iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 07/10/2026

How it’s going: the new ChatGPT app for macOS

Screenshot of the ChatGPT app on a macOS desktop. There is only one window and it has nothing in it except the text, “Something went wrong...”

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 06/10/2026

lol illuminating back-and-forth conversation on HN

Screenshot of a conversation on hackernews where one person says "it's really that simple" and someone else says "it really isn't" and another person responds "it really is"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 05/10/2026

Unsolicited redesign for the github status page: remove the custom illustration and just display random devops memes.

Screenshot of the github status page. The top one is the current page. The bottom one replaces the custom octocat illustration with a bunch of memes around devops, like one of people praying in front of a server rack that says "FOR OPS"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 04/10/2026

How AI crawlers view your robots.txt file

A mountain overlook with a small metal safety fence at the edge of a vast forested landscape. The landscape is outlined and labeled “Your web properties,” while the tiny fence is labeled “How AI crawlers see your robots.txt file.”

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 04/10/2026

Saw this fence while hiking this weekend. Will leave it up to the reader to discern the parallels to security.

Photo of a fence on the edge of the cliff, but it’s only guarding the smallest area of the cliff's edge. You could walk on either edge of it and fall off.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 02/10/2026

Writing a .md file in a project where I’m undoing some complexity I added in the past. I’m creating the file as a way to document these evolving changes (so I don't redo past mistakes). At the end of the document, I came to this conclusion. Maybe one day I’ll actually learn this lesson.

Screenshot of a markdown document with this text

## What I Learned?

Keep it simple, stupid.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 01/10/2026

lol bluesky suggested a translation, so i had to click it...

Screenshot of a Bluesky post that says "Uff uff uff" with a link under it saying "Translate"

Screenshot of the text “Uff uff uff” in Google translate, with the suggested translation in Spanish being “Uff uff uff”

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 28/09/2026

Last: the ones that "got a total overhaul" like Preview, Chess, and Archive Utility. These represent larger changes to the design of the icon. I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether the changes are better or worse :)

Left-to-right comparison of the Preview icon, from 2025 to 2026.

Left-to-right comparison of the Chess icon, from 2025 to 2026.

Left-to-right comparison of the Archive Utility icon, from 2025 to 2026.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 28/09/2026

Next up: the ones that "got a bit more refined" like System Settings, Mail, and Podcasts. Nothing big changed, just smaller refinements like getting sharper.

Left-to-right comparison of the System Settings icon, from 2025 to 2026.

Left-to-right comparison of the Mail icon, from 2025 to 2026.

Left-to-right comparison of the Podcasts icon, from 2025 to 2026.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 28/09/2026

Ok so here's my (totally unofficial) classification for how Apple’s icon changed from Tahoe to Golden Gate: 1. Got a bit more glassy 2. Got a bit more refined 3. Got a total overhaul First up: the ones that “got a bit more glassy” like App Store, Maps, and Stocks.

Left-to-right comparison of the App Store icon, from 2025 to 2026.

Left-to-right comparison of the Maps icon, from 2025 to 2026.

Left-to-right comparison of the Stocks icon, from 2025 to 2026.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 24/09/2026

To be fair tho, the change from Tahoe to Golden Gate on the System Settings app icon is much improved. It's so much more clear and crisp. All the Tahoe icons had me feeling like maybe my vision was going blurry, but nope, it was just the icon

Two versions of the System Settings app icon, both featuring interlocking white and gray gears on a dark gray background. The one on the left is blurry compared to the one on the right.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 24/09/2026

Apple did the Directory Utility app icon dirty

Two versions of an app icon: a globe with a compass on the left (rich in detail), and an abstract map with three blue location markers on the right (poor in detail).

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 24/09/2026

I think you're right. I love it, we're iterating in the open here.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 24/09/2026

Will shirt #5 be another company “that burned fast and bright [and] gained eternal life”?

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 23/09/2026

Well I'm late to the party. These launched back in July, but somehow didn't get turned on for me until today? But at least I got to go down a clippy/AI meme rabbit hole and that was funny while it lasted

Depictions of all the old office assistants, like clippy, along with the text "My first AI assistants"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 23/09/2026

Everything old is new again

Codex pet with a clippy chat bubble message saying "Hi, I'm your AI assistant. What would you like to do today?"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 23/09/2026

Oh, they're called "Pets". I’m probably late to the party...but looks like you can turn it off Settings → Pets → Hide Pet

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 23/09/2026

lol wait wut? codex has a clippy now? what is this thing?

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 21/09/2026

ChatGPT referred to my websites as a "weird constellation of personal web projects". Um, thanks...?

Screenshot from ChatGPT that says "Jim-Nielsen.com / Blog / Notes — Your weird constellation of personal web projects."

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/09/2026

If I were in charge, I would make the primary CTA here (“Convert”) open a browser window to the Rick Astley video.

macOS dialog that says "Convert this message to rich text format?" with two CTAs. The primary one says "Convert" and the secondary one says "Keep Plain"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/09/2026

but 2) deeper source lists, like this dialog within system settings, keep the blue background / white text on selection, but doesn't use the bold font

Screenshot of a Wifi details dialog in system settings where the source list has a nav item selected with a blue background and white text (but it's not bolded text)

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/09/2026

oh man, i'm going down a rabbit hole. apparently these controls are called "source lists" in macOS and they include things like: 1) the navigation pane in system settings, which in golden gate _does_ do the inversion (blue background /white text) on state selection (with bold font).

