Personally id rather do that.  I dont really trust binaries. 

Wed Apr 15 2026 03:18:05 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

https://bambulab.com/en/download/studio
How come I can download a win executable, or a OS X .dmg, but I have to go to GitHub to grab the Linux version? I don't know... I just always feel like Linux versions are more "beta". They just don't get the same sort of love and attention - and there is an assumption that the people on Linux don't need the hand holding that Mac and Windows users need. 

And... honestly - I don't... but I enjoy the convenience of having it be more polished. After I got relatively REALLY good at Linux again running Proxmox, Debian and Citadel - I really considers making a go of being a Linux primary user. I do very little outside of a web browser these days... But when I step back and look at it... 

VR Sim Racing - right there - with Fanatec rig and Assetto Corsa and iRacing - That is going to keep me locked into a Windows ecosystem. And if I'm in for a penny, I might as well be in for

 

https://bambulab.com/en/download/studio
How come I can download a win executable, or a OS X .dmg, but I have to go to GitHub to grab the Linux version? I don't know... I just always feel like Linux versions are more "beta". They just don't get the same sort of love and attention - and there is an assumption that the people on Linux don't need the hand holding that Mac and Windows users need. 

And... honestly - I don't... but I enjoy the convenience of having it be more polished. After I got relatively REALLY good at Linux again running Proxmox, Debian and Citadel - I really considers making a go of being a Linux primary user. I do very little outside of a web browser these days... But when I step back and look at it... 

VR Sim Racing - right there - with Fanatec rig and Assetto Corsa and iRacing - That is going to keep me locked into a Windows ecosystem. And if I'm in for a penny, I might as well be in for a pound. 

Thankfully, i never fell for that as i saw it for what it was long before it became common. Could see this a mile away.

Tho, i do see general value in a tablet for some use cases, but since i don't go into an office anymore, its not often used in my case, mostly during doctor runs and stuff while siting in waiting rooms 'just in case'.  Back in the old days id take it to watch movies or something during breaks/lunch/quiet time. Far easier than dealing with a laptop size, battery life, etc.  Early on i used them to read books ( tho never fond of it, was better than carrying around paper ).  But once e-ink was viable, that stopped. Oh, and normally id carry around a 9" ( or similar sized ) not the larger ones. "just enough"

They are also good if you road travel, larger ( but not too large ) screens for maps and such ( pre AI-phone days, now it just talks to you. but i still prefer a map so i can see where i'm going before i get there.. ).  And good for car diagnostics, WiFi building scanning, etc.   Good for family outings, if you want to bring pictures.   

Sure, all edge cases for people like us, but still cases for use.

And ya, same sort of spousal issue here. however not once in a while, it was 24/7, at loud volume.   However recently, her getting Bluetooth enabled hearing aids has pretty much stomped it. However, i do have to wave if i need to speak, so she turns off whatever garbage is on.   ( and related, i don't see how anyone can watch those 10 second videos, all freaking day.. no wonder the attention span of average person is about the same as flea )

Of course my use for digital anything ( beyond music, separate mp3 player ) has been drastically reduced.  Sort of surprised i'm here, to be honest.

Tue Apr 07 2026 15:15:53 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: Fruit

 

Also I just don't care, I guess.  Once I broke the doomscrolling habit I just don't have a need for something half way between a phone and a computer.  If I want to engage with the online world I sit down at the computer.  Everyone should break the doomscrolling habit.  My wife flicks through instabooktok constantly.  Sometimes she accidentally activates something with sound and that is when I instantly stop talking to her and walk out of the room.  I refuse to share her attention with slop.

Assuming you mean additive filament 3D printing, every tool of any value has a Linux version too.

And never forget, we also have wine.. for those outliers.  ( at least many, sure its not perfect .. )

Fri Apr 10 2026 02:47:42 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

 3D printing  

I do heavy Facebook, sometimes visit X, and spend some time here when I get bored of those two... and need a Windows PC for things like 3D printing and video and photo editing and other apps of that nature. So, I don't use the iPad for much - communicating with other people with Apple devices - I could do that on my MacBook too, though. But mostly I have the iPad because Apple insists on doing a lot of 2 factor things through another APPLE device - and although I've got a couple of Macs - they seem to want to send those notifications to the iPad. It is obviously how they lock people into their ecosystem. 

My condolences.  

Plenty of unencumbered Android or Chromebook options out there.  Or even Linux or fydeos.. 

Fri Mar 06 2026 05:17:31 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Fruit

No, I'm not a convert ... but I got a piece of fruit.

Maybe.  I haven't thought about it for long because I'm not really a tablet person.  I'm just not a fan of the form factor.  The ipad came home, I tried the calendar and address book apps against my DAV implementation, noted where I need to make some fixes, and it's been sitting in the drawer ever since.  I liked my netbook, back when they made them, but those were all replaced by full-fat laptops with cramped keyboards and tiny screens and power-hungry Intel processors, not really the same thing.

Also I just don't care, I guess.  Once I broke the doomscrolling habit I just don't have a need for something half way between a phone and a computer.  If I want to engage with the online world I sit down at the computer.  Everyone should break the doomscrolling habit.  My wife flicks through instabooktok constantly.  Sometimes she accidentally activates something with sound and that is when I instantly stop talking to her and walk out of the room.  I refuse to share her attention with slop.

Are they though? Really? It depends on your use case. I like emulation. ARM cores do that well. But not on an Apple - unless you jailbreak it - and that is a vector for HUGE attack on your world. 

You know, because they're safer and more secure - as long as you stay inside the Apple kingdom. Step outside, and you're effed. 

Fri Mar 06 2026 05:17:31 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Fruit

This isn't really for "I have an iPad now" ... but even I have to concede that Apple tablets are an all-around nicer experience than Android tablets.

Distributed and clustered, highly available evil. You're not wrong. 

Sat Jan 10 2026 18:03:46 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

 

The truth is, all the tech giants (FAMANG) are equally as evil now.  It used to be Microsoft And The Seven Dwarfs.  Now it's more of an equal distribution.

Right.  And they were also using all the private wifi networks they'd "learned" to enhance maps/navigation by spying on both network operators and mobile devices.  If the device saw a particular MAC on the air they could correlate it to a specific network operator's location.  Actually I think they still do that.  But they claim it's all private and anonymous and can't be used for nefarious purposes.

Until someone has a need for a nefarious purpose, of course.

The truth is, all the tech giants (FAMANG) are equally as evil now.  It used to be Microsoft And The Seven Dwarfs.  Now it's more of an equal distribution.

Google Fiber is trying to get me to switch from Cox SO aggressively. 

So, about a decade ago, I wrote an article for Tech Republic, about how I bought an ASUS Android tablet, and didn't get it set up at home, in Ohio. I went into work to finish, and when I went to connect to the private IT network at my office, it was already connected. I realized at the time that Google/Android was uploading WiFi passwords to Google servers. That they had a private, corporate IT wifi password on their servers. I wrote an article, it got so much traction it had made it to a German translation by the next morning and people were calling me. I got a lot of ridicule. 

Then a few months later it came out that the NSA had hacked Google and gotten into their internal network - and that all internal traffic was undecrypted - so once inside, the NSA had access to every WiFi AP that Google had stored, which was EVERY ANDROID DEVICE that had ever connected to any AP *ever*... 

And then that got b

They fooled me too, Ig. 

I guess we will see.. there is a shakeup coming in the industry. most of us will be around to see how it falls out.

I think Google was a "do evil" company long before the CEO change.

They chose to make it a point that the CEO is a particular race or nationality, not to say "since the CEO changed" if they didn't want to look up the name.  

I didn't read it that way.

Just the indicator of who was now in control of the boat and when it started changing direction. And when they dropped the old motto.. Which was disappointing to us who 'liked' google ( I wasn't a fanboy, but they were fine to deal with so i used them without concern for several things )

Sun Dec 28 2025 12:30:31 UTC from PanaSonic

> They're no longer they "do no evil," brand - they're literally the "do LESS evil," brand since their Indian CEO took the helm. 

I kinda feel like maybe you could've phrased that in a slightly less racist way.

 

I doubt we see that happen. They pretty much got their hands slapped here recently when they tried being dickheads.  Of course cant predict what some wacko future CEO wants to do, but i sort of doubt we see that. I also think the wild card of RISC-V will keep ARM more in line. There is now a way out if one has to exit stage left, so they best not bite their customers hands, and they know this.

As far as Apple, somehow i don't think they would want to go the RISC route, as that would put too much silicon work on their end, as while free as RISC-V is, it comes with extra effort/cost/strings they dont want. Same reason they didn't buy out Motorola ( as you suggested ), or even ARM..( as many thought they might ). They want proprietary to keep the garden walls up ( which ARM gives them ), but they wont want to go too far down the rabbit hole and just pay someone else to to the back-end heavy lifting.   But same thing here, the next CEO might be 1/2 nuts and not care about legacy operations and "we are going this direction now, deal with it" since they could afford it, but i dont see it.

Now that said, i could see NVIDIA buying ARM, and totally changing the playing field overnight. They ARE dickheads.. and could even intentionally force people to RISC-V to get them out of their hair.. If i remember right, they were going to once a few years ago, but it got shut down by the regulators. But with Trump behind them it could be revisited and get approved this time ( no not "going there" politically, just that he would help if Huang asked, and with with all the current AI hype/FUD from DC, would not be surprised if its tried )

Sun Dec 28 2025 03:19:38 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

But they do need an ARM license.  And if ARM starts ... heh ... strong-arming them ... then RISC-V gives them that one final move to put them in control of both sourcing and license.

 

> They're no longer they "do no evil," brand - they're literally the "do LESS evil," brand since their Indian CEO took the helm. 

I kinda feel like maybe you could've phrased that in a slightly less racist way.

I'll think of examples where Google isn't just "less evil," but actively evil. 

I heard a story recently about a developer that had accidentally signed up for some licensing agreement that was exponential, on something trivial, and Google came back and went, "you owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees." They guy made him case, sent it in, and they went, "Wow, we get it, that sucks. But pay us, or we'll ruin your life like an indentured servant on an Aliens movie working for Weyland-Yutani

More human than the human, and all that. A literally predicted corporate dystopia. 

You're probably right. You are right. I hate that you are right. 

But... ChromeOS is no different than MS or Apple. You know that, right? They're no longer they "do no evil," brand - they're literally the "do LESS evil," brand since their Indian CEO took the helm. 

Fear not, for he is only partially right.

The genie is already out of the bottle, and more people are discovering Linux freedom every day.  We don't actually want every machine on the shelf at Best Buy to be running Linux.  Maybe some of them.  But not all of them.  Let the unwashed masses stew in the cesspools of Apple, Microsoft, and Google ecosystems.  The free world may not be on store shelves but it's now massively self-sustaining and growing fast.   Power users disenfranchised with Windows 11 are adopting Linux at a rate never before seen.  Exponential growth has started.  Just watch.

Ride the wave and enjoy it.  And don't worry about the intellectual peasants.  We don't want Eternal September Linux.

I doubt they veer from ARM at this point, since they are in total control, and have no incentive to move to something like RISC-V or back to x86.  But ya, "we added this new bit that obsoletes everything prior, time to buy a new one" will be a regular occurrence.

Depends on the motive, I guess.

ARM gives them a choice on who builds the chip design, who runs the fabs,  It gives them unlimted second-source ability.  And to that end, there will never be any reason to move beyond that.  They can just keep iterating on "Apple Silicon ARM" forever.

But they do need an ARM license.  And if ARM starts ... heh ... strong-arming them ... then RISC-V gives them that one final move to put them in control of both sourcing and license.

Personally I think it's all sort of stupid and they should have just bought the rights to the 680X0 line from Motorola decades ago if this is the kind of thing they wanted to do.

Yes, i agree google has shifted, and is now the 'less bad' of the mainstream group. I dont think they have truly crossed the evil line yet, just not the same as they were and are close to getting there in the next few years. But currently the product is still 100% open, so that the parent company isn't perfect, is ok with me.   ( who is perfect really? )

You're probably right. You are right. I hate that you are right. 

But... ChromeOS is no different than MS or Apple. You know that, right? They're no longer they "do no evil," brand - they're literally the "do LESS evil," brand since their Indian CEO took the helm. 


I don't want to pick the lesser evil. I want the NO evil brand. 

That is Prison. I don't want the cell mate who will rape me gently and give me a kiss before the fun begins. I want the cell mate who just won't rape me.

Isn't that fair? 

Thu Dec 25 2025 14:38:22 UTC from Nurb432

In the retail/commodity market, windows and apple do have a future. Its what the unwashed masses will choose.  Basically "choose which garden you wish to be in".  We may think its dumb, but its what will happen. And yes, for those who can, it will be Linux, *bsd, etc. But its still going to be a minority. Until the point where we cant access things at least. The future browser lock-down is coming i think. "use the approved browser, or you don't get access" and the approved ones, wont be open.

It is too bad you don't like ChromeOS. 

 

In the retail/commodity market, windows and apple do have a future. Its what the unwashed masses will choose.  Basically "choose which garden you wish to be in".  We may think its dumb, but its what will happen. And yes, for those who can, it will be Linux, *bsd, etc. But its still going to be a minority. Until the point where we cant access things at least. The future browser lock-down is coming i think. "use the approved browser, or you don't get access" and the approved ones, wont be open.

It is too bad you don't like ChromeOS. Does everything Linux does and runs android apps ( and VMs if you need windows or something.. ), and can be locked down for enterprise environments. AND other than perhaps some proprietary drivers, which isn't new, its all open source code that is freely available. ( that may change with the new project, donno. If if it does, ill reverse my opinion ). Only real downside is you are stuck with their desktop GUI, but at this stage of the game its not much different than everyone else's.  I have heard of ways around that, but nothing 'promising' and wasn't worth pursuing anyway. As long as its lightweight and not in my face, i care less about my desktop these days than i do my apps..  

Thu Dec 25 2025 07:30:24 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

I will admit, at this point, I don't see a future for me on a Windows 11 platform. They've gone in a very Apple direction. I'm not really happy with Google and Android and ChromeOS either. 

More and more I see a Linux based future for me - it finally is going to have the year of the Paranoid Delusion desktop. So it seems. 

 

 

I will admit, at this point, I don't see a future for me on a Windows 11 platform. They've gone in a very Apple direction. I'm not really happy with Google and Android and ChromeOS either. 

More and more I see a Linux based future for me - it finally is going to have the year of the Paranoid Delusion desktop. So it seems. 

I doubt they veer from ARM at this point, since they are in total control, and have no incentive to move to something like RISC-V or back to x86.  But ya, "we added this new bit that obsoletes everything prior, time to buy a new one" will be a regular occurrence.

And ya, it comes at a price, but since they want to fleece users, only their customer pay the price by being on the upgrade treadmill.

Now, that aside, they do tend to stick with an architecture for a while and still support it, its not like "You just bought x, here comes the new one next week . hahahahah!".   Were they super great about it? No, but not as bad as they could have been.  Example is the x86, they have had ARM out for a while now, and just now are cutting it off this year. Could have been 'day one'. And of course as you mentioned the 'multi arch' bridge from 68k to PowerPC

Wed Dec 24 2025 04:58:15 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

How many times have they gone, "This is a dead end," from 69k at
Apple Silicon? And cut off EVERYONE before. And I can still move
files from a Classic Mac Plus all the way to a modern OS X Mac -

Apple has made it clear at this point: your binaries won't last forever, and they *will* change the architecture again. Between the Rosetta subsystem and multi-architecture binaries, they've somehow kept most of their users on board through all of the transitions. I too am surprised at how loyal they are, but then again, I remain surprised that people put up with the crap Windows dishes out as well.

Full backwards compatibility comes at a price, but it can be done. A modern IBM zSeries mainframe can still run software written for a System/360 in 1964, unmodified.

By the way, you can still run an operating system written for the 8088 on a modern AMD-64 PC, because those chips can still boot up in real mode. Why, I don't know. Nobody wants to do that. And if you're booted into 32-bit protected mode, you can still run virtual 8086 mode programs in it. However, there is no virtual 8086 mode in 64-bit long mode. That's why you can't run MS-DOS or Windows 3.1 programs on 64-bit Window

For a long time they were a good option. Then slowly became the less bad option so a lot of us still went that route.  And for a while you had things like PPC, which was a good thing.

But as the walls of the garden that Jobs starting building on his return got higher and higher, they became just as bad as the other main-stream alternatives and suck just as much, and in some ways worse.

Tue Dec 23 2025 05:05:58 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

Ask me why I have them if they're such shit? 

Argue with me, and I'll start posting all of my operable, and non-operable Macs. 
Ask me why I have them if they're such shit? I dunno. Because I want to know how to do it all? I like the prestige of understanding Mac OS from classic to modern Apple Silicon? 

How many times have they gone, "This is a dead end," from 69k at Apple Silicon? And cut off EVERYONE before. And I can still move files from a Classic Mac Plus all the way to a modern OS X Mac - using emulation on my Vampire V4 FPGA Mac running Mac 68k emulation. So... I know the Mac ecosystem. And I get it - to get a 8088 PC file running on a modern x64 PC - I have to use emulation too... 64 bit PC is not really backwards compatible with the original ia86 architecture. But PC has still been basically the same architecture from 1982 until today, and Mac hasn't. They've quit and thrown in the towel 4 times in that period. Why do you stay loyal to them? I don't get THAT. 

Mac. You did this to yourself. 

I've got 4 right now, a Powerbook i7, an i5 iMac - a Q4, and a PPC 8500. 

And a buncha dead 68k Macs where the CPU is worth more than the entire machine, if I part if out to Amiga users. 

