Audi Q4 E-Tron: Accidental Review

My Q5 has been sitting in the shop for about a month now waiting for a part from Germany and I’ve been driving a loaner Q4 from my local dealer. I’ve had it long enough that I feel like I can review it well enough! The Good My main car is a Q5 e-tron plug-in […]

Comment on You’re Not Crazy. Messages For macOS Has Text Input Lag by LexLuis

Coming back to confirm that updating to 15.2 immediately fixed the issue.

Comment on You’re Not Crazy. Messages For macOS Has Text Input Lag by LexLuis

This is an issue I've been having too. I'm going to update to 15.2 and see if that fixes it. So annoying.

Follow-up: macOS Messages Text Input Lags Less!

Almost a year ago I lamented that since macOS Sonoma was released, the Messages app suffered a serious performance regression with text input. I’m happy to say that with the release of macOS 15.2, it’s better! It’s not quite as smooth as text input in an AppKit app, but it’s back to being adequate.

Comment on You’re Not Crazy. Messages For macOS Has Text Input Lag by aaron

In reply to <a href="https://icanthascheezburger.com/wordpress/2024/01/youre-not-crazy-messages-for-macos-has-text-input-lag/comment-page-1/#comment-13999">Jordan Rajchel</a>. Note: if you update to 15.2, I think the issue will go away for you! I don't think it's 100% perfect but I've been testing this out on different macOS builds with an AppleScript that types a bunch of text into a message field and in 15.2 it's noticeably better. I still don't think it performs quite as well as an AppKit text field but it crosses the "good enough" threshold for me.

Comment on You’re Not Crazy. Messages For macOS Has Text Input Lag by Jordan Rajchel

This is the first place I have seen that actually explains it the same way I do to a T. When googling the only response I get is that CPU is overloaded or some BS like that. The problem is, it's not. It starts to be once this happens. CPU overload is the result, NOT the cause.

Comment on AI’s Threat To Software Developers by AJ C

Incredibly profound and relatable. As a current Computer Science undergrad at Georgia Tech, it's insane to see the amount of people around me using these LLMs as substitutes instead of tools. It becomes quite evident in group settings as to which members use their LLMs as crutches rather than as prosthetics. It's interesting because these same peers are the ones stuffing their resumés with "experiences" and "knowledge of application" of tools and frameworks that they haven't truly implemented, but instead replicated from their GPT substitutes. Initially, like most of us, I was guilty myself of using these tools to take advantage of a new system unfamiliar with the realm of "AI." I am terrified at the realization of our next generation, currently in middle/high-school, choosing to reject a pursuit of knowledge, learning, and application, in favor of using these LLMs to supplement their assignments for an easy A. After all, without the proper knowledge and understanding of these LLM models, schools lack the proper tools to accurately measure individual knowledge independent from the propensity of corruption from artificial sources. Even when these students make it to college, it becomes harder to use these LLMs, it takes longer to inject the right prompt, it even approaches becoming obsolete as higher education demands higher knowledge. And soon, they'll find themselves in a limbo, unable to progress any further as an individual because they've been living on a false foundation of imitant skills. Even as these LLMs become stronger, more accurate, dare I say even more "intelligent," I don't believe they can ever become replacements, because as you said, these LLMs can't "do anything remotely creative... they fall flat." I'm still unsure of what I'm even trying to convey, but in all honesty, I'm scared. I'm not scared that AI is encroaching on our ability to get jobs—we already know they fail to accurately represent large codebases, but I'm scared that basic entry-level programming can be substantially replaced by pre-programmed specified LLMs designed to automate simple tasks. Not only does this significantly dent the job market potential, but it also creates a job environment where positions are only available for the best of the best—the people at the highest skill level. I'm not afraid of work, but I'm afraid of the negative impact this has towards the propensity of being able to learn and apply skills in a real-world environment. How can a CS Student, like me, be expected to find an entry-level internship in something like python automation or organization, when these basic skills are already being replicated almost perfectly by LLMs due to their simplicity. I fear a bottleneck effect where students can make it far enough to get their degrees, but are limited by the ability to apply these skills leading to a butterfly effect where failure to enhance these skills leads to a degredation in performance once reaching a higher position. And even if some entry-level positions aren't necessarily replaced, their basic functions could be, causing applications demanding even-increasing "basic" requirements. Begs the question, will pursuing a CS degree even be worth it? I think so, but only with intense dedication, appreciation, and passion for doing so. Yes, it may filter out the ones with a tunnel-vision for income and flexibility, it may filter out those who are lazy or unmotivated, it may even (and unfortunately) filter out those whose parents forced them to pursue a career in CS because "it is the future!" Again, don't ask me what I'm trying to convey, because even I can't organize all my thoughts and feelings with my ADHD brain, but I think there is a responsibility that both companies and students should be cognizant of; companies and students shouldn't be overly reliant on LLMs—they should use them as tools rather than crutches. Students should desire to pursue independent knowledge that they can accurately and adeptly apply so that companies will desire them. Otherwise, everyone gets screwed.

