thomasec

Witch does exactly this, and more! It's an amazing little program with lots of customizable options, and the ability to override default shortcuts:

https://manytricks.com/witch/

Yes! In fact, one at least one occasion, Kubrick proclaimed that Eraserhead was his favorite movie of all time. It blows my mind that Lynch made Eraserhead while he was still in school - imagine having your student film receive that sort of acclaim from the arguably the most respected director in the world.

I think you're missing the point of what Teenage Engineering is trying to do. For as simple as the Korg Vulca series is, it's still an synthesizer first. You need to have some familiarity with electronic instruments to understand the controls of the Monotron that you mention:

  Pitch 
  Rate 
  Int. 
  Cutoff Peak

Compare that to the controls on the Pocket Operator:

  Sound
  Pattern
  BPM
  FX
  Play 
  Write

If you were handed one of these with no experience making music, which one would you be more likely to get started with? Heck, the Pocket Operator even has cute animations that go with your beats!

I have tremendous respect for Korg, but I think Teenage Engineering is prioritizing fun and accessibility in a way that I haven't seen in my 30 years of making music. This may be a fluff PR piece, but I think they deserve a ton of credit for making something as intimidating as electronic instruments so downright fun and adorable.

I do not think this will go well for Google. They are not dealing with one or two companies going after them - we're talking about dozens companies building out cases over years that show potential anti-competitive behavior. Google will have to address each of these individually, and as long as one sticks, I think the dominoes start to fall. Think about all of the industries Google has entered over the years - travel, retail, real estate, news - these are all industries that have players with deep pockets, and mountains of data. It's totally worth the cost of going all-in if it means either they get a settlement, or Google has to make fundamental changes to their products, and/or ad network.

This is my grail guitar. I've been reaching out to random people for the last few years trying to acquire one. Not easy to find!

I think the ambiguity is kind of the point. If things were written out ("doing X is monopolistic"), then it would be easy for companies to operate in an noncompetitive manner, so long as they don't violate specific laws. Plus, the definitions of things like monopolies vary so much across industries, that it would be impossible to come up with specifics that cover every instance of anti-trust violations. I don't think it's perfect, but I do think it's more effective than the alternatives.

We had a similar (but thankfully, less serious) thing happen with Rover. We booked a dog sitter for 4 days with a woman named "Leslie". When we showed up to "Leslie's" place, the lady who we met did not match the person in the photo, and barely spoke any english. We were on our way to the airport, so I really didn't have a choice at that point but to leave our dog (I realize now I should have done more vetting, or met this individual in-person ahead of time, but the person I booked - Leslie - had dozens of positive reviews). After dropping off our dog, we received extremely vague updates/text messages over the next few days, and no photos. Things like - "Your dog is doing great", "he is behaving so well", etc... Whenever I asked for a photo, they would say they'd send one the next day.

Needless to say, it became obvious that whoever was watching our dog was not the person we were communicating with. Thankfully, our dog doesn't have special medication, or a specific diet that we needed to monitor. Who knows what would have happened if there was an emergency, and we needed to get in touch with one another.

These services like Wag and Rover have literally one job, and that is to make sure you trust the individuals watching your pet. The response from Rover was completely thoughtless, and it was clear they were going to do nothing to investigate the situation. The fact that they don't care that people like this woman who clearly has some sort of questionable scheme going on just shows how little they care about protecting their customer's pets.

It's amazing how many things Best Buy is doing right that have largely gone unnoticed over the last few years. While still not perfect, they've done more than almost any other retailer I can think of to modernize the shopping experience, while leveraging their existing advantages:

* Local Inventory with Google Shopping - if I search for almost any product on Google, Best Buy is usually the only major retailer that shows me local inventory for that product. I can't believe how few major retailers do this. If I search for an external hard drive on Google, I can see right away if I'm able to go down the street and pick it up.

* In Store Pick Up - this is almost as seamless as picking up an order at the Apple Store. Just yesterday I placed an order for in-store pick up at my local Best Buy. 20 minutes later I received a confirmation email that my order was ready, and all I had to do was show my ID when I showed up to the store. No signing a receipt, or making sure I had the credit card I placed the order with. The whole process took less than 3 minutes, and I could even add additional name(s) of people who were authorized to pick it up for me.

* Open-box items - I know these can be hit or miss, but at least with Best Buy you can inspect open box items before deciding to take them home (as opposed to Amazon Warehouse, where you have to go through the process of shipping it back if it's not what you expected). They even have these "outlet items" highlighted on both their app and website, so I can see which Best Buys around me have a specific open box item I'm looking for.

* Geek Squad Protection - this isn't perfect, and it can be expensive, but it's nice to know that if something goes wrong with a large item (such as a TV or appliance), someone will actually come to my house to check it out. They are also very willing to give you a brand new replacement if the repair is going to be expensive or labor intensive. I know I probably sound like an old fogey, but dealing with factory warranties directly through the manufacturer is always such a pain, and they almost never offer a full replacement.

* Best Buy APP - their app is great! It keeps track of all of my orders, and even tells me when something I've bought has an open recall. I think Target is the only company that does a better job combing both the in-store and e-commerce aspects into a single app.

They've also IMO done a good job keeping the in-store experience consistent between locations. I'm sure there are still some locations that have less helpful employees, or less reliable inventory, but this is happening less often for me.

The CPD and City of Chicago have long operated under their own terms, and they need to be very careful now that there is a national focus on them. The common perception from outsiders of the city has always been "well....that's just Chicago" - think when characters like Rod Blagojevich make it to the national spotlight. With high profile cases of police corruption at the very highest level, I think the "charm" of corrupt politics and government start to go away.

I lived there for 7 years before relocating elsewhere, and at no point did it ever feel like the city was operating on behalf of its residence. There is segregation unlike anything I've seen in any other major city that is entirely ignored, the "startup" culture that they've been trying to cultivate for years is complete BS and at odds with how anti-business the city is, and now people are starting to see what happens when large government organizations go unchecked for decades.

I guess the one silver lining about incidents like this is that it should put some national pressure (and hopefully, accountability) on the CPD. I am aware that things like this happen elsewhere, but having lived in about a half dozen cities in the US, I never felt like the problem was as large and systemic as I observed in Chicago.

Dig the minimalist layout. Translates well to mobile.

dig it