lh7777

I'm still looking for such a solution that works well on mobile. Spideroak's iOS app is very rudimentary compared to Dropbox.

Cryptomator is headed in the right direction (and open source!), but they have not yet implemented iOS 11 Files integration. Boxcryptor has, and it actually works OK, but desktop performance is poor.

It's too bad they didn't adequately consider the privacy backlash in the first place, but at least Microsoft is taking some steps in the right direction.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/5/15188636/microsoft-windows... https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/24/16927056/microsoft-window...

Totally agree re: Netflix recommendations. I rarely ever review/rate, but Netflix should still be able to easily figure out what I like based on the genres I watch most and shows that I've watched more than a few episodes of. Instead, I mostly see what's popular on Netflix plus a bunch of recommendations that look like they could've been selected by a random number generator. It seems the best Netflix can do is to recommend the next season of a series I've already watched the rest of, which is definitely helpful but pretty disappointing given the amount of data they have available.

Quality is actually a great illustration of your original point, though. Apple recently went to great lengths to redesign the MacBook keyboard for no good reason. As if compromising the key feel for many (most?) users just to shave a millimeter or two off an already very thin device wasn't enough, it turns out that the new keyboards have some serious reliability issues[1] and repairs cost $700. I think John Gruber said it best: "I find these keyboards — specifically, the tales of woe about keys getting stuck or ceasing to work properly — a deeply worrisome sign about Apple’s priorities today."

While the Surface line has had its reliability issues (especially Surface 4), rumor has it that the omission of USB-C from the latest Surfaces was part of a deliberate effort to focus on refining the current design (and improving its reliability) rather than adding new features and risking creating even more issues. They also have a point that USB-C isn't quite ready for prime time and I can't say I miss it having recently switched from a MacBook to a Surface Pro.

I'm not saying that these companies should stop trying to innovate (far from it). What I'm seeing is a big difference in priorities, and I'm not a fan of Apple's of late -- too much focus on design ideals and not enough on things that actually help me get my work done.

[1] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/10/17/johnston-macboo...

Newsblur (a web-based RSS reader) added a newsletter feature a while back that's pretty useful if you want to mix RSS & newsletters in the same place. Set up an email rule to automatically forward your newsletters to a custom address and Newsblur will show them as if they're another site you've subscribed to via RSS.

I'm not a big fan of newsletters myself, but it's nice to be able to include those few sites that only offer newsletters in my regular news reading workflow.

Which is one of the reasons why they're going to be kicking all of the buses out of the tunnel as soon as 2019. Good for light rail, but I don't see how 3rd Ave won't become total chaos.

Not the OP, but I try it every year or so and always give up after a few weeks. I've been using DDG again for about a week or so, and the results are still about as bad as I remember. It's fine for really common searches such as finding a company's website that I don't remember the domain name for or getting quick info about popular places or things, but anything even slightly obscure (like "how do I do x with y?") is almost always useless. I very quickly get into the habit of adding "!g" to the majority of my searches.

That said, I'm going to try to keep using DDG this time. Although most of my "important" searches are still going to Google, at least they're not seeing absolutely everything I search for.

Resilio Sync is peer-to-peer, so if you believe their marketing copy, you're not handing your data over to anyone -- it only syncs between your authorized devices. Since Sync is proprietary software, it's a valid concern that Resilio could be making copies of your data without your knowledge.

I use Resilio myself, but I'd rather use free software for this sort of thing. Syncthing looks great aside from the lack of iOS support.

This reminds me of Pathway, a Mac app circa 2006 that visualized your Wikipedia browsing as a mind map.

http://lifehacker.com/203915/download-of-the-day-pathway-mac

As I understand it, it's mostly an attempt to pave the way for an eventual statewide income tax. I'm all for that -- our regressive tax structure is terrible -- but I would've preferred that this measure serve as an offset to lower other taxes rather than just funding whatever new stuff the council feels like spending money on.

I'd also prefer a stricter definition of "literally", but here we are and there's little chance we can turn back the clock. According to Merriam-Webster, most dictionaries, including the OED, recognize the "metaphoric or intensifying sense of the word literally"[1], and this is not even a recent development. (The situation for enormity is similar.)

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...

Interesting -- I didn't know that enormity originally meant something very large _and_ bad or morally wrong -- but the GP's meaning is generally accepted today.

I agree that buses a terrible solution, but are definitely better than no public transit at all. Sadly, Seattle is almost entirely dependent on buses for public transit, although things are getting slightly better here with recent investments in light rail. Of course, the costs are astronomical and the most important parts of the project won't be complete for decades, so it's cold comfort for anyone currently stuck with a 7 mile, 1 hour commute by bus (or worse).

What's baffling to me is that, in addition to "real" light rail, Seattle is also building out a network of street-level trains. These trains barely carry more passengers than an articulated bus, are subject to the same traffic issues as the buses since they don't have a dedicated right of way, cost way more than adding bus lines, and their tracks create significant hazards for cyclists. I could be wrong, but it seems like this is an example of "buses = bad; trains = good" thinking gone awry.

I used Pronto in Seattle some and I think it was just once that I found no helmets in the bin. Either theft wasn't as big of a deal as you might expect, or they had to spend a lot of money replacing helmets all the time. I'm sure it also helped that the system got such little use -- not many helmets on the road at any time.

I did find it strange that helmets seemed to be an afterthought, though. Instead of accessing them with the same RFID tag you use to get a bike, there was a 4-digit keypad you used to unlock the box of helmets. The locks were frequently broken and the code was infrequently changed -- not exactly the best solution to deter theft, plus remembering the code is an extra (minor) barrier for occasional users.