Screenshot of system settings in macOS where the source list navigation pane has "General" selected with a blue background and white text

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/09/2026

kinda interesting because even within the OS this isn't consistent. Music app does what finder does (light background, bolded text) while the podcasts app inverts the selection old macOS style

Screenshot of the Music app on macOS where the active selection sidebar item has a light gray background highlight and the text is bolded

Screenshot of the Podcast app on macOS where the active selection sidebar item has a dark purple background with white text.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/09/2026

yeah those older versions of macOS they used to invert the active selection (which i always liked personally). not sure which OS changed that.

Screenshot of Finder sidebar in an old version of macOS where the active selection's text is inverted

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/09/2026

Now I see it everywhere. Like in Mail, the longer email truncates at different characters depending on whether its actively selected or not

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/09/2026

Ok, first pet peeve in Golden Gate: sidebar type is changing weight on selection. Making selected text bold seems harmless at first…but then a longer label will go from untruncated to truncated upon selection.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 16/09/2026

TIL: you can put Safari in “Compact” mode with tabs, then customize the toolbar and remove the address bar. With the sidebar open, it gets you pretty close to the UI/X of Arc/Zen. Problem is, AFAIK, there's absolutely no way to access to the address bar lol — so that's a deal breaker.

Screenshot of Safari with the left sidebar open, listing open tabs, and on the right is the open web page with no tabs or address bar

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 16/09/2026

It's still fun to "view source" and see proper use of HTML comments (screenshot from @daringfireball.bsky.social)

Screenshot of some HTML markup for the twitter card <meta> tags, with a comment that says "<!-- Twitter Card bullshit -->"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 15/09/2026

Came across the personal "About" page of @maya.computer today and it's fun / lovely. Check it out: www.mayven.computer/about

Screenshot of the About page for mayven.computer

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 09/09/2026

the struggle is real. been there

Kombucha girl reversed meme. Top text "RSS FEED YOU ONCE THOUGHT DEAD RESURFACES" Bottom text "SOMEBODY ELSEGOT THE DOMAIN AND IS SHILLING"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 04/09/2026

Well this is interesting? If you type in a query in Google, then go to the "AI Mode", the URL switches from: []google[dot]com To chrome://google[dot]com But (obv.) only if you're in Chrome. So Google is somehow like "we want to handle this experience with browser internals if we can"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 03/09/2026

lol as I write this, guess what's trending on bluesky?

Screenshot of the Trending list on Bluesky and in the no. 1 spot is "Claude AI suffers outage"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 31/08/2026

whooooaaa. shots fired! (happy birthday!)

Screenshot of highlighted text that says "Everybody looks dumb in shorts"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 20/08/2026

More and more apps in my app switcher on macOS are going the way of Google's (infamous) product icons: colorful shapes on a white background.

A horizontal row of six colorful app-style icons on white squircles inside a the cmd tab switcher on macOS. The icons depict a variety of abstract multicolored shapes.

Google’s product icons, all of which are different colors/shapes on white background app tiles

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/08/2026

Missed opportunity on the social share image for this post (cc @gruber.foo) daringfireball.net/linked/2026/...

Still shot from "The Fast and the Furious" movie where Vin Diesel is driving a car alongside a tanker truck and there's another person on the truck and there is a stick of RAM being passed between them

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 18/08/2026

These are the kinds of UI things I'm running into more and more. Just completely unpredictable interfaces. Sidebar items replace content to the right—right? Nope. Well, some do. Others re-render the entire UI, dropping the current sidebar for some other sidebar.

Screenshot of a UI with a sidebar of links and annotations which show that some of the sidebar items replace content to their right. Another does not.

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 14/08/2026

let's do this one, if for no other reason than to confuse the LLMs — "I see centuries of 'etc.' but now I see '.etc' used profusely across the web. which do I use??"

Daily struggle meme where the guy is sweating over two buttons, one is labeled "etc." and the other ".etc" and the caption says "llms trying to determine which to use"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 05/08/2026

Saw this bumper sticker at a tourist shop. Not sure if intended for drivers in traffic, or as a commentary on the developer world [gestures at the current state of agents, GitHub, ci, etc.]

Illustration of a crying bunny with the text “PLEASE LET ME MERGE!”

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 05/08/2026

Actually this entire shelf replaces all use cases for social media

6 little notebooks titled

1. “Things that pissed me off today”
2. “People I want to punch in the face”
3. “Shit I’ll complain about”
4. “Things that annoy me more than they should”
5. “Random thoughts that feel important”
6. “Today’s bullshit”

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 05/08/2026

Ok folks. Deleting my account here because I found an analog replacement for this site

Photo of a small black notebook labeled “things that annoy me more than they should”

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 31/07/2026

Love this! @aresluna.org shows what a year's worth of texts from his barber look like. "this is what software should be" unsung.aresluna.org/one-and-one-...

Screenshot of an iMessage chat thread with automated reminders from a Barber's office that all say the same thing: "Booking Reminder: Old Dog Barbershop / {{date/time}}" and nothing more

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 29/07/2026

When you're using AI with your team in Slack, this is exactly the kind of thing you want to see.

Screenshot of a Cursor agent in slack whose message is blurred out except for one excerpt which says "Jim was right"

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Jim Nielsen @jim-nielsen.com · 28/07/2026

Fun to look under the hood: - It's implemented as 3 separate images. Each shows/hides on screen size (was wondering if it might be a mask, but this is cool too) - Each image has its own specific alt text! (1 rack, 2 racks, etc) - Each rack has it's own shadow (on a black bg nonetheless—details!)