AI’s Threat To Software Developers

Disclosure: The company I work for is very heavily invested in generative AI, specifically developer tools. As a result, I have financially benefited from recent AI popularity and I’ve had involvement with building software products that incorporate modern generative AI. These are my opinions, but my closeness to AI has surely influenced these opinions. I’ve […]

2024 In Review

I take a pause at the end of each year to reflect. It’s a casual habit that got more deeply entrenched when I was in college and winter break was a rare occasion when the stresses of student life were truly lifted from me and I really had no responsibilities for a brief period. During […]

It’s the economy, stupid

I was depressed by the US election results this year, but initially I was just kind of surprised at the results. Harris ran a solid (if a little conventional) campaign against whatever Trump’s campaign was, and she underperformed Biden’s 2020 results by millions of votes. Trump picked up votes this year over 2020 (also deeply […]

Comment on You’re Not Crazy. Messages For macOS Has Text Input Lag by Greg

You're not crazy. Same issue here. iMac on Itel with 40GB of 2133Mghz DDR4 running Sonoma

Ghost Engineers: The Latest Bullshit Moral Panic

Hot off the presses the week while the US celebrated Thanksgiving, we’ve got a new report that a Stanford researcher has found that as much as 10% of software engineers may be “ghost engineers” who are allegedly around 10% as productive as the median engineer. In other words, this researcher claims to have discovered the […]

Biking Renewed My Love For Portland

In the summer of 2020, like a ton of people, I ordered en e-bike. In 2023, after installing a handlebar riser and eliminating the wrist pain I was experiencing riding, I got serious about biking as a hobby, biking over 250 miles, and this year I’ve biked a little over 320 miles so far (and […]

Comment on You’re Not Crazy. Messages For macOS Has Text Input Lag by aaron

In reply to <a href="https://icanthascheezburger.com/wordpress/2024/01/youre-not-crazy-messages-for-macos-has-text-input-lag/comment-page-1/#comment-13426">Andrew</a>. My recommendation is to call this into AppleCare and periodically follow up! I’ve been doing that and if nothing else it ensures that it costs Apple real money not to fix the bug.

Comment on You’re Not Crazy. Messages For macOS Has Text Input Lag by Andrew

I've noticed exactly the same thing! Driving me absolutely crazy across multiple devices.

Democracy Is a Long Game

The Supreme Court issued a bunch of disappointing rulings this past week (and might well be slated to issue another one Monday morning). American voters from 1988 helped to shape those rulings because there are two justices on the Supreme court that were appointed by George H.W. Bush. And of course, it goes further back […]

Vision Pro: What’s next?

You don’t need me to explain to you that Vision Pro is a flop. It was never expected to sell in large volume this year because Apple was always bound by the number of displays that could be made for them, but Apple is not selling a ton of these things. It wouldn’t be my […]

The Untapped Potential Of Pro iPads

As Apple released its latest batch of iPad Pros, the reviews were a familiar refrain: “the hardware is awesome but held back by iPadOS.” But this time, a different idea has been getting floated around more: what if we could virtualize macOS on our iPads? After years of begging Apple to give iPadOS some more […]

Files are underrated

Owing to a recent crusade of mine to start dispensing opinions to companies who may or may not want want them, I found myself corresponding earlier this week with a software company that’s turning an app I love from being a document-based app that saves good old fashioned files on your computer, to being an […]

Mini-Review: CarlinKit 5.0 Wireless CarPlay Adapter

tl;dr: This adapter is solid, and if you have a wired CarPlay car that you want to make wireless, you’ll be happy with this. I’ve been thinking about trying a wireless CarPlay adapter for years and finally decided to give it a shot after having some Bluetooth issues with my car and my iPhone 15. […]

Comment on Vision Pro’s Trajectory by Zac

Good write up. I hope this device becomes more than just a niche. But either way, it's always a good thing when Apple choses to spend money on developing new technology rather than stock buybacks or fighting EU regulations. To advance consumer hardware, this was really the only available lane - not much more can be done with traditional "glass rectangles".

