able to do an import of that size, and even the mobile app still runs smoothly between syncs!
Iâve been using Pocket for ages to offload âHey, this looks interestingâ articles from times when I really should be doing something else to times when I have, well, time. And when I say âages,â I mean it: I was using it back when it was still called Read It Later, long before Mozilla bought it.
It syncs a copy of the article to each mobile device, which means I can see something in the morning, save it to Pocket, then read it on my tablet at lunch.
Feedly talks to it easily. Back when I used Feedly, I even linked it up with IFTTT so that tapping âSave for Laterâ on the tablet will add an article to Pocket. This also helped make up a bit for Feedlyâs lack of offline access.
Speaking of IFTTT and online services I donât use anymore, for a while I had it set it up so that saving an article as a favorite in Pocket also added it to Delicious.
The Android app will accept shares even if thereâs no network connection, then sync up when itâs online. That means I can look over a newsletter in Gmail at lunch, save the links that look interesting, and archive the email. Then I can read the article at work or at homeâŠor the next time Iâm out somewhere, after itâs synced.
Kobo eReaders can connect to Pocket and you can read your saved articles on something thatâs actually designed for reading.
You can save pages to Pocket using a browser extension for all the major desktop browser types, including Chromium, Firefox and Safari. For others, you can get a bookmarklet from getPocket.com/add while logged in. And just share a URL or page to the mobile app.
Mission Creep
For a while, Pocket had a ârecommendâ button, which let you add a page to a public feed. I thought this was great! It meant I could use one service for bookmarks, saving to read later, and linkblogging!
Eventually Mozilla discontinued manual ârecommendationsâ in favor of an automatic recommendation engine based on what you saved, and what other people were saving. (And sponsored articles, of course.) Your saved articles were âprivateâ from other users, but not from the engine.
A lot of people only know Pocket as âthat annoying thing that shows me sponsored articles when I launch Firefox.â These days Iâm never sure how much theyâre using my bookmarking to train that engine.
And while self-reinforcing algorithms geared toward engagement may be good for the dopamine hits (and a convienient channel to add sponsored articles), itâs not too helpful in the long run.
I finally gave Wallabag a try. Itâs not as polished, but I feel more confident about what itâs doing with my data, and if I really want to, I can host my own server. Plus Wallabag still works on my Poke3 e-reader. I havenât been able to get Pocket to log in on it since it stopped syncing and I reinstalled the app.
Speech Oddities
For a while I used the text-to-speech feature to listen to articles in the car while driving to and from work. Even in the mid-2010s the voice was fairly decent, despite the usual flat tones and lack of natural rhythms.
There were a few oddities, though:
# is always read as âhash.â This makes it really odd for comics articles, which frequently talk about issue numbers. âBatman Hash 123â just sounds wrong.
Italics areâŠalwaysâŠemphasis, and presented byâŠpausingâŠrather than changing tone. This makes itâŠawkwardâŠfor anything involving lots of titles.
It parses words, rather than using a dictionary, and canât always figure out whether initials should be read individually or pronounced as a word. This usually works fine, but occasionally leads to phrases like âtah-kay-down notice,â (takedown) âlink-uh-dinâ (who knew LinkedIn rhymed with Vicodin?) or âpohs terminalâ (POS as in Point-Of-Sale) On the other hand, it figured out âI-triple-E,â so I imagine itâs got a dictionary for special cases.
Parable of the Sower is hard to put down. And itâs hard to pick up again. Itâs certainly not a fun book, but itâs extremely engaging, despite the bleakness of the slow-apocalypse setting and story.
Octavia Butler presents it as a teenagerâs diary entries, starting in what was then the somewhat distant future of 2024, ravaged by climate change and socioeconomic collapse. It follows the next few years as the gated neighborhood she lives in gradually breaks down â both the infrastructure and the community â until the desperately violent people of the streets outside, and the fires they set, tear down and consume whatâs left.
The second half of the book follows Lauren and a handful of survivors as they travel north, walking the old freeways, hoping to find a place where they can settle and rebuild.
Through it all, Lauren has been developing a religion she calls âEarthseed,â built on the central idea that âGod is change,â and that while that change influences you, you can â and should â also influence what that change is going to be.
