Felix Schwarz

@felix_schwarz
575 Followers
463 Following
221 Posts
Indie since 1995. macOS/iOS/kext/web dev. I run @IOSPIRIT & make @RemoteBuddy, @Vidimote & more. I mostly write about software development, indie life, research and environmental topics. Born 341 ppm.
Bloghttps://www.felix-schwarz.org
Companyhttps://www.iospirit.com
App accounts@IOSPIRIT @RemoteBuddy @Vidimote
Blueskyhttps://bsky.app/profile/felixschwarz.bsky.social
TIL the S.M.A.R.T. power on hours of the drives in a rented server have now lapsed at least twice (integer overflowing at 65.536 hours), meaning they've run for ~132K hours (~15 years) non-stop. 🤯

Iā€˜m remembering my friend @uliwitness today, who died last November.

He was a wonderful friend, a community builder, a musician, and an incredibly talented developer. He also laughed the hardest at my really bad jokes, which made me love him even more. I’ll miss you a lot Uli!

@daniel That really hits. Uli was one of the first Mac developers I got to know in person, almost 20 years ago, when he was working on EyeTV at Elgato. He was always kind, super helpful, interested and interesting. Knowledgable, a pleasure to talk and listen to. I wish I had spent more time with him at the Macouns I attended. R.I.P. Uli - and thanks for everything!
@Cykelero Happy it worked out for you as well as it did for me. The ZFS NAS I built with it has been going strong and without any issues the whole year.
āœ… COVID and flu shots for this season

TIL a new word: workslop.

"AI-generated ā€˜workslop’ is here. It’s killing teamwork and causing a multimillion dollar productivity problem, researchers say"

"41% of workers have encountered such AI-generated output, costing nearly two hours of rework per instance and creating downstream productivity, trust, and collaboration issues."

Via Harvard Business Review:
https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity

… with CNBC reporting on the paywalled parts:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity-and-teams-researchers-say.html

Recommended, interesting reads.

AI-Generated ā€œWorkslopā€ Is Destroying Productivity

Despite a surge in generative AI use across workplaces, most companies are seeing little measurable ROI. One possible reason is because AI tools are being used to produce ā€œworkslopā€ā€”content that appears polished but lacks real substance, offloading cognitive labor onto coworkers. Research from BetterUp Labs and Stanford found that 41% of workers have encountered such AI-generated output, costing nearly two hours of rework per instance and creating downstream productivity, trust, and collaboration issues. Leaders need to consider how they may be encouraging indiscriminate organizational mandates and offering too little guidance on quality standards. To counteract workslop, leaders should model purposeful AI use, establish clear norms, and encourage a ā€œpilot mindsetā€ that combines high agency with optimism—promoting AI as a collaborative tool, not a shortcut.

Harvard Business Review

macOS Tahoe UI has a HUGE new feature for folks like me who have 24/7 Mac Minis running and access them remotely: you can now type the boot password remotely via SSH!

Power on the Mac, then SSH to it. A simple SSH server will handle your request. Typing the password there is equivalent to typing it on the keyboard. The connection then closes and the machine boots normally.

Combine this with "Start up automatically after a power failure" and you can ditch that KVM! #macadmins

@ricobeck Gute Besserung!

Vidimote 1.9 for Safari for #macOS26 #Tahoe is out!

What's new:
- redesigned PiP extension: now with position slider & Skip button
- overlay actions like Skip & PiP now grouped
- adopts liquid glass in native UI

Web: https://www.iospirit.com/products/vidimote/#mac
Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/vidimote-for-safari/id1585702412?mt=12

When Apple announced Pasteboard Privacy in May, the general assumption was that it'll arrive in the next major macOS release.

But AFAICS - unless you turn it on explicitly via defaults - it seems absent in the macOS 26 RC.

There's also no mention in the macOS 26 release notes - and the last AppKit release notes Apple published were for macOS 14.

What happened to it? Is it still coming?

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/05/12/pasteboard-privacy-preview-in-macos-15-4/

Michael Tsai - Blog - Pasteboard Privacy Preview in macOS 15.4