Digichelle

Quick macOS 27 impressions!

Pros:

⁃ Liquid Glass is far more tolerable now, especially with the slider pushed all the way to tinted. Corners now have a consistent and tighter radius. Sidebars have reverted to the pre-Liquid Glass look, doing away with the awkward and overwrought overlay look. In short, it’s a welcome return to sanity.

⁃ Menus sport far less icons! They haven’t been eliminated entirely, but they’re few and far between. Again, a welcome return to sanity.

⁃ The stoplight icons now sport a subtle glassy appearance. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Aqua, but more restrained. I dig it! (And really, I dig anything that makes buttons look like actual buttons.)

⁃ I’m not sure if my Mac is actually running smoother than it used to, but it certainly feels like it is. Everything I do is a little bit snappier than before.

Cons:

⁃ Much, much harder to avoid AI features. There’s no longer a master toggle switch to turn it all off. Instead, you have to disable components individually, and it’s not super obvious how to do it. (More on that in a sec.)

⁃ Even if you disable everything, certain pieces remain, such as a 30+ GB local AI model and the Image Playground app. I haven’t tried to mess with the former. As for the latter, there’s no way to hide or remove it, because macOS treats it as an integral part of the OS and protects it accordingly. All my attempts resulted in “operation not permitted” errors in the Terminal.

TL;DR: I love the Liquid Glass improvements and the under-the-hood optimization, but hate the (mostly) forced AI.

Overall, the pros outweigh the cons. Feels like Apple’s back on the right track, AI nonsense notwithstanding. I find myself using my MacBook Air more because the experience is so much nicer than it was under macOS 26 Tahoe.

One more thing! Here’s how to disable the AI features:

1. Don’t opt into the Siri beta.

2. Prevent the system from prompting you to install the ChatGPT extension by going to System Settings > Siri > ChatGPT and turning off Setup Prompts.

3. Image Creation and Writing Assistance can be disabled in System Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy > Siri.

Is there anything I missed? Please let me know!

This holiday season, remember—if someone refuses an alcoholic drink, DO NOT ASK THEM WHY. Sincerely, your friendly neighborhood recovering alcoholic.

#sober

🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸 ¡ESPAÑA! 🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸

A key part of empathy is telling fascists to fuck off into the sun.

Sooooo, I’ve been seeing more ants in my kitchen lately, and I’ve been wondering if it’s because of the heat (low 30s Celsius/low 90s Fahrenheit) here in LA. And then it occurred to me, OH WAIT, I KNOW A FEDIVERSE ANT EXPERT!

@futurebird@sauropods.win, any idea what’s going on?

CSS proficiency is such a blessing. I love being able to purge websites of annoyances. Apps too, given how many of them are just Chromium instances in a trench coat.

But damn, they sure make it difficult, with gibberish class names and all that. The selectors I have to write to get around that damn near break my brain. 🫨

RE: @coreysnipes@hachyderm.io

I got one of these laptops from @coreysnipes@hachyderm.io, and it’s working great! Given that this is a circa 2012 ThinkPad T430s, it runs @archlinux@fosstodon.org, @kde@floss.social, @libreoffice@fosstodon.org, and @Vivaldi@social.vivaldi.net really, really well. It’s a damn shame that companies like Microsoft declare computers like this obsolete when they have so much more life left in them.

I’m happy that I got to save this particular machine from the scrap heap, and happy that I finally have a dedicated #Linux machine. And it’s not just any machine—it’s an honest-to-goodness ThinkPad that may outlive me. Seriously, it’s so friggin’ solid, and I love it.

Thanks again, Corey! ❤️

#ThinkPad T480 acquired, #ArchLinux installed, and everything is now good to go! Don’t get me wrong—I still love my T430s. But the T480 is faster, lighter, and has a significantly better screen, making it a better #Linux daily driver. Can’t wait to go places (literally and figuratively) with it!

Please, please, PLEASE let this be the beginning of the end. The bubble needs to pop and Silicon Valley’s irrational exuberance must end, for the good of us all.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/23/ai-stocks-sell-off-us-markets

It’s Patch Tuesday (technically, the day after), and once again, I’m annoyed by Microsoft fuckery. Major Linux and Mac updates only restart once. Why do theirs restart twice?

Admittedly, this wouldn’t be such a big deal if I used BitLocker drive encryption rather than VeraCrypt (which makes me enter my decryption password on every boot). But I wouldn’t be caught dead using BitLocker.

Seriously, fuck Broadcom. It takes considerable effort to stand out in this era of unabashed corporate greed, and boy howdy, they did it.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/06/tesco-moving-40000-server-workloads-off-vmware-amid-broadcoms-abusive-conduct/

#Fediverse friends! Thinking about switching email providers. What do y’all think of Fastmail and Tuta? Are there other options I should consider?

Please note: self-hosting is NOT an option. I have neither the time nor the patience for that!

(Feel free to boost. Looking for a wide range of opinions here!)

I used to love Roku. Their streaming boxes were a fantastic value, and super reliable to boot. But I’ve grown less enamored with them since they started cramming increasingly obnoxious ads into every corner of the home screen. Now that Fox is buying them, I’m heading for the exit.

Apple TV, here I come?

https://www.theverge.com/streaming/950116/fox-roku-takeover

The worst thing about having a used ThinkPad is wanting to buy another used ThinkPad.

*closes eBay browser tab, slowly backs away from computer*

First of all, thank fuck. I’m glad this stupid, unnecessary war is finally coming to a close.

