⚡ 22FEB2026: High number bad, low number good

Happy Sunday everyone!

This week, I started reading Robert Heinlein's amazingly prescient novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (thanks Paul!), 3D printed some beautiful wall hanging planters from Lofted Goods, ogled this automatic watch from Citizen featuring a pixel art sword for a second hand, and thoroughly enjoyed discovering that Russell Crowe has started moonlighting as a watch review vlogger.

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.

SPONSORED by Wimp Decaf

This week's Hiro Report is brought to you in the chillest of ways possible by Wimp Decaf. If you love coffee, have been drinking it for a long time, and don't want to become a strung out, anxious mess, I highly recommend adding some decaf coffee into your rotation. The problem is most decaf sacrifices all the flavor when it cuts out the caffeine. It's a compromise. Wimp Decaf is the first decaf I ever found that doesn't require any sacrifices. It is broadly available, tastes fantastic, and offers several different roasts, including limited editions. Try out some of Wimp's awesome coffee with code "HIRO20" to get 20% off your order.

Sip Decaf

🐦‍⬛ Birdie Air Monitor - Over the last couple of years, I've become sort of obsessed with air quality and have bought several air quality monitors for our house and backyard. While it's nice to know the very specific metrics, I honestly don't use them much more than "high number bad, low number good." This really cute and beautifully designed air quality monitor does the same simplification for you. When the birdie is standing upright, your air is good. When the birdie falls down, the air is bad and it's time to open a window. I'm putting this on my shopping list.

📼 SnowSky Mini DAP - Thanks to Michael for the tip on this one. The SnowSky Mini is a pocketable, digital audio player (DAP) that mimics an old cassette player in its styling, while still offering high-quality audio while playing MP3, FLAC, OGG, M4A, WAV, DSD, and other format music files. It has Bluetooth 5.3 support as well as both 3.5mm and 4.4mm headphone outputs. I've been considering getting into the standalone DAP life; this may be a good entry point. I need to find some good in-ear monitors though — anyone have good starter recommendations?

☂️ Acme Weather for iOS - The folks who brought us Dark Sky (which was subsequently bought and disbanded by Apple) are back with a new weather app, and I'm pretty stoked about it. Instead of giving you one forecast that might be wrong, Acme shows alternate predictions so you can see the range of possible outcomes and how reliable the forecast actually is — which is kinda genius. It's also got community reports where people nearby can share what they're actually seeing, custom notifications for whatever conditions you care about (windy days, high UV, etc.), and beautiful real-time radar maps. Too soon to say if it will replace Carrot, my longtime favorite weather app, but I'm enjoying trying it out.

🖥️ Dockside Shelf for macOS - Dockside puts a handy little shelf on the bottom of your screen that you can temporarily place files on while you work. For example, if you've ever grabbed a file with your mouse to move somewhere else and then realized that you have to go find the right folder, you can just set the file on the Dockside shelf while you go open the right destination folder and then drag it in. It also lets you run actions on files in the shelf and preview them in place. I've been using Yoink for a similar function for years, but this looks like a nice alternative, and not bad at just a $5.99 one-time payment, no subscriptions.

👾 Epilogue Game Boy Operator - This cool little device lets you plug any Game Boy or Game Boy Advance cartridge into your computer— immediately enabling you to play the game on your laptop on a giant screen, but also letting you do other fun things like back up your saves on old, fragile cartridges. More innovative things like using your old Game Boy camera as your webcam. It's a great concept, and I'm a sucker for transparent electronic design like this. Not bad at $49— certainly cheaper than trying to restore an old Game Boy or grabbing an Analogue Pocket.

That's it for this week! May you discover a new keyboard shortcut that completely changes your workflow.