Same! I hadn't touched Linux since 2005-06. I've been trying out Niri and Noctalia. I've been pleasantly surprised how close I'm able to get to match most of what I do on a Mac.
I haven't had this much fun with computers in years. It has certainly helped with my Tahoe grief.
I combined this with the Distraction Free YouTube browser extension that worked really well — no recommendations would display on the home page or on an individual video page.
So I'd only look at the videos that came through my RSS reader, and I'd see no other recommendations on YouTube — in and out. There are trade offs. I'd miss out on content that I'd probably be interested in. I trusted that if there was something interesting enough, a friend would tell me.
The extension broke when YouTube started cracking down on ad blockers. I still get alerted to new videos in my RSS reader. Except now, I get sucked into recommended content sometimes when I watch a video.
I think I just realized in typing this that I need to find another extension like DF YouTube.
Great app... it's had a place on my macOS dock for years. I use it for adding diagrams to my team's internal developer documentation (mostly in a series of Markdown files).
I get annoyed when I ask someone a question (work related or not) and they don't know the answer, they will then proceed to tell a prompt for ChatGPT in a stream of consciousness sort of way.
Then I get even more annoyed when they decide to actually use their own prompt, and then read back to me the answer.
As a child in the late 80s/early 90s, I remember watching Star Trek TNG as new episodes were coming out, and also watching Reading Rainbow (I loved both shows).
I had a similar experience with DuckDuckGo several years ago, but the difference was that I got paid as I progressed through the various stages.
I had to submit a short written design proposal and was told to cap it at a few hours and was paid for it. It was accepted and then I spent time implementing a solution. The pay again was capped at a certain amount of hours, but I ended up going past the recommendation because I was actually having fun trying to figure it out.
I submitted the solution and after a while I got a response with basically, "it was a difficult decision, but sorry we're going to pass" and they wouldn't provide additional detail. It's been over 5 years, but I still wonder why they passed.
I can only assume they had a lot of candidates and they may have had other very strong submissions that were better than mine. However, it took a lot out of me emotionally and affected me for quite some time... more than any other interview in my ~20 year career. I feel for the OP.
I am not an Apple Music subscriber and don't stream much music besides SomaFM, so I may not be in the norm.
I always have selected on the sidebar Library -> Songs with View -> Column Browser enabled. And I search only using the "Filter" text input on this view. It's as close to how iTunes used to be in the early days of OS X (sans brushed metal).
What I see on the screen is just mostly dense text except the small thumbnail at the top for whatever is currently playing. There is no other related artwork or graphics loaded. I fear once a re-write of this app happens, this view is gone... replaced with lots of fancy graphics and loads of whitespace padding everywhere.
> Gil was a nice guy, but he had a saying. He said, 'Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water, and my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.'
Kinesis Advantage 360 or ZSA Voyager (split ergonomic keyboards with ortholinear layout).
I ended up buying both. I had chronic wrist pain and weakness for a few years that I thought was caused by an acute injury. Turns out I think it was actually typing. I bought the Advantage 360, and after a few days, my wrist pain disappeared and never came back. When I switch back to a standard keyboard, I can't type for more than an hour before I start feeling discomfort.
I'll second that Day One is a great app... I've used it nearly every day for the past 13 years. I was afraid it would stagnate after it was acquired by Automattic, but it's only gotten better.
I'm pretty sure Spectrum corporate culture is incentivized by only one thing: SELL!
I canceled my service after several years due to a negative customer service experience, which I explained was the primary reason I was cancelling. Never was I asked about the incident... only more offers and promotions.
Generally speaking, convenience is king. I find a lot of like-minded people will easily overlook or not even consider what is happening behind the scenes. There is a tradeoff for low prices/convenience and it's not always obvious.
I cancelled Prime about 6 months ago and I thought it would be difficult, but it's actually been fine.
I shopped at Whole Foods for over a decade and there are staples I thought I couldn't find elsewhere. I discovered through a combination of Trader Joe's, my local grocery store, and Aldi, I found replacements for everything, items I like better, and I save way more money!
As for non-grocery items, I'll often try to buy from the manufacturer directly, even if that means paying a little bit more. If I can't find something directly, I'll check Walmart, Target or other established retailers and usually can find something for a comparable price.
I've also made a slow shift to buying used items. For books, on eBay I can often find them used, in like-new condition for a fraction of the cost at Amazon and with free shipping. It's a gamble and sometimes I get books with highlighted pages or cosmetic damage, but it's rare.
And when Amazon is only the cost effective way to purchase something or I can only find it on Amazon, I'll wait until I can hit $25 for free shipping and wade through Amazon's dark patterns in the checkout process. Turns out, "standard shipping" still ships in 2 days because I'm guessing logistically it's better to just keep inventory flowing with all other Prime purchases. My wife managed PTO orders for teachers at our local school through their non-Prime Amazon account... guess what, every order shipped "early" anyway and received within 2 days. Prime is kind of a scam IMO if fast shipping is the draw (although I never utilized other value-add services like Prime Video or Music).
When someone asks me about Amazon and I mention I don't have Prime, I often get shocked responses. I'm not trying to actively dissuade people from Amazon/Prime if they like it, but I'm hoping it will get people thinking.
Busytown: Eye found it is one of my kids' favorite games. It's a lot of fun to play as an adult too. I'll have to checkout the airport one. Thanks for posting!
It probably doesn't cost them much to keep the RSS feed going, and it's a way to keep a subset of people coming back to watch videos that otherwise wouldn't.
For instance, I dislike having to open YouTube to see what's new (or get notified by email) so I end up missing a lot of new videos from a handful of channels I consistently watch. Once I discovered there the RSS feed for videos, I added them to NetNewsWire on the Mac and it's been a much nicer way to see what's new.
So for people like me that would probably never watch new content, the RSS feed offers another way for YouTube to get me back on the site. That being said, I hope they don't kill it.
Had a similar experience and made it to the 2nd stage, and also got paid for both.
I even took the time to learn enough Perl to write the solution. They said it wasn't required but would be a nice touch. It was an interesting project to work on and it was fun coming up with a solution. I thought it fulfilled their requirements pretty well, but also just got a short "no thanks" email.
I was left wondering for a long time what they didn't like about it..
Someone suggested they may use these interview submissions as cheap labor to get ideas to solve internal problems. I thought that was ridiculous until I reread the disclosure I had to sign at the beginning:
> [DDG] will be the exclusive owner of all right, title, and interest in and to the work product resulting from the project, including all intellectual property and proprietary rights.
Could have just been boilerplate disclosure stuff, but seems a little weird.
I cancelled Prime after 12 continuous years of subscribing. I placed my first Amazon order a few days ago sans-Prime and was amazed at the blatant dark patterns put in place to get me to sign up again. When I finally got to the checkout page, I had to manually change the shipping for each item from $5.99 standard shipping to free shipping (because I hit the $25 threshold).
A few hours later, I get a solicitation for Amazon Music (not sure if I would have gotten this if I was a Prime subscriber).
Then the next day I got an email saying "Your package is arriving earlier than we previously expected"... the same as Prime 2-day shipping. Maybe it's logistically easier to just ship 2-day instead of holding on to inventory?
I thought cancelling Prime would have been difficult (especially with Prime only discounts at Whole Foods), but finding alternatives to Amazon and Whole Foods has been easy. I guess it's no wonder Amazon tries to push it so hard because it's relatively easy to live without.
I haven't had this much fun with computers in years. It has certainly helped with my Tahoe grief.