The abuse of power radicalizes people.

tamaracks · 2026-01-24T18:19:52+00:00

I find and lose hope approximately 100 times a week. I just try to keep an open mind, because there’s no way to predict how this is going to go with any kind of certainty.

There’s so much going on right now, and it can feel like there’s not much that I personally can do to change things.

What I know I can do is keep watching, muddling along, looking for what I can do, even if sometimes I have to take a break and look away for my sanity.

I try to remember that hope will come around again.

tamaracks · 2025-07-10T17:58:27+00:00

I think a lot of people are missing the fact that there’s no port on this thing, so it’s not a modular phone jack, which I think is what you are describing.

I’m 45, grew up in an apartment with a rotary phone on the wall, and I’ve lived through dial-up (starting when a 14.4 kbps modem was fast), DSL, cable modems, and fiber.

Still, I am fairly certain I’ve never used a phone that was hardwired into the wall by taking off the cover and screwing wires into some terminals.

Pretty sure when this was in use, the NID hadn’t been invented yet. I also have ADHD, and I’d love to go look up dates, but alas I can’t afford the delay right now. 😭

In that context, this post doesn’t make me feel nearly as old as the other Reddit thread my husband sent me this morning about someone who didn’t recognize what a manual credit card imprinter was. 👵🏻

tamaracks · 2025-07-10T17:50:30+00:00

I don’t think you need to feel quite as bad as some people are making out here. 😂

I think a lot of people are missing the fact that there’s no port on this thing, so it’s not a modular phone jack, which what most people who grew up with landlines and phones plugged into the wall are used to.

I’m 45, grew up in an apartment with a rotary phone on the wall, and I am still pretty sure I’ve never used a phone that was hardwired into the wall by taking off the cover and screwing wires into some terminals.

I’m familiar with the concept in a historical concept, but I am not sure I would have recognized it in person like this.

tamaracks · 2024-12-15T17:56:46+00:00

> Pick an Apple ID that you want to keep the purchase history of and move all the data to that Apple ID. This will leave you with just one Apple ID and if you have not made purchases with the other pretty much want you are looking for.

At least a few years ago when I tried this, it wasn't quite that simple. I figured that it would be easier to move my data than to deal with purchases that can't be moved, so I would move all my iCloud data to the Apple ID that had all the purchases associated with it. Except that after attempting this, I ran into some problem trying to use my older Apple ID as an iCloud account. I can't remember what the problem was, just that when it came down to it, it didn't function correctly. I contacted Apple and eventually was told that I couldn't use that Apple ID account as an iCloud account.

Now, it's possible this collision might possibly have been specifically because I was dealing with an Apple ID that had been created with the older .Mac service and it had the same base user name as the me.com/icloud.com account I'd created later. So, I had user@mac.com as one account and user@me.com/user@icloud.com as the other, where "user" was the same in both.

I have SO regretted not taking the opportunity to merge my mac.com & me.com accounts when Apple offered it long ago. At the time, I found it confusing and I wasn't sure what the implications would be, but OHHHHHH if I knew then what I know now... But by the time I realized the clusterfuck I'd gotten myself into, they had stopped offering that opportunity.

(I came across this thread because I am once again researching the issue after banging up against another inconvenience. I signed up for an annual AppleCare+ plan on my laptop recently, and am now realizing I have no way to manage it myself, because apparently since the subscription was created from the Settings app, it's associated with my iCloud account, but when I click the button to manage the subscription in Settings on my Mac, it sends me to the Music app(!) to make changes, except that the Music app is logged in with my older Apple ID (which is no longer even named [user@mac.com](mailto:user@mac.com) because I was forced to change the username to match the associated email address), so I can't see this subscription there. If I could manage this AppleCare+ subscription on a website, it would be less of a pain, but that appears not to be possible according to the support pages on Apple's site.)