But also, it was a stupid, unnecessary war. There was no need for all this bloodshed and turmoil. It was instigated by the absolute worst people alive, driven by a combination of idiocy, ignorance, greed, and cruelty. They need to be stripped of power and brought low, for the good of all humanity, sooner rather than later.

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/14/nx-s1-5858099/us-iran-trump-deal-end-war-hormuz

Looks like Stevie Bonifield of @verge@mastodon.social installed Linux (specifically, Linux Mint) on their used ThinkPad X1 Carbon. ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US! 😂

As some of you know, I just joined the club myself. Arch Linux on my ThinkPad T480 is a goddamn delight. I considered a dual-boot scenario with Windows 11, because technically, the T480 meets Microsoft’s official system requirements. So glad I went all-in on Linux, though. It truly feels like MY computer, one that respects my choices instead of pushing someone else’s on me. No forced AI, no ads, no crapware, none of that nonsense. It has everything I want and nothing I don’t.

So yeah, if you’re considering getting a used ThinkPad (or any other old PC) to run Linux, go for it! You’ll be saving one more perfectly good (but supposedly obsolete) computer from the scrap heap, and Linux will breathe new life into it. Mine is eight years old, and I imagine it’ll last another eight or more!

https://www.theverge.com/tech/905946/windows-11-forced-obsolescence-linux-thinkpad

Happy May Day, a.k.a. actual Labor Day, the one that actually celebrates and uplifts workers—unlike the ersatz American Labor Day, which only plays lip service at best. (Seriously, when I had a “normal” job, I always worked on Labor Day. It was NOT a paid holiday, and that would’ve been too much to ask for. 👀)

Anyway! Let 2026 be the start of a massive pushback against the billionaires, the corporations, and the politicians who take everything and give us nothing. Remember—there are far more of us than there are of them. And also, they need us, but we don’t need them. Let’s remind them of that.

Man, I love it when my instincts about someone are right on the money. I’ve long believed that Sam Altman is absolute scum, and it turns out that’s a profound understatement.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/what-the-heck-is-wrong-with-our-ai-overlords/

This AAA graph of fuel prices sure looks an awful lot like the Trump regime’s middle finger, pointed at all of us. They started a pointless war for no good reason, and all of us are (literally) paying for it.

(To make matters worse, they’re trying to pull us away from EVs and towards gas guzzlers, adding insult to injury.)

I don’t want Hollywood to fail, but Hollywood executives are a bunch of fear-driven fail sons who are all but guaranteeing a slow, painful decline and ceding ground by the acre to the brave and bold elsewhere.

https://www.out.com/gay-tv-shows/jacob-tierney-heated-rivalry-canada

#Fediverse friends! First of all, thank you to all of you who chimed in with your favorite email providers. You’ve given me a lot to think about!

Now I have another challenge for the hive mind, and this one may be a wee bit trickier: cloud storage providers!

Currently I use OneDrive, but I really, really want to move away from that for a whole bunch of reasons. Whatever replaces it needs to support iOS, Linux, Mac, and Windows, as I use all of these platforms. End-to-end encryption would be nice, but it isn’t an absolute requirement in my case.

It looks like pCloud fits the bill, but I’ve heard next to nothing about it. To those of you who use it, how are you finding it? Also open to other suggestions!

Please note: self-hosting is NOT an option. I have neither the time nor the patience for that.

Thanks in advance!

RE: @panic@social.panic.com

Y’all, I think we found the killer app for Apple Vision Pro!

@mariyadelano@hachyderm.io My mom always made a big deal of remembering people’s birthdays, so I grew up thinking everyone else did too. Fast forward to now, and most of my friends and acquaintances—even ones I’ve known for years—don’t remember or care. To be fair, they don’t make a big fuss about their own birthdays. Still, I find it strange and kinda sad.

So yeah, I usually drop hints, some more obvious than others. My favorite? Singing, “It’s my birthday, and I’ll cry if I want to, cry if I want to! YOU WOULD CRY TOO IF IT HAPPENED TO YOU!” 😂😭

Hey @futurebird@sauropods.win, saw this, thought of you!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/15/ant-smuggler-sentenced-to-a-year-in-jail-by-kenyan-court

On one hand, super thrilled about the new auto-hide UI feature in @Vivaldi@social.vivaldi.net 7.9! At long last, I’m using vertical tabs with thumbnails on my Mac, the way I already am on my Linux and Windows machines. Before, I didn’t because vertical tabs cut into the viewable area for websites too much on a 16:10 screen. No longer!

Also thrilled that the Mail component finally has proper plain text composer support! Yeah, I know, it was possible to send plain text emails before by simply not applying any formatting. But now it’s far more obvious, and plain text renders in a monospaced font, which is how it ought to be.

Unfortunately, Vivaldi’s Mail component is nigh useless to me without CardDAV sync support. Please, Vivaldi team, add this ASAP! If you agree, please chime in here!

https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/53314/contacts-carddav-sync

Sounds like Microsoft has heard the many complaints about Windows 11’s many issues. I’m hoping this means they’ll move away from flooding the OS with ads and AI and towards making the overall experience more pleasant, more responsive, more stable, and more secure. I also hope that they follow through on this, and that this isn’t a list of empty promises.

Still mad that I couldn’t get Linux to install on my gaming PC. I’ll give it another shot eventually, but for now, I’ll take a better and more tolerable Windows 11.

https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2026/03/20/our-commitment-to-windows-quality/

*panicked velociraptor screech*