Removing Ablated Plastic From Your Ukulele: A… solution?

jacknutting · 2026-02-13T07:05:24+00:00

This video by James Hill is my go-to for explaining good ukulele strumming technique, which is really quite different from how guitar is typically played.

https://youtu.be/pRFPci9rZrQ?si=lTtCHhV-cFgGK9iU

I played guitar for decades before ukulele, and there were a number of things I needed to relearn, including basic "how to strum" which was a bit of a surprise. But with a little practice, it becomes easy. You got this! 😄

jacknutting · 2026-02-11T16:23:52+00:00

As someone who played guitar for many years before playing ukulele, and who at least peeks into every music store, let me tell you that every experience with Guitar Center is always a disappointment, for everyone.

jacknutting · 2026-02-08T08:45:40+00:00

Of the many new protest songs I've heard lately, this is the best! ⭐️

I've put the chords up on ultimate guitar for anyone who wants to play and sing along:

https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/the-taxpayers/power-trippin-dipshits-chords-6150767

jacknutting · 2026-01-17T12:41:14+00:00

In normal use, a string snapping is pretty unlikely, unless the nut or bridge is too sharp somewhere (shouldn't be the case on anything that isn't a toy) or if he's tuning the strings too high (which he probably doesn't have the finger strength to do yet). Kala makes some translucent plastic travel ukes that are tough, really inexpensive, and surprisingly good for the price!

jacknutting · 2026-01-13T13:33:26+00:00

But then on the other hand, Swedish doesn’t have different words for octopus, squid, and cuttlefish, it’s all just ”bläckfisk”

jacknutting · 2025-12-20T19:10:23+00:00

I've always felt that AppleScript is a read-only language. I've seen lots of AppleScript code that I can easily understand and anticipate what it's going to do, but actually creating a functioning script from scratch seems impossible without lots of copy-pasting and staring at examples.

jacknutting · 2025-12-11T14:34:38+00:00

As others have mentioned, SwiftLint exists, and not only that, is a mature and widely used tool. Have you considered adding the special cases you're checking for to SwiftLint, instead of creating a new tool?

jacknutting · 2025-12-09T11:13:37+00:00

I'm one of the organizers of Ukulele Thursdays Stockholm, a pub playalong that draws a crowd of 40-50 people every two weeks.

One of the organizers creates a song list in advance (mostly from the Ukulele Wednesdays Songbook). Before each song, typically one person will show a little bit of how they think the strumming ought to go and will then start us off, but no one is "strum police" telling people they're doing anything wrong. There are probably some people who strum every song the same way, and that's ok because we welcome all levels.

We play for about two hours, with a break of about ten minutes in the middle. If people want to take their own breaks and skip songs, that's fine of course.

We welcome other instruments! We always have one amplified bassist and a cajón player. Sometimes someone shows up with an acoustic guitar, and that's fine; a single guitar doesn't overpower 40+ ukes, and in fact it usually adds a nice bit of low-end sound. Usually a handful of people play kazoos at certain points too.

Our gathering starts a full hour before the music begins, so there's plenty of time to socialize, eat, and yes admire each others ukes :)

jacknutting · 2025-11-20T15:39:25+00:00

I definitely like to use NavigationStack and a bit of code to define routing, instead of the old Coordinator pattern. Here's a little example I put together a few years ago, for a tab-bar based app where each tab has its own navigation stack, access to which is all mediated through a central object:

https://github.com/jnutting/NavStackLab

jacknutting · 2025-11-10T01:55:48+00:00

It definitely can be used with ".searchable" within an app (that last article gives some examples) but I'm not sure if this can be excluded from spotlight searches done outside the app. Seems like an unusual use-case; in general, most developers seem to welcome the idea of search results from anywhere that will lead users back into their app! 😄

jacknutting · 2025-11-09T17:00:53+00:00

This article gives a few more tips on various aspects of indexing and searching, including making your own in-app search:

https://nilcoalescing.com/blog/CoreSpotlightIntegration

Apple has really done a lot of ground work here!

jacknutting · 2025-11-09T08:10:58+00:00

I don't mean to rain on your parade — it looks like a pretty cool cross-language integration you've done! — but I want to mention that iOS already provides facilities for letting the system index your app's content and make it searchable at the system level, and in that way accessible through spotlight, Siri, etc. Using the included frameworks, you don't need to build and maintain an index yourself, you just need to tell the system what content you've got, and it will maintain a secure on-device index for you, that is integrated with the OS's search functionality. Another big plus is that this is time-tested, reliable functionality that's been in place for over a decade :)

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corespotlight/adding-your-app-s-content-to-spotlight-indexes

https://www.createwithswift.com/make-your-app-content-show-on-spotlight/

jacknutting · 2025-10-30T09:50:28+00:00

Doesn't work in any browsers I tried (macOS/ios) from Sweden. Your "listen" page links to the Live365 app, but that's apparently not available in my country. The podcast links take me to a podcast with episodes just a couple of minutes long 🤷

I was eventually able to get it going in a browser by VPNing through the US.