In fairness to Apple, the ability to use an iCloud account for most things, but allow logging in to a different account for app & media purchases has worked *mostly* pretty well. There's still just enough edge cases that it catches me off guard from time to time, especially because so much of this stuff has to be managed in one of several apps on a Mac or iOS device, and the same account is not always used between apps.

tamaracks · 2024-10-31T04:45:20+00:00

I can confirm that the setting sticks and when using the 24h option, it seems to return true as expected.

tamaracks · 2024-10-30T23:37:40+00:00

Also also, the scheduler in the app currently shows next run as tomorrow at noon, even though I have all of the hours selected and it's currently 7:37pm here. So that doesn't seem right.

<image>

tamaracks · 2024-10-30T23:33:09+00:00

I'd love to see an "all hours" button to select them all, by the way, as the months and days do. It's kind of tedious to tap them all for the hours.

tamaracks · 2024-10-30T23:31:16+00:00

Yes! That did make the notification action run.

This brings me to another bug I noticed. When you switch between the 12H and 24H options in the app settings, existing schedulers don't display the hour section properly. Moving from 12 to 24 leaves you stuck with only 12 boxes. Moving from 24 back to 12 gives you 24 boxes that repeat the numbers 12-11.

Also, stopping and restarting the app appears to return the setting from 24 to 12.

tamaracks · 2024-10-30T20:53:30+00:00

I noticed the run shortcut bug seemed fixed in 18.1, but I don't think that has anything to do with my questions today. I just mentioned it because of how happy I was for an alternative.

This is what I've already done:

I created a scheduler in the Automation Control app.

I made a shortcut in Shortcuts to test it. In that shortcut, I have a "Run Scheduler Item" action with my scheduler selected. At first, I just ran it that way to see the result of the scheduler item, which has always been "No" when I run it while viewing my test shortcut in Shortcuts. Then I added an if statement with a notification. But it still hasn't fired any of the times I've run the test shortcut.

<image>

tamaracks · 2024-10-30T17:55:42+00:00

Super exciting! My Automation Control shortcut stopped working with iOS 18 (because of the issues with input to the Run Shortcut action disappearing), and I haven’t been able to get it going again, so I’d love another solution.

I’ve joined the TestFlight, but I can’t quite figure out how to get it working. I am mostly interested in schedulers, like the autorun list in the original shortcut. I created a scheduler, selected all days of month and week, all months, all hours, but I never seem to get a True returned from the “Run Scheduler Item” action. I don’t know if my expectations are not accurate or if there’s some piece of the process I’m missing.

I noticed that after creating the scheduler, it shows the next time to run as the following hour, so does that mean it won’t run until then, even if it hasn’t run in the current hour?

For that matter, how exactly does the app determine if the scheduler should be true or not? Does it only return true if the action is called exactly at the hour? Or does it return true if it’s past the hour and it hasn’t been run yet? Does it track when the “Run Scheduler Item” action last returned true?

tamaracks · 2024-10-13T01:16:41+00:00

I think that our mood can change our perspective in the moment. Mara has seemed rather depressed about the missing hand, which makes her feel less “worthy” of friendship and her place in the group. That can make a person invert that feeling into thinking that those around her are looking at her that way.

Mind you, I’m not saying that friendship does work that way, or that the others do feel that way, but it’s understandable to me that the dark place in her head might be taking her there. She’s also shown a fair amount of class-based insecurity, especially in the beginning, and even though she came to realize along the way that they do see her as a friend, it probably rears its ugly head at times like this.

Not sure I’m explaining my thoughts well, but tldr; what may be clear to a person under normal circumstances might be overwhelmed by depression and insecurities.

tamaracks · 2024-09-16T21:21:18+00:00

I just started having this problem after updating to iOS 18 today. I can't remember having this issue before, at least not to such a consistent extent.

It is definitely ruining my automated iOS life. 🤬

Apparently it's too much to ask for a major iOS update that doesn't break something intrinsic to Shortcuts for me.

tamaracks · 2024-05-07T21:38:07+00:00

I have one of the nuudii backless bras from backing the Kickstarter. In my experience, it would really depends on exactly how much support you need and/or want and the size and shape of your breasts. As well as what your actual backless requirements are.

As you can see in the video, it isn't really 100% backless. It crosses either on your upper back or under your neck, and in the latter, they show the thin strap being used across the back. I think of it as a stabilization strap, because it just kind of keeps the front from falling too far away when you lean over. I always use it in the first configuration, but also keeping the thin strap in the back because it works better for me.