They're shit. I mean, as someone who understands *nix based systems - I get the "appeal". But if that was the hill I was going to die on - I'd rather do Solaris. Ok, that is exaggeration - but I'd absolutely do Debian or Ubuntu first. Apple literally makes it easier to run Linux or Windows on OLD Macs than OS X... which now they call 11 or later. 

Stupid. Get off Cupertino's *ick. 

Wed Dec 10 2025 13:51:07 UTC from Nurb432

 45 mins to upgrade a minor version on my office MacBook. 

Ouch.  45 mins to upgrade a minor version on my office MacBook. and something like 10 reboots ( i lost track )

Really wish these folks ( MS too ) would get on the boat of 'caching' so you don't need to sit and twiddle your thumbs on an upgrade, especially a point release.          Sure, perhaps a forced reboot later that evening, but they dont need to take the thing down during the duration. 

"Apple is considering bringing advertising to Apple Maps search beginning in 2026, according to the Power On newsletter from Mark Gurman. This is part of a larger effort for the company to bring more advertising to iOS."

Just wait until we all are forced to have AR contacts.  Ads will be everywhere we look.  Yet another scifi prediction, slowly coming true.

Not real sure why but not yet turned in my shop macbook. its the last of the intel series.   I really only used it to run a windows vm so i could be 'on the network and compliant', and that is gone now ( windows 10. cant upgrade to 11. so it got kicked off earlier this summer ).  

And as mentioned a while ago, they ( office ) disabled ability to use Linux for AWS VDI Client ( why? f- if i know.. ).   But OSX is supported, so ...  reloaded it a month or so ago. Not a fan of OSX, but its better than windows, and i guess its nice to have WiFi/BT/sound again, without carrying around dongles.  ( and battery life is better than it was with Linux shoehorned onto it )

Got an OS update this week. after 5 reboots ( really Apple??? ) now it wont log me out ( does request my password.. just cant put in a new ID ). Its been converted to a single user machine..  how odd.

In general that is true, but Apple loves their proprietary hardware and its often hard to get anything working properly.

Like the keyboard on this POS from the office.   A keyboard, requires proprietary drivers just to function at all.  wtf. 

Mon Jul 28 2025 13:06:33 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

When the vendor stops patching the OS, you install Linux. (That's why every time M$ tries to get everyone to buy new machines, they end up changing their minds.)

But when you sell the hardware, there is less incentive to do that. Need to keep that line moving.. sell.. more.. product...

Tue Jun 17 2025 17:47:04 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

It might have made sense to just take the final version of Mac OS for Intel and continue critical maintenance patches on that track for a while. That's the normal practice.

Yes, i was speaking of MacOS, 3rd party is your own gig ( tho they do make it as hard as possible now to do that..  unlike back then ).  For many with the last gen intel, MacOS is still important to them and becomes a door stop here soon.  While i do agree a company cant support things forever, planned obsolescence ( and planned roadblocks ) should be a crime.

Thu Jun 12 2025 01:51:42 UTC from SamuraiCrow

 

Thu Jun 12 2025 00:23:47 UTC from Nurb432

Intel apple product support.   end of line.

I have an old Core2 Duo Mac Mini and have Debian installed on it somewhere. No MacOS anywhere on its hard drive.

Thu Jun 12 2025 00:23:47 UTC from Nurb432

Intel apple product support.   end of line.

I have an old Core2 Duo Mac Mini and have Debian installed on it somewhere. No MacOS anywhere on its hard drive.

Intel apple product support.   end of line.

Not an Apple fan now, as we all know, but I must give credit when its due.  They didn't roll over like so many would have..

"A secret UK order demanding that Apple backdoor its iCloud encryption appears to have prompted the company to pull Advanced Data Protection in the region."

Details not too important, but one of our departments is ONLY apple..  New staff, perhaps 60 people and they refused windows. ( and have the authority to get what they want even if its not our standard of supportable by us )

Day one, something isn't working. On a call with them, asked for them to share their screen, cant manage to share in teams.. And from what i can tell the internal camera wont work either, as it turns out she was using an external USB camera.. flipped it around to show the screen like its 2005...   Running safari on the app in question. "Safari isn't supported by the vendor, can you try chrome" "its not installed, but ill see if i can be done"

In the meantime, decided to dig out my own mac book i turned into a Chromebook . Its old. So it only would recover to X version, perhaps 4 behind current, not like its a PPC or something.  Figured it would at least let me upgrade safari. No.   So before i blew it away, thought id put on teams to see how sharing is different.    Nope not in the store.   Ok, try web to get to MS to download it..  internet is blocked unless i bypass..  which i did, then teams wont install " too old machine, upgrade, or F-off, serf" 

WTF Apple. You SUCK.

I think apple does stuff like this to confuse people. I think the time capsule was just new and re-branded time machines.   It also came in a version with out the drive. So i guess it was 'just' an airport,but had all the same stuff inside as the one with, just no drive, as far as i remember, again, its been perhaps 15 years now.  I was given one of the drive-less versions for free, and was going to put a drive in. Decided to toss it as it was even less friendly to non-osx people and by that point i had moved away from Apple anyway. They pissed me off one last time and i was over it ( phone related ). I even gave away my G5 wind-machine tower, as while it was running Linux and of course i loved powerPC chips, i could see the handwriting on the wall, the garden was being built and i refused to be trapped inside.

Ya after i looked closer it was a time machine.  Was.  its now in pieces in the garbage. 

Why?  Well it did have 5G WiFi ( ahead of its time really considering its age ) but it didn't want to come to life correctly, and as i futzed with it i remembered how much trouble i had unless i used an OSX device to make it go..   So i broke it open, pulled the drive out to destroy, and its now in the trash.

During cleaning found an old airport/drive thing.  Looks like a mac mini..  Had one of the trashcan looking ones to, gave it away long ago. Thought this was gone too. But was hiding in the bottom of a box of cables and 'stuff'.

Wonder if its worth keeping around as a wireless NAS.   From what i remember it was a real PITA To get working as it required OSX to configure it. And i don't remember what version of WiFi it had. might be too slow to care. ( and ya i will end up looking around .. once i find the model number on the stupid thing )

Its only a problem if it costs them money. 

Thu Dec 19 2024 18:11:08 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

So it has been confirmed, it isn't just my code malfunctioning, Mac OS Terminal does not honor the ANSI "save cursor position" and "restore cursor position" commands. I did a bit of searching and have found half a dozen other projects discovering the same problem. I will continue to solve this with a comment "do not enable this on a Mac".

Apparently it's been broken forever, Apple is aware of it and not interested in fixing it.

Linux and Windows (yes, Windows!) have open source terminal programs and people fix problems when they find it. Get with the program, Apple.

That is sort of how it is now, you can run a command to run unsigned apps.. but i also heard that may go away too.  It will be *mandatory*

And they can still develop. as long as they don't even think of peering outside the garden.  Oh, and pay an extra fee to do so.

Sat Nov 23 2024 15:55:11 UTCfrom IGnatius T Foobar

Subject: Re: Mac OS to ban unsigned apps?

WTF, does this include `brew` etc?

From what I have extracted there will still be a command you can run as superuser to get around it.  Sort of like putting your Android into developer mode, I guess?  So if that ends up being the case then it's the famous stance of "we'll let you get around this if you know what you're doing, but if you publish software and want regular people to install it, you'd better pay us, bitch."  Sort of like "Windows 10S" that could only install Store apps.

Macs are popular with developers.  I don't know how one can be expected to do software development on a locked down system.

WTF, does this include `brew` etc?

From what I have extracted there will still be a command you can run as superuser to get around it.  Sort of like putting your Android into developer mode, I guess?  So if that ends up being the case then it's the famous stance of "we'll let you get around this if you know what you're doing, but if you publish software and want regular people to install it, you'd better pay us, bitch."  Sort of like "Windows 10S" that could only install Store apps.

Macs are popular with developers.  I don't know how one can be expected to do software development on a locked down system.

My assumption is yes, even its packages.  Complete lock down.  

Thu Nov 21 2024 20:11:47 UTC from LoanShark Subject: Re: Mac OS to ban unsigned apps?

Word on the street is that the next version of Mac OS is going to
prohibit the installation of any apps that are not signed by Apple.
This requires a developer license ($100/year) and having Apple gatekeep

everything you publish.

WTF, does this include `brew` etc?

I might have agreed with that 20 years ago.

Now i think they are doing just the opposite of improvement. The entire IT industry *sucks* 

Fri Nov 15 2024 10:37:03 UTC from darknetuser Subject: Re: Mac OS to ban unsigned apps?

I agree that in the IT world bussiness has a tendency to improve as a block instead of a per-vendor basis.

I see that with people i know personally that used to be fans of Apple. They are all getting sick of it and moving on. Hell even i was a fan before they started building the garden.  loved the PowerPC stuff. And things before that. ( even if they stole some of their ideas from Xerox and other companies over the years... )

I blame Steve Jobs for setting them on that path.

Sat Nov 09 2024 22:26:32 UTC from darknetuser Subject: Re: Mac OS to ban unsigned apps?

I was reading in Linux Magazine that Mac OS is experiencing a significant reduction of market share. 

Ran off to verify with an Apple friend of mine ( well ex-apple, hes done ) says its almost like that now. You have to hop into command line and disable signing.   Something i bet most of their users cant figure out.

Oh, and its pretty sad when i can say M$ is less restrictive...  

Well, they get away with it with iOS, and have for a long time.. Far too many of their 'customers' are sheep, so yes.

Sat Nov 09 2024 21:06:15 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Mac OS to ban unsigned apps?

Word on the street is that the next version of Mac OS is going to prohibit the installation of any apps that are not signed by Apple. This requires a developer license ($100/year) and having Apple gatekeep everything you publish.

Are they going to get away with this? Or are they going to drive even more users into the open arms of Linux?

I remember those.   But we were more of of an Atari and Commordore area than Apple or Tandy so never really saw in person when it was new.

In the late 90s a friend ran across one they had in a box, forgot to ask me first before it was gone.  I still had my retro collection, would have been nice to have.

This sis the first time I hear of subscribestar. I will have to look it up. Thanks.

Yeah, they do the same thing as Patreon but they don't cave in to cancel culture.

Walled gardens are great. 

Tue Aug 20 2024 22:20:04 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Apple really are greedy bastards. They just dropped the hammer on Patreon, demanding 30% of any money donated to patrons when Apple's payment system is used. Patreon itself only takes 5%.

I hope this makes more people move to SubscribeStar, because Jack Conte is kind of a sleazebag anyway.

"Whites are a global minority --"

"SHUT UP WHITEY REEEEEEE"

Yet another reason to hate apple :  “Apple Entrepreneur Camp program is opening applications only to minority groups."

Judge people by their actions. Period.

Zoe does not approve of this message.

Tue Jun 18 2024 18:19:37 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I'm ok with that. The phrase "Artificial Intelligence" has never been an accurate description of anything to which it has been applied. And now that we're in the biggest hype cycle ever, it'll get even worse.

I think apple is trying to steal the acronym AI to mean "Apple Intelligence" 

That is bad as stuff Microsoft has done over the decades. ( 'word' for example )

"Elon Musk threatens Apple ban over AI partnership"

"AI is spyware bla bla bla"  hes just pissed Apple didnt chose his AI company instead..   Typical elite hypocrite.

i must have totally missed that. But since it never really was executed, i can see why i missed it at the time.

All i remember is the browser related stuff. 

I dont remember it being a true breakup, just more of a irritant for some of the business units.  But mostly business as usual, just not as overt. 

But i was pretty busy in 2000, so could have missed some of the details.

Tue Apr 02 2024 13:35:20 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

. Just look at what happened to Micro$oft in 2000. DOJ went after them, broke them up, then they megabribed the new incoming admin who reversed the divestiture.

Being part of it and growing up with it, i totally feel it got worse afterwards. Not better. Scattered incompatible systems, standards, chaos..   Personally i think one controlling company was needed in order to have a cohesive standardized communications system.  Also, they were under so much scrutiny and regulations they could not sneeze without approval. So there was no 'run away greed/etc' happening from them. They were not allowed.  They were even forced to put x amount back for research. ( And dont get me started on the great things bell labs did, which would not have been possible any other way )

They also cared about their employees. And their families. That all went away after the breakup too.

Now, to be fair, perhaps its not as critical today as it was then due to ISO type standards, but could you imagine back in the 70s 20 different phone systems across the country that didnt talk to each other? Or every company having their own kind of phone  ( cough * cellular today * cough )

And i still have a piece of the bell logo thinige that was on the building from Indianapolis, in a piece of Lucite. All the employees got to keep a piece of their history after the breakup and subsequent renames for the baby bells. And a necklace thing from one of the x-year employee awards. ( remember those? you got honored for being around .. not just a paycheck )

Oh, and in my attic, a couple of aluminum signs from phone booths..    

Wish i had not broke m pens as a kid. Never imagined they would be special someday ( ball point. top had a clear piece with some oil, and little bells that would float around ).  Or the in-house engineering magazines she woudl bring home for me to read. Why i ended up being an EE. 

And did i mention they helped pay for my college?  

Sorry, i'm a fan boy. Always have been always will be.  Nothing will change that. 

Wed Mar 27 2024 20:25:35 EDT from msgrhys

Well my father tells me things got much better after their monopoly was busted up. I don't understand why you would approve of monopolies.

 

Well my father tells me things got much better after their monopoly was busted up. I don't understand why you would approve of monopolies.

Wed Mar 27 2024 19:21:11 EDT from Nurb432

My mother was a LD operator. In the 60s and 70s.

So ya, i do.  They got screwed. 

Wed Mar 27 2024 17:58:31 EDT from msgrhys

Please don't tell me you miss the bell system.

 

My mother was a LD operator. In the 60s and 70s.

So ya, i do.  They got screwed. 

Wed Mar 27 2024 17:58:31 EDT from msgrhys

Please don't tell me you miss the bell system.

 

Please don't tell me you miss the bell system.

Wed Mar 27 2024 14:37:04 EDT from Nurb432

just remember what we did to AT&T.

So apple is going to incorporate AI into the next phone OS.

But, not their own, but instead, googles.. the one that was so woke they had to take it down after launch. 

And if you dont pay up, or play ball, just remember what we did to AT&T.

Google plays ball with the feds far more than Apple is my understanding ( man, i hate to give them any credit, but they still play the game with the feds.. just not as much ).

But if they get a huge payoff in cash from putting the thumb on Apple, Google might be next.

Plus its a distraction from the real issues going on.  

Fri Mar 22 2024 14:17:50 EDT from msgrhys

They will waste time on this while ignoring Google's browser monopoly. Disgraceful.

Fri Mar 22 2024 07:38:20 EDT from Nurb432

lol.

"DoJ starts anti trust proceedings against apple due to the iPhone"  

I hate apple as much as the next guy, but they dont have a monopoly over the phone ( or any ) market.   ( i know, yet another distraction, but still, its dumb )

 

They will waste time on this while ignoring Google's browser monopoly. Disgraceful.

Fri Mar 22 2024 07:38:20 EDT from Nurb432

lol.

"DoJ starts anti trust proceedings against apple due to the iPhone"  

I hate apple as much as the next guy, but they dont have a monopoly over the phone ( or any ) market.   ( i know, yet another distraction, but still, its dumb )

lol.

"DoJ starts anti trust proceedings against apple due to the iPhone"  

I hate apple as much as the next guy, but they dont have a monopoly over the phone ( or any ) market.   ( i know, yet another distraction, but still, its dumb )

Yeah, today.  Tomorrow it'll be someone else.  I find it easier to avoid Apple's ecosystem than it is to avoid Google's ecosystem.  There was a time when you couldn't avoid Microsoft but that's pretty easy now.  And then there's Amazon, in whose world a lot of people are immersed.

Obviously if your workplace has committed itself to one or more of the four big ecosystems then that makes a difference, but it's pretty easy to cordon off your work computing from your own, especially if they give you a dedicated machine to do your work on.

I dunno ... I just can't really get worked up about Apple.  To me they just seem like just another designer brand who sells overpriced merchandise made in sweatshops to people foolish enough to buy it.  It isn't really my cup of tea.  Yeah, if they offer me a Macbook at work I'll take it just to get off of Windows, but I'd never buy a Mac or an iPhone myself.  If someone else does ... hey, it's your money, spend it however you like.

Today.

Thu Feb 29 2024 09:13:00 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

Thankfully they're pretty easy to avoid if you simply don't buy into their ecosystem.

make that 256g .. not sure why i was thinking 128.   But still, 1TB would be nice if i would work.

Sat Jan 27 2024 14:00:52 EST from Nurb432

Older MBP. 128G m.2   ( an i5 something or other. not fast, but still functional )

 

Older MBP. 128G m.2   ( an i5 something or other. not fast, but still functional (

Years ago i bought an adapter to go from there stupid plug ot a regular one.  AND the stupid screwdrivers to open it.  ( grr apple. .butt-heads )   Opened it up, looked like the screw holding down the m.2 was pre stripped. F-it, and put the cover back in

FF a few years, ran across a sale on a m.2 with the same socket format and labeled " compatible with MBPs.. " something like 30 bucks for a 1TB.  Figured why not, extend its life a bit.

So here we go again.

Get it apart, seems it was NOT stripped and just looked like it.  And uses a standard torx.. that is nice.  put it back together.  wont recognize it. Grrrr  i hate apple  

Pretty exterior with not much inside?  Sounds like any Apple product.

Problem is that picture is all crust and no filling.  It clearly is not an Apple pie.

Tue Dec 05 2023 09:31:50 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

mmmmm ... apple pie :)

ya i know its not real. was bored, and thought there might be some appreciation for this. ( image of the apple headquarters on fire, for text client folks )  

2099368339@Uncensored

https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2023/10/27/ileakage-attack-mac-address-leakage/

Hmm "iLeakage" attack. seems every apple product is vulnerable, and there is no patch. It can read passwords, accounts, whatever. On OSX dont use safari, on iOS, you are just screwed.Unsure its in the wild or not. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=762sicBZx1o

Lol No. i *just* posted in hardware about this. 

