• ugh: in a dir within iCloud Drive, replacing a regular file, with a symlink of the same name, apparently breaks sync’ing 😟 - and good luck trying to find that via brctl log -w. (only reason I knew it broke: a periodic check of sync status)

  • oh; weird: if you happen to have /tmp open in a Finder window, brew install wget fails with dir_s_rmdir - apparently due to a “.DS_Store” file, a few levels below /tmp

  • vtdigger.org/2023/04/2…

    these are distractions

    - interim president Mike Smith – confirming he’s all in, on continuing to gut VSU, as soon as the outrage dies down

  • Google - the company whose motto WAS “Don’t be Evil”: arstechnica.com

  • as usual: doing the right thing is - if moral reasons aren’t enough for you - also the less expensive choice: thevpo.org/2023/04/1…

  • Apple Savings: % ain’t bad & it looks like xfer between a linked external account, is much more pleasant (fee-free) than with most others: www.apple.com/newsroom/…

  • another sign that several justices on the US Supreme Court are partisan hacks: this is nothing but a trial balloon, to see if the majority of the US that’s uninfected with MAGA, keeps paying attention to these increasing abuses by “conservatives”: arstechnica.com

  • are you in the cloud majority? twitter.com/Grady_Boo…

  • wow; the Murad situation just looks worse and worse - and why indeed, is it so very important, for some of us, to keep pushing him as police chief?! thevpo.org/2023/04/1…

  • macOS Login Items, and other "Allow in Background"

    There are lots of Login Items and other “Allow in Background” items in macOS these days (especially if the Mac is managed
) so it can be useful to get a list of them all - especially when names shown in the GUI, are not clear. The dumpbtm tool is verbose - though generally all you need is this abbreviated list:

    sfltool dumpbtm | grep -E '^([[:blank:]]{0,1}[^[:blank:]]|[[:blank:]]*(Name|URL):)'

  • how to convert macOS clipboard RTF (ex: from Notes.app), to Markdown? this’ll get you 95% of the way there: osascript -e 'the clipboard as «class RTF »' | tr -d '«»' | sed 's/^data RTF //' | xxd -r -p | /usr/local/bin/pandoc -f rtf -t markdown

  • the new legit slacking excuse - and not just for programmers!

    with thanks / apologies to the amazing Randall Munroe - his original: xkcd.com/303

  • I am so down for this TMNT Movie (and FWTFIW: new to the franshise - don’t at me)

  • if you haven’t found PDL yet, Reza Farazmand does great work - check it out: poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/a-g…

  • it’s just weird, how there are so many signs, urging people to vote against police oversight measures, in rich neighborhoods
 (looking at you in particular, BTV)

  • How strange: On one Mac I use, when I paste (cmd-V) into the filename field (has focus) in a Save dialog, it suddenly jumps to the Documents folder. On another Mac, it simply pastes, leaving the folder as-is. It apparently does this jump, on any keyboard equivalent (ex: cmd-A).

  • as we’ve come to expect from the good folks at TidBITS - a thoroughly approachable and emminently useful guide, to protecting yourself from the scourge of “phishing”: tidbits.com/2023/01/1…

  • ugh; a disappointing hatchett job - more so, since there are important questions to discuss. too bad the author seems to see nothing past their foregone conclusions. vtdigger.org/2023/01/0…

  • The macOS Weather app can notify for severe weather - it’s Settings window, directed me to Settings > Notifications – but Weather was mising. I stumbled on a solution: Open Notification Center & open Weather from there - it immediately prompted to enable. (C’mon Apple :/ .)

  • the OPMI survey is well worth a few minutes of your time - it might help you understand a bit about yourself – and others drj.virtualave.net/OMPI/

  • check out the “Big Five” (personality) survey - well worth a half hour www.personal.psu.edu/%7Ej5j/IP…

  • Here’s to all of us, who’ve been fighting for truth, justice, peace, 
 for so very, very long now: music.apple.com/us/album/…

  • I started a Note, with lists of of word / term associations - which make sense to me. Since Spotlight indexes Notes.app, the results come up in that context with everything else, so it’s already started to help me find things more quickly. Might try to integrate with Quicksilver


  • COVID and elevated risk of blood clots, strokes or heart attacks

    “If you’ve had covid, watch out for stroke symptoms: Given that most people have had Covid by now, everyone should be more vigilant about the early warning signs such as chest pain, unusual swelling, numbness or weakness, or sudden changes in balance, speech or vision.” [Washington Post] (with hat-tip to Violet Blue)

    I can tell you from direct experience: Do not waste a moment second-guessing; if someone shows signs of stroke (memomnic acronym is FAST; look it up), get to the hospital ASAP.

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