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Native Display Controls on macOS

MacOS supports controlling the brightness of attached displays via they keyboard. The user can even control monitors separately, simply selecting the controlled monitor via the mouse. I use that all the time.

Unfortunately, macOS and Mac monitors communicate through an arcane, apple-specific protocol instead of the standard DDC/CI protocol. This means that only some monitors that are explicitly made with macOS in mind work with the native macOS brightness controls.

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WordPress again…

I’ve been using PageKit for years, but is unfortunately no longer updated for PHP 8. So here we go again, WordPress!

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The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Product Lifespans

If the only metric for how long products should be used is how long they’re commonly used, we won’t be able to make longer-lasting products.

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Bait-And-Switch Loopholes

Bait-and-switch refers to the illegal practice of advertising a product or service, tempting customers to invest resources (time or money) based on the advertisement, and then changing the product once the customer has already invested, presumably to squeeze more money out of the transaction.

The problem that many products that rely on software to function, according to terms of service, come with components that are licensed, not sold, which essentially enables a loophole to legally apply bait-and-switch tactics to consumer products.

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Why can’t calls on iOS just be muted?

So many zoom calls

Simultaneous speaking

Why no speaker mute?

Tiffany McBride

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We need to find a way to reduce tire emissions already!

Electric cars with standard tires trade a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions for an increase in fine particulate matter. We need a solution.

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Why do people sell their data for digital, but not physical products and services?

Thought experiment: What if you go to a bakery and buy a bread roll for $2.99 and the baker says “you can have it for free if you give me all your family photos and the rights to analyze them using robots and sell your data.”

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Pixel-Perfect Graphics for Embedded Systems

This is an ode to pixel-perfect graphics and an explanation as to how, even with advancing technology, they are still important.

Great graphic design for embedded systems don’t only look great on the designer’s display device, but take the characteristics of the target display and environment into account.

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Why Apple’s ARM Transition is Going to Work

Today it happened. Apple did announce that they are, in fact, transitioning to custom-built ARM processors for Macs. Although they didn’t explicitly say “ARM” during the keynote today, I’m assuming their new CPUs will be based on the ARM architecture as the devkit they announced today is running their A12 ARM processor and it seems natural to consolidate the ecosystem.

Let me start by saying that this not just about the tech. The switch to using ARM is an obvious move that Microsoft has also made, as seen with the newly released Surface Book X. I’m sure it’s a great product, but Microsoft also has traditional Intel-based Laptops in their portfolio. If ARM is the future (greater power efficiency etc.), why isn’t Microsoft fully transitioning to ARM now? And what is Apple going to do better to make ARM Macs more popular than Windows PCs with ARM processors?

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How PBR and Photogrammetry are changing real-time asset workflows.

Historically, when working on technical art direction for a video game, every game was different. The 2D/3D art pipeline was defined by the visual style of the game, hardware capabilities and the render pipeline, which was often built specifically for a particular game.

But if the style you need is photo-realistic, why bother creating assets just for one project? Any photo-realistic asset would match the style and with tools like Quixel Mixer, artists can even employ workflows to batch-create stylized graphics using photo-realistic input assets.