The Eclectic Light Company
type: channel
description: Macs & painting – 🦉 No AI content
date: 2026-06-19T21:39:27Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: wordpress.com
items: Colin Campbell Cooper painting America: 1912-1923
items: Last Week on My Mac: Uncompressed compressed files
items: Colin Campbell Cooper painting America: 1896-1910
items: Saturday Mac riddles 365
items: Explainer: Memory
items: Great Ladies of Impressionism: Berthe Morisot 1864-73
items: What can you do when an app uses too much memory?
items: Brushstrokes: 16th century
items: SilentKnight 3 second beta adds text and JSON reporting
items: In the shadow: Caravaggism

Colin Campbell Cooper painting America: 1912-1923
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-21T11:30:00Z
subject: General
subject: Life
subject: Painting
subject: Cooper
subject: history of painting
subject: landscape
subject: New York
subject: painting
subject: skyscraper
subject: USA
description: He was on board the Carpathia when it rescued survivors from the Titanic, and moved to the West Coast in 1915, where he painted its lush vegetation and rich light.
encoded: By 1912 Colin Campbell Cooper had mastered the novel art of painting New York’s rising skyscrapers, and he and his wife travelled extensively in Europe and beyond. In April of that year they were returning to New York in the liner RMS Carpathia, and happened to be among the witnesses to its rescue of survivors from the sinking of the Titanic on 15 April. He produced several paintings showing the events, although as they are views showing the ship that he was on, they must have been based on constructed scenes rather than his direct experience. <img data-attachment-id="68844" data-permalink="https://eclecticlight.co/cooperrescuesurvivors/" data-orig-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cooperrescuesurvivors.jpg" data-orig-size="800,490" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="cooperrescuesurvivors" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Colin Campbell Cooper (1856–1937), Rescue of the Survivors of the Titanic by the Carpathia (1912), gouache on cardboard, 21.5 x 35.5 cm, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN. Wikimedia Commons. " data-large-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cooperrescuesurvivors.jpg?w=800" class="size-full wp-image-68844" src="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cooperrescuesurvivors.jpg?w=940" alt="cooperrescuesurvivors" srcset="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cooperrescuesurvivors.jpg 800w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cooperrescuesurvivors.jpg?w=150&h=92 150w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cooperrescuesurvivors.jpg?w=300&h=184 300w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cooperrescuesurvivors.jpg?w=768&h=470 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /> Colin Campbell Cooper (1856–1937), Rescue of the Surv…

Last Week on My Mac: Uncompressed compressed files
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-21T07:00:00Z
subject: General
subject: Life
subject: Painting
subject: com.apple.decmpfs
subject: compression
subject: macOS
subject: macOS 26
subject: Tahoe
subject: xattr
description: Only six files out of tens of thousands searched. They're supposed to be compressed, but aren't. And nothing has been near them that might have done that. So why and how did this happen?
encoded: Just over a week ago, when I was looking at problems getting Preview to open PDFs from a double-click, I stumbled across an extended attribute I hadn’t come across before, com.apple.decmpfs. Most days last week I have started drafting an article about this mysterious xattr, only to abandon it and move on to something more informative and less enigmatic. Much as I’d like to reveal all about this, so far I haven’t even drawn a blank, just plenty of claims that contradict my evidence. Six files What I can tell you is that it’s very rare, and despite extensive searches of several ~/Documents folders, I have encountered this xattr on only six files, each of which I had used repeatedly during those tests with Preview. They are a couple of PDFs, a couple of RTFs, one Swift source file, and a Pages document, all created where they are now. They’re all small files, the largest of them only 325 KB, and none of them are dataless. The com.apple.decmpfs xattr on each consists of 36 bytes of binary, with a common start spelling out the letters fpmc, which turns out to be the xattr’s ‘magic’ bytes confirming its type, and a common ending of b735a53b 0d70d062. Between those each is different. Google search Google tells me confidently, and repeatedly, “com.apple.decmpfs is a macOS extended attribute that powers transparent file compression on APFS and HFS+ filesystems. It allows files to be compressed on disk and automatically decompressed in memory when accessed.” It goes on to explain “Compressed files with this attribute have an empty data fork on disk. The compressed data, along with a 16-byte compression header, is stored directly within the attribute or the file’s resource fork.” That’s demonstrably false, as each of these six files has perfectly normal data, no resource fork, and could hardly be compressed down to a uniform 36 bytes. Google then claims: “You can see compressed files tagged with the UF_COMPRESSED flag using the ls -lO terminal command.” Unfortunately, that’s a…

