> As has been typical in my career, when the vendor said they had a product, what they really meant was they had something vaguely resembling a product that vaguely matched what we needed, and with heavy customization they could torture it into doing what we needed.
How many times have I been accused of wanting to "reinvent the wheel" while facing this exact situation ? I can't count.
I’ve been running a Phillips 49” ultrawide for nearly 2 years now and it is simply the best thing I’ve ever used. The USB-C / display port KVM built in works a treat and makes swapping from my laptop to my desktop a single plug, and the monitor itself mostly behaves itself with every device I’ve tried it with including an iPad.
I wish it was higher resolution but I suspect going beyond its 5120x1440 current resolution is pushing the limits of most display connections and standards at this point.
> I want one big display, something like 27" or 32"
27" is big? I'm really curious what sort of setups people are running that they feel this way. I ran a 40" 4K monitor for years, and I'd really like the option to go to 5K 40" or even higher.
Same. I've tried multiple monitor setups a few times, but I always ended up actually using just the main one with the other ones displaying Spotify or email inbox all day.
I don't need that, it's more comfortable to bring Spotify to the front on the main screen than turn my head anyway.
I however feel limited using anything less than a 5k screen.
27” is still a bit too small for my taste and bigger screens usually don’t gove above 4k. The best I could find at the moment is a 34” 5k2k ultrawide. Unfortunately a lot of those are curved, which I hate. I would love something like a 36” 16:9 monitor with 8k resolution.
I was on a 32in 5k ultrawide.. trying out a 42 4k oled just now. My eyes are thanking me for the bigger screen realestate, but I did get used to the wideness of the UltraWide. Definitely better to go massive single in my view.
That OLED video look though, just can't be beaten..
Same here. I've gotten used to just having my laptop screen (14" mbp m1). It's fine. Having more screens is just confusing/distracting to me. The only time I use external screens is when presenting and I just put them in mirror mode.
Mostly using windows side by side is not a thing for me either. I look at one application at the time and I just give it the full screen. The sole exception to this seems to be finder windows for me.
There are lots of sub optimal things in the mac os UI. The key issue is feature interaction between features introduced over the years combined with obviously slipping standards on QA and UX. Steve Jobs would not have accepted a lot of the crap that slips through these days at Apple.
A good example is the the full screen mode in combination with the notch. You can't actually use the space next to the notch for anything else than the menu bar. Which just means full screen is a glorified "hide the menu bar thing". You don't actually gain any vertical space back if you use it with a lot of apps.
With the recent release, Mac OS defaults to having a transparent menu bar meaning that in dark mode and with the default background the menu bar is very bright. To fix this lovely bit of feature interaction, you just have to use a dark desktop image and turn off dynamic desktop backgrounds constantly changing the color. The sensible default of just making the menu bar background black isn't there because they want the dynamic desktop thing to always be visible unless you are full screen, which is not the same as having you window maximized. But obviously the maximize window button now makes your window full screen.
And speaking of desktop backgrounds. I don't care about them because there usually is something on top of my desktop. The only visible bit would be below the menu bar. The only time you see the damn background is when you are deliberately hiding all your applications. Why would you do that?
And of course full screen pretends that you have extra screens. So it's a hybrid that is like maximizing a window and plugging in a screen. So in terms of window management things get weird. Especially when you actually plugin an actual screen.
This stuff started escalating when they introduced full screen mode (aka. let's pretend hiding the menu is special), which is when they broke their dominant UX of always having the menubar visible and taking up space. Which now that we have the notch is the only use for that screen real estate.
Can we just loose the notch and get our screen real estate back? I just want to maximize windows and alt+tab between them. I mostly want the menubar unless I'm watching a video.
Apple itself is hopelessly confused on this topic. I recently experienced Apple TV on mac os. What were they smoking that it got released in that shape? It always plays the video in full screen but it keeps the main application window open separately. When you alt+tab away, you end back on the wrong thing. And sometimes when you hit escape it closes the full screen video but it keeps on playing. It's bizarrely buggy and dysfunctional. Complete amateur hour.
>The sensible default of just making the menu bar background black isn't there...
This may not apply to you since you mention using dark mode, but for those who use light mode, there is a hidden system preference you can use to force only the menu bar and dock to being dark. Easiest way to set this is with TinkerTool.