Voice
What makes this apocalypse so horrifying, and the story so engaging, is how matter-of-fact Lauren is in describing everything. Itâs the world she grew up in, so itâs normal to her, though she can see clearly even at 14 that itâs unsustainable. Thereâs a sharp generational divide between those who remember what things were like back when water wasnât prohibitively expensive, when more people had homes than not, when traveling outside your neighborhood wasnât risking your life, grocery stores didnât have snipers watching you shop, and police might actually investigate a crime rather than just charge you a fee for looking at the scene. When selling yourself and your family into indentured servitude in a company town didnât seem like a path to a better future.
But all that is just history to her.
(Thinking about this, itâs markedly different from George in Mira Grantâs Feed, where she seems to be constantly comparing the historical and post-Rising society. Maybe itâs just the characterâs journalist voice, but I remember it came off as a bit too well-tailored toward the present-day audience. Whereas Lauren, even when she does talk about the past, is focused on the present and future.)
Laurenâs present is hopeless and brutal, but her diary doesnât linger on the ever-present brutality like a horror novel would. She acknowledges it, of course, but sheâs focused on how to survive it so she can build something better.
Past Futures
Putting on my literary analysis hat for a moment: Dystopias and apocalyptic fiction tend to reflect the societal concerns of the time they were written.
The Reagan/Bush years stoked fears of crime, drug addiction, homelessness, more crime, racism, economic recession, foreign investment, and more crime, with a dash of arguing over whether immigration was good or bad. People were starting to actually think about climate change, despite fossil fuel companies trying to muddy the waters. Gated communities were either a good way to protect yourself from crime or a callous way to isolate yourself from those in greater need. And of course anyone who has lived in California for a while is well acquainted with drought.
Of course so many of those issues were (and still are) tied up in racism. Foreign investment was played up as more of a threat when it was coming from Japan. Inner cities were portrayed as a hotbed of drugs and crime, and white people with means had been fleeing them for those gated neighborhoods in the suburbs, leaving Black and brown people stuck both dealing with the problems and getting blamed for them.
Butler extrapolates these fears to a nightmare level, then turns the racial assumptions on their head. She centers her story on a young Black woman in a multiracial enclave. Everyoneâs on the inside. Until they arenât. Complicating matters is Laurenâs clinically acute hyper-empathy, which makes the struggle between compassion and safety something she has to navigate constantly, especially when their oasis collapses and sheâs forced to live outside.
One reason the setting resonates so well today is that our present political climate is largely built by scaremongering over the same fears that defined the 80s (plus transphobia). Republican rhetoric about crime sounds like they never left the 1980s, and the way they talk about cities sounds like they got it from watching 1970s cop films. In reality, crime rates peaked in the 1990s and have dropped dramatically over the last ~30 years (with occasional blips upward, notably during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic).
And of course weâre dealing with an authoritarian President and major fires wiping out entire neighborhoods on Los Angeles, which seems a bit on the nose.
Strangely Familiar
Thatâs what finally pushed me to start reading it. The book and its sequel have been on my to-read list for years. (A lot of people made the same decision. Iâve read several articles on its sudden popularity, and itâs been a best-seller on several online bookstores.) The Olamina family lives in a fictional city near Los Angeles, and itâs hard not to think of it as a stand-in for Altadena, especially now.
On top of that, though, Iâve traveled a lot of the same route Lauren takes as her group makes its way north. Iâve been to Ventura, Santa Barbara, Salinas, even the route inland along the 156 around San Luis ReservoirâŠMendocino is about the only place in the novel I donât have a clear mental picture of. Sure, thatâs mostly just having grown up in California and traveled the state, but anytime you recognize the place in a book as somewhere youâve been, it makes it feel a bit more personal.
Mediterranean/Mexican fusion, right at the 3-way border between Torrance, Lawndale and Redondo Beach. You can get a wrap with shawarma or falafel at a lot of places, but where else can you get a falafel burrito with mozzarella, jalapeños and chipotle sauce, or a gyro quesadilla, or kebab nachos with pita chips and hummus?
I usually go for some variation on chicken shawarma, like the bowl or the burrito, but Iâm informed the falafel is really good too. (Sadly I canât eat falafel, hummus, or anything else made from chickpeas anymore due to allergies.)
They have loaded shawarma fries. Iâve only eaten them once, on a day I biked up and down a bunch of hills. I declared it retroactive carb loading.
Iâm so glad this place made it through the 2020 pandemic lockdown. After Covid hit, they switched to window-only service and built out a patio, which makes it a good place to go if youâre still being cautious. Plus of course you can get takeout or delivery.