Colin Campbell Cooper painting America: 1896-1910
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-20T11:30:00Z
subject: General
subject: Life
subject: Painting
subject: Cooper
subject: history of painting
subject: landscape
subject: New York
subject: painting
subject: skyscraper
subject: USA
description: Trained in the US and Paris, he started painting New York skyscrapers around 1900, the right painter in the right place at the right time.
encoded: Colin Campbell Cooper was the right painter in the right place at the right time. An Impressionist trained and experienced in Europe, he was working in New York at the time its skyline was becoming dominated by skyscrapers. Whenever you see evocative photos of tall buildings, or shots of them in movies, remember it was Cooper who first explored their aesthetic appeal. He was born in Philadelphia, PA, into a professional, Anglo-Irish family, and was first inspired to paint when he visited the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876. He started his studies under Thomas Eakins at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, then in 1886 travelled to Europe, where he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris for four years. Among his teachers there were Bouguereau and Lefebvre. Over that time his initial realist style became influenced by the Barbizon School, and his early works were mainly landscapes. He returned to Philadelphia in 1895, and taught watercolours at the precursor to what’s now Drexel University until 1898. Tragically a fire in the Hazeltine Galleries destroyed many of the best of his earlier works. <img data-attachment-id="11771" data-permalink="https://eclecticlight.co/cooperpageantbruges/" data-orig-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/cooperpageantbruges.jpg" data-orig-size="1050,853" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="cooperpageantbruges" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Colin Campbell Cooper (1856–1937), The Pageant at Bruges (1896), oil on canvas, 40.6 x 50.8 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons. " data-large-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/cooperpageantbruges.jpg?w=940" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-11771" src="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/cooperpageantbruges.jpg?w=940" a…

Saturday Mac riddles 365
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-20T08:00:00Z
subject: General
subject: Macs
subject: Technology
subject: Mac
subject: Mac history
subject: macOS
subject: riddle
description: Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: Half the […]
encoded: Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation. 1: Half the images came from the first iPhone to the Mac eight years later. 2: In with a puma, out in Yosemite, it was part of my life until 1. 3: Despite raw fine tuning, each version got cheaper until surrendered to Adobe. To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them. I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning. Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

Explainer: Memory
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-20T07:00:00Z
subject: Macs
subject: Technology
subject: Apple silicon
subject: CPU
subject: GPU
subject: graphics card
subject: M1
subject: memory
description: How different parts of a Mac acquired their own memory, such as VRAM, and why Apple silicon chips have unified that, and the limitations that brings.
encoded: Computers do things with data, and data needs to be stored somewhere. When your browser downloads a web page from its server, the source code for that page has to be stored while the browser’s rendering engine turns it into the image to be displayed inside its window. WindowServer then has to composite that window with all the others on your Mac’s display, and hand the composite over to the display controller to send to the display. Throughout those processes, data has to be processed from and to memory. The CPU cores have relatively small local caches for their immediate needs, and both their code and data have to be fetched from larger and slower main memory. Some of the data, such as the page source code, may be cached to disk storage, which is even more capacious but slower, and ultimately it will all have to pass through memory. Until comparatively recently, several parts of a Mac had their own local memory. Main memory (RAM) was the preserve of the cores in the CPU, while GPUs came on a graphics card with their own dedicated high-speed memory, VRAM. Some models, particularly those at the lower end and laptops, allocated some of the main memory for graphics use instead. Other hardware systems also had their own memory, used for buffering and temporary storage. This has some obvious advantages. It’s eminently upgradeable by the user; when you can afford a better graphics card, you can replace the existing one with a faster GPU and more graphics memory. You can also buy a basic version of that model with little main memory, and upgrade that when you can afford it. This has allowed graphics cards to have less, faster and more expensive memory which is only accessible to the GPU. There are also problems with that architecture. GPUs are now being used for a lot more than just driving the display, most recently for many of the calculations used in AI. So long as CPUs and GPUs continue to use their own local memory, simply moving data between RAM and VRAM has become a…

Great Ladies of Impressionism: Berthe Morisot 1864-73
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-19T11:30:00Z
subject: General
subject: Life
subject: Painting
subject: history of painting
subject: Impressionism
subject: Manet
subject: Morisot
subject: painting
subject: women in art
description: She started copying in the Louvre when she was 16, met Corot there, and exhibited regularly at the Salon from 1864-73, and at the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874.
encoded: When the first Impressionist Exhibition opened in Paris in 1874, there was but a single woman artist represented there, Berthe Morisot. This article traces her career and art prior to that, and next week’s will complete her story for the remaining years, when she became one of the four great ladies of Impressionism. She was born into an affluent family with an artistic heritage: her mother was related to the Rococo painter Fragonard (1732–1806), and ensured Berthe and her two older sisters, Yves and Edma, received an art education. After her family had moved to Paris when she was eleven, Berthe was introduced to the Louvre Gallery in 1857, and the following year started copying paintings there. She made friends with Manet, Monet, Camille Corot and other artists. Corot encouraged her to work en plein air, and she studied under Oudinot, another of the Barbizon School. <img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="503" data-permalink="https://eclecticlight.co/2015/02/25/favourite-paintings-8-berthe-morisot-la-lecture-reading-1888/watersedgem/" data-orig-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/watersedgem.jpg" data-orig-size="901,741" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="watersedgem" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Berthe Morisot, Study, the Water&#8217;s Edge (1864), oil on canvas, 60 x 73.4 cm, Private collection. WikiArt. " data-large-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/watersedgem.jpg?w=901" class="size-full wp-image-503" src="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/watersedgem.jpg?w=940" alt="Berthe Morisot, Study, the Water's Edge (1864), oil on canvas, 60 x 73.4 cm, Private collection. WikiArt." srcset="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/watersedgem.jpg?w=660&h=543 660w, https://eclecticlight.co…

What can you do when an app uses too much memory?
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-19T06:30:00Z
subject: Macs
subject: Technology
subject: Activity Monitor
subject: bug
subject: kernel
subject: kernel extension
subject: Mach zone
subject: memory
subject: memory leak
subject: performance
subject: troubleshooting
description: Is there a memory leak in that app? How to tell, and what you can do about it. Also notes about rare leaks in kernel zone memory, which can cause kernel panics.
encoded: The most common causes for Macs to perform poorly are excessive memory use and excessive CPU load. Although they’re easy to distinguish in Activity Monitor, if your Mac has a cooling fan you should be able to tell them apart before you even look at the figures there: high CPU load is usually accompanied by the sound of the fans running up, while high memory use isn’t. Poor performance means that actions that are normally instant result in a pause, sometimes long enough to show the spinning beachball, and repeatedly seeing the beachball should send you straight to Activity Monitor to look for a cause. In Activity Monitor, click on the Memory tab at the top of the window, then click the column header Memory to sort the entries with the largest memory use at the top. In the View menu, ensure that All Processes is ticked, or system processes may be hidden. Confirm the window title reads Activity Monitor All Processes. <img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="63313" data-permalink="https://eclecticlight.co/memory01/" data-orig-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/memory01.jpg" data-orig-size="1704,1010" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="memory01" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-large-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/memory01.jpg?w=940" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-63313" src="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/memory01.jpg?w=940" alt="memory01" srcset="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/memory01.jpg 1704w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/memory01.jpg?w=150&h=89 150w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/memory01.jpg?w=300&h=178 300w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/memory01.jpg?w=768&h=455 768w, https://eclecticlight.…

Brushstrokes: 16th century
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-18T11:30:00Z
subject: General
subject: Life
subject: Painting
subject: Bassano
subject: brushstrokes
subject: Dossi
subject: history of painting
subject: mark-making
subject: painting
subject: Titian
subject: Veronese
description: From Dosso Dossi in around 1530, through Titian and Veronese in 1580, brushstrokes became more visible in fabrics, hair, and other passages.
encoded: By the first quarter of the sixteenth century, it was no longer exceptional for a painter to leave brushstrokes and other marks in their oil paintings. However, the evidence also becomes more difficult to interpret, as the rapid decline in the use of rigid wood panels and the rise of canvas should make us more cautious. <img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="7184" data-permalink="https://eclecticlight.co/dossodossiallegoryfortune/" data-orig-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dossodossiallegoryfortune.jpg" data-orig-size="1272,1182" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="dossodossiallegoryfortune" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Dosso Dossi (Giovanni di Niccolò de Lutero) (1490–1542), Allegory of Fortune (c 1530), oil on canvas, 179.1 x 217.2 cm, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA. Wikimedia Commons. " data-large-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dossodossiallegoryfortune.jpg?w=940" class="size-full wp-image-7184" src="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dossodossiallegoryfortune.jpg?w=940" alt="dossodossiallegoryfortune" srcset="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dossodossiallegoryfortune.jpg 1272w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dossodossiallegoryfortune.jpg?w=150&h=139 150w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dossodossiallegoryfortune.jpg?w=300&h=279 300w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dossodossiallegoryfortune.jpg?w=768&h=714 768w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/dossodossiallegoryfortune.jpg?w=1024&h=952 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1272px) 100vw, 1272px" /> Dosso Dossi (Giovanni di Niccolò de Lutero) (1490–1542), Allegory of Fortune (c 1530), oil on canvas, 179.1 x 217.2 cm, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA. …

