That would be so good if they had a competent author.

USA are searching people’s phones for signs of criticism of government policy. They are detaining and deporting people (even citizens). China is not the sole bogeyman you think it is.

My mother decided my father would explain to me. I was dreading it. He turned up looking pretty uncomfortable / fearful himself. It was excruciating before it even started. He opened with “they teach this at school don’t they?” and I saw my exit. “Yes”, I replied. And that was it.

We spent a few hours on it in school.

How many hours do people work each day? And do people get enough sleep?

Thanks for the AMA.

Most people understand that the people are not the same as the government.

• The Power of Now
• Batman (1989, it was well written for a movie novelisation)

I barely use Reddit now. I’ve unfollowed any sub that has an equivalent here.

The main one holding me back is that native speakers of my language are there.

macOS comes with quite a few applications that can’t be uninstalled. They’re quality applications, but many are totally irrelevant to me like Stocks, Chess, Stickies, Home Assistant, AI stuff, Graphs and others).

Let mé elaborate on use cases (and thanks for asking, by the way): Terminal / bash

• wget: I often download stuff this way using wget followed by the URL of something I’ve copied. It’s just quicker on keyboard than using the UI in the web browser.
• ffmpeg: I often convert audio / video formats quickly this way, strip audio tracks from video etc.
• scp: I copy media to and from a server at times and maintain a simple website
• bash: I have some scripts for updating websites and pushing changes to yet another server, however these are run from another machine I ssh into
• nano: I use this a a quick notepad for throwaway stuff

Video Editing:

• iMovie for the overall job
• Handbrake: for cases when ffmpeg commands would be too complicated or I need to do something visual like crop a videos dimensions
• Lossless Cut: Can make cuts from video clips without transcoding (which takes longer and causes quality loss)
• Claquette: Fast screen recordings. macOS does have a built in tool for his too but it doesn’t capture system audio like Claquette does.
• Photo Booth: Apple app for making videos of myself or another presenter with webcam.
• Game Capture HD: Records from an Elgato device so I can record video output of other computers.
• Pixelmator Pro: Graphics editing for thumbnails, captions, stationary, merchandise etc. I use GIMP too but currently have it zipped up to see if I can get by with just one application. My fingers remember the GIMP keyboard shortcuts though!
• Color Sync utility, Digital Color Meter,  Image Capture: I never use these but in my (unpaid, voluntary) work I will need them some day.

Audio editing / Music production:

• Logic Pro: Main music production application
• Audacity, MusicBrainz Picard - utilities that do somethings that LP can’t do / do as well.
• Podcast Soundboard: Used for live events, although I don’t plan on doing any more of those.
• EQ Mac: System audio equaliser

Tech:

• Sublime Text: Helps me get my head around long source-code documents
• Forklift: I mainly use this as an FTP client because Finder drops the connection way to often.
• Publii: Like a simplified Wordpress for quick website development and deployment
• Whisky: Runs windows apps on macOS (frontend for WINE)
• Lagrange: Browser for geminispace. Just for fun.
• VPN & Antivirus

Literature / Study:

• Calibre: for epubs
• Highlights: For PDFS. It summarises parts of PDF I’ve highlighted and allows me to view them as a document of its own. Good study tool.
• Apple Books: Also allows to export highlights in an ebook as a document of its own.
• Dictionary
• KLib: View all highlights made in ebooks on your kindle device.
• Anytype & Notion

The rest of the apps fall into: entertainment, social media (web apps only), office / communications, system utilities (like disk space visualiser and caffeine which prevents screensaver), LLM clients like DeepSeek and ChatGPT.

Finally I have meditation apps.

I used to love writing (creative, journaling or free-flow) and I keep meaning to get back into it. Thanks for the encouragement there!

Edit: the main reason I stopped was when I realised that I never read what I wrote.

I like them but they organise applications that are already opened. The dock icons stay the same on each workspace and the desktop icons are the same too.

That could help me avoid opening a few apps actually. Thanks. I found this too that does similar https://www.howtogeek.com/208429/make-spotlight-search-actually-useful-with-flashlight-for-mac-os-x/

I hadn’t actually thought of that. It might be slightly more separation than I’m looking for but it does solve the GPU performance issues of a VM!

That’s helpful, thanks. I’ll look into podman to. I always assumed it was for syncing with an iPod :)

Haha, every two or three days.

I do like my physical clock and calendar etc. I use pen and paper when I can too.

The clock isn’t removable though and I think that with my ADHD I might need to keep the calendar and reminders apps. Or my next post might be about even bigger problems :)

That’s a good suggestion. macOS does have virtual desktops but for windows, not icons or launchers.

I think you’re right. It’s the launching system on macOS that doesn’t suit me.

Oh cool, that does sound interesting. Thanks!

Yes. You have my sympathies.

I’m starting to think you’re right.