Vision Pro’s Trajectory

As I’ve been using Vision Pro and figuring out its strengths and shortcomings, I find myself trying to understand its place in the world once it evolves. Thinking about Vision Pro as a computing platform, it feels much more iPad-like than Mac-like. The eye and hand tracking input mechanism feels like touch input, but adapted […]

🟢 Vision Pro: Spatial Computing

Apple has been really clear in their messaging that this isn’t an AR headset or a VR headset; it’s a “spatial computing” device. I suspect 50% of the reason they did this was because they want an iron grip on their PR messaging for this product and don’t want it compared to other devices you […]

🟡 Vision Pro: Virtual Mac Display

When I saw Apple demoing a feature where you can broadcast a virtual version of your Mac’s display into the Vision Pro, it put Vision Pro from being a “eh, we’ll see” to “I’m definitely getting up at 5am to order this”. I am notoriously picky about stuff like this, and I have trust issues […]

🟡 Vision Pro: Optics and Passthrough

Last summer when select members of the tech press got brief demos with the Vision Pro, the reviewers’ impressions really oversold the experience of the passthrough video. I don’t think the reviewers were trying to oversell it; I suspect that it was a side effect of how tightly Apple controlled the demo environments, preventing the […]

🍔 Getting Acquainted With Vision Pro

When the review embargo got lifted earlier this week, my eyes were glued to screens, watching people’s impressions and getting a better understanding of the nature of Vision Pro. My excitement for Vision Pro grew from “casually interested and curious to what this will be like” to “I had trouble sleeping one night due to […]

You’re Not Crazy. Messages For macOS Has Text Input Lag

macOS Sonoma has had a bug since its release. I’ve been dutifully reporting the bug to Apple and the bug reports have gone ignored for months now, so it’s time to run to the press (okay, I’m being generous calling this the press) and see if other people see the same thing. (Also, I reached […]

We Can Reduce EV Anxiety With Slower Charging

A couple weeks ago, many parts of the US experienced a spurt of winter weather, and one of the side effects of this was that a lot of electric car owners in cities faced some obstacles. The colder temperatures reduced their cars’ battery capacity and made recharging slower. That, and likely the general desire to […]

Review: SIDIO Crates, a Thumbs Up That’s Less Begrudging Than It Seems

If Facebook’s algorithms recognize you as anything like me, you’ve likely seen these ads for Sidio’s colorful looking milk crates that make it look like everything you might want to store can look way cooler than it actually is. One of my toxic traits is that I can be very disorganized, but I also believe […]

Vision PrOMO

Because I contain multitudes, I am both kind of bearish on the Vision Pro’s likelihood to really get traction as a product, but I did get up around 4:30am this morning (edit: yesterday morning; I was tired last night and didn’t get to posting this) and manage to order one despite being in the midst […]

A Tale Of Two AI Gadgets

On the face of it, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Rabbit’s R1 device is quite different from Humane’s AI pin. They got presented in considerably different ways, and Rabbit got a considerably more positive reaction, being possibly the most interesting thing announced at CES. Both companies presented their products pretty differently. Humane spent years […]

Up And To The Right

We’re addicted to perpetual growth, and the addiction is quite literally destroying the world. I constantly see the folly of the forever growth mentality in tech. Investors kept hyping up Netflix throughout the 2010s as they kept growing at an unsustainable pace, then they put on their surprised Pikachu faces and panicked when the growth […]

Quick Meta Updates

Just a couple of things you may have noticed: I switched to a different theme that I thought looked kind of fun. Some day I might actually take on making a custom theme for myself, but this one was an off the shelf one made by Automattic. I added dark mode support as well (finding […]

What I’m Expecting From Vision Pro

Vision Pro is coming soon; perhaps even in the next month or so! The months between January and June 2007 were absolutely loaded with excitement and anticipation for the iPhone, and every excuse a tech blogger got to mention it in the title of a post, they did because it would reliably get clicks. The […]

