Micro.thoughts

🔗 Stop macOS 15 Sequoia monthly screen recording prompts

Much has already been written about the new monthly screen recording prompt in macOS 15 Sequoia. As always, Michael Tsai has an excellent summary.

The good news is that there's a way to stop the prompts forever. Ricci Adams found the file where the prompt dates are stored.

Instant buy and bookmark for future reference.

Let’s see if cross-posting to Threads works.

I love to receive comments from other platforms (bsky.social this time), reply from micro.blog and see that the whole conversation shows up in all places: bluesky, the micro.blog timeline and my own blog.

🔗 Greg Morris - No Hallucinating, That’s An Ad

According to a copy of the pitch deck obtained by Digiday, the plan is to integrate ads within users’ queries and answers

When the idea of using an LLM as a search engine started floating around, this is where I expected we would end up. Not because I am some kind of expert, but if you can be sure on anything online, it’s that it eventually ends up with adverts.

[…]

The whole concept of a search engine starts to break down when the only result from an LLM-based search engine is explainer text, provided by the brand that pays the most money. Please, could this AI bubble burst already before we break the web entirely.

This is very disappointing and yet, not surprising at all. I totally agree with Greg’s comment and thank him for posting it.

Alas, wiki farms exist.

Wow. For some reason, I thought that building a small personal wiki would be something easy to do. I have to have a web server and learn about apache and php and security. But then, apparently, apache and php are not supported on macOS anymore, so I have to find some other way specific for the Mac. I find a nice thorough page but it says that if I have installed Homebrew the instructions in the page don’t work. So I will have to find something else. The thing is I don’t fully understand one single word I’m reading. Boy, this is going to be tough.

TTFSMIF

🔗 A unified theory of fucks | A Working Library

This is one of my answers to the question of, why give a fuck about work? Why love your work? It won’t, of course, love you back. It can’t. Work isn’t a thing that can love. It isn’t alive, it isn’t and won’t ever be living. And my answer is: don’t. Don’t give a fuck about your work. Give all your fucks to the living. Give a fuck about the people you work with, and the people who receive your work—the people who use the tools and products and systems or, more often than not, are used by them. Give a fuck about the land and the sea, all the living things that are used or used up by the work, that are abandoned or displaced by it, or—if we’re lucky, if we’re persistent and brave and willing—are cared for through the work. Give a fuck about yourself, about your own wild and tender spirit, about your peace and especially about your art. Give every last fuck you have to living things with beating hearts and breathing lungs and open eyes, with chloroplasts and mycelia and water-seeking roots, with wings and hands and leaves. Give like every fuck might be your last.

I’m really thankful to [@patrickrhone](https://micro.blog/patrickrhone) for introducing me to Mandy Brown. What a wonderful discovery.

I just unfollowed a beloved developer cause he writes almost everything in all caps. I understand why he does it and it’s meant to be humorous, but the thing is that the constant caps still startle me. I’m getting old.

I tried to learn a little about Nostr and the first three web apps I looked into where all about cryptostuff and “earning” while sharing. I need a shower.

Could I opine about the US Presidential Election (believe me, there’s no MSNBC clip I haven’t seen on YouTube) or would it be an improper foreign intervention? Gruber patronizes us about the DMA, so I don’t see why not.

I find the verb “to opine” both delightful and pedantic. “Opinar” is the verb in Spanish, so the first time I heard it it sounded familiar to me. Lately, though, when I hear someone “opining” (it’s usually Neil deGrasse Tyson) instead of giving or expressing an opinion, I just laugh at the pedantry.

🔗 FreeTube - Maybe the Most Underrated App | AppAddict

FreeTube is a privacy lover's dream, using no trackers and allowing you to subscribe to your favorite channels without an account. All user data is stored on your machine and is never sent to or stored on the Internet. The data for videos is either scraped or obtained through the Invidious API. The interface is similar to YouTube and easy enough for a child to use. FreeTube is open source and THERE ARE NO ADS. You can even download videos using a one-button interface. You can create playlists and lists of favorites. I honestly do not know why this app isn't more well known.

I had saved this article by [@amerpie](https://micro.blog/amerpie) about MacTube but the real gem was at the bottom of his post, where he mentions another app called FreeTube.

I am enjoying FreeTube so much. It’s like the dream YouTube come true. No ads, no registration, no algorithm messing my subscription’s timeline, a customizable interface…

Thank you, Lou, thank you so much.

I’ve been using iOS and iPadOS 18 for a couple of months now (the public betas have worked perfectly for me) and now it’s like I’m missing the novelty feeling of it all.

OK, so iPhone Mirroring is not working in the EU because potatoes (“porque patatas” is a coloquial expression in Spanish that means something like “because whatever”; I hope you get it).

At 50, I’m afraid that my natural battery has gone through too many cycles and that is already topped at somewhere around 80%. It hardly makes through the day. It’s 22:30 and I have fallen asleep on my couch twice already. Good night.

The first Threads account I have followed from micro.blog is that of Marques Brownlee @mkbhd@threads.net. Thanks to @jarrod for the heads up..

🔗 Thoughts on symbols – Manu

This, to me, means absolutely nothing. But also, I think trying to unify people behind a silly symbol is the wrong move. And it’s also a misguided effort. A new symbol doesn’t solve anything and doesn’t help your cause. Also, "A single symbol to represent that belonging can often be more relevant than individual icons for each service" belonging to what? I am no fediverse citizen but I do consider myself a good citizen of the web. I try my best to make it a better place and I try to encourage people to own their corners of the web. Am I excluded from your fancy club because I don’t “federate”? Are you saying I don’t belong? I’m asking this rhetorically, because frankly speaking, I couldn’t give less of a fuck about belonging to some arbitrary definition.

Manuel Is growing old and grouchy 😂. But so am I, and I kinda agree with him on this one.