Total: 23 posts
Posts in: editorial
open source
editorial
activism
Spend your subscription money on donations to open source instead
The idea that more and more things we use in our daily lives are morphing from something we buy to a #subscription model is growing alarmingly fast. The tangible way normal, everyday consumers can telegraph our discontentment with these mounting monthly costs is to stop paying them and use alternatives, like open source. The rub here is that open source developers are perpetually underfunded, so if you’re going to use open source tools, you should direct some of that cash you used to pay for …
Apple
editorial
MacBook Neo? Yeah, go ahead and buy it!
“MacBook Neo Hands-On… Watch BEFORE You Buy!”
“New $599 MacBook Neo! What Apple Didn’t Tell You”
“BEFORE you buy the MacBook Neo…”
“Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo is GREAT (..or is it?)”
The headlines on countless YouTube videos say it all… right? It’s compromised! Apple didn’t tell you everything! Don’t make the wrong choice! It’s madness, per usual, as influencers scramble to carve out a potentially …
journalism
politics
capitalism
editorial
A Word to the Weiss | An Unauthorized Reprint
David Ellison has quietly courted Bari Weiss for a possible role at CBS News—a move that hints at how he may steer the network if his merger goes through.
by Oliver Darcy - June 24th, 2025 [Source]
David Ellison and Bari Weiss. Bari Weiss (Status Illustration/Leigh Vogel/Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
Late last year, during a trip to New York City, David Ellison quietly made time for a meeting that said as much about his worldview as it did about his interest in media. According to people …
writing
capitalism
editorial
IAPWE won't leave us alone!
We are being harassed by the International Association of Professional Writers and Editors, also known as IAPWE. We signed up for memberships a few years ago, then cancelled after our first year. We found no benefit to the membership. Now, despite cancelling everything we could find on PayPal, speaking with the credit card servicer who can do nothing, and emailing IAPWE over and over and over again, they continue to charge us.
We both subscribed using PayPal, and we’ve no clue how they …
Apple
editorial
technology
Are Apple Silicon Macs too good?
In his latest video Luke Miani asks if #Apple made their new machines too good. Across two polls, having run a second one to verify the results of the first, respondents strongly indicated they had no intention of upgrading their early M-series Macs. I have a feeling Apple fully expected that, however. Watch the video on YouTube. We have three Mini’s, two M1 and one Intel, and have no need to upgrade them anytime soon. I may desire an M4 Mini, but I don’t need one. What is behind …
politics
editorial
satire
I am not an illustrator or an artist of any kind, but I’ve been messing with images for decades. However #Adobe sucks ass so instead I’ve been using Pixelmator since 2010 or so. I made this in Pixelmator Pro for macOS 15. #TFG #satire #funny #art #idiocracy #EndFascismNow #DeposeTrump #SaveAmerica
politics
editorial
There is a very dear price we will pay if we allow our elected leaders to keep leaning into the Overton Window #TFG smashed open. In other words, the #Democrats need to be taught what #FAFO really means and now, not in 2026. #uspol rimaregasblog42.substack.com/p/those-w…
journalism
editorial
Dollarnomics
$15 a month for a single newsletter is unsustainable
#journalism #dollarnomics #editorial - Tyler K. Nothing reporting.
DATELINE INTERNETOPIA - #Substack has created a mythology in the form of the $15 a month newsletter. The claim was that it would help support independent writers who have been driven out of organized news gathering by capitalist greed’s desire to “trim the fat” (meaning people who cost money they’d rather have in their Cayman bank accounts), but the model is unsustainable. In reality, all it does is net …
capitalism
editorial
technology
Substack charging for "setting up" custom domain names you own is extortion
That sour, disappointed look flooded onto my wife’s face. She was upset. I asked her what was wrong, and she explained to me that her Wordpress stats weren’t working like they used to. I poked around and couldn’t find anything obviously amiss in the Jetpack plugin settings, so I told her it was likely a glitch and would clear up. About a week later I got the email.
Wordpress had determined that my wife’s social justice and political analysis blog (https://rimaregas.com) …
capitalism
editorial
I think Sam Elliot kinda nails it… to the wall… with his special brand of gravitas and casual Southern snark. #politics #TFG #capitalism
editorial
Reality has unveiled its new slogan for the next era of humanity!
BUCKLE UP
whee. #sarcasm #FML
capitalism
editorial
Um. Wow. Okay… So, it’s a banana… and it’s taped to a wall… with a strip of standard silver duct tape. And it just sold at auction for $6.24 MILLION DOLLARS. Aside from being the easiest art to forge, I applaud artist Maurizio Cattelan for creating “Comedian” since it pokes the art industrial complex in the eye and the winning bid makes fools of every last art “speculator” out there. It also peeks under the veneer of stupid we’re …
editorial
I'm done with Microsoft Windows
As of May 31st, 2024 when Microsoft announced Windows Recall, I have a single physical machine, and no virtual machines, with any version of Windows installed and that will not be changing as long as Microsoft remains on the path they're forged for themselves. The one machine which has Windows 10 is a Dell Venue 8 Pro which needs a dongle to install another operating system, and I need to find the dongle. Once I find the dongle, Windows is gone, gone, gone. Why would I go through so much …
Apple
editorial
Apple's Notes cannot be exported, and that's wrong...