A Year of Retro Games

At the end of last year I was reflecting on people I was thankful for in my life, and one of the people I reached out to was my buddy Scott, a fellow enthusiast of retro games. I told him that I wanted to double down on joy in 2023, and that included more time […]

Mastodon Doesn’t Need Fucking Algorithmic Timelines

First off, for the hopeless pedantics among you, let’s get this out of the way: yes, I am aware of the definition of “algorithm,” and I realize that literally any arrangement of feed items into a feed is algorithmic, even a chronological feed. But “algorithmic feeds” has a clear colloquial meaning here and I will […]

The Bubble Wars

There’s been an increasing tension around the exclusivity of Apple’s iMessage product, and it feels like that tension has hit a peak over the last month or so. Here’s a handful of the iMessage related events in recent history: Automattic (the WordPress people) acquired the Texts app, a universal messaging app with support for, among […]

The “That’s How Apple Does Things” Tautology

Earlier this year I was on Mastodon, opining casually on Apple being so tight-lipped about their strategy with their highest-end pro Macs, and suggesting that Apple just speak openly about the long term plans because there isn’t really much of an Osbourne effect to be concerned with, and it will help pros trying to make […]

Meta Update

2023 was a relatively quiet year for icanthascheezburger. It wasn’t a quiet year for me, though. I spent much of the year adjusting to the new reality that the most important person in my life decided to pursue another relationship and moved out. I had experienced a previous loss in momentum back in 2021 when […]

Thoughts on Yesterday’s “Scary Fast” Event

As it turns out, “scary fast” was referring to the fact that the event itself was contained to a tight 30 minutes. I noticed a few things in the event: Macs are available with a dizzying array of chip options now. Not only do you get to choose between M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max, […]

Mastodon After Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter

About a year ago, I laid out some ideas for how Elon Musk could take a company like Twitter, which he recently acquired, and turn it into something that makes money and retains its value. Elon Musk didn’t exactly go with that approach. Instead, he’s kind of been running it into the ground. There’s little […]

Ozempic’s Biggest Side Effect Is Insufferable Thinkpieces

Ozempic’s been getting a ton of attention in the media over the last year or so. If you’re not familiar, Ozempic (generic name semaglutide) is a relatively new drug that came on the market a few years ago to treat diabetes. One of its side effects is loss of appetite and subsequently weight loss, and […]

The ZSA Voyager Keyboard Is the Moonlander To Go

I’ve been using ZSA’s new Voyager keyboard for a few weeks now. The first thing that hits you when you unbox it is how damn thin it is. It’s not just thinner because it’s using low-profile Choc switches (and similarly low-profile keycaps), the actual case of the keyboard itself is considerably thinner than even the […]

WWDC 2023 Keynote: First Impressions

Overall, I really enjoyed this WWDC keynote, and it feels like one that belongs to the ages (after all, it’s not every WWDC that gets a brand new platform announced). WWDC events nowadays are a massive info dump sure to overwhelm every time simply because there are so many platforms now. I want to focus […]

Apple’s VR headset is a long shot

On the eve of WWDC I’m going to share my hottest of takes: there’s a decent chance that Apple’s VR headset ends up being a product that Apple tries but will ultimately exit the market. It’s not that I think Apple will do a bad job with this product; if anything I think their execution […]

Spotlight Bionic

In the “free idea for Apple” spirit of my SwiftScript post from awhile back, I want to share a vision for the kind of AI-powered product Apple could incorporate into macOS and iOS: Spotlight Bionic. Spotlight was pretty revolutionary when it was first announced back in Mac OS X Tiger. With really good indexing technology […]

Transitioning the Mac Pro to Apple Silicon

Everyone’s busy thinking about Apple’s upcoming VR headset, but I’m more interested in a product Apple has publicly stated is coming: the Apple Silicon Mac Pro. I would be surprised if it’s actually getting announced at this WWDC, but I hold out hope that Apple’s making something great. The current Mac Pro was released in […]

The Playdate is Radical

Tech has this long-running tendency to lack restraint, and although this manifests in a lot of ways, one prominent way you can see this is with the continuous parade of half-baked products we constantly bear witness to. Spend some time watching LGR Oddware episode on YouTube and youll see what I mean. You’ll see an […]

What’s the Deal With Mastodon Instances?