Wed Nov 01 2023 09:19:01 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Are they now the fastest ARM out there?

lol. 

But true

lWed Oct 18 2023 16:39:00 EDT from darknetuser

People with flagship phones may make higher resolution pictures but that does not make a difference in the end because a good picture of your ice cream is about as useful as a bad picture of your ice cream.

I know i can look, and will, but thought id ask too;

Guy at work uses OSX. He has been remoting into a windows server to get to ADUC just to look up group memberships on a person.  Seems outlook for oSX wont show that  ( windows fat client will ) so looking for an alternative for him.  I have done it in python on linux, but a GUI would be nice, and im too lazy to write one for him :) . 

I cant reload the VM due to license issues.  Even changing  the CPU type will kill it .

Thu Oct 12 2023 09:57:17 EDT from LoanShark

try virtualbox. should use actual virtualization. though I'd think qemu would too.

Well, it did install both without yelling at me. ( and of course tons of dependencies )

But i do need to see how to get services to start at boot, and see why X11 isn't working right as its not setting display variable. ( at the least, might be more issues after that )

Well macports has qemu too. so i guess ill give it a shot..  Home today so i can do it. At office, you have to login to WiFi or Ethernet if its not an 'approved' device with proper invasive software installed, and last time i wanted to do that, no way to get a login page using recovery. Ended up leaving early that day, no computer.

And with this time it wants to install mavericks, not big sur.. grr have to figure out what is up with that.

its an intel. i7 of some sort. The last model i believe. Tho i could be wrong on that.   

Id never try this on an M1/M2. 

Mon Oct 09 2023 18:59:55 EDT from LoanShark

Oh, is this an Intel mac or ARM?

Its for a widows 10vm. That i cant move to another VM platform.(licensing )

Mon Oct 09 2023 12:31:37 EDT from LoanShark

It's possible to run Linux under Rosetta on Mac. Might perform better than qemu (JIT compilation?)

Ya i know. But that is going to be part of the testing before i consider doing this to my shop laptop.   But since its on the same 'series' of CPU ( both intel ) it wont be as bad as trying to do X86 on a mac m2. 

There may be some tricks involved under the hood that i lose if i move to OSX, but running it on native Linux, the windows VM isn't that bad. I didnt go with real KVM for a couple of reasons  ( not worth getting into here )

Mon Oct 09 2023 10:48:43 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

QEMU is not hardware-accelerated virtualization; it's just a CPU emulator.
So it'll be really slow.

What about QEMU? Did it install it with it or was it separate and dont know if it works?  That is the 2nd piece that i need.  I already reloaded the 'test' laptop and OSX is gone, but if you think that works too i can put OSX back on.  ( its new enough to load from internet, so its just a 'waiting' game, not a 'hard' game. )

Other than those 2 items, i dont really care what else it can run. I can always run a Debian VM if i want something 'odd'.

And yes i know i can use QEMU with CLI tools, but i need to run a desktop locally, so might as well install virt-manager since it does all that for me on its own.  ( and will make the transfer of my shop VM painless.. 'migrate it off to a temp server, reload. then migrate it back )

Sun Oct 08 2023 17:53:28 EDT from fandarel

I don't have a need for virt-manager at the moment but I did a test install and it seems 

Well that was a failure. after several hours to erase, load OSX from internet, get brew installed, and what seemed like forever to compile  virt-manager .. : "you are using older OSX. f-off and dont ask for help"  i guess after 2 years after an OS upgrade all the stuff want quits working with a hard stop, not just a 'you are not really supported, good luck'

Not sure if i can force an upgrade manually or not. Or if i even want to bother.  All i was trying to do is see if i could get QEMU to run, with intent to do the same with my shop laptop if the test went well.  Getting tired of having to carry around a WiFi dongle if i go to a meeting.  Trying to get that native POS T2 stuff running under Linux was a lost cause.  Barely got the keyboard working, with its proprietary driver ( really Apple? its a freaking keyboard. f-off with your lock-in )

Perhaps i should just toss in the towel now and just keep carrying around the dongle. Don't break what works. ( even tho i dont dare try to upgrade the kernel i have installed as will break the keyboard and have to fight with that again )

in another year, if i'm still around, i wont need my windows VM anymore anyway. VDI will do all i need. ( actually it would now, but my main app backend is running thru a site to site vpn, and they wont open that up to VDI "machines" and i need to do SQL to its DB. If i try to VPN to get around that, then the VDI loses *all* network.  And no, they wont fix that either.  "security reasons". And yes, trying to do a 'hop' to a ;local server desktop then SQL across the VPN is possible, but its frowned upon and adds a lot of overhead for me.

I hate the modern day Apple. 

I hate computers.

I need out of this business.

Grrrr

so to install homebrew you have to have xcode? I wonder how big that beast is.  (trying something today...)

For me its "practical convenience factor". 

Don't want to carry around a bulky camera during every day life.   A quick unplanned "ooh, that is cool" or "look, its my dog" pictures dont really need a 'real' camera.  But its nice to at least reach a threshold of quality. Which for me cheap phones dont do. But the mid-range ones i normally buy, do.

Thu Sep 28 2023 11:26:58 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Are people who want to shoot at that high-end range really using their phones to do it?

Seems like if you care about the kind of fidelity HEIF/HEIC delivers, you'd be shooting with a "real" camera.

All of my mid-range china android phones can do that.

it appears my new pixel has that option too, in the native camera app at least.  I dont see it in open camera now ( what i normally use ), which seems odd. but whatever, i only spent 30 seconds looking.

Tue Sep 26 2023 14:28:19 EDT from LoanShark

I don't know a damned thing about the Android ecosystem, but for Apple users, you can only shoot RAW if you have the "Pro" phone.

Ya. same here.

Went flagship once with a Note3.   Used the stylus perhaps 2x.   "this is dumb on a phone"

Tue Sep 26 2023 09:05:16 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I'm ok with a midrange phone but in the end you get what you like!

I went and did work with my shiny new iPhone 15 Pro Max.  Soooo much better!  With the iPhone 11, I would sometimes get dropped frames when rendering the Uber maps on my CarPlay screen in the 2023 Ford Escape.  With my shiny new iPhone 15 Pro Max, maps were consistently rendering at 60fps and the phone never got anywhere near as hot as the old one did.  I guess the moar powerful GPU means map rendering isn't sending the GPU full-tilt.

only thing i have found better in 'better' phones is the camera.  Saves me from carrying one around with me. ( and the autosync to my server at home )

While doing some other research, decided to  picked up a pixel and preemptively ditch my china ( xiaomi ) phone, not due to 'bad' things but cell antenna issues, battery life is slowly fading ( 2 years old now ) suspected coming carrier blocks, and its already harder to find ones i like that support US frequencies.  ( But i do like it, and the previous 3 )

Ill have to look at that grapenos thing. 

Sun Sep 24 2023 12:47:32 EDT from darknetuser

Sort of sad when people use terms like 'loan' in relation to a
phone...  how have we come to this point?

I think something similar.

Only expend a lot on phones if you make money with that phone, and even then, chances are you are better off with a cheapo.

Realistically, people with flagship phones rarely do anything with then that I can't do with cheapos.

BTW If you are phone-paranoid, a Pixel flashed with grapheneos is actually quite useful, as long as you don't need Google services. If you need them, you can sandbox them.

Yes. Ma Bell had issues and was not perfect, but they were not the evil monster that came later. 

Somewhere i have a piece of the bell logo ( concrete. HUGE thing ) from the building here when they tore off, after the breakup.  They put little pieces in Lucite and gave them to the employees as a remembrance of what was. And what would never be again. Sort of like a funeral, in a way.

I also have a couple of signs off phone booths. ( i think in the attic ) .  And a brass bell logo necklace thing. some sort of 'x year employee prize' ( do companies still do that? )

I had 2 of the pens with the little floating bells inside. Lost them when i moved form Florida.  One of the boxes of my stuff, left behind. Lost those, all my artwork in kindergarten, several ( now super rare ) matchbox cars in their boxes, original GI Joe, in its box..  I have never even found a picture of those pens to show people.. its sort of like the girl scout cookies with a little blob of mint creme in them back in the 70s, almost a folktale but they really did exist...

Wed Sep 20 2023 22:12:33 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Let the hate flow. It isn't Ma Bell.

https://youtu.be/qxXAFgVZJm0?t=64

There i fixed it for you :) 

Sadly tho i agree with this version . Even tho i was a bell-baby.  But after the breakup, it all went south. Things changed. In a lot of ways, in a lot of areas.

Tue Sep 19 2023 13:40:53 EDT from LadySerenaKitty

 because AT&T  can go fuck a kite for all I care. 

My iPhone Loan is through Apple and backed by Citizen One.  My first phone NOT financed through AT&T, because AT&T financing can go fuck a kite for all I care.

Tue Sep 19 2023 11:52:44 EDT from Nurb432

Right, that is my point. Phones should not be so costly that people have to take out loans.  ( really many people do, its just bundled into their contract and they never read the bill close enough to notice.  )

Tue Sep 19 2023 11:46:09 EDT from LadySerenaKitty

The expensive nature of my next iPhone is moar money than I currently has.

 

Right, that is my point. Phones should not be so costly that people have to take out loans.  ( really many people do, its just bundled into their contract and they never read the bill close enough to notice.  )

Tue Sep 19 2023 11:46:09 EDT from LadySerenaKitty

The expensive nature of my next iPhone is moar money than I currently has.

 

The expensive nature of my next iPhone is moar money than I currently has.

Tue Sep 19 2023 07:32:56 EDT from Nurb432

Sort of sad when people use terms like 'loan' in relation to a phone...  how have we come to this point?

i still buy Chinese stuff direct, cut the middle man that slaps a pretty label and $ added on.  I spend ~150, which end up being mid-hi range. I go with xiaomi normally as they are the big consumer electronic manufacturer over there, decent quality and they do *everything*...even electric toothbrushes..   AND no carrier crap AND no NSA tap...  ( ya, CCP tap is included for no extra charge, but they dont care about me, i am not even a blip on their radar.. )

Even xiaomi has $2k+ flagship phones that will do night vision, go get your coffee and wipe your butt for you.. but if a 150 dollar phone does all i need, and lasts me until the next required platform update ( 4g to 5g mandate ), why?

Of course if i was really paranoid, id get a pinephone and run Linux.. 

if i had not blown away my native OS on my macbook i could try it.

you could fire up a quick VM with Macos and see what it does, before you order the hardware. 

Tue Sep 19 2023 09:24:04 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Could always try it and see. 🤷‍♀️

BRILLIANT! :)

I was hoping to determine ahead of time whether I needed to order an appropriate external disk for when I need to run the machine in "me mode". The disk I was using for that on my current machine, I reformatted it and gave it to my daughter for her digital photography class, figuring I could get something FASTER for myself.

Then I read about APFS volumes ... if the machine can do that on its own, then I don't need an external.

Sort of sad when people use terms like 'loan' in relation to a phone...  how have we come to this point?

i still buy Chinese stuff direct, cut the middle man that slaps a pretty label and $ added on.  I spend ~150, which end up being mid-hi range. I go with xiaomi normally as they are the big consumer electronic manufacturer over there, decent quality and they do *everything*...even electric toothbrushes..   AND no carrier crap AND no NSA tap...  ( ya, CCP tap is included for no extra charge, but they dont care about me, i am not even a blip on their radar.. )

Even xiaomi has $2k+ flagship phones that will do night vision, go get your coffee and wipe your butt for you.. but if a 150 dollar phone does all i need, and lasts me until the next required platform update ( 4g to 5g mandate ), why?

Of course if i was really paranoid, id get a pinephone and run Linux.. 

Mon Sep 18 2023 23:32:41 EDT from LadySerenaKitty

So ... on the 14th I got approved for an iPhone Loan.  On the 15th, at 0700 Texas Time, I woke up early specifically to pre-order my phone.  It took a while because the online Apple Store was having capacity issues.  At 0735 I got my pre-order in.

iPhone 15 Pro Max 1TB.

So ... on the 14th I got approved for an iPhone Loan.  On the 15th, at 0700 Texas Time, I woke up early specifically to pre-order my phone.  It took a while because the online Apple Store was having capacity issues.  At 0735 I got my pre-order in.

iPhone 15 Pro Max 1TB.

Could always try it and see. 🤷‍♀️

Mon Sep 18 2023 22:58:36 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Ok, next question, for anyone who knows their way around a Mac. I still haven't gotten mine but I'm preparing.

I've read that APFS allows you to have multiple "volumes" on the same partition.
This sounds kind of cool, actually. They've provided the ability, it seems, to multi-boot without having to partition the drive. (Yes I know, btrfs and zfs can do that too, but those aren't readily available on a Mac.) There are a few web sites that suggest you can use this feature to have multiple copies of Mac OS on the same disk, for example, if you're trying out a beta and you don't want it to be your main system yet.

I'm thinking I will want to use this feature to have "work" and "personal" bootable volumes on the same machine. When I travel with my Windoze laptop I carry a bootable USB with Linux on it, and boot that when I want to use it as a personal machine. The Linux image doesn't have the Bitlocker key, so it can't mess with the Windoze installati

I believe that the major difference is that ports is legacy and brew is  more current. So id stick with brew. At least when i cared, i did that.

But if im wrong someone will correct me :) 

Mon Aug 21 2023 01:54:43 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I did hear that Crapple has gotten really st00pid with the laptop hardware and now solders memory and storage chips to the motherboard instead of slotting them. But this would be my work machine so I don't care. My personal machine is a mid tower with a real motherboard, and it runs Linux.

Homebrew vs. MacPorts. Someone's going to have to explain the difference to me so I can make an informed decision. Sounds like two solutions to the same problem. I'm going to venture a guess that the word "ports" in MacPorts implies a connection to the FreeBSD ports catalog? I wouldn't mind using it as an opportunity to absorb some BSD-fu as a side effect.

Oh and custom screwdriver too..  it was new enough to have had the 'apple elliptical' nonsense ..     Not sure where those wandered off to.. 

Mon Aug 21 2023 11:21:35 AM EDT from Nurb432

 

If you bought the custom adapter, took it apart...

 

The previous model i had from the office you could add larger m.2, but no more ram.

If you bought the custom adapter, took it apart...

I did.. then found the screw holding the m.2 down was pre-stripped to prevent you from doing it easily.   ya, i could have with a tiny bit of epoxy but pissed me off enough i gave up.

Mon Aug 21 2023 10:56:51 AM EDT from fandarel

My main gripe with Mac hardware is that I can't just pop it open and install a bigger SSD or more RAM. My beefy machine only has 512GB SSD and 8GB RAM, which is... meh. My wife's has a 2TB SSD and 32GB RAM, but as yet I haven't managed to talk her away from it.

I tend to agree then, looks like you might as well feed the fruit-beast.  They need more money.

Mon Aug 21 2023 12:37:30 AM EDT from LadySerenaKitty Subject: Re: Mac OS as a daily driver?

After spending some time getting MacPorts and some other stuffs installed and set up, you'll be able to do just that.

Sun Aug 20 2023 20:48:45 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: Mac OS as a daily driver?

And no I don't really care about Mac native software. As far as I'm concerned it'll basically just be a weird variant of FreeBSD. I just want to be able to sit at the machine's *native* prompt and type "terraform apply" or "go build" or "make"
and have it do what I expect.

 

After spending some time getting MacPorts and some other stuffs installed and set up, you'll be able to do just that.

Sun Aug 20 2023 20:48:45 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: Mac OS as a daily driver?

And no I don't really care about Mac native software. As far as I'm concerned it'll basically just be a weird variant of FreeBSD. I just want to be able to sit at the machine's *native* prompt and type "terraform apply" or "go build" or "make"
and have it do what I expect.

Cool. I loved jails. ( tho to be honest, its been so long if i had to create one to save my life.  i better say good bye )

While Jails are still a thing in FreeBSD, macOS does not have them.  It does have Docker, tho.

Sun Aug 20 2023 08:07:35 EDT from Nurb432 Subject: Re: Mac OS as a daily driver?

Wonder if OSX supports jails or bhyve.  ( or are jails still a thing? i do admit im way out of date in the BSD world. )

Docker working yet? ..  just a passing thought since you can swap out everything with that..

Wonder if OSX supports jails or bhyve.  ( or are jails still a thing? i do admit im way out of date in the BSD world. )

Docker working yet? ..  just a passing thought since you can swap out everything with that.. 

Sun Aug 20 2023 03:32:17 AM EDT from LadySerenaKitty Subject: Re: Mac OS as a daily driver?

.  In case you were wondering, yes, it is pawsible to use chroot to build an environment that almost exactly matches your purroduction environment (almost because different kernel).

I thought i answered it.. ( with a serous note, if short ) but seems to be missing. I also missed the python part ( or was that not in the first ) and all i picked up on was 'living in wsl "

I had said stick with windows originally, since if you are stuck in a windows environment at the office, trying to make another platform work for daily life is a pain  ( my case Linux on a macbook, not osx so not 1:1 ) I do it, and the only way around it for me was VM for that bit of work that *requires* windows. Its getting better with more stuff moving to web, but being different, is still a pain to not be like the rest of the office.

But that said if you are doing mostly python stuff and watching cat videos ( ok training stuff :) ), i suppose it wont matter in the bigger picture and id go with whichever hardware is better. But, and i hate saying this.. I might still go with windows here, at least for the time being.  Personally i'm not real fond of what OSX has become operationally, and it seems more limiting.  But i guess in your case, you wont really care about mac software, or the interface, so its about hardware at that point. 