In general, it's definitely possible that people were put off by the whole "wearing used helmets" thing (especially tourists), but I think it's more likely that Pronto's failure had more to do with (1) most people willing to bike to work already having their own bike, (2) lots of hills too steep to climb comfortably on such heavy bikes, and (3) very limited service area.

My own personal use was for occasional trips where driving or taking a cab would be too slow due to traffic/parking and I didn't want to worry about finding a safe, public place to lock my own bike, something that basically doesn't exist downtown. I probably used Pronto once a month on average.

Right -- it's cables that do not comply with the USB-C spec that can cause damage. It's not as if plugging a Thunderbolt 3 device into a laptop that doesn't support Thunderbolt will damage the laptop. It just won't work.

Beats Music -> Apple Music

Apple does care about its service business revenues, and I think they felt they needed to compete with Spotify, etc. instead of letting others slowly erode iTunes' share. This isn't about lock-in to iDevices -- Apple Music is also available on Windows, Android.

I doubt it's about price gouging -- Apple makes most of its money selling phones, tablets, and computers, not adapters and accessories. Sure, you could argue that they're trying to lock their customers in by getting them to invest in tons of adapters and accessories that would need to be replaced if they switch to another ecosystem, but I think iOS and the App Store ecosystem are much better at that. Besides, why would they keep changing port designs every few years if lock-in was the goal? There's no better time than a port redesign to switch to someone else's hardware if you need a new device and have to buy new accessories anyway.

USB C seems like the future for basically _all_ ports on all devices, so I do think it's a shame that Apple's going to stick with Lightning for iOS devices. It's hard to blame them for this -- Lightning is quite a bit thinner[1]. But I also don't share their obsession with device thinness.

[1] http://josh-ua.co/blog/2015/3/15/usb-c-dimensions-size-compa...

I'm still hopeful this will be the case -- that all this multi-device cloud syncing nonsense today is just a fad and we'll all be carrying around phones with terrabytes of storage and desktop grade performance. Not holding my breath, though.

I'm not worrying about that until Apple announces XCode for iPad.

I'd personally settle for an in-ear[1] version of AirPods. I'm not sold on noise cancelling, but I do need something to keep the music in and background noise out, and rubber-tipped in-ears do that quite well. Honestly, I'm confused as to why Apple makes earbuds without rubber tips at all, let alone at a $160 price point.

I've tried using EarPods on a plane before (where my ancient Sennheiser earbuds get 95% of their use) and I couldn't find a comfortable volume setting -- loud enough to hear clearly over the engines is painful (and probably just audible to the person sitting next to me).

The AirPods sound like a great idea on paper -- very small size, charging case, potentially less flakey than a typical Bluetooth device -- but since they're nothing more than wireless EarPods, I can't think of a use for them myself.

[1] http://www.apple.com/shop/product/ME186LL/A

I've had this setup in my travel kit for years. I use it in every rental car so I can listen to music and charge my phone / use GPS at the same time.

Y-Cable (dock connector to audio & USB): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LUKCX4

Dock to Lightning adapter: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014854UWG

For a cleaner solution (and if you also need a cigarette lighter to USB adapter), there's this from Griffin, but it's out of stock and unclear whether it's discontinued: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NCF0LHC

I've never had anything but a terrible experience with Bluetooth, and I'm definitely never using Bluetooth to connect my phone to a rental car, so I imagine I'll be using the above system for a long time to come.

This kind of thing is exactly why I put up with the hassles of running Little Snitch.

In my experience, Craigslist's email alerts are terrible, for a few reasons:

1. Craigslist combines listings that come in at once into a single email. That's fine, but they truncate the results (... SNIP...) if a lot of listings come in. Why? Are they worried about exceeding your incoming email size limit with an all-text email?

2. Sometimes they send emails with zero results. Again, why?

3. Maybe not an issue in NY or SF where good apartments rent minutes after listing, but even in Seattle's hot housing market duplicate listings are a big problem. I've seen the same listing posted multiple times per day for days on end. All of these listings appear in Craigslist's email alerts, so you have to wade through them all. While the author didn't address this in his bot's code, I see filtering out duplicate or "already seen, not interested" listings as the biggest benefit to a home-made solution like this.

Thanks for the excellent reply, I may just give this a try at some point.

Do you have any examples the DX screen being driven by a microcontroller? I looked into this a while back and it seemed a lot more complex than just hooking up an Arduino or something due to the screen's voltage requirements. The projects I saw involved making a custom driver PCB.

This feature already exists on the USB-C MacBook charger. I'm sure it'll be years before the whole line is updated, but I don't see they wouldn't. USB-C can carry up to 100 watts -- the biggest MacBook Pro MagSafe adapter is only 85 watts.

This is a very good point, but I have a counterpoint: I suffered through a year with the 6 before downgrading to the 5S last month. My only regret? Waiting so long to ditch the 6.

I think the key point here is raidz3 -- exactly why I've been running a FreeNAS server for the past 4 years. That and backing it up to Crashplan in case of a multi-drive failure.

Here in Seattle, quite a few water fountains in public parks have a 2nd fountain at ground level for pets. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that all dog owners will be courteous enough to use them, but at least it's a start.

In reality, though, all kind of other gross things are going to get on outdoor fountains even if we keep the dogs away, not the least of which comes from the other people who used them before you.

My understanding (and this is just what I've heard, not something I've investigated) is that if you let a well-maintained fountain run long enough, say 10 seconds, before drinking from it, it's almost certainly fine. Of course, this assumes there isn't any visible contamination on there that the water's flowing through. In short, I don't hesitate to use them if they look OK.

> Making a will is critical for everyone. Not having a will is frankly not an option, you know this.

I keep hearing this, but I don't believe it. No kids, no assets of any significance, and my state's intestacy laws are fine by me for what there is. Of course, I'll revisit when my situation changes but I just can't see why making and maintaining a will needs to be a high priority for me.