In light of Elon Musk opting to go a different path from my recommendations, Twitter is managing to fall into a state of chaos at a rate that’s frankly impressive. A lot of Twitter users are jumping ship to Mastodon. It’s familiar to Twitter users. You write short posts (we call them toots) and you […]

The Freestyle Libre 3 Puts the “Continuous” in “Continuous Glucose Monitor”

Having diabetes is no fun, but from early on my favorite coping mechanism has been to try to combine managing my diabetes with my affinity for technology and cool new tools and gadgets. When I had my first appointment with my first endocrinologist, I thought I was ahead of the curve when I said I […]

Twitter: Now what?

Apparently Elon Musk officially owns Twitter now. Twitter’s easily my favorite social network. It’s always fit in with how my mind works (at least when I use it with clients like Tweetbot). I’ve often found community on Twitter, and Twitter is influential and consequential. Revolutions have taken place because of Twitter. Before news is news, […]

Keeping My Twitter Receipts in DEVONthink

Previously, I discussed a custom-built app I made called Receipts, which can convert tweets into Markdown files for me to archive and catalog. Now let’s talk about how I use DEVONthink to actually catalog them! These Markdown files are just files sitting in folders on my Mac (the folders aren’t organized by anything in particular […]

Keeping the Receipts on Twitter

For years I had this frequent frustration where I wanted to reference a tweet, but then after the fact I couldn’t find it to save my life. To try to make this easier on future me, I started getting in the habit of favoriting every tweet that I remotely thought was interesting. This was nice, […]

MagSafe is a Seriously Underrated iPhone Feature

Full disclosure: I’m an absolute sucker for products with robust accessory ecosystems baked into their design (have you seen my Apple Watch band collection?), and so of course I’m going to like this. Fun fact: if you’ve got an iPhone 12 or later, it’s got MagSafe. Maybe you didn’t even know your iPhone had it. […]

Comment on OMG, DIY FMD by Alexandre Costa

Nice article! Show’s how easy and cheap it can be. About the bar, you can also replace it with nuts, seeds and a little cacao nibs or dark chocolate! It’s cheap, easy to weight for the right macros, and you skip the honey and other simple sugars or sweeteners from commercial bars (more so if you don’t use sugary dark chocolate).

Thoughts on the Supreme Court and US politics lately

It’s been silent on icanthascheezburger for awhile now, but after this week it feels necessary to speak a little bit about the state of political affairs in the US, because they are troubling. Naturally, a series of SCOTUS decisions are at the top of my mind, and this week’s decisions were especially sad to hear, […]

Back to the Mac

Five years ago, Apple did something incredibly out of character: it invited a bunch of tech journalists to a round table discussion, admitted to making some serious mistakes, and pre-announced upcoming products. It was a somewhat bleak time to be a Mac user. While the iPhone was getting yearly improvements, Mac design decisions felt deeply […]

Thoughts on Yesterday’s Apple Event

Apple announced a handful of new products at today’s event, including a revamped iPad Air, a revamped iPhone SE, and a brand new Mac called the Mac Studio, along with a companion Studio Display. All of these products are great, but the Mac lineup so far is left with these super strange gaps now. Apple’s […]

Spotify’s Joe Rogan controversy and things more important than that

I see a lot of takes on Twitter along the lines of “while you were going on about Joe Rogan and Spotify, happened.” But the thing about Spotify is that they are a pretty replaceable service. It’s easy for us to stop giving Spotify money if we decide we don’t like that Spotify is giving […]

Modern Retro Gaming

During the pandemic, I got a package from a Kickstarter I backed. It was a new video game made by an indie artist called Trophy. I held onto it, waiting to unbox it until after vaccines were widely available and I could go play it with a friend of mine. The twist? This was a […]

SwiftScript

This is longer than a tweet would be so instead of making a Twitter thread that’s super annoying that you have to scroll through, I’ll make an actual blog post like a gentleman. I have a free idea for Apple: SwiftScript. It’s the successor to AppleScript. It doesn’t replace Shortcuts, but it’s what you graduate […]

The Moonlander Zip Kit – a Mini-Review

The Zip Kit is one of those oddly specific products a company makes where you see it for the first time and you think “wow, they must have made this specifically for me, and me alone.” When I first got my Moonlander keyboard, one of the first things I did was rip out the top […]