And for what its worth, i have python native on windows, running spyder and 'normal stuff'.. Not sure why you need WSL? Did i miss something there that still ties you to windows?

i'm sure i have asked before: i assume real VMs or dual boot isn't an option ? Host platform wont matter much then, and we are back to which is the better hardware being offered.

( and if this entire comment was useless, sorry, its early AM .. woke up with a migraine )

With the addition of MacPorts, I've been able to use macOS and FreeBSD interchangeably and everything works on my FreeBSD servers.  In case you were wondering, yes, it is pawsible to use chroot to build an environment that almost exactly matches your purroduction environment (almost because different kernel).

Sat Aug 19 2023 22:40:23 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Mac OS as a daily driver?

All sarcasm and MCIBTY aside ... here's a question to ponder.

I have recently learned that I will soon be given the opportunity to select a Mac as my work computer if I want it. (The only choices will be Mac and Windows, so please don't suggest any other options.)

My current work machine runs Windows 11 and WSL2. I spend most of my day in WSL2 doing devops type stuff, writing in Terraform and Python and Go and shell and that sort of thing, building automation and integration for data center and cloud operations. As an IT architect I spend the remainder of my time writing technical documentation, drawing diagrams, and being the Winston Wolf of the organization (I solve problems).

So my question to the audience is: will I find Mac OS a more comfortable environment than WSL2? The native side of Windows is of course completely unusable because production is all Linux and the tools just don't fit. Will Mac OS get close enough that I can sit at i

lol

I had to get an Apple account for work. ( long story, long ago, office phone related, which i no longer have. So the # and ios link is gone )

Needed to use it for something some 10 years later for testing ( perhaps 4 years ago .. ).  It was impossible to get it working again, or create a new one with the same email ( office email, since it was work related and i needed our app-store entries ).   I think i had to wait 3 days, it wasn't hours, it was days.... then re-verify, then 10 more hoops.. one failed.  back to the beginning.. Rinse repeat, fail in a different spot.  Then 3rd time it just refused to even start .. 'screw you'.

Oh and i had the password stored in my vault, so i knew what it was, it just had not been used in enough time they 'disabled' it. Without that i doubt i could even have started their flawed process.

I had someone else test.

During the process, it appeared that it would be painless if i had one of their phones.  But no, dont want.

Thu May 18 2023 12:46:20 AM EDT from papa

iTunes used to be a decent music player on Windows. I started it up for the first time in a year or so and needed to do a password reset to access the Store. NOW if you want to reset your Apple password and don't own an Apple device you have to confirm your phone number, confirm your e-mail, confirm your credit card, THEN wait 24 hours. I guess the money of us non-Apple owners isn't good enough for them anymore.

 

iTunes used to be a decent music player on Windows. I started it up for the first time in a year or so and needed to do a password reset to access the Store. NOW if you want to reset your Apple password and don't own an Apple device you have to confirm your phone number, confirm your e-mail, confirm your credit card, THEN wait 24 hours. I guess the money of us non-Apple owners isn't good enough for them anymore.

For me. Most things dont need them.

Sun Mar 19 2023 10:42:10 AM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

. Even though I like electronic stuff, I'm not sure I want computers in the panel.

I suppose that might be what they do here ( mesh ).  Truck drives past, never see it.    Used to see them in yards all the time, and asking to go into ours ( locked gate )

Pretty sure 3G was availble by then but they have not changed the meter in a while, so by now it would be dead without an upgrade i guess. Didn't think about that until just now.

Sun Mar 05 2023 03:33:22 PM EST from IGnatius T Foobar

 Some can be read from the street, some of them form an ad-hoc mesh network, and some are now being built IoT-style with 5G uplinks.

Ya i knew that its not exact, but same concept. 

Sun Mar 05 2023 03:33:22 PM EST from IGnatius T Foobar

HomePNA/HomePlug is not the exact same technology as IPoPDL, but of course it operates on a similar principle.

Didn't realize they were using that to talk to your devices, i assumed it was cell data or something.  Related, how are they reading my meter remotely? They stopped coming in my yard to do it a good decade ago. Honestly never really gave it much thought.  I know our water "meters" were replaced and they drive past slowly with a stick to read them now.

On the consumer side, i used it for a while ( couple of years ) here at the house in a spot that was getting bad WiFi signal due to stuff in the walls, but due to old wiring, bandwidth was pretty poor so eventually did it another way. 

Sat Mar 04 2023 07:20:12 PM EST from LadySerenaKitty

IPoPDL (Internet Protocol over Power Distribution Line) is in use today.  The problem is the early experiments required 2-way communication, what is widely in-place now is 1-way.  Power companies use this with those stupid "eco thermostats" to turn raise the temperature in your air conditioning system, or disable it completely during high-load hours.

Isn't that just temporally shifting the high-load period?

IPoPDL (Internet Protocol over Power Distribution Line) is in use today.  The problem is the early experiments required 2-way communication, what is widely in-place now is 1-way.  Power companies use this with those stupid "eco thermostats" to turn raise the temperature in your air conditioning system, or disable it completely during high-load hours.

Isn't that just temporally shifting the high-load period?

Or shut your power supply off. "sorry this power isn't green enough today".

From what i remember data over power lines was just too costly, and pretty much every transformer broke it.

Sat Mar 04 2023 11:11:52 AM EST from IGnatius T Foobar

.  I wonder if power delivery companies could embed a metadata signal into the wire to advise consumers about where the power is coming from at any given moment, 

So its idea of "clean energy" is that the phone is charging at night time?

That's pretty dumb on its face, of course.  But it's got my gears turning.  Remember all the talk about data over power lines in the early 2000's?  The technology exists but it ended up not being feasible to deliver Internet connections over it because it was too noisy and nondeterministic.  I wonder if power delivery companies could embed a metadata signal into the wire to advise consumers about where the power is coming from at any given moment, and what the per-kilowatthour cost of the electricity is at any given moment.

The global warming people could use that metadata to figure out their carbon footprint.  The rest of us could use it to model our power consumption to favor the least expensive electricity available.

In the consumer world, time-of-day metering is restricted to "day mode" and "night mode" and we have meters that switch between them.  My home has this type of service, and I do save a bit of money by running major appliances such as the dishwasher in a delay mode that starts them up in the middle of the night.  It's also the reason why electric heat is reasonable here, since it gets coldest at night.  I imagine the same logic works for charging electric cars overnight.

In the commercial world, there is more granularity.  At my data centers for example, we use meters whose "total" kilowatthour count is only used as a reference; the actual metering is done in six minute samples and transmitted back to the power company over an out-of-band connection.  This allows us to take advantage of the best possible pricing, since our base load is consistent around the clock.   Yes, the air conditioners are working harder during peak load, but there's no way around that.

Now imagine a smart meter that has a two-way data connection with the power company and can really take advantage of spot pricing like we do in the commercial world.  *Now* you've got the ability to transmit metadata in the home's power line that can be received by phones and other chargeable devices.  Those devices could watch the metadata and figure out the best times to charge.

sure, you can flip it off ( today, who knows about tomorrow ) but that does not remove the comedic value of it. 

:)

That feature is easy to turn off, and I had to turn it off, as it basically prevents charging during the day unless the charge is below 20%.  That feature has had my phone straight-up dying as I did a shopping order.

Wed Mar 01 2023 18:49:30 EST from Nurb432

Brother has an iPhone.  it now has a 'clean energy charging' mode to reduce your carbon foot print.

lol

Brother has an iPhone.  it now has a 'clean energy charging' mode to reduce your carbon foot print.

lol

Somewhat related, for fun sometimes id setup a QEMU VM with like 50 CPUs then boot something that shows the # and take a screenshot.   "hey, got a new PC"  

lol people fell for it every time.

Thu Dec 15 2022 10:25:20 AM EST from LadySerenaKitty

That's a known issue when you have more than a thousand nested beast-hyves on a single machine.

 

That's a known issue when you have more than a thousand nested beast-hyves on a single machine.

Wed Dec 14 2022 16:59:28 EST from Nurb432

until you hit singularity and the universe implodes 

 

until you hit singularity and the universe implodes 

Wed Dec 14 2022 03:16:34 PM EST from LadySerenaKitty

 

 

Obviously, you can run FreeBSD inside bhyve.

 

When I was testering stuffs in bhyve, I found it to be quite purrformant.  Hardly any purrformance loss at all.  Of course, bhyve is an open-source hypurrvisor made for FreeBSD hosts, has a very smol codebase (compared to other hypurrvisors) and is extremely low-pawprint on system resources.

Obviously, you can run FreeBSD inside bhyve.

https://twitter.com/LadySerenaKitty/status/1602490106555908096

Got #FreeBSD running inside #bhyve on FreeBSD? That's what we call a "beast-hyve"

With KVM i have not found that to be the case. YMMV of course.

Wed Dec 14 2022 02:38:06 PM EST from LoanShark Subject: Re: Please help this penguin-blooded hacker deal with a Macintrash...

Virtualization tends to provide a subpar (read: agonizingly slow at times) experience on the desktop. 

While i hate apple as much as the next guy, if i can still load Linux on the metal, id rather have it than a locked down windows laptop for the office. Sure, lock down my vm that accesses office resources, but at least the metal is "mine".

That said at this point id never buy one for myself.  I do have one, but it was pre-fascist apple where you could still replace the battery with a slide off panel. They still had an authoritarian complex by that point, but not had gone full fascist yet.  Which is a shame, as i do like ARM and was looking forward to mainstream ARM devices that were not Chromebooks.

lol

you sure we dont work for the same people? :)

We did that some time ago to most of the end users. Now its about to hit us IT folks too.

However we have an "out". "Beyond Trust". Its a service that they install where if you do something that requires any level of admin rights, you can 'request' it on the fly. If the executable is in the whitelist you get rights ( and it logs it ), if not, you get reported. Not reported in a bad way, just the request was logged as denied and you have to wait to be approved, or denied again, which is most likely. And if denied you have to go thru a whole bunch of red tape to try to get it approved. 

I just went thru this trying to get something installed on VDI that does not really support creating a SCCM package for.  With VDI they have already mandated no admin rights. For anyone.

End goal is also to go to a 100% whitelist sort of affair.   Been on the agenda for over a decade,. but was not a workable solution. But its almost here.

Our security team is now larger than any other team we have. And growing by the month. 

Thu Nov 24 2022 07:46:58 PM EST from Greg Nesbitt Subject: Re: Please help this penguin-blooded hacker deal with a Macintrash...

At $dayjob we are shortly to lose local admin rights and thus the ability to install software.

Just from my recent experience  YMMV

USBC - works fine with most any hub + mouse, keyboards, video ( as new macbooks dont even come with video out or wired network....).    Sure, you can get an apple branded thunderbolt hub at 10x the cost.  but i run regular USBC ones on mine, and do just fine.  One i have now provides power, 2 HDMI ports, 1 VGA, couple of USB3 and a TF slot and Ethernet ( which is now black listed from our network after a year of using it.  really? idiots )

Linux: If its a newer one, good luck getting it to work 100%.  So many propitiatory drivers and modified efi.  It can be done, but its a real PITA.  Mine, if i sneeze i will lose the keyboard/track pad and will have to spend an entire weekend getting it working.  Never have got WiFi/BT to work.  I think i could now, IF i had saved some special files from osx before i blew it away.  then figure out which binary blob , then compile in some more drivers, hope they are the right ones, bla bla bla.  ( i just use USB WiFi.. its easier )

It can boot between different partitions, unsure if you have to force it at each boot or can change the default, as i have never looked. ( hold down option key gives you a boot menu, so not hard ).  Assuming your folks dont password protect that of course.

This all assumes intel. not M* processors.  Last i heard, that is still a bigger struggle.

Now my previous model, everything worked with a simple Debian install other than WiFi/BT.  I was just going to upgrade the ssd, but after i found the screw pre-stripped to keep you from doing it, i just said f-it ill ask for a new one, should be no big deal to get it to run and copy my vm over.   ya.. right. 

The one before that ( an old core duo ) everything worked out of the box, even WiFi.  Each generation is more and more locked down and more of a pain.

All i know is said "C" adapter when i bought it. It didnt mention thunderbolt in the description. Works with this stupid MacBook ( the model with the silly LCD function keys ) and my PixelBook too.  ( only one video port tho.. )

I hate this macbook btw, the previous 2 i had installed Linux just fine ( minus WiFi on the last one.. which is fine i know WiFi is weird ). This one however, has been a complete nightmare due to drivers and boot configuration weirdness.   who in the hell requires a special proprietary driver for a freaking keyboard..  Cant even safely update without having to recompile the kernel again and hope it boots next time..

Wed Oct 05 2022 10:36:45 EDT from Nurb432

the 60 dollar hub i bought has Ethernet, 2 HDMI, 1 VGA, 2 SD slots ( standard and micro ), 4 USB3 ports, USBC cable to your device, and of course USBC power input to charge the thing its plugged into and power the hub, The thing is really not that big, and is mostly just space for the ports so it can be done pretty easy if they want.. just package all those guts into the power pack.

If the chip handling the video portion is just a basic framebuffer, then it's Thunderbolt.  Thunderbolt is required for video to be handled with a basic framebuffer instead of a full-on GPU, since that's a PCIe x16 port, which is the only way to route video using PCIe-backplane mode (kernel modesetting) to an external port.  Thunderbolt also has a USB service and PCIe also has a USB service, so if any devices on those USB ports appear to be attached to the computer's internal USB host controller, that's why.  If it's able to provide USB connectivity while the video ports are in use, then it's Thunderbolt since PCIe only allows one of its connection services (video or USB) to be active at a time (in addition to PCIe service).  Thunderbolt allows all services to run simultaneously, which is presumably why Apple decided to use it.

the 60 dollar hub i bought has Ethernet, 2 HDMI, 1 VGA, 2 SD slots ( standard and micro ), 4 USB3 ports, USBC cable to your device, and of course USBC power input to charge the thing its plugged into and power the hub, The thing is really not that big, and is mostly just space for the ports so it can be done pretty easy if they want.. just package all those guts into the power pack.

Tue Oct 04 2022 19:35:37 EDT from Nurb432

If that is the case for everyone ( i thought you had to buy them separately, and they charged an arm and a leg, but ill be happy to be wrong ) then ya, that should be plenty.

I know the last macbook i got via work didnt come with a single adapter. Nothing beyond a power brick.. All it has is 4 usbc and a audio jack.. it does not even have HDMI out for a monitor ( or projector.. ), or Ethernet.  Sure, a decent 3rd party hub that supports a power feed is only about 60 bucks, but its the principle of the thing, we spend several K$ on the stupid thing, and they cant even include a cheap hub.. 

Tue Oct 04 2022 05:57:53 PM EDT from LadySerenaKitty

 

My iPhone 11 shipped with a USB-C cable.  Isn't that enough?  

 

Ya, all new iPhones ship with a Lightning->USBC cable.  Apple is also preferentially pushing the USB-C power bricks over the old USB-A power bricks.  I honestly can't see all iPhone accessories being available if the phone itself has a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port.  HDMI out is done by sending a video stream from the GPU to an HDMI framebuffer chip inside the dongle, which is done via the 1x PCIe connection in the Lightning port.  Things like the SD-card adapter or the "USB mass storage adapter" also use the PCIe lane paired with their own SD host controller or USB host controller.

The EU may want standardization, which is a good thing, but their method is all wrong.  I think if the iPhone has to have a built-in USB-C port instead of the Lightning port, the vast majority of dongle types is going to vanish.  Say bye-bye to the HDMI output.  Apple's solution is to ship the Lightning port but also ship a USB-C cable.  This lets us keep all our high-bandwidth accessories and use the USB-C standard going forward.

If that is the case for everyone ( i thought you had to buy them separately, and they charged an arm and a leg, but ill be happy to be wrong ) then ya, that should be plenty.

I know the last macbook i got via work didnt come with a single adapter. Nothing beyond a power brick.. All it has is 4 usbc and a audio jack.. it does not even have HDMI out for a monitor ( or projector.. ), or Ethernet.  Sure, a decent 3rd party hub that supports a power feed is only about 60 bucks, but its the principle of the thing, we spend several K$ on the stupid thing, and they cant even include a cheap hub.. 

Tue Oct 04 2022 05:57:53 PM EDT from LadySerenaKitty

 

My iPhone 11 shipped with a USB-C cable.  Isn't that enough?  

Tue Oct 04 2022 16:51:05 EDT from Nurb432

Putting the evil apple garden aside, i'm not fond of this ruling.  Governments mandating tech. Will end up stifling improvement. 

"We have this wonderful new port, and its an open stand..."  "shut up, usbC"

 

Mandating free adapters in each box, i think i would be ok with. Its not like they dont make enough to toss in a 1 dollar adapter ( their cost )

My iPhone 11 shipped with a USB-C cable.  Isn't that enough?  Can the 3.5mm audio/HDMI/DVI/etc... adapters be made for USB-C?  The Lightning port directly exposes a PCIe lane for these various adapters for iPhone.

Putting the evil apple garden aside, i'm not fond of this ruling.  Governments mandating tech. Will end up stifling improvement. 

"We have this wonderful new port, and its an open stand..."  "shut up, usbC"

Mandating free adapters in each box, i think i would be ok with. Its not like they dont make enough to toss in a 1 dollar adapter ( their cost )

Nah as there is even more powerful ARM in data centers already.

I think its purely cost and control.  They see the advantages.

Wed Sep 21 2022 02:00:10 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

It is possible that they've hit the peak of what ARM is capable of doing.

Hmm so Apple announced they are starting to move away from ARM and towards RISC-V.  First in support components on their SOCs, but later it will be 100% even if they didnt admit it yet.  Wont be tomorow as it takes time, but i bet in 5 years we see one that ditches ARM totally

That didnt take long to make that decision. Figured they would, they get total control then. No license fees, no rules, so they can lock it down as much as they want. Good luck getting drivers, or even running non-approved code.