HTMX gets all the hype right now, but there are other tools in the same vein, my favorite being Unpoly (https://unpoly.com). Together with Shoelace (https://shoelace.style) you get nice GUIs real fast, without the burden of complicated dependency management and build steps. Also, you don't have to write a lot of JS, just what is needed for small enhancements, as it was meant to be. Some might say the main drawback is the tight coupling to your backend. In my case, this is also the main benefit as it integrates perfectly with the backend framework (Django).
- working outside
- wood is a joy to work with: touch feels good, looks good, smells good too
- you get to build cool things that are actually useful like sheds, car ports, house extensions, bridges, even simple furniture
- when it's done, it's done
- it's both intellectual and physical work, it's good for your body and your mind
- learn new things
My local musicians community decided to use only FB to communicate their gigs dates. I refuse to use FB. I no longer know when or where is the gig. I don't see my fellows anymore.
That is very similar to why I use FB. It is what people use.
I even admin and moderate FB groups.
In my case it is home education in the UK. It is what everyone else uses, so its where you can discuss things or ask questions. I just asked about parking at the exam centre where my daughter is doing her GCSEs (UK exams typically taken at 16). It is where I found a GCSE classical civilisation tutor for her. It is where I can use my experience to help others. It is where I can find out about local events and activities.It is where people find resources and courses and can discuss them with others. It is where discussion of approaches and how to do things happens.
How hard is it to discuss this topic with other people that have access to fb when you meet them around the city ? Honest question. Sure, it require more involvement than opening the Facebook tap and getting everything instantly, but at the end of the day, isn't your goal to getting involved in the community ? This will require some energy.
You are out of touch. Scenes and events really are that reliant on facebook. "Hey man, when/where's the next show?" "We dunno yet, but we'll post an event about it for sure."
There are some small, insular scenes where everybody knows everybody and word gets around, but those are getting fewer every day.
Been there, done that... "it's all on the page, just check it mate". And suddenly you're that annoying weirdo that refuses to do things like everybody else.
Maybe try explaining why you don’t use Facebook, and why it is not an appropriate, inclusive way to organize the group. Or, maybe Facebook has some kind of E-mail gateway that can notify people who are not on it (I have no idea, I’m not on Facebook either). You’re just one person, but if the group sees more people not participating because of their bizarre insistence on use of social media, maybe they can eventually be convinced to change.
This seems so weird to me. I help organize some local groups centered around hobbies and games, and none of them use Facebook because we know not everyone will be there, and we don’t want to exclude people. Sorry, but that musician group seems pretty poorly run.
To those people you are the weirdo refusing to use the convenient platform that everyone else is on. This stuff just does not enter their brains because it has become utterly normalised. To them it's not bizarre to insist on using social media, it's bizarre to insist on not using it.
Again: been there, done that. Good for you (and others, even if they don't know) that it worked, but in my case it didn't. Part of the reason is that FB is also the place where events get promoted. The integration is so tight that any other solution is an inconvenience to the normies, ie. the 99%. You have your events, your communication tools and your audience, all in one place, it's effective. FB is eating the world really... convenience for the masses.
Luckily, I have other hobbies that are less prone to this, mostly because they don't involve much event promotion if any at all and don't need any audience to exist. Example: my local shooting range uses a mailing list for communication and you can always hang with fellows at the club-house.
I'm a meetup organizer and sometimes get this but the other way. People insist that our current platform is not appropriate or inclusive because it requires an email signup, or the group chat is on a Meta-owned platform, or whatever. Who are you to say that your opinion on what's inclusive or not is correct? Choose something other than Facebook and you'll get others saying you're not inclusive because you're not there.
No one has "bizarre insistence" on use of social media, they're just there and it's the easiest option for all parties. People like you and me are the ones who are perceived as the ones bizarrely insistent on not being on social media. This doesn't make it wrong, and it's luckily slowly becoming more and more accepted, but it is important to keep in mind.
You are right that ideally groups like these should cater to all audiences but that's a lot of effort, and many organizers do it on a voluntary basis, not as a job. In my case, I know that 98% of people are included in the media that I use for my audience, and catering to the last 2% would double my workload. Not happening.
Since as far as I know, an E-mail address is required in order to sign up for Facebook and other social media, E-mail users must be a strict superset of Facebook users. It is clearly more inclusive of people.
As far as workload goes, we have not found anything lighter weight and less maintenance than an E-mail list.
How many times have I been accused of wanting to "reinvent the wheel" while facing this exact situation ? I can't count.
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