Comment on Graphics Issues on the 2019 Mac Pro by aaron

In reply to <a href="https://icanthascheezburger.com/wordpress/2021/04/graphics-issues-on-the-2019-mac-pro/comment-page-1/#comment-10923">Marcbot42</a>. One note on this: I did notice that Photos had weird looking thumbnails after I replaced the graphics card which made me fret at first when I put in my W5700X, but this appeared to be because the thumbnails were pre-rendered and cached; I regenerated them by rotating a photo four times from the thumbnail view and those badly rendered photos were back to normal and stayed that way. I'm at least nine months in with the W5700X and things are still rock solid so I remain confident we have a winner, but I still live in fear of a driver bug coming later.

“This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years”

Fifteen years ago to this day, Steve Jobs unveiled iPhone to the world. I’ve watched this introduction a number of times on YouTube, and every time I watch it I’m taken right back to that cold January day in 2007 when I sat in my dorm room watching the event. But this is the funny […]

Monetizing the Web Beyond Ads

Reading articles on the web nowadays is an absolute fucking mess. When I try to read news articles on the web without an ad blocker, I’m honestly not sure whether that publisher even wants me to be able to read anything. Heaven help you if you’re on your mobile phone; your entire screen is just […]

Photos for iOS: Find All Items From a Specific App

Another little tidbit that I discovered recently: if you are saving a lot of photos or videos to your photo library from a specific app (such as, for instance, TikTok), and you want to collect these images in one place, you can do it pretty easily! Open one of the photos or videos, then press […]

Photos for Mac: Deleting Items From Within a Playlist

As part of my workflow for archiving downloaded videos from TikTok, I put TikTok videos into a manually created album in the Photos app so that I can drag them in one step into the Finder. But after I was done, I couldn’t delete the items from my photo library; the option doesn’t exist when […]

Use Codespaces with Mutagen and keep your local dev tools

At GitHub, we recently went all in on Codespaces for developing GitHub itself. If you were a VS Code user and did all your Git stuff either in VS Code or on the command line, it was great. But for the curmudgeons like me who are big fans of local Mac development tools like TextMate […]

Comment on Graphics Issues on the 2019 Mac Pro by Huy Nguyen

THANK YOU! Been searching in every corner of the interwebs to find a fix and/or someone who has experienced the exact same issues (I've seen every screenshot above) to no avail.. sounds like its the 580X or driver? Either way, I'll try and hit up Apple referencing your case number. Its a start! Thanks again!

Comment on Graphics Issues on the 2019 Mac Pro by Marcbot42

Interestingly, I have this issue but on a W5700X. But it's the exact same issue. I was losing my mind on this brand-new Mac Pro, I thought it had to be defective hardware but it was only happening in Photos, on the thumbnails and occasionally (but not always!) on the full-sized images, generating exactly the same artifacts you described. I am going to go with "bad driver" as well, and something that is relatively obscure. I'm also wondering if it has to do with the monitor (I'm also running an LG UltraFine 5K) and the one thing I haven't tried is going through a different interface to a different monitor (instead of USB-C, use HDMI). I'm on the latest MacOS (12.0.1) so unfortunately, 11.5 didn't resolve it for me. In any case. It's great to know I'm not alone. @gobbledigook pointed me here from MacRumors (my thread here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/weird-graphics-rendering-glitch-in-photos.2324602/?post=30648572#post-30648572).

Apple Laptops: The icanthascheezburger buyer’s guide

I am absolutely delighted at the new pro laptops Apple announced last week. I’m not going to make this post about Apple’s overall history of laptops over the last decade (others can explain it better) but this new release is Apple showing they are back on track to making excellent Mac laptops for their pro […]

Meta update (not the Facebook kind of meta though)

Hey readers! It’s been a little quiet here lately. I’ve got a Drafts app full of half-baked drafts, none of which I’ve been quite ready to pull the trigger on. I’ll keep finishing those up and drip them out over the next couple weeks. I’m no longer expecting to hit my 100 posts in 2021 […]

About that Ted Wheeler recall campaign…

The campaign to recall Portland mayor Ted Wheeler hit a bit of a snag after the campaign failed to collect enough signatures to get the ball rolling. But Total Recall PDX isn’t going to let itself be inhibited by such minor details as “the people of Portland clearly don’t want to recall the mayor”. Instead, […]