NVIDIA is next. they already have RISC-V in their GPUs a 'glue'.  And after losing the fight to buy ARM, you know that is where they will go as well.

I think there are advantages to both models. 

When i worked for GM we made our own chips  You are not reliant on anyone else..  

Pretty much.  There are not many left really making chips. 

Sun Aug 28 2022 11:06:39 AM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I guess in a "fabless" world it's less of a big deal than it used to be. They basically just bought a bunch of IP from other companies and threw it together in a configuration that they felt was ideal for the computers they wanted to build.

Id say it was more about total control than being impacted. Apple is a bunch of power hungry elitist f-ers.  

But ya, id imagine they have more than one level of chip. "M2 pro", or some such stupidly named thing.

Is there a high spec M2 and how does it compare to an AMD?  I thought the reason Apple changed to a different CPU again was because they didn't want to be impacted by a third party manufacturer.

Apple is unique in that they can get away with doing changes like this at all.

True.

The low spec M2 is worse than the low spec M1. Is it coincidence that the PPC G5 was worse than the G4? I think they should've went with AMD like all the major PCs went since AMD is cheaper than Intel. And not to mention, AMD has a higher performance still. But, it might be a while until AMD gets their chips working good on laptops though...

While i dont like apple, moving away from X86 is the right thing to do. ( moving away from ppc was a mistake )

I have not heard this about the M2.

Sun Jul 31 2022 12:33:05 PM EDT from reb0

The low spec M2 is worse than the low spec M1. Is it coincidence that the PPC G5 was worse than the G4? I think they should've went with AMD like all the major PCs went since AMD is cheaper than Intel. And not to mention, AMD has a higher performance still. But, it might be a while until AMD gets their chips working good on laptops though...

The low spec M2 is worse than the low spec M1. Is it coincidence that the PPC G5 was worse than the G4? I think they should've went with AMD like all the major PCs went since AMD is cheaper than Intel. And not to mention, AMD has a higher performance still. But, it might be a while until AMD gets their chips working good on laptops though...

lol

Fri Nov 05 2021 05:01:15 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

No bonus points for guessing that I'm totally in agreement with that.

And cut off their source for new tech to clone? 

:)

Perhaps, but if we hurry, their hardware is still dismally unreliable. They are liable to blow themselves up.

Sat Oct 30 2021 05:15:19 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

The problem then is that they'll nuke us back. 

The problem then is that they'll nuke us back. 

Although maybe a complete system reset is what we need. 

Fri Oct 29 2021 15:50:48 EDT from Nurb432

With the way things are going, that might just happen. Literally. 

Fri Oct 29 2021 02:18:36 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

 And also nuking China.

 

With the way things are going, that might just happen. Literally. 

Fri Oct 29 2021 02:18:36 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

 And also nuking China.

Like toilet paper. 

Mon Oct 18 2021 17:30:29 EDT from Nurb432

As long as someone else picks up the slack for what they make. 

I sort of like having 'things'.

Mon Oct 18 2021 05:24:39 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I'd be ok with a little temporary supply chain pain if it meant that China was withdrawn from the whole picture.

 

As long as someone else picks up the slack for what they make. 

I sort of like having 'things'.

Mon Oct 18 2021 05:24:39 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I'd be ok with a little temporary supply chain pain if it meant that China was withdrawn from the whole picture.

If any of the major players collapse, the entire world would be hurting.  Global supply chain, we all are a critical link.. ( and clearly its getting rusty. )

I'm pretty sure the world is beholden to Chinesium products at this point. I buy a lot of retro and FPGA stuff from Europe now - and the plugs in particular - are all made in China, and all of various degrees of shoddy construction. 

One of them, it just had a little slide out panel that would convert it from EU to US prongs. "Auto switching". 

Mon Oct 18 2021 10:20:42 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

It seems like Amazon has caused significantly relaxed rules on
electrical safety - and it started with consumers buying cheap
Chinese knock-offs.

I wonder how it is around the world.

Most people agree that the UK plug (BS 1363) is far superior to the US plug (NEMA 5-15). It's got chunkier pins, cannot be inserted backwards, and *must* be grounded.

Although ... I've seen CheapChinese plugs for UK use where the ground pin is just a piece of plastic, merely there to open the shutters on the other two pins.

I suspect Mr Sugar water had more to do with concept of lock-in than Jobs.   But jobs sure as hell continued and accelerated it when he returned..

Woz is on the 'right to repair' bandwagon, so hes not changed much, if at all.

Mon Oct 18 2021 10:14:32 AM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I think Woz continued to feel that way, probably still does. That probably has a lot to do with why he didn't continue working with Mr. Magic Pancreas once things really got going.

So far, what I've seen of the Magic Mouse - just brings a limited feature set of the touchpad gestures to the mouse - and adds virtualized iPhone style scrolling and page swiping and features like this. Oh. You're talking about the "bar"! 


I mean... I *liked* the Compiz Cube... so... flashy sparkly things... I dig 'em. I think I'd probably like it. 


So... here is another thing about Apple/Mac. Every time I start using this 2012 i7... it frustrates me that I can't really *use* it because of Radeongate. So, being a PC guy, I think... "Surely some Chinese vendor has made a replacement bottom with big heat sinks and heavy duty fans designed JUST to solve THIS particular problem. If it were a PC - someone would have made something like this. 

There aren't even DIY solutions - really. People just went, "Yup, these Macs cook themselves, and there is nothing to be done about it but use them until they die and then buy another, new Mac and hope they didn't make the s

It just really pisses me off. 

Thu Oct 14 2021 18:45:49 EDT from Nurb432

For the short period of time i had OSX on the new laptop, it did more than just "function keys". it would pop up prompts and things too. Bounce around various buttons and dialogs in various colors, and was rather distracting to be honest.  ( if i was using the laptop screen that is. With a monitor and the thing closed up you dont see it of course. )

with Linux and proper drivers, its back to just being F-keys

Thu Oct 14 2021 05:47:53 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

 

They *are* good at gimmicks. I bet I'd learn to love that little bar on the new MBPs too, if I had one of those... because it feels *fancy*... doing what a PC can do already, but doing it in an expensive, showy way instead of in a very practical, plain manner. 

 

For the short period of time i had OSX on the new laptop, it did more than just "function keys". it would pop up prompts and things too. Bounce around various buttons and dialogs in various colors, and was rather distracting to be honest.  ( if i was using the laptop screen that is. With a monitor and the thing closed up you dont see it of course. )

with Linux and proper drivers, its back to just being F-keys

Thu Oct 14 2021 05:47:53 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

 

They *are* good at gimmicks. I bet I'd learn to love that little bar on the new MBPs too, if I had one of those... because it feels *fancy*... doing what a PC can do already, but doing it in an expensive, showy way instead of in a very practical, plain manner. 

Here is the thing about Apple. The Magic Mouse is awesome - it does exactly what it needs to... 

But you honestly *need* it with a Macintosh - to really utilize the OS to its maximum. It shouldn't be an optional luxury accessory - it should be included as part of the base package. 

Windows has multi-touch gestures that add value to the desktop experience if you want to take the time to learn them - but the OS is designed around a base productivity paradigm that pretty much... well... I guess the solution with a PC is to buy a dual monitor configuration. That is where you get optimal productivity from a PC running Windows. But the OS itself is designed for a traditional two button mouse with a scroll wheel. 

OS X really WANTS a multi-gesture pointing device, trackpad or mouse - and it wants a dual button mouse - Apple has cheated on the Magic Mouse in that a click on the right side of the mouse is a right-click, a click on the left is a left click, but there aren't two physical buttons - so they can claim the *aesthetics* of a single button mouse while getting the features of a dual button one. To be fair, my Razer gaming mouse has 7 buttons. Left, Right, two side, two additional smaller mouse buttons, and a wheel click button. That is kind of going in the exact opposite direction of what Jobs wanted from a mouse and does illustrate the difference between Apple's approach and Microsoft's to user experience. 

You can navigate around OS X with a traditional mouse fine, in a very traditional MS-Windows sort of way. But adding a Magic Mouse - you see what Apple really *wants* for OS X - and how this makes the 2nd screen MOSTLY unnecessary. I still think not having to page between virtual screens is superior - but - it certainly saves on screen real estate. The problem is - for what they want for the Magic Mouse - you can get a very nice second screen. 

But... the extra productivity of a dual monitor doesn't *feel* magic. It doesn't have a lot of WOW factor. The Magic Mouse is kind of a distraction... "Look at this, with this device, you don't NEED the second monitor!" But even with the Magic Mouse and a second screen, the second screen is going to add more productivity value than the Mouse and a single screen. 

They *are* good at gimmicks. I bet I'd learn to love that little bar on the new MBPs too, if I had one of those... because it feels *fancy*... doing what a PC can do already, but doing it in an expensive, showy way instead of in a very practical, plain manner. 

The companies I worked for - in general, if you wanted something - you got it. I mean, certain things, you were just given what you got - and you were happy with that, too... Laptops tend to fall into that category. 

There was no "I'd prefer a Macintosh." I think the answer to that generally would have been, "You should seek a job at Apple..." 

:)

Tue Oct 12 2021 07:19:06 EDT from Nurb432

Gotta pay the bills somehow. Tho in general we all share the same funding source, with a few exceptions, everything is divided up up according to budget, and they pay us part of that budget to keep the lights on.  At least this way people dont go rouge and just spend it all themselves on stupid stuff. ( just part of it :) ). As far as budget caps, of course everyone asks for and spends too much, but no one wants to go to the governor to explain why they ran out. But, they do have to justify the spending in some way.

Tho the place is frustrating, structurally it sounds worse than it is at times.  We are tasked with providing IT *infrastructure* for all the other agencies in the executive branch, so we need to have some level of control of the chaos. we also are there to help 'steer' them in better directions. ( like not something written in an obscure language running on OS/2 ) The 35K or so people we support, themselves support around 7 million.  We have exceeded our charter in a few cases, and even wrote apps for them ( which i NEVER thought was a good idea, and now that our dev team has been gutted we are going to see how bad of an idea it was ), but for the most part we dont touch dedicated agency applications, each has their own IT department for that. IF we had to, we would need another thousand people i'm sure.

Our PC supply got even worse last year as the contract with ( perhaps CDW, i donno,  i forget who it was ) ran out and they didnt bother even bidding for it. The one we chose, backed out at the last moment, so we were left holding the bag, and extending the exiting contract with the old company for 'basics', at a premium.  But they couldn't deliver what we wanted before, and with the supply problems its only getting worse.

 

Tue Oct 12 2021 01:40:32 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

Your company sounds like an interesting place to work. :) 

 

Gotta pay the bills somehow. Tho in general we all share the same funding source, with a few exceptions, everything is divided up up according to budget, and they pay us part of that budget to keep the lights on.  At least this way people dont go rouge and just spend it all themselves on stupid stuff. ( just part of it :) ). As far as budget caps, of course everyone asks for and spends too much, but no one wants to go to the governor to explain why they ran out. But, they do have to justify the spending in some way.

Tho the place is frustrating, structurally it sounds worse than it is at times.  We are tasked with providing IT *infrastructure* for all the other agencies in the executive branch, so we need to have some level of control of the chaos. we also are there to help 'steer' them in better directions. ( like not something written in an obscure language running on OS/2 ) The 35K or so people we support, themselves support around 7 million.  We have exceeded our charter in a few cases, and even wrote apps for them ( which i NEVER thought was a good idea, and now that our dev team has been gutted we are going to see how bad of an idea it was ), but for the most part we dont touch dedicated agency applications, each has their own IT department for that. IF we had to, we would need another thousand people i'm sure.

Our PC supply got even worse last year as the contract with ( perhaps CDW, i donno,  i forget who it was ) ran out and they didnt bother even bidding for it. The one we chose, backed out at the last moment, so we were left holding the bag, and extending the exiting contract with the old company for 'basics', at a premium.  But they couldn't deliver what we wanted before, and with the supply problems its only getting worse.

Tue Oct 12 2021 01:40:32 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

Your company sounds like an interesting place to work. :) 

 

Your company sounds like an interesting place to work. :) 

Mon Oct 11 2021 19:31:55 EDT from Nurb432

With "PC" laptops, holding on to them isn't an option.  They are recycled almost instantly, as we are so low on stock  that we need every single unit. ( supply chain problems have decimated us )  You are given a day to get what you need off it, and within a week, unless its broke, it will be reloaded and given out to someone else.  We have somewhere between 30 and 40 thousand total. 

There is also a monthly charge for a 'stock' device ( even internally )  that goes into the pot for a 'free' refresh in x years ( supposed to be 3 as they have a 3 year depreciation, but with supply problems its 5 years now, if you are lucky ), and pays for your network, HD team, etc.   Its what pays for all the infrastructure. If you get something special, then you pay the difference in cost compared to the stock choices upfront, but still have the monthly charge. Its not a lot per device, but would show up on the monthly bill, especially in a small department like mine " why do you have 2 computers "

But the mac's, since they are not officially supported, no fees beyond the purchase price. ( and the old one was a hand-me-down from the development team so it was never on my team's books )  I'm getting my windows and Office, etc  via my MSDN license, technically, and getting a free-ride on infrastructure...   But, your AD account comes with a charge, which pays for stuff like O365. one drive, etc.  ( not all people have computers ).  Office used to be part of the PC charge, but now that its all cloud, its part of the network account. 

Of course anything special ( like Crystal reports which is a good % of my job  ) is full price out of pocket, and no internal fees, just from the respective vendor if there is one.

of course if i'm asked, ill give it up. but with luck, i'm not asked until i retire out.  it wont get used, but i like having a backup plan, that does not involve getting a loaner PC laptop ( currently crappy HPs ) from the pile, or using one of my own.

 

With "PC" laptops, holding on to them isn't an option.  They are recycled almost instantly, as we are so low on stock  that we need every single unit. ( supply chain problems have decimated us )  You are given a day to get what you need off it, and within a week, unless its broke, it will be reloaded and given out to someone else.  We have somewhere between 30 and 40 thousand total. 

There is also a monthly charge for a 'stock' device ( even internally )  that goes into the pot for a 'free' refresh in x years ( supposed to be 3 as they have a 3 year depreciation, but with supply problems its 5 years now, if you are lucky ), and pays for your network, HD team, etc.   Its what pays for all the infrastructure. If you get something special, then you pay the difference in cost compared to the stock choices upfront, but still have the monthly charge. Its not a lot per device, but would show up on the monthly bill, especially in a small department like mine " why do you have 2 computers "

But the mac's, since they are not officially supported, no fees beyond the purchase price. ( and the old one was a hand-me-down from the development team so it was never on my team's books )  I'm getting my windows and Office, etc  via my MSDN license, technically, and getting a free-ride on infrastructure...   But, your AD account comes with a charge, which pays for stuff like O365. one drive, etc.  ( not all people have computers ).  Office used to be part of the PC charge, but now that its all cloud, its part of the network account. 

Of course anything special ( like Crystal reports which is a good % of my job  ) is full price out of pocket, and no internal fees, just from the respective vendor if there is one.

of course if i'm asked, ill give it up. but with luck, i'm not asked until i retire out.  it wont get used, but i like having a backup plan, that does not involve getting a loaner PC laptop ( currently crappy HPs ) from the pile, or using one of my own.

Weird. I absolutely get a vibration on the touchpad, but nowhere else. 

As for the other thing - I have no problem with you keeping an old machine - on any justification, no matter who you are. As an IT manager - I had a room full of equipment that was just a burden. As long as the drives were secure bleached, I *never* noticed when one "fell off the dock". I tried to get the owner to do a once annual "as-is surplus" sale of old equipment to employees... like - pennies on the dollar. He wouldn't go for it - and the stuff just kept piling up. 

Until I said at an IT staff meeting - "It would be better if this stuff just got stolen than if we had to e-recycle it..." and instituted this really generous "take old surplus equipment at home to test and learn on," policy. 


It was like the owner couldn't face the idea that something he had paid $5,000 for 5 years ago couldn't be sold for $50 today... but he didn't care enough to actually ever pay attention to what was in h

Mon Oct 11 2021 15:43:11 EDT from Nurb432

 

• Not tired my previous shop macbook.  I might. its in the closet waiting to be asked for me to return it, if that ever happens. There really is no need for me to actively turn it in as we are not being charged maintenance/licensing on it like we do the PCs, and no one else hardly uses them. And its old so no one wants it anyway.  So if i can keep it around, its plan B. More than likely if i do have to turn it in, at best it goes to auction. At worse it gets trashed since you cant the the SSD out. 

Either way, its soooo bizarre and has been there all this time. Un-noticed. 

Its the metal case only for me. The touch pad is plastic, so I wont feel it there.  YMMV on your device of course, but all of mine are plastic pads.

• For the new apple, its anywhere ( other than track pad :P ). even where you rest your palms
• My personal 2008 macbook, its just the bezel around the keyboard.  but i suspect its on the case too, just too soft to feel.  Can barely feel it now. Its so slight i never noticed and i used it daily for years.
• Not tired my previous shop macbook.  I might. its in the closet waiting to be asked for me to return it, if that ever happens. There really is no need for me to actively turn it in as we are not being charged maintenance/licensing on it like we do the PCs, and no one else hardly uses them. And its old so no one wants it anyway.  So if i can keep it around, its plan B. More than likely if i do have to turn it in, at best it goes to auction. At worse it gets trashed since you cant the the SSD out. 
• For my china flip-book its only on the case as the bezel around the keyboard is plastic.
• Pinebook Pro.. nothin  ( but going to try it with a larger PS and see if i can feel it then. i suspect it does it, just cant feel it )

All other laptops i have had have been plastic.. 

