⚡ 03MAY2026: Cool on both sides
The coolest hammock, a speedy macOS launcher, wrangling your apps, a cheap reusable disposable camera, and a secure/local smart home assistant.
Happy Sunday everyone!
This week I've been admiring this project recreating all 36 of Hokusai's Views of Mount Fuji as 1-bit pixel art on vintage Macintosh hardware, watching a Navajo elder explaining how nature formed the unique terrain of Monument Valley, reading about how infrasound (below 20 Hz) may be a key factor in alleged hauntings, playing with talkie, an LLM trained exclusively on text from before 1931, marveling at the story and plans of the guy who bought friendster.com for $30k, fantasizing about grabbing one of these new Widelux cameras from Jeff Bridges, loving the secret origin story of the iPhone's screenshot feature, and learning about the effects of spacetime with this awesome interactive simulator.
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.
Build websites the Mac way.
RapidWeaver Elements is a native macOS app — not a browser tab pretending to be one. The visual editor outputs real Tailwind CSS. It speaks Alpine.js and Twig. Content lives in plain Markdown files. Your project files stay on your Mac, work offline, and publish wherever you want — your own server via FTP, SFTP, or S3. No platform lock-in, no monthly creative tax.
You can also drop in custom components written in HTML and Tailwind when you really want to make it your own.
Hiro Report readers get 25% off with code HIROREPORT. (There's also a hidden mini-game. You'll find it.)
On to the good stuff!
• ⌨️ TinyStart for macOS - Love the idea of quickly launching apps, picking emojis, searching the web, running quick math or unit conversions all from a universal text field, but don't need all the fancy widgets of Raycast or Alfred? Niléane (co-host of MacStories' Comfort Zone podcast) recently released this really simple but lovely indie app for the Mac. While I'm a bit of a Raycast die-hard, I also really appreciate when indie apps simplify something complex and do it really well. TinyStart looks great.
• 📂 macAppLibrary for macOS - A free, open-source Mac app by Tom Robertson that makes managing your Mac apps way easier— it scans all your installed apps and presents them in a gallery or list with descriptions, developer info, and categories — and lets you add your own notes. You can pull metadata from a community-maintained GitHub database, or hook in an Anthropic API key and let it write descriptions for apps it recognizes. It will also show you which apps you have running, letting you quickly launch, visit the app in its parent folder, or delete it. If you've ever stared at half the things in your Applications folder wondering what they actually do, this is the cleanest solution to that problem.
• 📷 Reloadable 35mm Film Camera - Prism Lens FX — the brand that built an entire business teaching digital filmmakers to fake the look of film with in-camera filter effects — just released a reloadable 35mm film camera starting at $49.99. Aren't all film cameras reloadable? Well, yeah, most of them. This is essentially a disposable camera that you can reuse over and over again. It's got a fixed focus, aperture, and shutter, a built-in flash, and an all-plastic body just like a disposable. HOWEVER, apart from being able to constantly put new rolls of film in, it also features a cool magnetic filter mount so you can add one of three effects filters that you can get as part of a bundle to change the quality of the lens. Looks like a fun way to document the summer.
• 🗣 Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition - I've finally made the plunge and ordered the hardware to get Home Assistant up and running at home. While doing my research, I stumbled across HA Voice, something I've been wanting for years— it's an open-source, open-hardware dedicated smart home voice assistant that does fully local voice processing and execution of commands in your smart home. In other words, you can have your Home Assistant turn on the lights, or adjust the thermostat, without a recording of your voice being sent off to Apple / Google / Amazon for processing. The entire command and control stays in your house. You can also (optionally) hook it up to any of the major AI providers for more advanced conversational functionality. I couldn't resist adding it to my shopping cart and am eager to try it out.
• 🌲 Kammok Roo Hammock - Kammok is an Austin-based brand, making ridiculously nice portable hammocks. My wife and kids gave me one, along with a portable stand, a few years back and I've absolutely loved it. They pack up super small, are lightweight, and yet also really strong, durable, and comfortable. Most importantly, they're so quick and easy to set up that they make for a perfect spring/summer outing companion whether for the backyard, a park, or a camping trip. Highly recommended.
That's it for this week. May both sides of your pillow be perfectly cool.
My thanks again to RealMac Software for sponsoring this week's issue to share about RapidWeaver Elements. Please go check it out if you're sick of trying to prompt your way into a great website and just want to be able to simply build it yourself effortlessly.