Ok, this is annoying. Apple Notes is a wonderfully capable notes app that allows you to bulk import all manner of rich text file formats, even entire Evernote exports, and organize them the way you like... with one exception. If you want to stop using Notes, you have to leave everything you created in Notes behind, or export them one by one.
I have over 300 notes.
This is not only annoying but terribly wrong of Apple. I shouldn't have to explain why. I didn't spend a few thousand dollars …
television
movies
editorial
How J.J. Abrams broke Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation 30th Anniversary Print by Dusty Abell, Copyright © 2017, Roddenberry Entertainment Inc. Reprinted with permission. All Rights Reserved. Dusty Abell is a comic artist who has pencilled countless comic books, is an illustrator, and has been involved in the animation industry as a character designer since 2000. He has worked on productions such as Batman: Return of the Caped Crusader, Batman vs. Two-Face, Young Justice, Mike Tyson Mysteries, King of the Hill, The …
editorial
Medium's stats are broken, so I left...
This is my stats page. This is not helpful.Much like today’s other causes of cultural constipation such as race relations, government, cold medications, etc., etc., ad nauseam, the page you see above appears functional, but is not.
Sure, you can click on things and you can see numbers and charts, but none of it is functional to the point where you can derive real, usable data regarding any of the indicated data points.
Take the chart above for example. The Views chart only shows you how …
Apple
editorial
Apple's Butterfly keyboard tragedy & potential e-waste disaster
Without official unit sales numbers from Apple, we have no idea how many hundreds of thousands of these machines are in the wild.
I am a life-long fan of Apple. Born in ‘68, I grew up in the thick of the consumer electronics and personal computer boom of the late 70's. Keeping to myself at times, loudly evangelistic at others, a shame-free Mac Ex-pat, reluctant Windows user for a decade, and always the staunch critic, my fandom runs deep. From my early experiences with Apple ][e machines, to …
editorial
I don't like my mechanical keyboard
The Keychron K5 SE Low-Profile Mechanical Keyboard is anything but low profile. It’s also a clicky, sloppy, error-prone mess for a writer who taught himself to touch type using his own system.CLACK CLACK CLACK… TIKTIKTIKTIKTIK… CLACK CLACK… TIKTIKTIK… AUUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!
Tap tap, goes my Keychron K5 SE. It takes nigh on nothing to press a key, an advantage I’m sure is prized by gamers more rabid and entrenched than myself, but when I’m writing I’m forced to BACKSPACE to repair something that …
editorial
I desperately want a lightweight OLED Switch
" “>
Just make a bigger one, Nintendo.It was a mistake that when I finally bought a Switch, I got a Switch Lite. Sure, it’s a gorgeous indigo blue, but I’m old and the screen is too small. So, I bought an OLED Switch. It was also likely a mistake when instead of returning the Lite, I put it on a shelf and forgot about it. I’d made my new OLED Switch my main, so I’d just forgotten about its little brother.
A few months back, I was sorting through some stuff and found it. I …
music
editorial
Francis Dunnery’s Let’s Go Do What Happens | Album Stories
" “>
Everyone calls him Frank. Let’s Go Do What Happens was released in 1998.I’m quite sure that it was early Fall in Vermont; leaf turning season. It drew the leaf peepers and they brought their money. We didn’t turn in those circles, or any circles for that matter. We spent time at home or at school or with the baby or at various jobs. She worked at the Vermont State Department of Corrections for a time. I worked at the nearby IBM plant for a spell. I attempted another go …
editorial
technology
Can we please end the stupid "Natural" vs. "Reverse" scrolling debacle?
" “>
I am quite well versed in the extensive history of the operating system wars. Apple effectively created the home computer industry, and Microsoft has been doggedly chasing after ever since. This is not a new story in the slightest.
Historical documents tell us that Steve Jobs managed to arrange a tour at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, frequently called Xerox PARC, which had been tasked by their parent company with developing a wide range of modern computing technologies …
music
editorial
America's most underrated musical genius | Bruce Hornsby
" “>
Bruce Hornsby with The Grateful Dead performing at Soldier Field on July 4, 2015 in Chicago. Jay Blakesberg/Invision for the Grateful Dead/AP Images
I’m not going to go into a long, winding diatribe about how and why and when Bruce became a humble god living among us mortals. He’d just deny it. Instead, I’ll show you.
Hell, this is from 1999. There’s another 20 years of new stuff to take in from there, and he’s still going. Not now, of course. Pandemic, anyone?
You …
Apple
editorial
I've gone (back to) Mac & why you should, too.
" “>
An overview of Apple’s technologically significant M1 chip architecture. Neato torpedo…
Back in 2009, I needed to have the CPU repasted in my MacBook Pro as it was running hot. Ill-advised in retrospect, I poked around Craig’s List until I settled on someone offering repair services that I felt I could trust. I spoke to him on the phone a few times, and we arranged to meet. I dropped off the laptop, we chatted jovially for about ten minutes, and then I went home.
I never saw …
Listening
Reading
Stranger in a Strange Land
Robert A. Heinlein
Categories
activism
rights
technology
capitalism
editorial
open source
Linux
video games
American Idiocracy
California
politics
retro technology
animation
Apple
music
automotive
security
television
health
writing
Los Angeles
movies
science
howto
review
comics & manga
scifi
journalism
fiction
freeware
satire
Dollarnomics
macOS
social media
software