Either way, its soooo bizarre and has been there all this time. Un-noticed. 

This is the touchpad, right? 

My 2012 - I thought it was just the vibration of the ceiling fan - but I can *only* feel that slight hum when I'm touching the touchpad, not the rest of the case. 

Think this is what you're talking about? Same deal - only a 2 prong power code. 

Holy shit - you're right. The minute I unplug the mag-cord - it goes away! 

Yeah. The Maginc Mouse *is* a quality mouse - feels like a brick. That glass top has heft. 

They should really make it available for other platforms and just release a driver with the understanding that it isn't going to work quite as well other platforms. 

Mon Oct 11 2021 09:27:01 EDT from Nurb432

Well, ill be damned.

Now that i know what to look for, my stupid ass 2008 macbook does the vibrate too. Just REALLY faint. If you are not watching for it you wont notice. it almost feels like you are just rubbing across dirt. but unplug the PS, it goes away.

 

 

Well, ill be damned.

Now that i know what to look for, my stupid ass 2008 macbook does the vibrate too. Just REALLY faint. If you are not watching for it you wont notice. it almost feels like you are just rubbing across dirt. but unplug the PS, it goes away.

The one thing about apple, is when they are not busy getting you into the walled garden is they did actually do research on their products. Sure, they were over priced, but they were not junk ( except for a few duds.. everyone has those ) . 

But, once they started going down the path of actively locking customers into their ecosystem, and only their ecosystem, that is when i had problems with them. They became the exact thing people like Woz detested.  Many of us actually.

My wife has been on a several week shopping spree with 3 to 5 packages arriving per day, most days of the week. 

I have no idea how much she has spent, but the dollar amount must be huge. 

So, tonight I bought the Apple Magic Mouse I've been wanting but couldn't justify the $80 purchase price of. 


It does not suck. I hate to admit it. Gimmicks like this are Apple's forte. 

Oh, and my Pinebook pro, which is also magnesium case, does not. Or, its lower current from the supply, and is still there but below the threshold to feel.

Maybe. Maybe we always had a voltage limit you couldn't do shit with - and now - you can do shit with that voltage. 

seems plausible. 

I'll accept this. 

Fri Oct 08 2021 19:33:15 EDT from Nurb432

Or, a 'low voltage external' somehow skirts some of the rules.

 

Fri Oct 08 2021 07:27:41 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I wonder if some regulation quietly changed in the last 20 years or so. 

 

 

Or, a 'low voltage external' somehow skirts some of the rules.

Fri Oct 08 2021 07:27:41 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I wonder if some regulation quietly changed in the last 20 years or so. 

 

I wonder if some regulation quietly changed in the last 20 years or so. 

Well, the whole "UL Listed" thing used to be something that... it wasn't an issue of making sure a thing was UL Listed - you could basically be assured it was if you could buy it. 

Now... we're like, "You buy it from China - you're on your own... they don't care if people get electrocuted... there are too many of them as it is..." 

Slight update. 

I tried the new grounded adapter on the mac ( its a lonovo, so not a cheap no name ) and it still does it there too.  So i guess its only grounded on the AC side. I donno. this is all so strange to begin with. 

And its a good ting i tried, damned thing had powered back up on its own in the bag after work perhaps, an hour or 2 ago..  it was burning up.. i bet i took a few years off its life :(    Just hope it lasts until i retire. Dont want to deal with getting another. ever. ( actually i guess next time it will have to be a 'pc', as all mac will be ARM by then, so i cant do x86 kvm.  )

I didnt think they ever cared...

It seems like Amazon has caused significantly relaxed rules on electrical safety - and it started with consumers buying cheap Chinese knock-offs. My 3D printer evidently has a very serious and dangerous electrical flaw that is well known and documented. The heating element is loosely attached to the bed, and just passes raw 110 current to the bed - which moves - and without reinforcement - the cable breaks, and you've got a raw, live 110 cable laying on your desk. 

"To fix, buy a grounded adapter".  ( which didnt work in the case of my china-book )

It also isn't just in the area that it shows, its the entire case, top and bottom.   The top is how i noticed it. 

https://miapple.me/fix-macbook-micro-vibrations-while-charging-due-to-insufficient-grounding/

Yup.

With a 2 prong plug on apple chargers, no way for them to be grounded really.

I assume the china one i got was not UL, but clearly its not uncommon now.  *shrug*.  I swapped the PS that came with it ( 2 prong, with barrel plug ) with a 3 prong USB C charger ( 20 volt.. news to me ) and it still did it. 

Fri Oct 08 2021 04:41:42 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I don't get it. Any appliance with a metal housing *must* be grounded or it doesn't get UL listed. Bonding the case to ground is the exact reason why the ground conductor exists at all. Is it really giving you a mild electric shock and they claim it's working as intended?

I have heard of other people with other name brands too..   Its just that everyone is now using the case as part of a psedo-ground i guess. Not sure if its some regulatory thing or they are doing it for noise or whatever.   

I did just think about it however, that both my older macbooks ( well, one mine one shop ) have multiple pins in the connector... so while they are metal, i guess things are different there. All my other devices have been plastic case.

Mon Oct 04 2021 12:33:09 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I mean, one would expect this with off brand Chinesium stuff. But, Apple? 

 

I mean, one would expect this with off brand Chinesium stuff. But, Apple? 

So my new personal laptop just arrived ( its a clone of a lonovo flip thing ).   That damned thing does the same thing if you touch the top and bottom of the case, ( but not the keyboard where you rest your palms )..   i guess it 'a thing' now?

and its damned distracting when you are resting your palms on it and trying to type.

It isn't a SHOCK, so much as ungrounded voltage being conducted through your body. ;) 

Tue Sep 28 2021 16:05:52 EDT from Nurb432

Its sort of like a tens unit with real low voltage. Not a 'traditional shock' but you can feel it.

 

Tue Sep 28 2021 03:39:20 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

The new Macbooks shock you? 

 

 

 

Its sort of like a tens unit with real low voltage. Not a 'traditional shock' but you can feel it.

Tue Sep 28 2021 03:39:20 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

The new Macbooks shock you? 

 

 

games. phfft 

:)

The new Macbooks shock you? 

Fri Sep 24 2021 10:55:07 EDT from Nurb432

So other than everything else pissing me off on this freaking macbook. i got pissed, closed it and slid it across the desk. It vibrates.  wtf, it vibrates?

looked it up:   "The power adapters does not have an additional electrical grounding line, hence it feels in your fingers as the MacBook vibrates if touched while charging. This is a normal consequence of how the power adapter is designed."

This is considered an acceptable consequence? wtf apple... 

It depends. The ST actually ran slightly faster than the Amiga so it was better at games that used 3D polygons. But it didn't have the custom graphic chipset, so it couldn't handle side-scrolling multiplanes or as many colors as the Amiga. It was, of course, the era of the side-scrolling platformer. 

That means that if you play something like "Elite" on the ST, you'll feel that the ST is better. If you play something like Great Giana Sisters on the the ST vs. the Amiga, you'll come to appreciate just how much more powerful the Amiga hardware is. The entire game has to pause at the edge of each screen as the next screen scrolls onto the display on the ST. It is *ridiculous*. Even the C=64 managed this better on their port. 

TOS/GEM was a limited, crippled OS. No actual CLI - much like a Mac - the guts of the ST OS are hidden to the user, even the power user. AmigaOS and Workbench were the foundation on which every commercial GUI/CLI OS after were modeled after. 

The Amiga had far superior sound capabilities. The ST found a niche in the music industry because of its built in Midi. 

And of course, graphics were no real contest. Video titling and editing were not real contest. It took a long time for the PC and Mac to catch up enough to displace the Amiga's stronghold i

Tue Sep 21 2021 18:51:55 EDT from Nurb432

Except the Atari. 

 

:) 

Tue Sep 21 2021 02:30:29 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I owned an Amiga 1000 during that time period. There is no doubt, the Amiga was light years ahead of everything else available at the time. 

 

So other than everything else pissing me off on this freaking macbook. i got pissed, closed it and slid it across the desk. It vibrates.  wtf, it vibrates?

looked it up:   "The power adapters does not have an additional electrical grounding line, hence it feels in your fingers as the MacBook vibrates if touched while charging. This is a normal consequence of how the power adapter is designed."

This is considered an acceptable consequence? wtf apple... 

lol

Except the Atari. 

:) 

Tue Sep 21 2021 02:30:29 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I owned an Amiga 1000 during that time period. There is no doubt, the Amiga was light years ahead of everything else available at the time. 

well, installing anything other than OSX on this new macbook is turning out to be a real bitch.   The last 2 i had, basically installed like any other intel machine. 

I was never a fan of the IIgs. Wasn't it an 8/16 bit machine? I'm pretty sure it was - had a crippled bus or something. At the time I owned an Amiga 2000 - and it was a far superior piece of technology. I sold these things too - so I got to play with them all day long. I think I actually had a IIgs for awhile. Not sure if I convinced my boss to let me borrow one, or if I bought it - but I owned *everything* for a little while during this period - it was a cool perk of the job.


And the IIgs - I remember hitting limitations that made me go - This feels like a hopped up Apple IIe - where the Amiga feels like the next generation of computing - not a hopped up C-64.

Matter of fact, I liked the ST far better than the IIgs. The IIgs felt more like the Commodore 128 - a system that *would* have been evolutionary and revolutionary if it had come out a few years earlier (and at a more affordable price point)... but as soon as it hit, the Mac, then the Amiga and ST arrived - and it inst

Mon Sep 20 2021 17:07:55 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Ironically, the machine that came closest to what you're describing was the Apple IIgs.  What a great machine.  It was superior in every way to the Mac, and handled legacy Apple II software using the "Mega II" which was basically an entire Apple II on a chip.  It was only the hubris of Steve Jobs that killed the IIgs and put the Mac out in front.

Anyway, the missing part of this conversation is that there is no longer a desire for anyone to make a "better computer" because what all the tech companies now want most is recurring revenue.  Build the machines as cheap and disposable as possible, and make everything depend on The Cloud.  Mobile devices are, in fact, now powerful enough that something like Samsung DEX could replace most laptops and no one would notice, but what's probably going to happen is that we'll skip right past that and there will be a remote-desktop program running on a SoC inside your monitor or keyboard, and the desktop will be on a server somewhere, and you pay yet another monthly utility bill for it.

You are correct about one thing: most people don't care, they just want it to work, and they don't mind spending a few dollars to make it someone else's problem.  Then again, most people are morons, and are constantly bombarded by stimuli intended to keep them that way.

Mine had a z80 card, so i could run cp/m too :)

Ironically, the machine that came closest to what you're describing was the Apple IIgs.  What a great machine.  It was superior in every way to the Mac, and handled legacy Apple II software using the "Mega II" which was basically an entire Apple II on a chip.  It was only the hubris of Steve Jobs that killed the IIgs and put the Mac out in front.

Anyway, the missing part of this conversation is that there is no longer a desire for anyone to make a "better computer" because what all the tech companies now want most is recurring revenue.  Build the machines as cheap and disposable as possible, and make everything depend on The Cloud.  Mobile devices are, in fact, now powerful enough that something like Samsung DEX could replace most laptops and no one would notice, but what's probably going to happen is that we'll skip right past that and there will be a remote-desktop program running on a SoC inside your monitor or keyboard, and the desktop will be on a server somewhere, and you pay yet another monthly utility bill for it.

You are correct about one thing: most people don't care, they just want it to work, and they don't mind spending a few dollars to make it someone else's problem.  Then again, most people are morons, and are constantly bombarded by stimuli intended to keep them that way.

They did. I have two new AC units - overkill for my square footage, courtesy of Intel. 

Only took 20 years to happen, but once it did, the payout was nice. 

It is an interesting observation in that from a developer's perspective, I can see why these things frustrate you... but despite Intel's stupid decisions - through a chain of circumstances, that became the legacy that developers had to deal with. Not all of these, or really any of them, were Intel's *decisions* in architecting x86 memory addressing. 

IBM deciding to go with the 8086/8088 on the original PC is part of it. IBM not defending their IP early on against off-brand clones and losing control of the PC architecture was another part of it. Commodore fumbling the momentum of the C-64 with the Amiga was part of it. Apple being so sure they were doing it "right" that they kept the platform proprietary and niche was part of it. The specific time frames at which these events happened in the evolution of personal co

Sun Sep 12 2021 16:13:08 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

architecture - because it is generally guys like you and Ig who rave
about the PPC - which really had a brief moment of "best" that
couldn't scale with the competition.

Still hoping those Intel shares are going to go above the strike price, are we? ;)

I actually don't have any feelings one way or another about PPC/POWER. My complaint is that Intel made the stupid decision to use segmented addressing when flat 32-bit spaces had already been in use for some time. It created a lot of hassle, and also spawned a lot of bad architecture decisions such as Bill Gates "640K ought to be enough for anyone".

It took decades of evolution to get to where we are now, and we might have gotten there sooner if we weren't dragging such a gigantic pile of legacy cruft behind us. Honestly, now that all modern operating systems now have the ability to boot directly into a *flat* 64-bit address space using UEFI, and will stay there for the entire uptime of the machine, it's time to ditch the legacy modes completely.

That means no BIOS, no real mode, no 16-bit protected mode, no virtual-8086 mode. We should be segmenting people who want to keep segmented a

I agree Dec Architecture was decent. Tho the other post was referencing vaccinations :) 

Back in late 80s ( or early 90s.. cant remember now ) i had one the intersil 'vax on a chip' dev boards i manged to get a hamfest/fleamarket where they didnt know what they had so it was cheap.  Never did much with it tho.

Sun Sep 12 2021 06:19:33 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

I still dont get the hell bent push for vax.

In another room, Nurb432 asked this question. He might have been talking about something else, but it brought to mind the 32-bit VAX architecture released by Digital in 1977, which also managed to run in a flat 32-bit memory model a year before Intel released its brain-damaged segmented memory 8086 a year later.

Seriously ... there was NO excuse for such a stupid design. And there was no excuse for IBM to choose it, especially when the PC was not built to be backwards compatible with 88-bit CP/M software.

As much as i hate to admit it, i may end up with a M1 at some point.   Not that i dislike my PinebookPro, or my ASUS Chromebook ( both running a RK3399 ) but having a 'legit' ARM laptop may just be too much of a temptation.

That is something i always wonder too. Sure, it has held us back, and made a lot of things bloated and unstable, but would a complete re-do too early on have killed the entire industry ?  Its possible.

Sun Sep 12 2021 04:13:08 PM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

 if we weren't dragging such a gigantic pile of legacy cruft behind us. 

Lol.  Spending the day throwing things away ( or packing them up to take to the local bookseller ).  Ran across my PPC programmers manual and data books in the 2nd box.

Technically PPC never went away. Just went to be on more powerful devices, not suited for lame personal use. ( AS400, for example ) And they dropped the "PC" out of the name, just to prove the point :) 

Games utilize all subsystems more completely than anything except possibly complex 3D rendering. If you're outperforming on games - you're outperforming on "real world" workloads, in general - as far as your average consumer cares about.

Again - making me wonder if there is something with what *you* consider "real world" workloads that is better optimized on PPC architecture - because it is generally guys like you and Ig who rave about the PPC - which really had a brief moment of "best" that couldn't scale with the competition.

Thu Sep 09 2021 16:45:07 EDT from Nurb432

Games are meaningless to me.  To me everything else is 'real world' workload and they would eat intel for lunch.

And as you say, modern games, CPU is not relevant anyway, its all about the GPU.  

And dont forget the 6502 :) 

Ok that is odd, suddenly the person who posted is no longer there..  did i break something here?

Besides, in my day, you played games on consoles.  We did work on computers. 

Now, get the hell off my lawn :) 

( kidding aside, it really was like that, games, computers? nah )

Games are meaningless to me.  To me everything else is 'real world' workload and they would eat intel for lunch.

And as you say, modern games, CPU is not relevant anyway, its all about the GPU.  

I've owned *lots* of PPCs. I have 3 in the room I'm in now. A Quadra 8500, which was the flagship Mac at one point, a G4 Cobalt, and a G4 Quicksilver (also the flagship at the time). They didn't. Games - once again - are actually one of the most demanding things we task our machines with, and the PPC architecture ultimately could not deliver games as rich, complex and demanding as Intel processors with GPUs of the time. The PPC had very specific functions it was superior to Intel on - but the real world application fell short. 

I'm not saying that the PPC was a bad architecture. 

I do notice that people who do a lot of things like compiling, coding, and other "nuts and bolts" operations with their computers still rave about PPC performance. I don't consider these "real world" operations - as a mere fraction of the computer using population cares about these kind of things - but when I argue with someone who has a night and day experience - often once we peel the layers away - this

Wed Sep 08 2021 06:21:16 EDT from Nurb432

I donno about that.

I had a couple of PPC machines.  Other than power use, they outperformed in everyday life for me compared to an intel box of relative comparison ( its hard, its not a 1:1 ). By a lot. Even something as simple as transcoding wav->mp3. 

 

 

I donno about that.

I had a couple of PPC machines.  Other than power use, they outperformed in everyday life for me compared to an intel box of relative comparison ( its hard, its not a 1:1 ). By a lot. Even something as simple as transcoding wav->mp3. 

They've been playing this, "We're *actually* kicking Intel's ass" game all the way back to the 68000. They never actually have been. In carefully optimized benchmarks done on fine tuned machines using very specific software designed specifically for their platform - they turn in a benchmark that is higher. 

But in real world application, it generally means shit. It is kind of like 0 to 60 times published by automotive journalists. For things that people actually do - whenever impartial people have done real world benchmarks on performance on any generation when Apple claimed to be the fastest and most powerful - the highest end Intel processors were always smoking the Mac stuff. Or if they weren't at the start, they were shortly thereafter. For a while there might have been some leapfrogging - but eventually Intel and AMD became the rivalry for actual performance - and it wasn't long thereafter that Apple announced it was abandoning PPC for Intel. 

A great example is the Mac Powerb

Tue Sep 07 2021 15:27:52 EDT from LoanShark

two vendors. ARM brought it in-house, which to me sounds more like
hubris than pragmatism.

Maybe not; Apple has been building ARM chips for years in the iPhone and iPad products, so they know what they're doing by now.

M1 is probably outperforming Rocket Lake on some metrics.

My understanding that the reason that they moved away from PPC was due to their power use.  Not overall supply issues.  "we need to put more powerful chips in laptops NOW, not in 5 years"   And they just were not to that point, so Steve bailed.

And i do agree with him, in that while PPC was a far better architecture than x86 could ever hope to be, it was never really meant for mobile use and market said: go mobile or go home.   

He was not afraid to orphan his entire product line when it was needed. He did it 2x .. One time even going to a technologically inferior architecture ( from PPC to x86 )

Cant say how he would orchestrate this, but i do have a feeling he would, as its time to get away from X86, for several reasons. Control over the ISA just being one. While its not a free for-all like RISC-V would be, they did get a lot of lee-way with the license they got from ARM holdings.  And a lot of people in the industry do feel x86 is reaching its limits..  Better to be ahead of the curve, than behind, even if its painful..

 Mon Sep 06 2021 12:43:35 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I still maintain this is a more dangerous architecture migration than they've attempted in the past. I'm not sure Steve Jobs would take this path - at least, the way Apple is executing it.

 

I buy current Apples to make it easier for me to support classic Apples. But MODERN Apples don't really offer me anything I can't get on any other platform - so they don't get a *hook* into me like their classic platforms.

So at this point - there is no need, or really desire. When I built this MacBook Pro i7 for about $250 - I was concerned that it has a known Radeon flaw that eventually cooks it if you use it for anything graphics intensive. I'd like to run a non-hacked version of Mojave, sort of. But that is just because the time-changing background is cool AF. Otherwise, it is not really different than High Sierra - and honestly, that is not really that different than what I have on my G4 Quicksilver - Leopard, I think? At any rate - they mostly exist so that I can move classic OS 9 and prior apps to my Quadra 8500 and my V4 running Shapeshifter. 

This architecture change was the end of the line for Apple for me. In the future, FPGA Mac Classics, emulation of PPC Macs - and nu

Mon Sep 06 2021 12:17:22 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Apple may be able to pull that off ... at least for a little while ... but for the rest of the world, I think that genie would be hard to put back into the bottle.

It is interesting to see that Apple has established a culture where people know that they will change their architecture from time to time, and you'd better keep up with it.  There is probably no one else in the industry who is capable of pulling that off.  Apple can do it as long as their user base continues to eagerly consume whatever they put out.  How long will that continue?  Probably for quite some time, but certainly not forever.

Apple and Google might like that idea, but Amazon and Microsoft aren't going to stand for it.  The more people who are writing software, the more revenue they have for their cloud businesses.  And the Chinese aren't going to stand for it either.

Apple may be able to pull that off ... at least for a little while ... but for the rest of the world, I think that genie would be hard to put back into the bottle.

It is interesting to see that Apple has established a culture where people know that they will change their architecture from time to time, and you'd better keep up with it.  There is probably no one else in the industry who is capable of pulling that off.  Apple can do it as long as their user base continues to eagerly consume whatever they put out.  How long will that continue?  Probably for quite some time, but certainly not forever.

Apple and Google might like that idea, but Amazon and Microsoft aren't going to stand for it.  The more people who are writing software, the more revenue they have for their cloud businesses.  And the Chinese aren't going to stand for it either.

So apple is hiring RISC-V developers.

I suspect another architecture change is coming in the next decade.  Aside from the current turmoil the ARM world which i do agree is cause for concern, this would give them 100% control of their ISA, with no licenses or restrictions. They could make it 100% proprietary, and no one could legally code for an apple device again, unless they pay a fee. Total lock-in. Their wet dream.

And if you reverse engineer, they DMCA you and sue you. 

The exact thing that makes me concerned about RISC-V. Complete fracture of the market where everyone has their own proprietary and non-compatible device.

( related i also see that companies are asking Intel for custom x86 ISAs.. so that side of the house may be heading that way too.  total chaos )

At first people cared. Now there are so many people running Linux *and* Windows on Apple bare metal - nobody GAF. 

I mean - I think most people think it simply shows how ridiculous the cult of Apple is - that people want to show off that badge so badly they'll run a Mac even when Mac OS isn't what they want. 


I also think that once Mac gave up on that little glowing Apple on the back of the case - a lot of this fell off altogether. As a matter of fact, I can't recall seeing a single Mac out at the gates or in the Admiral's Club on my last flights. 

For a while - it was "All the business pros pulling out their Lenovo Thinkpads, all the artsty, liberal, boutique coffee drinking consumers pulling out their Macs," at airport gates. 

To be fair, I didn't really notice any Thinkpads either. 


It is all just tribal marking. 

I do it at work, no one bats an eye ..  Once in a while im asked how well it runs, but no one seems surprised or care. 

Raw Hate keeps you warm at night and focused. But you do eventually burn out.

( no, not going to explain that one )

Heh. When did you add the picture of Jobs with a pitcher of KoolAid? 

You have no idea how torn i am about all this.

I love ARM, always have, even back in Acorn days, but i hate Apple. ( tho i didnt back when Woz was still around )

Tue Aug 24 2021 09:06:53 AM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

A new Mac Mini is landing, now with their new M1X processor.  Although I'm not a Mac OS fan I'm fascinated by the transition to ARM.  It should be really interesting.

A new Mac Mini is landing, now with their new M1X processor.  Although I'm not a Mac OS fan I'm fascinated by the transition to ARM.  It should be really interesting.

I wonder if they do it with Chinese stuff.

While i dont trust the CCP, im less worried about them knowing what i bought at the grocery than the NSA.

Sun Aug 08 2021 03:29:51 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

Possibly. 

You know the NSA is intercepting new laptops, opening them up, putting a surface mounted chip on the motherboard that is "undetectable," packaging the boxes back up, and sending them on to their destination. I watched a DefCon talk about that about 5 years ago. 

Possibly. 

You know the NSA is intercepting new laptops, opening them up, putting a surface mounted chip on the motherboard that is "undetectable," packaging the boxes back up, and sending them on to their destination. I watched a DefCon talk about that about 5 years ago. 

You can't trust the *hardware* - not just the software. 

Sun Aug 08 2021 10:53:53 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

It's starting to sound as if the only truly "secure" phone is one that you've rooted yourself.

It's starting to sound as if the only truly "secure" phone is one that you've rooted yourself.

Jello hate the political Left, too... so don't get too bent. I'm not sure what his world would look like, if he could make it happen - but I'm pretty sure it would actually be very libertarian. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpoRMKXVkmE

 Apple has access to a petabytes of pornography and hash strings to go along with them.  they're gonna scan you for the children.  if they don't like you they can plant a few photos and turn you in.  timestamps and system logs?- no problem.  it's like face recognition cept it's booby, vjj and trouser snake recognition.  soon to be an exclusive new iphone filter.

Sat Aug 07 2021 09:47:36 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

- they're claiming they can scan encrypted files for a *hash* of some sort and compare that to a profile in a database...

Fri Aug 06 2021 19:22:20 EDT from Nurb432

Oh, and also 'scan users encrypted messages'.

"Its for the children"

 

wtf wtf wtf

 

I saw this. It is one of those things that has been framed already with, "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear." 

Here is the thing - they're claiming they can scan encrypted files for a *hash* of some sort and compare that to a profile in a database and if your scan matches enough profiles - is a good enough hit, then they'll unencrypt the file and if it is a match they'll alert the authorities. 

An encrypted container or file should be like a shcrodinger's box. If there is a profile that indicates that the cat in the box is in fact dead or alive - the file isn't *really* encrypted. It is leaking. You can peak inside it. 

No one has addressed this yet. How can Apple determine with confidence that an encrypted file *is* illegal. It is like they're claiming they can get a *sense* of what is in the encrypted file. 


Indeed, WTF? 

But, for at least a decade I think it is safe to assume that our OSes and hardware are not actually trusted platforms. Probably as soon as the terminology "trusted platforms" started to gain traction, is when platforms shouldn't have been trusted. 

Fri Aug 06 2021 19:22:20 EDT from Nurb432

Oh, and also 'scan users encrypted messages'.

"Its for the children"

 

wtf wtf wtf

Oh, and also 'scan users encrypted messages'.

"Its for the children"

wtf wtf wtf

Not read all the details yet, but Apple is going to start scanning peoples phones for 'unapproved images' and report home the findings.

wtf. 

See my post in Hot Rods. Pretty sure a technician from China is setting off the alarm on my BMW right now as he fine tunes the new head unit I just put in. 

Tue Jul 27 2021 16:32:51 EDT from Nurb432

If i could, there would be no computers in my house. Other than actual computers. Even my TV would be dumb, just attach to a computer.   Just bought a stove, no fancy displays or controls. 

Id prefer to have a carb on my car even..  Next engine swap might juts get that if in a bad mood that day.

If i could, there would be no computers in my house. Other than actual computers. Even my TV would be dumb, just attach to a computer.   Just bought a stove, no fancy displays or controls. 

Id prefer to have a carb on my car even..  Next engine swap might juts get that if in a bad mood that day.

I was thinking - all this talk here about "You don't need IoT - and it is just another vector for them to get into your life and see everything you're doing..." 

Then, "I'd really like to monitor my smoker from my desktop!" 

Uh-huh. They just found *your* use model. ;) 

Mon Jul 26 2021 13:51:06 EDT from Nurb432

I dont consider myself a Luddite, but man, this whole conversation seems wrong.  It cooks food.. it dont need a cpu. 

 

I dont consider myself a Luddite, but man, this whole conversation seems wrong.  It cooks food.. it dont need a cpu. 

are your chips on fire?

If it's working properly, yes.  It's a pellet smoker.  It has an onboard computer (an ESP32) that feeds the right amount of wood chips and air into the burn pot to maintain the desired temperature and smoke level.

But of course they couldn't just stop there.  If you want to operate and monitor it remotely, you have to download an app, register it with their web service, etc. etc.  Seriously, WTF?

It really does need a firmware update, though.  The remote app is janky and it doesn't hold the right temperature.  It's a known defect in this batch of smokers and they sent out free updates.  But someone screwed up badly because even with all that tech they still had to send out updated controllers instead of just pushing an OTA update.

Yup. All of this. 

Tue Jun 22 2021 09:28:29 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Correct. In the case of Apple and other computer manufacturers, we are using silicon designed in the West but manufactured by CCP serfs. They've been brain-draining us long enough now that their own chip designs are appearing.
Eventually you get to a point where the rest of the world no longer needs Apple, Intel, AMD, Arm, or any of the current players.

Most manufacturers do not care because they are globalized. The few that do care, know that they can't compete if they use locally sourced manufacturing.
It's a chink in their armor that they can't fix. (See what I did there?)
That's why I didn't mind when we started raising tarriffs on stuff coming in from communist china. It's the only way to get everyone to act at once.

LOL

If i'm reading things correctly, after losing the Chinese factory due to restrictions against Huawei, the largest is in the 'free world' now is in Taiwan ( TSMC ).. Which of course is about to be taken over by the CCP, and im sure taken out of the global market as CCP punishment.

We may see a surge in domestic factories due to all of this. But a really rough time for a couple of years.

That is what people get for putting chips EVERYWHERE.. when its not needed.  

Pretty much nails it. 

Fri Jun 11 2021 15:38:21 EDT from Nurb432

I only see this increasing, across many industries. Its going to get pretty rough for a while i think. While i dont trust the CCP as far as i can throw them, and dont want them to take over, you have to admit that lower cost goods have increased general quality of life for many people. ( and hurt others, i do agree. Like the ones in china doing the work for nothing )

Things like a fender for a car, or a cheap pot and pan set isn't a security threat, but it does fund the CCP to a %. But it also lets some of their citizens eat ( who i dont dislike. its the CCP i dont like ), who would have no income otherwise, which IS free market. No easy answer to this mess.

I only see this increasing, across many industries. Its going to get pretty rough for a while i think. While i dont trust the CCP as far as i can throw them, and dont want them to take over, you have to admit that lower cost goods have increased general quality of life for many people. ( and hurt others, i do agree. Like the ones in china doing the work for nothing )

Things like a fender for a car, or a cheap pot and pan set isn't a security threat, but it does fund the CCP to a %. But it also lets some of their citizens eat ( who i dont dislike. its the CCP i dont like ), who would have no income otherwise, which IS free market. No easy answer to this mess.

We are seeing this more and more. I get daily advisories from above with increasing numbers of Chinese chipsets that we are directed to not implement. This is recent. Major vendors are on the blacklist now.

Tue Apr 27 2021 13:36:53 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

Hadn't considered that. Back then, China wasn't such a perceived threat. 

 

Tue Apr 27 2021 09:13:44 EDT from Nurb432

lenovo is banned for us. Chinese issues.

Even if we wanted to get our vendor changed from HP (! arrgh crap ) we would not be able to. 

Mon Apr 26 2021 11:43:33 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I had a 12" Lenovo at my last "real" job. I loved it. It was a full fledged Thinkpad - not like an airbook. It was user serviceable - battery and ram and hd...  It was just tiny and a breeze at airports. 

 

 

 

Hadn't considered that. Back then, China wasn't such a perceived threat. 

Tue Apr 27 2021 09:13:44 EDT from Nurb432

lenovo is banned for us. Chinese issues.

Even if we wanted to get our vendor changed from HP (! arrgh crap ) we would not be able to. 

Mon Apr 26 2021 11:43:33 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I had a 12" Lenovo at my last "real" job. I loved it. It was a full fledged Thinkpad - not like an airbook. It was user serviceable - battery and ram and hd...  It was just tiny and a breeze at airports. 

 

 

lenovo is banned for us. Chinese issues.

Even if we wanted to get our vendor changed from HP (! arrgh crap ) we would not be able to. 

Mon Apr 26 2021 11:43:33 PM EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I had a 12" Lenovo at my last "real" job. I loved it. It was a full fledged Thinkpad - not like an airbook. It was user serviceable - battery and ram and hd...  It was just tiny and a breeze at airports. 

 

I had a 12" Lenovo at my last "real" job. I loved it. It was a full fledged Thinkpad - not like an airbook. It was user serviceable - battery and ram and hd...  It was just tiny and a breeze at airports. 

Oddly, we have some apps that people use that supposedly wont work on windows...  ( cant say that is the truth or not, but it got them a mac ) But it is a small % of people who have them, and we dont really support them beyond replacing them if they die. 

I had to get an exemption to get one.  If we were allowed to have a decent and small PC laptop, id go with that ( and get windows off it :) ) .  But, if i never make it back to the office, its academic i guess as its in a bag and has been for a year. And now that so few people are around, may not be much 'walking around' to meetings anymore even if i do go back.  For right or wrong, the world IS different than it was a year ago.

Thu Apr 22 2021 13:45:47 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

I mean - the first case is just corporate budget and IT policy nonsense. They probably have preferred vendors but have been forced by the employee/userbase to accommodate Apple products... 

Our desks have a docking station, and on average 3 - 21 inch or larger monitors.  Our conf rooms have overheads or huge 50" screens.

So for us, its rare we are stuck with a tiny screen, so the real choice is between portability or horsepower.   And since in the old days i traveled on foot a lot between customers across the campus and outlying buildings we rent, portability was most important to me, but there was a lower limit due to something things i do that isn't on the server ( reporting/queries/data analysis ) and the smaller 'PC' choice, was below that. 

I used to have a high end desktop too, but they took those away from us "you must use laptops, and take them home EVERY day, no RDP back to the office because the world might end tomorow" The disaster planning guys scared the executives and got them to do that.   Tho, to be fair, we did have a flood 2 floors down that summer, and it took out everyone's desktops there too. so they were sort of hosed.   

But now we have a lot of VDI..  And in fact some BUs mandate that if you are remote. Even if you have a shop owned laptop.   At this point we have to use VDI too, if you want to access a server, even if you are on site..  Its annoying.

This is very individual. I used to like a big hulking 17" for all the same reasons. These days, I like a tiny little 12" and will sacrifice a lot of those features for the convenience of it being a breeze to get through TSA security. I think my last corporate notebook was a Lenovo X12 of some sort. I mean... right now I use an MSI 17" gaming PC for my company computer - but I needed something cheap with discreet GPU. The hinges have cracked so it basically is a desktop, now. 

Thu Apr 22 2021 13:53:42 EDT from darknetuser

At office i could either have an under powered windows laptop if i
wanted something small enough to carry around to meetings.  Or a
behemoth boat anchor that woudl be a nightmare to lug around and is
meant to spend most its life tethered to a docking station. Or i
could get a mac, which had the power of our 'developer laptop' option

but in a smaller form factor than our 'standard' laptop.   We get a

set list to choose from, we cant go outside of that list.

I find that the limiting factor with portable computers is how comfortable they are to use rather than how much power they pack, for most users.

My main laptop of choice is the size of a house, not because I want a powerful computer (that is a bonus only), but because a big computer means a big screen, it means integrated DVD drive, an RJ45 socket, and a list of goodies smaller ones lack. If getting stuck in a coffee shop with a laptop and a job to do is something that may happen to you, I much prefer to be able to work on a computer with a keyboard which is comfortable to use.

