⚡08NOV2026: Touch the screen if you really want

Happy Sunday, everyone!

This week, apart from feeling extremely hopeful about American and Texan politics for the first time in ages and being extremely grateful to have this election season behind us... I've been trying out this great monospace typeface for coding, reading the absolutely insane There Is No Anti-Memetics Division, becoming obsessed with watching the stories behind the most iconic band logos (like the story behind MF DOOM's logo and mask, for example), counting down the days until I can start Ocarina of Time, and securing tickets for the new Godzilla movie.

Note that some of the links in this issue of the Hiro Report are affiliate links and may earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you.

On to the good stuff:

💻 MacBook Pro PROLED XDR - I'm a complete pushover when it comes to a new form factor, so I wound up trading in my MacBook this week for one of the new "touch screen" MacBook Pros. I've only had it for two days at this point, but my early impressions are fantastic. The thinner, lighter body is noticeable, the screen is GORGEOUS, and… I guess you can touch the screen if you really want to? I agree with most other reviewers that this is a fantastic new direction for the MacBook, and the headline "touchscreen" feature is nice but not something I plan to use very often. I think it's a nice add-on, but not a necessity. My biggest gripe: Migration Assistant was a total disaster and failed multiple times to port my data from my old laptop to the new one, so I eventually had Claude put together a package for me to do the whole thing via the Terminal over Thunderbolt. It was wicked fast and relatively easy, but it's so weird that Migration Assistant continues to be such a mess for so many people.

⚔️ Paper & Plastic for iOS - I've long wanted to get into print-and-play games, and I serendipitously stumbled across this app this week. Paper & Plastic turns all those game PDFs into tabletop setups that you can play on the go (or without burning a bunch of printer paper and toner). You can drag in decks and dice of your choice, draw right on the components as if they were paper, and change the setup mid-game without losing your progress. Designers can also package their own games as shareable .pnp files that sync across devices, which makes it a really handy playtesting sandbox. Stoked to try this out on my iPhone Duo on my next trip.

🎧 Sony MDR-3R USB-C Wired Headphones - Sony has revived their classic-looking original Walkman headphones for the modern era, swapping out the headphone jack for USB-C so you can plug them directly into your modern phone or laptop. They come with both the classic blue and orange foam earpads and add an in-line remote and microphone for answering calls in retro style. Love to see old Sony designs like this making a comeback.

🪴 Pocket SCÍON Synth - This is a tiny, pocketable synth that lets you generate unique music by clipping two leads onto plants, mushrooms, a patch of moss, etc. It uses the tiny bioelectric changes it detects to generate slowly shifting ambient music. I have the OG version of this synth patched into my Eurorack for modular synthesis, but this new tiny version is MUCH easier to bring along on camping trips and outings into the wild to make fun music on the go. Like the OG, this new pocket version still outputs MIDI and OSC signals, so you can use it to drive your DAW, other synths, or even visual outputs.

🫳 Yoink for macOS - The good Doctor Pop recently pointed out that it's been two years since I last mentioned this absolute banger of a Mac utility app, so I thought I'd bring it back up in case it has slipped under anyone's radar. Yoink fixes one of the Mac's oldest annoyances: dragging something when you can't see where it needs to go yet. In short, anytime you grab a file or group of files, Yoink pops out a little shelf on the side of your screen where you can temporarily drop those items while you go find the right spot. Then, you simply drag them off the shelf and down to their final resting place. It's a small utility, a one-time purchase, and just one of those things I use several times a day and set up immediately on any new computer.

That's it for this week, may your electronics charge 5% faster.