Happy automated holidays! Rosemary and I have a pile of new ideas for automating your holidays on this episode of Automators.
This episode of Automators is sponsored by:
This week MacSparky is sponsored by a killer Mac utility, TextSniper. TextSniper is a Mac OCR app that can extract text anywhere on your Mac’s screen and automatically save it to your clipboard, so you can paste it anywhere you need it. It can even read the text to you. The whole thing works a lot like the built-in screen capture on the Mac, just way more powerful. You know those websites that won’t let you copy text? With TextSniper, you can. Do you know the pain of getting a phone number out of a document? It’s easy with Text Sniper.
That’s not all. With TextSniper, you can:
I use this app often. It’s made by a developer who spends much time making it the best capture utility on the Mac. You can even use your iPhone or iPad camera to take a photo for TextSniper to perform its magic. Just last week I used TextSniper to pull text out of a paused YouTube video. Yup. You can do that.
Moreover, in an era where so much software is more about data mining than giving you a service, TextSniper doesn’t collect your data. The text recognition is processed on your Mac and does not require an internet connection.
TextSniper works with macOS Catalina and later and also works with Parallels Desktop
Get TextSniper now and enjoy the fastest way to copy uncopyable text, wherever you find it. Use promo code TSMS2023 to get an additional 25% off.
CNN reports that 33 states have accused Meta of only disabling a “fraction” of the accounts reported with millions of reports from parents, friends, and online community members. There is no questioning the fact that social media is having a negative impact on children, particularly young girls. One Meta product designer wrote in an internal email that, “young ones are the best ones.”
CNN further writes Meta did a 2021 study that concluded Instagram’s algorithm may be amplifying negative social comparison and “content with a tendency to cause users to feel worse about their body or appearance.” Of course! When you combine that with yet-to-be-fully-developed 13-year-old brains, the conclusion is inevitable.
We are beyond the point of speculation that social media is harming children. At this point, we need to get serious about putting up some guardrails. Moreover, I’d argue that humans don’t magically get superpowers to avoid these negative consequences once they reach the age of 13, 16, 21, or even 64. We should all be aware of how these things can pull us into negative spirals and be on the lookout.
Here’s what took place in the Labs for the month of November 2023:
If you’d like to be a part of the MacSparky Labs, you can get more information and join right here.
Lately, I’ve been looking at a lot of fakes. Adam Savage did an excellent video comparing actual Apple products with knock-offs that look like Apple products on the outside but very much are not Apple products on the inside. Looking at the fake Apple power supply, I’d be afraid to use it.
On the woodworking side, there is a separate problem where manufacturers are copying innovative products and undercutting the inventors. The copies are often closer to the quality of the originals but rarely equal. (It’s easier without so many electronics involved.) So, consumers are saving a few bucks buying the copies.
As a lawyer, I saw the consequences of these rip-offs. One in particular I recall was a family business that ultimately failed when a foreign competitor copied their product, documentation, and branding and flooded the market at a cut price.
If you don’t have an opinion on knockoffs, you probably should. Setting aside the fact that they can be dangerous, It’s just crushing for a business that spends piles of time and money making an innovative product to have someone copy it as soon as it’s released (often right down to product colors and branding). So I don’t buy copies. If I can’t afford the original, I don’t buy anything. If you’re afraid of unknowingly buying knockoffs, be careful where you buy from. Whenever possible, go directly to the manufacturer.
Stephen and I are joined by David Smith, Malin Sundberg, and Ken Case on this episode of Mac Power Users to talk about developing for Apple’s platforms here in 2023.
This episode of Mac Power Users is sponsored by:
As we are now officially in the holiday season, I’ve been polishing off the official MacSparky Yule playlist. This includes my favorite holiday music by some of my favorite artists. It is heavily (but not entirely) jazz-focused. Apple Music subscribers can subscribe to it with this link. Happy holidays y’all.
P.S. The artwork in this post is the first AI-generated content to appear on MacSparky.com.
I’m now approaching two years since I threw my law practice shingle into the wood chipper. I could not be happier. David Foster Wallace once started a speech talking about some goldfish.
“Two young fish are asked by an older fish, “How’s the water?” and one young fish turns to the other and says, “what the hell is water?”
In my case, I didn’t realize how stressful the legal practice was until I got out of the water. Your support made that possible. Thank you.
Also, I’m running a short-time discount on all Field Guides. 20% off everything with the code “TURKEY1983”. Newsletter subscribers learned about this a few days ago.
It was quite the week over at the OpenAI Office. I’m sure someone will write a book about it at some point. From the outside, it looked like another example of the conflicting priorities that always result when a nonprofit owns a for-profit company. Regardless, those priorities got sorted out this week.
My only other comment on this is the irony that OpenAI is the company making the thing that many fear will replace their jobs. Yet, when push came to shove, OpenAI’s biggest concern was keeping their humans, not their robots.
Mike and I unpack the concept of multi-scale planning on this episode of Focused, and we share how we are using it to live in alignment with our vision and values.
This episode of Focused is sponsored by: