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jblake

@[email protected]

Artist, illustrator, app and game developer in DTX. Exiled ad agency creative director. 🏳️‍🌈

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@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

I cancelled my Amazon last. year, but in researching a replacement part for our oven, I came across these wonderful AI generated images that make absolutely no sense.

image/png

csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake er—the thing where it breaks your oven and food comes out raw is the desired "after" scenario...?

Makes me think it's not just the images that are AI-generated here. Unsurprising, but good god.

jblake OP ,
@jblake@mastodon.social avatar

@csilverman Sure your food is raw but your clothes are so soft!

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

Updates for all Affinity apps today. I hope I am not looking for an alternative tomorrow. :(

csilverman , (edited )
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake Yeah, I'm uneasy about this, and the Halloween date is a bad joke no matter what they do. They are where they are because a lot of us took a chance on them.

I personally don't think Affinity is moving to subs (yet) since going the rentware route would kill any chances they have of catching up to Adobe. As @octothorpe pointed out, Affinity tools are not—at best—compellingly better than CS right now. Lifetime licensing is the most significant advantage they have over Adobe right now.

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

RE: https://mastodon.social/@Sarahp/115385263600769327

Another reason to ditch Spotify.

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

In the spirit of retroStrip, I've been daydreaming about a simple macOS music player that is theme-able like they used to be, but more importantly, without its own music library/database. I should be able to create a playlist based on files I have already organized in the Finder.

That would mean no sandbox of course, but my biggest personal win with retroStrip was figuring out software distribution without the AppStore.

csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@scops @jblake oh yeah, that was very cool also. I think you could even play internet radio with that, too. I don't remember that it was possible to create new Audion themes, though; being able to create my own designs is what I really want to do.

scops ,
@scops@social.tchncs.de avatar

@csilverman @jblake it's easier than ever to create themes for audion (viewer) since the information is no longer stored in resource forks.
Take a look:

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

Creative Freedom... should I be nervous?

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/

kenSwinson ,
@kenSwinson@indieweb.social avatar

@jblake I'm very nervous

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

Is this the same agency that changed HBO to Max.

https://www.msnbc.com/news/msnbc-changing-name-ms-now-rcna225560

jblake OP ,
@jblake@mastodon.social avatar

This looks like one of those weird freedom news dot com weirdo sites conspiracy theorists use to back up their claims. It's really bad.

csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake And the fact that they felt the need to attempt some tortured backronym gives me serious "tronc" vibes. "My Source News Opinion World" sounds like a propaganda operation that a foreign government would come up with if it wanted to sound American.

I don't know how these decisions get made. I always wonder who you have to be, and what level of groupthink you have to be exposed to, in order to look at something like this and think "yes, this sounds professional."

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

Yuzu iMac g3. There should have been a yellow one.

Yellow iMac. Definitely not lemon.
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jblake OP ,
@jblake@mastodon.social avatar

@csilverman @godofbiscuits that PowerBook is awesome!

godofbiscuits ,
@godofbiscuits@sfba.social avatar

@csilverman @jblake I never thought I’d see a new to me Mac again. Thank you for this! ❤️

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

This feels solid enough for a 1.0 release, and I think I've figured out most of the challenges of selling software outside the App Store.

https://motorcycl3.com/retroStrip/

There's a full version, a free version, and three limited editions if all you're into is NeXT, BeOS, or Aqua.

They are all equally theme-friendly, so the limited editions are maybe a bit ridiculous, but also kind of fun I think. Or maybe shopping for sneakers has ruined my brain.

csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake aw man—this would've been an instabuy if I had any Macs running 15. I'm generally pretty cautious about upgrading; any plans to bring this to earlier systems, or would that be too difficult?

jblake OP ,
@jblake@mastodon.social avatar

@csilverman So... oddly enough, creating a non-square window in SwiftUI requires some hooks that were added with Sequoia, which surprised me. I will continue to investigate.

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

One more render...

ResEdit icon in B3D.
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csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake ah, the face of many youthful misadventures...

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

BeBox hand-held.

csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake 😍

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

This felt like a low bar in terms of coding, but Notes has turned into such a massive app - lots of amazing functionality in another full-screen SplitView. This isn't a criticism of Notes – it's amazing! But it's no longer an app I can use to jot down random things I need to keep handy temporarily.

jblake OP ,
@jblake@mastodon.social avatar

I also managed to finish the BeOS theme. It's based on the earlier BeOS 1.1, which had tiles along the side similar to NeXT (http://www.typewritten.org/Media/Images/beos-dr8.1.png).

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

I had this less-than-stellar theme idea and of course I want to avoid any legal gray areas (naming it "Stickies") so I used it as an opportunity to throw in a Romy and Michele reference.

Screen shot of a macOS app, work in progress.
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csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake I love watching this evolve—just gets better and better.

jblake OP ,
@jblake@mastodon.social avatar

@csilverman Thank you Chris!

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

Spent most of the day fixing some SwiftUI weirdness. It's too easy to get over-confident!

Afterwards more theme work. A nod to Netscape Navigator. For the aqua era, a throwback to the fruit-theme-able OS X version of Internet Explorer. and finally, how Apple should have flattened the Safari icon, in my very humble opinion.

A concept for a Safari icon.

A concept for a Safari icon.
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csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake this is just so cool.

jblake OP ,
@jblake@mastodon.social avatar

@csilverman Thanks Chris!

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

I'm still tinkering with this idea and while *the UI is actually, surprisingly pretty easy to create in SwiftUI, I am curious how many system controls will be available with Mac security the way it is. That will be the next step.

Either way, is there an interest in a theme-able version of the Control Strip, sadly retired in 1996?

A themed version of the Apple Control Strip from 1996.
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csilverman ,
@csilverman@mastodon.social avatar

@jblake whoa. I'm definitely interested, especially for things like screen resolution and Night Shift.

(Also would love having something on my screen that's platinum again)

@jblake@mastodon.social avatar jblake , to random

I reimagined the BeOS icons in Blender a long time ago, but the software has evolved a lot since then (and my own ability to use it), so I thought I'd refresh them for the year.

Or maybe I just needed an excuse to spend a few hours reminiscing about BeOS.

https://motorcycl3.com/beos/

BeOS icons, created in Blender 3D software.
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