These are off-the-wall things I’ve bumped into & found solutions for. I’m saving them here in the hope that some poor soul, or future me, bumps into these faster than I originally did.
AEServer: AEServer is the Apple Events Server. It is used to control Apple Events that come in from other Macs.
gamesd daemon in System Preferences (Settings) > Privacy: Game Center needs your contacts for gaming with pals.
It promises multiplayer games with your friends, or at least the ability to share scores, achievements etc. Your identity on game center, and those of your gaming buddies are stored in Contacts– which it needs access to.
JeremyAndrewErwin
.CFUserTextEncoding
I came across this cleaning up my user directory.
https://superuser.com/questions/82123/mac-whats-cfusertextencoding-for/82194#82194
~/.CFUserTextEncodingstores the default text encoding and preferred language for a user.