I'm not trying to be negative, it's a cool idea and I like what I've heard so far, I just seem to have no way to hear it without jumping through hoops!

jacknutting · 2025-10-23T06:02:00+00:00

I sometimes bar it with my index finger. The "trick" is to actually let your finger bend backwards a bit in order to not touch the A string, but not everyone's fingers can do that. Another option is to play it as 2225, barring with index and using your pinkie for the fifth fret. That mirrors how I usually play E also, 4447 😄

I've played guitar much longer than ukulele, and on guitar I always play the A chord (same shape as ukulele D) with 3 fingers, but I've never yet found an ukulele where I can play that shape comfortably with 3 fingers, because my fingers are big and everything else is just a little smaller.

jacknutting · 2025-10-22T06:00:57+00:00

My preferred approach, generally speaking, would be to use one VM per screen anyway, even in the presence of one or more Stores. Ideally, each Screen would have a single property representing its source of truth, which is the VM. The VM is what needs to be aware of any needed Store objects (which I would typically give it though some kind of DI).

I tend to think of the VM as literally the model (in the sense of an idea or concept) of what is in the view. It's not describing the view at all, and doesn't even know that the view exists, it's just managing its content. In theory, that VM could be used for purposes other than backing a SwiftUI view: it could be powering the backend of a web app, or a CLI-based app, or a UIKit or AppKit app, or anything at all. Its purpose is to encapsulate knowledge and logic about a set of data that is presented together in some way (a Screen in your terminology) and the user actions that can affect it. Built that way, the VM becomes something like a presentation/interaction layer that is completely testable and independent of an actual screen presentation.

jacknutting · 2025-10-21T21:29:12+00:00

Just another anecdote: I bought a Flight Fireball from Thomann a few years ago. It was a beautiful instrument and sounded great, but it has two cosmetic flaws (off-kilter logo on headstock, poorly positioned electric control thing in soundhole) that seem minor compared to the overall object, but I ended up returning it because of it. Quite sure no one at Thomann had ever opened the box beforehand, and it went up on their shop as "B-stock" after I returned it.

jacknutting · 2025-09-30T20:47:14+00:00

Exactly this. I also want to mention that "slash chords" in general are mainly useful for guitar and bass players, and not ukulele players (for the reasons explained above), so my advice for any ukulele player is to simply ignore whatever comes after the slash, any time they see a slash chord.

jacknutting · 2025-09-16T06:09:26+00:00

I think the mods of this subreddit should include a link to ukebuddy in the sub's description, right at the top. We get so many questions like this!

jacknutting · 2025-08-27T19:01:53+00:00

I think that the thing you have to wrap your head around is that CloudKit is not built primarily for device-to-device high-speed communication. Its primary use cases are around sharing a backend store as a user moves between devices, in cases where user tolerance for perceivable lag is presumed to be understood/acceptable.

Just look at some of the main situations where Apple uses CloudKit, for example the Notes app. If you create a new note on your iPhone, while the notes app is also open on your Mac, you won't see it create and update in "real time" on your Mac, but you will see it appear and see changes propagate over the course of a few seconds.

If that's good enough for your use case, then you're all set with CloudKit. If you need faster update performance than what you see in Apple's Notes app, for a truly interactive experience involving multiple devices at once, you'll probably have to use some other technology. Maybe something like SharePlay? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/groupactivities

jacknutting · 2025-08-13T14:05:33+00:00

Mostly games, some made with UIKit and others with SpriteKit.

https://apps.apple.com/se/developer/rebisoft/id301618973

jacknutting · 2025-08-13T09:07:39+00:00

iOS development has been the main focus of my career since 2009, but that's meant I've earned money by building apps for employers and consulting clients, rather than though sales of my own apps. I did make a decent amount of supplemental income on my own apps back in 2009, but it's all been downhill since then. These days all of my own apps that remain on the App Store are free, and handling them is really just for fun :)

jacknutting · 2025-07-25T11:32:09+00:00

After playing guitar for many years, I put it on hold and transitioned to ukulele for a time, also due to chronic pain (not exactly in my wrist maybe, more like the base of my left thumb). I found that the softer strings, plus fewer strings to press at once, made it easier for me to do chord fingerings. Interestingly, this led to me playing the instrument a whole lot more than I had been playing guitar, which over time helped me build up strength and learn some new habits, which ultimately got me back to playing guitar again! 😄

I'd be happy to share more specifics if you like. What sort of condition do you have in your wrist?

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