My own private server
Over a decade ago, I wanted to set up a server of my own. My main reason was to have a blogging and email platform whose contents didn't depend on advertising, and wouldn't be otherwise be subject to corporate scrutiny. I played around with the idea for about a year before I called it quits. I recognized…
Using BG3 to understand Mac OS face recognition
In a post in my BG3 series, I observed that, for reasons detailed in that post, I'd taken over five thousand screenshots from Baldur's Gate 3. Through a rather tedious process, those images were transferred to my Photos Library on Mac OS. Let's set aside the question of whether that number of photos was excessive. What I…
Drifting to the left
TL;DR: If your game controller isn't working, it's not your fault. My apologies if you clicked on this post expecting to see a political discussion. It's difficult to talk about the real topic of this essay without using the word "left". The actual topic? Joystick drift on a PS5 controller. A trivial topic, to be sure. There…
BG3 on the Mac
If you regularly read this blog, you know that I've posted a lot about Baldur's Gate 3. You also may remember my long discursive posts on using a Macintosh desktop. Therefore, here's the post you've been waiting for: A lengthy description of my problems running BG3 on my Mac. (If I could, I would have added "...…
Split conversations in MacOS Messages
The principle reason I'm writing this post is that I just got off the phone with Apple Tech support. They gave me to answer to a question I asked them that's been asked in a couple of other places: Mac Messages Splitting Named Group Chat Into Unnamed But Same Group on the Apple Discussion Forums Group text…
ChatGPT and me
For a lazy Sunday-morning blog post, and in the spirit of how one Googles oneself occasionally, I asked a question of ChatGPT: Tell me about William Seligman at Columbia University William Seligman is a Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He specializes in macroeconomics, monetary economics, and financial economics. His research interests include the study of financial…
Playing Portal on a Silicon Mac
It's been a while since my last tech post. Time for another one. The games Portal and Portal 2 are two of the best video games ever made. They're both basically puzzle games. What makes them different from other games? The clever use of space. The key tool of Portal is the "portal gun". It instantly connects…
Upgrading from Mojave: Keyboard, Audiobooks, etc.
About two years ago I wrote a series of posts on why I didn't want to upgrade the operating system on my 27-inch iMac. You've guessed it: I had to upgrade last October. That 2013 iMac was showing increasing problems, and there were software incompatibility issues that become too much to overlook. In this post, I'll review…
A Mac user tries Windows
It had been a long time since I tried to use Microsoft Windows. Occasionally, there'd be times at work when someone with a Windows machine had a problem. I'd look at the screen, do a web search, and followed instructions. (That's what they pay me for!) But I really didn't work with Windows. I haven't actually fiddled…