This just made me sad 
Harry Potter, ok. But both the master pieces of fantasy and sci-fi at once …
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I tried Tolkien. Unfortunately, I had read a review that pointed out a characteristic of his writing style and I just couldn’t get past it. Gave up after 50 pages. Not a fan of the movies either.
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What was the characteristic?
DMed, so as not to spoil it for others.
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Good habit, I sometimes do the opposite and almost always regret.
Got a 13" Macbook Pro 2015 that works perfectly for my needs but the siren song of the Macbook 16" is playing. Secretly hoping my laptop breaks down soon 
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My introduction to Dune was the the 1984 David Lynch movie. That was 3 hours of my life I’ll never get back. But after waiting 35 years I recently purchased the 2006 Audible version and really enjoyed it.
Some time ago I hear someone say he introduced his young son to Star Wars by only watching the first two (Episode IV & V) then telling him Han was OK. Personally I would have let him watch “Return of the Jedi” then skipped straight to the J.J. Abrams soon to be completed trilogy. I’ve enjoyed the movies, but don’t think I have never seen any of them more than twice.
Truth be told, I’m a fan of “The Expanse” - books & video.
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Trees. So much description of trees. I remember reading a page and a half of tiny print describing a particularly magnetic pine. The tree had no bearing on the story apart from being just a tree. If I am spending my time reading that much description, it should have,some relevance to the story.
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DM me please too, I’m curious
You probably want to avoid Neal Stephenson then 
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Again, all this is just my opinion. No offense to anyone!
- I hate to control my Apple Watch, especially running app from the grid/list or browsing settings or notifications.
- Tried Hazel and I see no real use case other than filing my phone bills (but Alfred’s file actions do this equally fast, yet not automated)
- Besides Finder’s column view it is a worse file browser than Windows Explorer
- TextExpander is overpriced, because RocketTypist basically does the same thing for a fraction of the cost, if you do not immediately need the iOS keyboard. Also TextExpander is clunky and unpleasant to look at.
- Drafts is overrated, overpriced, clunky and unpleasant to look at.
- OmniFocus is (and other Omni Group apps are) overrated, overpriced, clunky and unpleasant to look at
- DayOne is too pricey for what it offers and the app feels buggy
- In Europe almost no one uses Messages and it is therefore useless
- Outside the US Macs are still less common and Keynote slides won’t cut it, especially if you have to hand in a PPT(X) or can’t bring your own device to run the presentation from. MS Office still leads the business world.
- Excel still is the best in class, if you do not want your data in Google’s hands and do not need the translate function of Google Sheets
- Apple Photos is still bad
- Siri is still bad
- Dictation and voice commands are still bad, especially when you live outside the US and have to lead a bilingual life
- Subscriptions suck
- I often defer tasks on iOS and iPadOS to do later on my Mac, as I can do things 10x as fast there
- Bought DevonThink twice, but still haven’t set it up properly
- Shortcuts are horrible to maintain and I’ve dozens of broken Shortcuts, which I find are too much of a drag to fix or delete
- Most of the indie developers are too snarky and fit the cookie cutter template of the grumpy tech guy
- Toggle is overrated
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Good Plan. I replied in the same spirit.
I am not sure if this is a 'contrary opinion"?
Me too, the whole Home Kit stuff leaves me cold. My wife likes it and I leave her be. I hate Alexa listening all the time and the lights going. I talk to myself when I work and sometimes it starts flashing and even talks to me. I would throw it in the bin. We have a pin front door lock now that has a code. I was fine with the old key to tell you the truth. I don’t see any of it making anything easier. I can see if you had a whole building or amphitheater why voice command lights might be useful… but at home…
By the way I am really conscioulsy. I don’t think we are thinking this stuff through very well communally as it were. I am for simple high tech energy saving solutions for example. That means just insulation and good building mostly. I don’t even want a lot of lamps and ambient lights all over the place. In my old London flat I just had a single ceiling bulb for 20 years and a bedside lamp.
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I’m not sure that’s a contrary MPU opinion, but: Yup. I fear forever bad.
Every Mac OS iteration is like Lucy holding the football (of decent photo management), and an upgrade just yanks that football away.
I can’t believe I forgot my most contrary opinion, I still like Airmail! The mobile version still does what I need it to do without a subscription.
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Some Stephenson is fantastic. “Snow Crash,” “Cryptonomicon” and “The Diamond Age,” to name three.
I am currently reading “Fall: Or Dodge in Hell,” his latest book. It condenses about 75 pages of some of the best technology satire ever written into 892 pages of prose.
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I love the Photos app! What about it is considered bad? The editing has gotten progressively better. Cloud synch has performed perfectly for me. As a tool for keeping track of images it seems to work very well. Granted, it lacks the power features found in Lightroom but for non-professionals I think it’s a fantastic app.
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Funny enough I just went over to my neighbor for a cup of coffee, I pick up his mail sometimes if he is away: as it happened he has a fairly new Macbook, maybe 9 months. He told me to look at it for him. Sure enough the “b” key sticks and feels wrong. I told him to take it in… It really is a ‘thing’ I am afraid and a real black eye for Apple.
I have tried Hazel, TextExpander, Alfred, Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, and many more apps.
The only benefit I have found is Hazel. It helps in keeping my Downloads folder organized into sub-folders (Documents, Images, PDFs, etc) and then I clean out those sub-folders over to my NAS when needed. Hazel also helps when moving hundreds of photos from one location to another and doing all the renaming I need.
I have tried to get into TextExpander, Alfred, Shortcuts, and Keyboard Maestro…it just never lasts. Key example “shortcut to open a new sheet in App X” and this whole convoluted process to start that automation…versus…keep App X (assuming it’s used frequently in the dock and just tap instant)
Not a trekkie at all. I do like Star Wars, need to re-watch everything now that I have Disney+
I love Omnifocus, but I took a break from trying to copy everyone else’s style. (excessive tagging, high energy, low energy, morning, night, etc) I just group them all by project name, give them a deadline and go through them.
At some point, I would like to “create” more than I “consume” digitally.
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For me the part of Keyboard Maestro I like is the ‘keyboard’ part, taps don’t make it 
It is something you have to aquire a strategy with though I think. Try using it with palettes, even conflict palettes. I will recommend @MacSparky 's field guide. It really will transform your stance towards Keyboard Maestro; really.
Stephenson is probably my favourite author, but yeah, the man can throw down a lot of words.
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