Google pushed the pivot to video, so the 30 seconds of reading I needed to answer my question became a 10 minute YouTube (stuffed with ads). Now thanks to AI they've ... created a way to turn the video back into the 30 seconds of reading I originally asked for?

Very clever, Google. The web is surely better for this. /s

No, but it will probably go from Gmail app repeatedly asking me if I want to open the link in Chrome to Gmail app repeatedly asking me to install Chrome and make it my default if I want to open any links at all

(1, I don't even have Chrome installed, 2 I have preferences set to just use system default browser and it STILL asks me every time, and 3 only reason I have Gmail app installed in the first place is because work mail requires it to access mail, period.)

Think of the flip side. The worst part of the major platforms is the advertising and suggested content. Masto user could follow a person on Threads without needing to also be on Threads, which means you get the content you want but not the advertising.

If people on Threads figure this out, could actually encourage them to switch. Biggest issue in moving to masto now is finding people to follow (especially since Twitter broke all the "find accounts from people I know" migration helper tools that were briefly available) but if you have a follow list on Threads already, you could just move then re-follow everyone... even if you had to do it manually

If you are writing content about science papers, POST A LINK TO THE DOI.

https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.00...

DOIs were created to unambiguously link directly to the peer-reviewed article in question. Don’t make people have to hunt for it.

...wonder how much this is due to so many Steam games never getting 64 bit conversion? I have a lot of games on Steam, but nearly all are 32 bit, so I couldn't run them on my Mac right now even if I wanted to.

Every time I see one of these articles I want to point out that the “potential to support life” is invariably based on the idea that life requires the same conditions as life on our planet. Oxygen, water, carbon, phosphorous. We think this is what it takes, but really we have an N of 1, and we might be an outlier

Looking forward to every random app suddenly doubling in size because each now comes with its own full copy of a web browser engine. Or apps telling me “to use this app you also have to download and install Browser X”. I’m already annoyed enough that apps are allowed to use their own internal browser rather than being forced by the platform to allow me to specify “always open web links in full Safari app, every time”. (Some allow me to pop links out into Safari, but most don’t do this automatically - always previewed internally first.) I have a lot of content blockers enabled in Safari that don’t work in internal browser instances, and likely wouldn’t even be supported by a non-Apple browser made by a company that makes its living on advertising dollars. I don’t want the app looking over my shoulder to see what websites I visit or what links I click there. I want my browsing to be fully separate and firewalled from the app.

I would absolutely be OK with a decision that 3rd party browsers were allowed, but could only be installed as stand-alone apps, not embedded in another app. Would need to have a carve-out for the user to specify which browser to use as their preferred default, and allow apps to query what the default browser was and send web requests there with no action required from the user when in-app links were clicked.

Seriously? Every time I open a file on my Mac it opens in the program I told the system to use. Including PS and EPS and PDF. Preview only opens if I specifically tell the system to use Preview to open one file.

I develop forms for a Windows workplace. I need to use Acrobat to make them work, so Acrobat is my default PDF viewer.

The only place I ever see specific file types being forced to open in a specific program, despite my preferences, is on Windows.

Can't you? Say you put in your standard workweek for Equifax, then throw in two 10-hour days at your side job every weekend. You then only need to clock in 4 hours extra per weekday to hit 40 hours on the second job. You won't have much of a personal life but there isn't necessarily overlap. Especially if one of the jobs is remote work for a company in another time zone, or is the kind of thing that can be done on your own schedule, nothing at all prevents someone from putting in the hours outside of Equifax time.

I mean, even if you do it all Mon through Fri, it's still absolutely possible to do it without overlap. Two 8 hour shifts is 16 hours. There are 24 hours in a day. Do the math. 16 hours, 5 days a week would utterly suck as far as I'm concerned, but some people thrive on that sort of constant work life.

