The Art Of Not Asking Why

At this point, three app-related updates in the last couple of weeks that I think are here to stay:

1. Arc Browser
2. Lillihub (for Micro.blog)
3. Kagi Search

Arc Browser

Available only for macOS at this point, this one is the most complicated, and I’m still getting used to it. Complicated is not fair of a work, let’s say, different. There’s much to say about Arc Browser and how it does things. Many of its features exist in other browsers or in well-known extensions; others are freshly new. Some of the big highlights for me are:

• Vertical tabs: This just makes sense on your screen once you get used to it
• Bookmarks/tabs/pinned tabs are essentially the same, the function change on the location in your sidebar. The presentations of those in your workspace is different, helpful, and hard to describe.
• Boosts: for those familiar with Grease Monkey, this is similar. It allows you to inject CSS and even JavaScript into your bookmarks, so the next time you visit them, they are customized to how you want to use them. Very powerful and very useful.
• Workspaces & Profiles: when you switch a profile (say personal vs. work), it is like opening a whole new browser in the same one. Different looks, different extensions, different search engine, different profile signed - all available with one “swoosh” of your finger or a keyboard shortcut.

There’s much more to this browser, and I barely scratched the surface. Download it and test it, but do it for a couple of days. It takes some time to get used to.

Lillihub

This is a beta client for Micro.blog, developed by Loura. It’s already my default Micro.blog client. Some of its immediately useful features include:

• When replying, checkboxes for people in a conversation in Micro.blog. Finally you can choose who to reply to in a thread!
• Drag and drop for picture posts
• Renovated Discover section, with a helpful left bar of all the emojis (categories here on Micro.blog), and buttons to Announcements, Challenges, and News.
• Pinned posts (cached locally) so you can always find that one post you want to get back to
• Helpful conversation tab, so you can focus on active posts with replies to participate in a discussion.

There’s more, and Loura might still be accepting testers. It’s still rough-looking visually, which is what you’d expect from a beta product, but everything works and works well.

Kagi Search

I just started using this Search Engine two days ago, and I’m quickly learning to like it. It just displays information better (better than Duck Duck Go, in my opinion). It draws information from Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube, and more places you’re likely to click on without logging in. It has filters to a level I’ve seen only in Google so far (for example, the image filter allows you to filter by license, image type, HD/SD, Aspect ratio, etc.)

There are no ads. No sponsored links. That’s because you’re expected to pay for it ($10 a month if you hit the 300 searches limit). At first I thought, “What am I nuts? Pay for search?” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how often I use search and how it makes sense to pay for a quality service like this if I don’t want ads or Google up my…

I think this one’s quickly becoming a safe bet, unless I find out they somehow do use users’ data to sell to data brokers. That wouldn’t surprise me, since the opportunity is just so rewarding and so easy.but I guess we’ll see.

What about you? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Took a walk in the woods for some peace and quiet. I came across a circle made of branches.

Inside, another ring and a cross made of rocks with white and orange flowers.

I don’t know who or why, but there it was.

I was playing around with the new macOS Sonoma aerial screensavers.

I noticed there doesn’t seem to be an official way to remove downloaded screensavers (about 500MB MOV files each, give or take). The only way is to go to the system folder where they’re stored and delete them manually.

I guess it’s time to dust off the wiki and wire these things down 📖

Last week, I got the Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise-Canceling Headset 🎧. Nat works at a headset store, so deciding where to go was easy. I got to try on various headsets with two kinds of music I listen to often: Electronic and Classical. The Sony’s won by a large margin.

I still can’t get over the noise cancellation, which I now call “world canceling.” How good are they? Well, after a night out last weekend, I took the subway from New York Penn Station, a very busy transportation hub, back home. The “world cancellation” was so good that I couldn’t hear trains most of the time, only when they slowed down near the station. People moved their lips, but no voice came out. A homeless person gave me a jump scare by waving his hand in front of my face (I was looking at the tracks and didn’t see him). This was a bit unsettling, so I turned around to be more alert, using my eyes.

The headset is phenomenal. It cancels out firetrucks, yelling kids on a break from the nearby elementary school, and Obnoxious construction noises. It comes with an app that seamlessly allows switching from my iPhone to the Mac, depending on which device I’m using. I sure don’t miss having a messy long wire one bit. I’ve been spoiled, and I’m not going back 🎶.

Before I got my new MacBook, one of my worries was having it plugged to power 24/7. I do most of my work on it from home, and it’s plugged into a KVM switch to my external Monitor, Keyboard, and Mouse, along with my Windows PC.

Today, I noticed the above window for the first time (it shows up after you click the battery and charger icon in the top menu), and it was odd to see my battery is only at 80%. Alarmed, I checked Apple’s documentation about this. It turns out not only there’s no issue with leaving the battery connected to power 24/7 (per research I did previously), but macOS expects it from my habits and allows the battery to discharge to a certain level to keep it healthy.

Good morning. The sun is finally out, after being out of sight for the last… I don’t know, four days? I actually got excited yesterday when it came out just in time for sunset in the evening. And to think I’m trying to get into Cyberpunk Red now, a game that is all about gray, depressing vibes…

Sipping my coffee in the kitchen at my usual spot (see day in the life) I was thinking about how much work I have to do, the usual sense of not doing enough.

It doesn’t matter how much I worked yesterday and to what extent (I was drained toward the evening); the self-judgment is still there. The guilt. Feeling like I’m a phony. If I dwell enough on these thoughts, they’d borrow in with flashes of the past.

I’m learning to make peace with these thoughts and try to let them be. There’s no satisfying them, so instead, I try to give them a nod of acknowledgment and do my best to ignore them for the rest of the day. Some days it works better than others. I think that being open about those thoughts might help: if I put these emotions out there openly, I can’t be a liar. I’m not really hiding anything.

That’s enough for now. I think I’ll get myself to go out for a run, get it out of the way, let the skin soak some sun, and take a refreshing shower afterward.

Happy Wednesday!