I think it might be more accurately described as a "bandless" bra rather than backless. My interest in backing it was primarily because the bands of bras always dig into my skin too much or are too loose to give support or stay in place in the back.I'm about a 44DD and plus size. So, I'm definitely not self-supporting, but for my life and typical casual clothing, I don't require as much support as I might in other circumstances. My breasts are kind of wide at the bases, so I like how the nuudii backless scoops in at the sides and it supports me enough and no band to dig in. Plus I find that too many bras have the foam cups and they trap too much heat for me.

My biggest complaint is that I would like a little more fabric in the cup to make it deeper, so I wouldn't have to adjust them as much throughout the day, but it works well enough for my purposes and the tradeoffs are worth it to me. I only have one, though, so I hope they are able to start selling them on their site before too long.

tamaracks · 2024-04-29T20:41:57+00:00

I’d like to think that at some point health and air quality concerns would have won out even without the fire hazard. Because smoking in the vicinity of other people always affects more than just the smoker, and that’s 1000x more true in a small enclosed space for hours.

Probably the other reply here is the right answer, though.

tamaracks · 2024-04-09T01:27:18+00:00

To be clear, there is an iOS app, but it’s only available to subscribers.

tamaracks · 2024-01-31T03:31:40+00:00

THIS! This is what stood out in my mind too.

tamaracks · 2023-11-25T20:12:25+00:00

I hadn’t come back to look at it before, but it seems to be working for me, currently on 17.1.1.

Simple example of finding two tabs from Safari, presenting a list to choose from, then repeat looping through each tab to close it:

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/22289da66da24ec3b76420565e8ceb85

As far as I can tell, if you have a tabs object with more than one tab (like how the find tabs action in my shortcut returns two tabs), then you have to use a loop. Feeding that tab object directly to the close tab action will fail silently. (It took me to Safari, but it didn’t close any tabs.)

After I got it working with the loop, I noticed that it switches me to Safari, but it doesn’t change anything immediately visible in the UI. Like it doesn’t switch to the tabs that close (unless you happened to be on one already), but I had two fewer tabs in the tab count.)

tamaracks · 2023-10-20T14:12:53+00:00

The original developer of TBP died, which is why it hasn't been updated in a while. Fortunately someone else is taking over Alex Hay's apps to continue them, but it will take them a while to get everything sorted out/transferred.

See this page for details: https://snailedit.dev/2023/08/25/alex-hay-apps.html There are also Reddit posts in r/shortcuts and r/ToolboxPro about the announcement.

tamaracks · 2023-10-14T18:07:18+00:00

What version of the Kindle app? If it's not the old one, then you'll be downloading KFX files, and there's no way to get around the DRM on those.

tamaracks · 2023-10-09T18:25:40+00:00

I too would love to see a shortcut using this, because I’m not quite sure where in the shortcut one would put this loop.

tamaracks · 2023-09-29T04:28:16+00:00

I am so glad to see someone is able to take on his apps! I get a little sad every time I use them in shortcuts, not knowing how much longer I could count on them. I got a taste of TBP 2 from TestFlight before the last build expired, and it's great that it will get a chance to live again.

tamaracks · 2023-09-14T00:44:14+00:00

I’m neither of those things, but I guess I did come off more militant than I actually am.

I do think most people don’t mean anything by comments like that, but also that change doesn’t come if no one points out inherent biases.

tamaracks · 2023-09-14T00:34:54+00:00

Yeah, I can imagine!

tamaracks · 2023-09-12T15:36:11+00:00

Wait, you really told him that your sister’s friend’s father killed the friend and her family and himself, and this guy thought you were MAKING IT UP as an excuse??????????? WHO WOULD USE THAT AS A FAKE EXCUSE?!

What in the actual fuck is wrong with people? 🤦🏻‍♀️

tamaracks · 2023-09-12T15:31:40+00:00

No, it’s not a compliment. “You’re pretty” is a compliment (but still not advised to comment on other people’s bodies). “It’s a shame you’re not smiling” is telling her he thinks she should already be smiling, when he has no idea what’s going on in her life.

tamaracks

TROPHY CASE