Perhaps it's because I'm getting old and "stuck in my ways," or because the world is on fire, but I don't get exercised about Apple's corporate behavior and the European Union. I follow a number of "tech bloggers" (developers and "tech pundits" for lack of a better word), and I wish I could filter out any post that mentioned "DMA."

I don't care.

It just takes up finite attention. I skip the post, but I wish I could filter it from my feed.

This is the feature that's missing from NetNewsWire that I most want. A keyword list that will hide posts containing them.

I like the Miami Herald as a paper, and I subscribe to support its coverage of Florida. I like the fact that it has an RSS feed. It only contains click-bait titles and one-line teasers, but it's still a nice feature. It's made much less nice by including all the horror stories from other states about people killing each other for all the stupid reasons that people kill each other. And, for some reason, it carries a lot of stories about state lottery winners! I wish I could filter all that stuff out.

Back to the "app store" kerfuffle... Apps are like junk food. Candy. There are 278 "items" in my Applications folder on my iMac. Believe it or not, there are 59 apps in my Dock! I could probably get by with less than half of those. I have a lot of apps because I read about them, and I wanted to "see what it does." And then it would just sit there, taking up space. They're like cameras and calculators that way.

This is an artifact of a society with too much wealth that is too inter-connected and chasing all the wrong rewards.

Or it could be that I'm just a weak and sorry excuse for a human being. I suppose it could be that too.

Probably both.

Most of the things I kick myself over these days are the time and money I waste on "stuff." I never look at the app store unless someone writes about an app and says something remarkable about it. Which, if you spend any time in the tech world, is a lot. I suppose it's a testament to the strength of my character or the state of my checking account that I have only 278 "items" in my Applications folder.

I just paid to upgrade BBEdit. Why? Because it has super-powers? Because "I might need it someday"?

Yesterday I used Duplicate Detective for maybe the third or fourth time ever. I've had it for years, I don't know how many. Why did I use it? Because I'm a digital hoarder. Could I have done the same thing for free from the command line? I'm sure I could, but then I'd have to learn something.

Maybe it's time I did some kind of digital purge.

Binge and purge. Fall of the Roman empire. Is there a connection?

I should try to be kinder to myself. Soon enough, it won't matter.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:58 Sunday, 28 January 2024