Bullshit reporting on sex work

Sex work reporting in the US is broken. Case in point: the headline for this USA Today article: Largest human trafficking sting in Ohio history nets 161, including city councilman Okay, that sounds pretty serious! Let’s take a look. Most of those arrested were charged with engaging in prostitution, a first-degree misdemeanor. “We want to […]

Remembering Steve Jobs a decade later

10 years ago I posted a few quick memories about Steve when I was saddened to learn of his passing. I’d like to again share a passage from his Stanford commencement: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is […]

The Pull Request Is More Than Just a Pull Request

Editor’s note: This is a programming-related blog post; if you don’t program or your don’t know what a pull request is, you probably won’t get much value out of reading this. Disclaimer: I currently work for GitHub, and I work on the pull requests team. I’m writing these thoughts about pull request in my personal […]

The “Recall Ted Wheeler” Boondoggle

There’s been a campaign in Portland to recall our mayor, Ted Wheeler. Ted Wheeler is a milquetoast husk of a mayor, true, and I look forward to seeing him get replaced with a better mayor. But here’s the thing: we didn’t need to recall Ted Wheeler; he was up for getting replaced already. Last year. […]

It’s October 3rd!

Patreon Comes Full Circle

Patreon had a really simple and straightforward business: creators online could sign up for accounts on Patreon, and fans could give them money every month. It was a welcome way to start earning money doing online content creation: instead of being subject to the whims of chasing clicks and the seasonality of ad spending, a […]

Meta update

Since the summer time I’ve been a little up and down in terms of posting frequency. It seems like I do tend to post in bursts, sometimes having a streak of several days, only for this blog to go quiet. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing; I don’t think anyone actually is manually […]

Digital Surveillance Isn’t an Inevitability

Last week, Apple announced that they are hitting pause on their initiative to implement a surveillance system to add software to users’ iPhones to perform client-side scanning for CSAM. Here’s hoping that the “pause” is mostly just Apple PR trying to save face and that they ultimately are going to quietly scrap the plans. I […]

OnlyFans and the Cautionary Tale of Scale

It’s hard to look at OnlyFans’s announcement yesterday of their upcoming ban on sexually explicit content without seeing where scale, and companies’ pursuit of scale, played a part in seriously disrupting a lot of creators’ lives. Follow the Money First, and probably most pertinent, there’s the issue of credit card processors. There are only a […]

Electron Has Its Place!

I love to rag on Electron, but like many things, it has its place. For instance, Electron is perfect for stuff like the Docker desktop app, and not just because both are notorious for hogging system resources on my computer. I don’t need to interact with Docker’s GUI that often, and the UI is mostly […]

Tech Ennui

I’ve been feeling a little down about tech lately. It’s nothing really big; it’s just a mixture of little things that have slowly been adding up to more papercuts in my digital life. The world within my computers/devices is like home to me. In many ways, it is my home. I’ve moved from place to […]

Comment on Live-ish glucose data on Apple Watch by aaron

In reply to <a href="https://icanthascheezburger.com/wordpress/2020/06/live-ish-glucose-data-on-apple-watch/comment-page-1/#comment-10776">Charles</a>. I’m looking forward to that too! I’m guessing it won’t be quite as accurate as a sensor that goes beneath the skin, but for the millions of diabetics who can’t get approved for a CGM that would be a godsend.

Comment on Live-ish glucose data on Apple Watch by Charles

Thanks for your response and the post as well. I read recently that Apple is trying to develop optic sensors for Watch that will read glucose levels. If successful, a Watch upgrade would pay for itself in less than a year.

Comment on Live-ish glucose data on Apple Watch by aaron

In reply to <a href="https://icanthascheezburger.com/wordpress/2020/06/live-ish-glucose-data-on-apple-watch/comment-page-1/#comment-10774">Charles Link</a>. This post is from June of 2020 (my current theme doesn't have dates in the post itself but the URLs have it the month). The FDA moves slowly and the MiaoMiao is still the best way to get data going to your Apple Watch if you are using Freestyle Libre as your CGM (and the app has been updated since last June but it remains about as janky as it was before). I think that Dexcom systems like the G6 have a transmitter that allows the data to stream to your phone and watch live but I've never used them. The Freestyle Libre 3 is in the works, and it is slated to work as a true CGM; you won't swipe it, but instead it'll just stream data to your phone. I'm really looking forward to this because it'll finally give me reliable around-the-clock numbers without me having to remember to swipe to my phone every 8 hours. However, I'm not holding my breath on the iOS app being particularly good for this. I'm hoping Abbott decides to make it integrate with HealthKit and the new Trends feature coming to the next WatchOS/iOS, but so far the Freestyle Libre apps are highly standalone and don't provide any integration with Apple stuff. But if this is using Bluetooth (and I have to imagine it is), maybe a clever third party developer might reverse engineer it and provide an app that does better iOS integrations.