SilentKnight 3 second beta adds text and JSON reporting
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-18T06:30:12Z
subject: Macs
subject: Technology
subject: Updates
subject: Apple silicon
subject: Golden Gate
subject: macOS 15
subject: macOS 26
subject: macOS 27
subject: security
subject: Sequoia
subject: SilentKnight
subject: softwareupdate
subject: Tahoe
subject: update
description: Adds reporting to both text and JSON files, runs from standard user accounts, and fixes several other issues. For Apple silicon Macs only, macOS 15.6 and later.
encoded: Thank you to all those who have tried the first beta of SilentKnight version 3, and for your many comments. I now offer a second beta that adds two important features, and tweaks several others. <img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="92805" data-permalink="https://eclecticlight.co/2026/06/18/silentknight-3-second-beta-adds-text-and-json-reporting/sk3-27/" data-orig-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png" data-orig-size="1400,122" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}" data-image-title="sk3-27" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-large-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png?w=940" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-92805" src="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png" alt="" width="940" height="82" srcset="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png?w=940&h=82 940w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png?w=150&h=13 150w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png?w=300&h=26 300w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png?w=768&h=67 768w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png?w=1024&h=89 1024w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/sk3-27.png 1400w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px" /> As the release notes in the app’s Help book noted, that first beta provided no way of recording the app’s results. I know for many that’s an essential feature, so why not offer it in two different forms? This release can write a plain text account containing what you see in its window, from its Malware protection section at the top down to the date and time those tests were run. For those who might want to import those data into a database or another app, there’s also the op…

In the shadow: Caravaggism
type: item
creator: hoakley
date: 2026-06-17T11:30:00Z
subject: General
subject: Life
subject: Painting
subject: Caravaggio
subject: de la Tour
subject: de Ribera
subject: Elsheimer
subject: Fontana
subject: Gentileschi
subject: history of painting
subject: painting
subject: shadow
subject: van Honthorst
description: Chiaroscuro paintings by Lavinia Fontana, Adam Elsheimer, Jusepe de Ribera, Artemisia Gentileschi, Gerard can Honthorst, and Georges de La Tour.
encoded: During his brief life, Caravaggio was highly popular in Italy, and although he quickly became forgotten, other artists from across Europe were influenced by his paintings of shade and shadow. This article considers their depiction in a selection of works by successors, some who have been recognised as Caravaggisti, those who embraced Carvaggism. As a reminder, of the 10 paintings by Caravaggio that I showed last week, the primary source of light came from the left or upper left in 7, or 70%. <img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="12641" data-permalink="https://eclecticlight.co/fontanajudithholofernes/" data-orig-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fontanajudithholofernes.jpg" data-orig-size="1060,1451" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="fontanajudithholofernes" data-image-description="" data-image-caption=" Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1600), oil on canvas, dimensions and location not known. The Athenaeum. " data-large-file="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fontanajudithholofernes.jpg?w=748" class="size-full wp-image-12641" src="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fontanajudithholofernes.jpg?w=940" alt="fontanajudithholofernes" srcset="https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fontanajudithholofernes.jpg 1060w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fontanajudithholofernes.jpg?w=110&h=150 110w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fontanajudithholofernes.jpg?w=219&h=300 219w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fontanajudithholofernes.jpg?w=768&h=1051 768w, https://eclecticlight.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fontanajudithholofernes.jpg?w=748&h=1024 748w" sizes="(max-width: 1060px) 100vw, 1060px" /> Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), …