Thursday, June 11, 2015
In OS 10.10 Yosemite at home, I disabled Spotlight Suggestions because when I typed "iterm" it would frequently suggest as the first item Alice Dev Team's Go2Shell from the App Store instead of George Nachman's iTerm2 which was already installed on my computer. Aggravatingly, it was not consistent in this behavior. Sometimes iTerm2 was the first item, but most times it was second. I can't be productive if I sometimes have to press the down arrow before Enter when I want to launch iTerm. I thought, no problem, I'll just reorder Mac App Store to be lower than Applications in Spotlight preferences, but there was no Mac App Store category to reorder. There was a Spotlight Suggestions category, but—grrr!—it was already in position #2 under Applications in position #1 even though in reality it was putting the suggestion before an application on my computer. Since I now did not trust Spotlight Suggestions at all, I unchecked "Allow Spotlight Suggestions in Spotlight and Look up," and that resolved the problem. The other spotlight suggestions would have been welcome, but this feature isn't working correctly for me, and I can't trust it to do so enough to keep it on. I have mentally added Spotlight Suggestions to my list of Apple technologies I do not trust. On the other hand, the batch rename feature in Yosemite is a pleasant surprise. I haven't tried it yet, but it's nice to know it's there. Yesterday evening I installed a Google Chrome extension called Word Replacer so that I could replace [certain annoying strings now commonly found in news headlines] with null strings (actually, space characters, since null strings did not work) so that I don't have to look at them anymore. My list so far: everything you need to know about, what comes next, who comes next, here's what, what to expect from, here’s what, here’s why, here’s where, here’s who, everyone should know, you may not know. Additionally, I opened all my browsers and in AdBlock Plus preferences I unchecked "Allow some non-intrusive advertising." Added the Google Chrome extension called BehindTheOverlay. It's a lot of work to remain sane in today's world. Breakfast at home: half order of granola with unsweetened soy milk. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Lots of encryption followup with Reba all day. Date format styling meeting was rescheduled. Small web edit for Cindy: employers page. Thank you lunch with the (mostly) 218 staff in room 416: pizza and salad from Amici's. Sent Cindy and Susie my performance evaluation self-appraisal. Prepared P3 encryption signups list handoff to Reba. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: deli thai noodles, heated, water. Upon inspecting the garden I found that one of our sage plants was almost entirely buried. Also, a day or two ago our parsley plant was similarly disturbed; a mound of dirt had mysteriously appeared. We don't know what is causing these problems. We suspect an animal but we don't know what kind or what motive it might have. I carefully unburied the sage and replanted it. The parsley plant has been completely destroyed. Added the following to Word Replacer in Chrome: you need to know, everyone must know, everyone needs to know. House chores. Late snack: ramen with vegetables.