marco's µ.blog

In continuation of week 24, here are a few thoughts and things that caught my attention in the twenty-fifth week of 2024:

• 🌐 The outrage about unethical behavior by big tech companies wanting to make money with AI features continued. See for example: How We’re Trying to Protect MacStories from AI Bots and Web Crawlers – And How You Can, Too or Perplexity Plagiarized Our Story About How Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machine.

• 😠 I have a strong opinion about Apple’s statement regarding alternative marketplaces during The Talk Show Live and the latest announcements about missing features in the upcoming iOS update in the fall concerning the DMA. I have long considered whether I should write it down in detail. But I’d rather save my energy for discussions with my teenage son, behave like an adult, and might simply take the advice to get an Android device as my next phone 😇.

• 🤖 How absolutely freaking cool is this: I made an AI LEGO® PixelArt Robot?!

• 🎮 Speaking of awesome: Doom x Mario Mod.

• 💻 There are some Mac games—available at a discount for a limited time.. I bought ‎GRIS, which is BTW on sale for Steam right now as well.

• 🎉 Thanks to Ben and Ehqo and will now look for discounts on games on Game deals and IsThereAnyDeal.

• 💸 Speaking of discounts. Some long-established macOS apps are once again on SummerFest sale. For some of them, I wish they were a bit more modern 😎.

• 🪟 There is just another free and open-source window manager for macOS that looks promising: Loop - Window management made elegant. Bookmarked just in case I have to switch from Rectangle some day.

• 📈 Another app I’ve bookmarked in case I need it: ProcessSpy - View macOS processes with command line arguments.

• 📝 If you don’t want to subscribe to Drafts to quickly jot down text snippets and move them to other places and also don’t really warm up to Bebop, you might want to check out ‎Funnel: Quick Capture as recommended by Thomas.

• 🔌 I have completely lost track of my USB-C cables. Which ones can only charge, which ones support fast data transfer? So I recently bought two gadgets recommended in the c’t¹: Treedix USB Cable Tester² and Gianac USB Adapter³ and now I know that I only have one high-speed USB-A to C cable and only very few USB-C to C cables supporting it.

• 🖥️ I have been using my ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG32UCDM monitor for about a week now and I am blown away by its panel. Still don’t like the gaming vibe, though but hey, I bought a gaming monitor so nothing to complain about. Was playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on my PS5 and enjoy it so far.

As always, have a wonderful week ahead! 🙋‍♂️