Comment on Live-ish glucose data on Apple Watch by Charles Link

Your post isn’t dated. Today is Aug 18 2021. Any updates to this? I’m trying to get my CGM data into Health and would like to avoid yet another device. Thanks!

Leaky Abstractions: When IFTTT Triggers Aren’t What They Seem

As part of my ongoing initiative to always show up to internet arguments with receipts, I built a bespoke Rube Goldberg machine that can automatically download and archive tweets I like, turning them into Markdown files, complete with attached Twitter images and video downloaded. Once I really get all the kinks worked out I promise […]

Electron Is Bad

So I was discussing 1Password’s recent decision to switch to Electron, and I want to elaborate a little more on why I hate Electron so much. You might not know what Electron is, but there’s a good chance you’ve got one running on your computer right now. Slack and Discord both use Electron, as does […]

More on Apple’s “child protection” features

Regarding Apple’s upcoming feature to scan children’s Messages content for sexually explicit media, there’s a detail I had missed about how it worked: The “phone will rat on you to your parents” function is only going to happen when the child is under 12. For older children, the Messages app will just warn them in […]

Apple’s TV strategy

From a recent MacRumors post, Apple’s neglect of home/living room hardware has gotten even Apple’s own engineers concerned: In his latest “Power On” newsletter, however, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman says that Apple engineers have personally expressed concerns to him about the direction of Apple’s living room hardware strategy. The pundits are all suggesting that what […]

1Password’s New Apps

Today 1Password announced a completely redesigned app in 1Password 8. But it has a dirty little secret. It’s no longer a native Mac app; it uses Electron instead. I strongly dislike Electron apps. Developers love making apps with Electron, mostly because it’s a lot less effort and you can use familiar web technologies to make […]

The Ultimate Preventative Medicine

Prediction: In future decades, we’re going to realize that the most powerful way to fight decades of growing obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other metabolic disorders is to work less and live less stressful lives. For decades we’ve been desperate for something to blame, from more sedentary jobs to the fact that kids don’t play […]

Apple and Privacy

I’ve got several post drafts written in my Drafts app about this issue, but I’ve found myself struggling to express how I feel. For context: Apple’s announcement from last week The two most controversial changes Apple announced were a new Messages app feature that uses ML on children’s accounts to detect if they are sending […]

The Moonlander: 1 Year In

I’ve been using ZSA’s Moonlander keyboard as my daily driver for just over a year now. Now that I’ve had the keyboard for awhile I wanted to share some deeper insights than the first impressions I shared last year. Layout-wise, the Moonlander is similar to an Ergodox keyboard. It has two halves, the keys are […]

The First World Problems of Being a Mac Pro Owner

So I’m doing some housekeeping in DEVONthink, and it’s in the process of indexing and creating thumbnails for a folder I just relocated and want to re-index. And I watch the progress bar move along at this leisurely pace, and then I go and check out DEVONthink’s CPU usage, and it’s sitting here politely sipping […]

Comment on Graphics Issues on the 2019 Mac Pro by Gobbledigook

I also had this graphic issues, but since I installed macOS 11.5 everything seems to be fine. Cheers!

Comment on Graphics Issues on the 2019 Mac Pro by aaron

In reply to <a href="https://icanthascheezburger.com/wordpress/2021/04/graphics-issues-on-the-2019-mac-pro/comment-page-1/#comment-10752">Igor Onischenko</a>. I strongly recommend you file a bug report with Apple on this, and if you have AppleCare, reach out to support and see if they can swap the card with a different model. The issue seems unique to the 580X.

Comment on Graphics Issues on the 2019 Mac Pro by Igor Onischenko

Good afternoon! Thank you very much for describing your experience in such detail. I also have such a problem, I observe red windows, sometimes it happens often, sometimes rarely. Now I know for sure that it is 580X!