Epson has LONG been on my personal “do not buy” list. I have never once used a digital imaging device from Epson that didn’t make me want to smash it. If the hardware is ok, the software is a hot mess, and vice versa. In a few cases I encountered both hardware and software were garbage.

If you need a printer, buy a laser printer. I’ve always had good luck with HP (go for the business models) and Brother has a pretty solid reputation from other people’s experiences. If it says Epson on the box though, run in the other direction.

...because Apple hardware, like any hardware, has a limited support life cycle for the official OS - but the actual device itself remains useful and usable far longer than the support period. Being able to take a 5-10 year old computer and install an OS that is still receiving security updates dramatically increases the usable lifespan of the hardware, keeping it out of the waste electronics stream that much longer.

I really am happy with my M1 MacBook Pro. But it will some day be an old, unsupported system. Knowing that a viable Linux build is available for it right now means many more options for extending the life of the hardware in future.

MacBook Pro I am using right now has one MagSafe and 3 USBC ports. I can charge the machine off of any of them. (I am in fact charging the machine off of one of them RIGHT NOW, because I leave my MagSafe cable at home.) System report states the 3 USBC ports are "Thunderbolt/USB4". Don't let the name confuse you.

The "proprietary charger" is a USBC brick. Can you charge the computer with it? Yes. You can also charge anything else that uses USBC, like the Chromebook my kid used for school. Which we have done multiple times.

First: “gamers should be free to engage in any game with their friends anyplace they want without any unnecessary friction.” This is a bit ironic coming from the guy who shut down Rocket League on macOS/Linux. I don't have a Windows machine and I don't want one.

Second: Why should the makers of a mobile OS allow a method for sideloading? And why in the name of all that's holy should I, as a consumer, advocate for this? Whatever you think about the security of pre-vetting apps in the OS default store, there is at least SOME attempt to ensure the application isn't a complete pile of virus-laden garbage. My mobile device is the computer I use the most often, the one that tracks every single place I go, that is used to manage 90% of my communication, it's my payment method, it's where I handle most of my banking actions. It's my camera, it's my GPS, and it's my calendar. My home gaming console is a device dedicated to playing games. One of those devices will totally hose me if it is compromised, whereas the other will cause me some minor annoyance and maybe regret over a lost saved game. These devices are not equivalent. These devices absolutely should NOT both use the same security model. It is ridiculous that anyone would claim a locked-down, secure OS is the wrong approach for a mobile device because of inability to play a free-to-play game like Fortnite.

He simply does not want the platform to get a cut of the sales. End of story. I wish he would at least have the integrity to say it, rather than couching it as a noble attempt to push for user freedom.

According to the Apple Store employee I overheard the other day, wireless charging doesn't work at all if the battery is completely dead. Unless Apple can overcome this pretty major obstacle I can't see how they would ever go to wireless only charging.

I don't mind the ubiquity of USB brick + cord for your device, but I would be OK with everything having USBC. It would reduce the number of cables I have to carry while traveling; my MacBook uses USBC, the iPad Pros use it, why not my phone too?

They've already done this; for a long time in Google Docs/Sheets copy-paste via keyboard didn't work in Firefox because Google blocked it (with a nice message to download Chrome). They changed that behavior, but the right-click menu still depends on a browser hijack (that I have disabled to stop OTHER sites from blocking right-click actions). Makes it a bit hard to use but not unusable.

Docs/Sheets however are already entirely unusable on iOS, because Safari even on an iPad is forced to an arbitrarily restricted view that doesn't allow normal functions. The site prompts me to download their app. I refuse. It's a web-based editor, I am using a quite capable modern browser on a fairly powerful platform, there is no reason it can't work on newer iPads without the need for an app. But. Google makes it not work, forces it to mobile view, forces weird reload behaviors that cause it to break when I explicitly request the desktop site. It's just maddening. And it is entirely unnecessary. Building a shitty crippled website ON PURPOSE does not make me want to download your $%@#! app.