Non Sequiturs is the personal blog of Michael Argentini.
I'm a software developer and Managing Partner for Fynydd and Blue Sequoyah Technologies, the project lead for Coursabi, and Āthepedia founder. I also have several nerdy open source projects on Github.
I'd describe myself as an Oxford comma advocate, autodidact, aspiring polymath, and boffin, with a mechanical keyboard addiction. You can also find me on Mastodon.
Evidence of Darwin's theory of #evolution by natural selection can be seen all around us. This three-toed skink is but one amazing example.
Wouldn't it be cool if Apple Music for iOS allowed you to sort the tracks in a smart playlist like 10 years ago?
"Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." — Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles, 1765
The current political climate in the United States is certainly stress testing this axiom.
Apple's decision to make #macOS look and feel more like #iOS is aspirational, certainly. If users could seamlessly switch between operating systems and retain muscle memory it would be a big win. It's no wonder that #Apple decided to do this with macOS 13 #Ventura.
But in practice, Apple's zeal for consolidation has created some real problems for users. In many cases it feels like one step forward and two steps back. I can see how iOS power users may welcome most of the changes to macOS, but that position smacks of Stockholm Syndrome to me.
One of the best examples of this is the redesigned System Settings, which is a mess. I've given it months to “grow on me” and it has… like a fungal infection. The settings are (dis)organized into a single column of top-level categories in a seemingly random order. Devices running macOS have wide screens, so restricting the top-level categories to a single narrow column is an artificial limitation. And it can’t be remedied by resizing the System Settings window because only its height can be changed.
And the organization? macOS has a much deeper and more broad collection of settings than iOS. So as difficult as specific iOS settings can be to find on an iPhone, it’s near impossible on a Mac. And making it worse is the fact that some settings have been organized out of existence, spread out into disparate, counterintuitive categories. Want to tune all your power and sleep settings? You may have to explore a dozen settings categories to find them when they could have been put into an “Energy” category or something similar. Luckily there is a search feature. Without it I’m sure users would be surrounding the Apple Campus with pitchforks and torches.
Also part of this convergence initiative is the Apple decision to make physical keyboards work more like the iOS virtual keyboard, which changes contextually. The difference is that the iOS keyboard changes in appearance so you can infer what's expected. This means that, for example, sometimes you can use the delete key to remove characters to the right of your cursor, and sometimes you can't. It's like an infuriating game. And now when you press and hold an alphanumeric key it no longer repeats, in favor of a popup with extended characters (e.g. foreign characters with accents and ligatures). I suppose that’s handy for people who write in a foreign language. But you would assume that it would be an option, not a change to the original default key behavior. Your keyboard isn’t broken. Apple made it better #YOUREWELCOME.
How will narrow AI technologies like #ChatGPT, #StableDiffusion, and others, affect jobs in the next decade and beyond? Will it replace human workers? No. It's more likely that humans using narrow #AI tools will replace other humans who do not.
My teenager loves to tell me how she works around the parental controls I’ve set up on our home network and mobile devices. I should be pissed but I’m weirdly proud.
Microsoft now officially supports running Arm versions of Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise on macOS with Parallels Desktop version 18. So it appears that any contractual obligation for running these Arm versions of #Windows only on specific hardware using #Qualcomm chips has officially expired.
support.microsoft.com
Another amazing life observation by The Oatmeal. Please get this in front of everyone you know.
theoatmeal.com
Every tech company is trying to come up with an AI strategy for 2023. We already know the answer: tack “AI powered” next to every existing product feature or service offering name.
Twitter's revocation of third party app access to its APIs, without notice or explanation, is another nail in the coffin for #ElonMusk's favorite toy. On a brighter note, the makers of my favorite #Twitter app, #Tweetbot, are already working on a new Mastodon iOS app named #Ivory.
tapbots.com
StackOverflow is toxic. Their posting policies are like EULAs and most of the time their moderation policies only bar future participation or reward negative engagements. The result is a community of trolls who appear to be looking to either insult people or to find any policy loophole to justify a refusal to help.
Go to https://stackoverflow.com and ask a reasonable question to see for yourself.
Here's an interesting #CSS method for styling an adjacent element based on whether an <input> is empty or not.
input[type="search"]:placeholder-shown + i {
/* input is empty */
display: none;
}
input[type="search"]:not(:placeholder-shown) + i {
/* input is not empty */
display: inline-block;
}
In this case I'm hiding and showing a clickable icon that clears the search text if there is any. No JavaScript needed other than the click event 😃.
My company #Fynydd just updated SQribe to .NET 7. SQribe is a cross-platform #opensource tool to backup/restore SQL Server databases. It generates T-SQL scripts so you can version your database in git and copy databases across VPNs.
sqribe.app
Chip transistor density is currently measured in nanometers. A human hair is 100,000 nanometers wide. By 2025 we’ll be talking about chip transistor density in angstroms. A human hair is 1,000,000 angstroms wide.
www.tomshardware.com
I know I know, another terminal #recommendation. But this one is different in that the input area is more of a text editor, and it isolates the output per command. It also uses AI to help you complete commands much like Github Copilot does for your #code. VERY cool #software #tech. Available for #Apple #Mac now. Will be available for #Windows and #Linux soon.
www.warp.dev
People feel that #ElonMusk is destroying their #twitter, so they're fighting to get it back. The problem is that it was never theirs in the first place. Even if it were restored to its glory it could be corrupted again in the future. The only way to stop this cycle is for the masses to adopt a federated platform owned by no one. That's why I moved to #mastodon.
Follow me at @argentini@nonsequiturs.social
Funny that #ElonMusk fired top executives at #twitter for mismanaging the company and now he says that “bankruptcy is not out of the question”.
If you're looking for a better option to the Ember mug, try the OHOM ui ceramic mug. It uses a Qi charger that also charges your phone. The ceramic reacts with the charger and heats the mug to 130F without a battery. It's half the price of an Ember mug.
Non Sequiturs is the personal blog of Michael Argentini.
I'm a software developer and Managing Partner for Fynydd and Blue Sequoyah Technologies, the project lead for Coursabi, and Āthepedia founder. I also have several nerdy open source projects on Github.
I'd describe myself as an Oxford comma advocate, autodidact, aspiring polymath, and boffin, with a mechanical keyboard addiction. You can also find me on Mastodon.