I mean - the first case is just corporate budget and IT policy nonsense. They probably have preferred vendors but have been forced by the employee/userbase to accommodate Apple products... but there are absolutely Intel PCs that have the power and form-factor of whatever Mac you ended up with from corporate. Surface. Surface Book - Lenovo Thinkpads. Let me guess, your preferred PC vendor at work is Dell? They make crap laptops. The rub here is that the Microsoft or Lenovo products that are comparable to whatever Mac you got are probably cheaper. But... I get it that IT doesn't want to be supporting a dozen different vendor platforms - so that is what it is. I'm surprised they'll let you install a non-Apple OS on a company Mac, though.

My personal experience is that for IT Management, this is a huge headache. The C level staff tends to:

A: See all PCs as commodity items that are all the same regardless of price - which is why staff and management ends up with POS Dells when they see t

Thu Apr 22 2021 11:22:10 EDT from Nurb432

In my personal case:

 

At office i could either have an under powered windows laptop if i wanted something small enough to carry around to meetings.  Or a behemoth boat anchor that woudl be a nightmare to lug around and is meant to spend most its life tethered to a docking station. Or i could get a mac, which had the power of our 'developer laptop' option but in a smaller form factor than our 'standard' laptop.   We get a set list to choose from, we cant go outside of that list.

 

At home, it was a deal i could not pass up due to the cost. 

 

 

That is what I keep hearing - and heard for a long time *before* the M1 came out - and I wonder how long it will continue to be the story. 

The point is, Intel Macs are not the dead end at the moment that the industry seems to be making them out to be. I keep reading headlines "Apple Ditching Intel" "Apple Dumping Intel". 

Apple seems to be more moving toward an open Friends with Benefits relationship with Intel. 

This article is an interesting take on it. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/why-apple-is-right-to-dump-intel-for-arm-in-some-macbooks/ar-BB15fFXY

Thu Apr 22 2021 13:23:26 EDT from Nurb432

I had not heard that, i only heard there would be a rather short transition, like last time and the M1 laptop was the first step.

Thu Apr 22 2021 13:17:56 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

but Apple is still making Intel Macs for the foreseeable future for power users. 

 

 

I had not heard that, i only heard there would be a rather short transition, like last time and the M1 laptop was the first step.

Thu Apr 22 2021 13:17:56 EDT from ParanoidDelusions

but Apple is still making Intel Macs for the foreseeable future for power users. 

 

💯

This is kind of intrinsic to the argument I've been making in other rooms about the change to Arm. That in itself isn't actually revolutionary from the end user experience. Even if it does open up something that couldn't be done before, if they're not DOING that thing - what is the matter? "It is cooler on your lap" is neither magic nor revolutionary. 

I'm also puzzled that among iMacs, the m4 has a memory limit - and they still offer Intel iMacs that have much higher memory capacity. 

So, basically the M4 is for fairly routine, grocery-getting, Chromebook style consumer applications - but Apple is still making Intel Macs for the foreseeable future for power users. 

So, Apple *isn't* dumping Intel - they're augmenting their line up with a midrange - and that makes it sound like x64 binary support won't be going away anytime soon.  

Thu Apr 22 2021 10:40:18 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

But the point here is ... where is the wow factor. These are super-premium prices for meh-level evolution. These computers have the M1 chip and a fresh coat of paint. Magic Pancreas Man wouldn't have let these machines out the door without adding something revolutionary to dazzle the people and make everyone want to buy one.

Apple needs to get its mojo back.

I still hope their entry in to the ARM market means it will become mainstream, and costs on the 'PC' side drop.

Dont get me wrong i like my Pinebook Pro a lot, but its still meant to be a 'maker laptop'. The current 'consumer' ARM laptops, i think there are 2 choices, and they are overpriced for what they are.   Higher end ARM chromebooks are in the same level as my PBPro, other than storage options.  But they are packaged for the consumer, so i guess that is a win there.

Thu Apr 22 2021 10:40:18 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Right ... I'm not sure why anyone would spend that kind of money on hardware if they didn't intend to live inside the Apple walled garden. You can buy a very nice non-Apple desktop and a monitor for far less than $1,299 ... and I probably don't need to re-hash the whole conversation about having to throw away a perfectly good monitor when the computer built into it becomes obsolete.

But the point here is ... where is the wow factor. These are super-premium prices for meh-level evolution. These computers have the M1 chip and a fresh coat of paint. Magic Pancreas Man wouldn't have let these machines out the door without adding something revolutionary to dazzle the people and make everyone want to buy one.

Apple needs to get its mojo back.

In my personal case:

At office i could either have an under powered windows laptop if i wanted something small enough to carry around to meetings.  Or a behemoth boat anchor that woudl be a nightmare to lug around and is meant to spend most its life tethered to a docking station. Or i could get a mac, which had the power of our 'developer laptop' option but in a smaller form factor than our 'standard' laptop.   We get a set list to choose from, we cant go outside of that list.

At home, it was a deal i could not pass up due to the cost. 

I don't fully understand getting a Mac and then running Linux or Windows on it. Non-Apple PC components are so much less hassle to run a Non-Apple OS on in general... component repairs are generally cheaper, upgrades are often cheaper, compatibility across components is usually more generic. Running a Non-Apple OS on a Mac seems like asking for extra issues to me. 

MorphOS is a pretty decent alternative to OS X - but it is an OS designed, like OS X, with a limited range of PPC equipment in mind. They've got a target hardware platform in their sites. Linux and Windows are trying to run on everything. 

Thu Apr 22 2021 09:48:43 EDT from Nurb432

Mine is a core duo, not i7. But it does do the job when i need it.  Runs much better with Linux than OSX ever did.  My shop mac laptop, its perhaps 3 years old.  I only use it to run VMs via vBox so didnt really care about OSX, but after a few OS updates it started getting unstable, so off it went and Linux went on.  Later i dumped vBox and went KVM. but that is a different story, and not the fault of Apple. 

Had a G4 wind tunnel back when i still used the Lombard G3, and i agree, other than the apple part, they were great machines back then, if you didnt need windows.   That was before the 'great lockdown' movement they embarked on and ruined things ( for people like me at least )

Mine is a core duo, not i7. But it does do the job when i need it.  Runs much better with Linux than OSX ever did.  My shop mac laptop, its perhaps 3 years old.  I only use it to run VMs via vBox so didnt really care about OSX, but after a few OS updates it started getting unstable, so off it went and Linux went on.  Later i dumped vBox and went KVM. but that is a different story, and not the fault of Apple. 

Had a G4 wind tunnel back when i still used the Lombard G3, and i agree, other than the apple part, they were great machines back then, if you didnt need windows.   That was before the 'great lockdown' movement they embarked on and ruined things ( for people like me at least )

For all the shit I talk about Apple, I've got a 2012 i7 MBP that still has a working Radeon. It is interesting - because I only use it for things that don't bang on the GPU - so it is a powerful i7 that basically has an Apple self-destruct on it. I'm torn between just nurturing it around so I have an Intel Mac and burning out the GPU so I can send it away and have the hardware GPU disable hack done to it and not worry about it, and then GPU things will run on the integrated Intel HD graphics fine. 

I also have a G4 Quicksilver, and a G4 Graphite (the Graphite has MorphOS on it... which is personally, in my opinion, overpriced and under-delivering by today's Amiga expectations) - and a PowerMac 8500/500. And I run a number of Basilisk Mac 68k emulators. 

I like OS X a lot. It is a GORGEOUS OS. As long as you're coloring in the lines of Cupertino, they tend to be bullet proof for 99.5% of what people WANT to do with a computer. The integrate better with Wacom tablets than ANYTHING el

Wed Apr 21 2021 15:38:28 EDT from Nurb432

I did hear that some team is getting close to getting Linux to run correctly on them, and it may end up in mainline kernel.   But no accelerated GPU drivers as of yet. 

It does mean cheap Intel hardware soon, but who wants a device you cant replace the battery or update ram?    I tried to update the m.2 on my office machine, of course its not a standard socket and had to buy an adapter.   Just to find out that the screw holding it down,was pre-stripped from the factory. 

Of my own i actually do have an old Macbook. But it was when you could flip open the back panel, replace the battery, replace a hard drive, add ram..  I got it cheap, and since it was still 'fixable' i figured why not.  Ran OSX for about a day. Then off that went.   Had a Lombrard G3 before that, since i was a PPC fan.  And again,  you could still open the sob and do stuff.  Long gone. probably should have kept it. 

Wed Apr 21 2021 14:57:22 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Oooooooh, anyone want the new and boring stuff?

M1 iMacs, only $1,299! And they're available in four colors ... or $1,499 for other colors!

Spring Loaded, everyone. It's innovative and the next big thing.

 

I did hear that some team is getting close to getting Linux to run correctly on them, and it may end up in mainline kernel.   But no accelerated GPU drivers as of yet. 

It does mean cheap Intel hardware soon, but who wants a device you cant replace the battery or update ram?    I tried to update the m.2 on my office machine, of course its not a standard socket and had to buy an adapter.   Just to find out that the screw holding it down,was pre-stripped from the factory. 

Of my own i actually do have an old Macbook. But it was when you could flip open the back panel, replace the battery, replace a hard drive, add ram..  I got it cheap, and since it was still 'fixable' i figured why not.  Ran OSX for about a day. Then off that went.   Had a Lombrard G3 before that, since i was a PPC fan.  And again,  you could still open the sob and do stuff.  Long gone. probably should have kept it. 

Wed Apr 21 2021 14:57:22 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Oooooooh, anyone want the new and boring stuff?

M1 iMacs, only $1,299! And they're available in four colors ... or $1,499 for other colors!

Spring Loaded, everyone. It's innovative and the next big thing.

I fall in that category i think. For the most part, for daily life. For me, the trade off of a bit of convenience is not a lot, as long as there are restraints as i do have limits

Of course if i DO need to hide for some reason. I know how to.

Sat Jan 16 2021 16:28:20 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

Do keep in mind that different people have different levels of trusting/mistrusting the cartel. There are a lot of people who are willing to let Google cookie them, but are not willing to have a microphone listening to their home around the clock. Those are the people for whom it would be sufficient to have a device that they simply can be confident is not speaking to the cartel except when spoken to by the owner/user of the device.

Not zero risk..  but far reduced risk. Nothing is ever 100% but you can force it down to needing physical access to cause trouble.

Run your AI locally on dedicated hardware. Database locally, on those same isolated machines. Its all your hardware, your training.  Don't give it any direct access to the internet. ( ya, training will take longer )

If you want to include some sort of search engine to track your searches start using something like yacy. 

I'm a pretty smart guy. You guys should pay more attention to what I say. What if I'm not actually behind you... what  if I'm *ahead* of you?

Fri Jan 08 2021 07:11:55 EST from Nurb432

 But if its under your local control, its not that much of a risk.

Right, you would need local storage to go along with the AI. But if its under your local control, its not that much of a risk.

The problem is, to make an agent meaningful, you need to be able to predict what the person is going to want. To do that, you've got to store tracking data.

So, DuckDuckGo doesn't have a personal assistant, because they would have to keep tabs on you in order to implement one.

To have one locally, you would have to manage the tracking, locally. It would *still* be a security risk, but at least you would own and manage the hardware the security risk would live on.

Thu Jan 07 2021 17:04:30 EST from Nurb432

:)

 

As others have mentioned there are a few oss projects, but the ones i have seen still use services like google behind the scenes.

But via, it should be doable on a small scale. Would need some decent AI accelerated hardware tho. 

Wed Jan 06 2021 17:36:22 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

Agreed, but you know what I mean.

 

:)

As others have mentioned there are a few oss projects, but the ones i have seen still use services like google behind the scenes.

But via, it should be doable on a small scale. Would need some decent AI accelerated hardware tho. 

Wed Jan 06 2021 17:36:22 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

Agreed, but you know what I mean.

I think there is something like this. 

What is that maker site that has DIY projects? The name escapes me right now. "Build your own Alexa with a RPi". 

https://lifehacker.com/how-to-build-your-own-amazon-echo-with-a-raspberry-pi-1787726931

Wed Jan 06 2021 17:36:22 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

They have ( google, amazon, etc ). Problem is, you are not the
owner...  But its doing exactly what its owner wants it to do.

Agreed, but you know what I mean.

You'd think that by now there would be, at the very least, a crowdsourced digital assistant with auditable software, whose sole owner/operator is its end user, and only performs operations commanded by the end user. It isn't even all that difficult to do. There are callable web APIs to do just about everything you could want. You could build the software on a desktop computer and then deploy it on a Raspberry Pi with a microphone and speaker attached to it.

I'd even add an activity indicator to show when it's "doing something". Frequent software audits would prove that the indicator can be trusted.

Big tech knows what you want more than you do.

They have ( google, amazon, etc ). Problem is, you are not the owner...  But its doing exactly what its owner wants it to do.

Wed Jan 06 2021 13:26:56 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

This raises the question, why hasn't anyone built a digital assistant that only does what its owner tells it to do?

Wed Jan 06 2021 05:02:51 EST from nonservator

"Why yes, older female friend. As someone who grew up watching Star Trek, I would love to be able to talk to my computer and have it talk back. IF I COULD TRUST THE GOD DAMN THING NOT TO NARC ON ME TO THE OLIGARCHS OF SILICON VALLEY"

"Why yes, older female friend. As someone who grew up watching Star Trek, I would love to be able to talk to my computer and have it talk back. IF I COULD TRUST THE GOD DAMN THING NOT TO NARC ON ME TO THE OLIGARCHS OF SILICON VALLEY"

This has a completely different connotation in 2021 than it did in 1983. 

Which is a sad commentary on the human race. 

1983 - "Wait... one day we'll be able to talk to our machines?" 

2021 - "Wait... one day we'll be able to..." 

Tue Jan 05 2021 17:02:55 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

"HELLO EVERYONE. IT SURE IS NICE TO BE HERE TODAY. I AM SAM, THE SOFTWARE MOUTH FOR THE COMMODORE 64 COMPUTER."

Lol, i was trying to do that too back in the 80s. but trying to find a way to distill music down to use compact wave tables then reproduce it like a synth. Basically converting music to sheet, then running that thru a player.  Not at all practical or the same, but it was an idea.

Another was a bank of sram chips in a device the size of a boom box.. simple A/D then D/A  ( in effect just capturing wav files ) but considering the ram size of the day,you get a few minutes of music for a lOT of money spent.  ( and a backpack battery :) )

Mon Jan 04 2021 13:22:54 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

After a bit of research, i discovered that ironically back in the 80s
i was trying to make what we now call e-ink. Just didnt have a name,

History is littered with inventions that simply weren't yet possible with the technology available at the time. By that standard, Leonardo da Vinci invented the helicopter, and I invented the MP3 player.

da Vinci knew how the helicopter would fly, but he didn't have a way to power it.

My 1986 conceptualization of an MP3 player was based on early experimentation with digitized audio on my Commodore 64 (which as many of you know, had a volume control that could be hacked to play 4-bit waveforms). What we didn't have at the time was the storage density required to make it portable. I imagined that music would be distributed on ROM cartridges.

Italian geniuses, you just can't keep us from inventing stuff that isn't buildable yet :)

I'm to this point, for sure. 

Sat Jan 02 2021 16:36:22 EST from Nurb432

 

Honestly tho, I gave up worrying about that stuff long ago and just worry about my expected lifespan. Once i'm gone, its some one else's problem to guard the family history ( pictures and stuff )

 

 

Oh, i agree, and i am sure we will lose it all again after the next fall of civilization.  Then if we are lucky, we start over with sticks and stones and work our way back out of the muck.  Even if we find the perfect way to store it, by the time we advanced enough to figure out how to access it again ( and for it to make any sense to us ), we wouldn't need the data as we would have recreated most of it anyway.

And yes, i have also thought the same thing. What if we had past knowledge in our face all this time but didnt realize it and either lost it or even destroyed it out of ignorance. ( or its sitting on the moon somewhere, waiting for us to discover it )

Honestly tho, I gave up worrying about that stuff long ago and just worry about my expected lifespan. Once i'm gone, its some one else's problem to guard the family history ( pictures and stuff )

Sat Jan 02 2021 16:00:02 EST from ParanoidDelusions

I don't hate it. In some situations, it is very convenient - but... I have reservations. 

I also think that while we still have stone tablets from 2000 years ago - paper has been more difficult to preserve, and the Library of Alexandria might not be the last time we lose great and vast stores of human knowledge in part because of the fragile media we decide to store it on. I mean, it is already happening. We create more content, albeit, much of it just noise drowning out the signal - and a lot of it just disappears - no matter how many Wayback machines we throw at it. 

 
There is also always the possibility that the knowledge is stored, but something happens so that the society doesn't recognize it as data storage, nor do they have the means to retrieve it. I wonder if that could be the case for humanity, even right now. What if all the answers are stored somewhere right in front of it, and we don't even recognize that we're looking at a library of knowledge that could improve our lives? 

20 years of working with enterprise high availability and data retention makes your mind go down these rabbit holes. 

Sat Jan 02 2021 14:31:16 EST from Nurb432

 

ink has worked out well for me.

 

I don't hate it. In some situations, it is very convenient - but... I have reservations. 

I also think that while we still have stone tablets from 2000 years ago - paper has been more difficult to preserve, and the Library of Alexandria might not be the last time we lose great and vast stores of human knowledge in part because of the fragile media we decide to store it on. I mean, it is already happening. We create more content, albeit, much of it just noise drowning out the signal - and a lot of it just disappears - no matter how many Wayback machines we throw at it. 

 
There is also always the possibility that the knowledge is stored, but something happens so that the society doesn't recognize it as data storage, nor do they have the means to retrieve it. I wonder if that could be the case for humanity, even right now. What if all the answers are stored somewhere right in front of it, and we don't even recognize that we're looking at a library of knowledge that could improve our lives? 

20 years of working with enterprise high availability and data retention makes your mind go down these rabbit holes. 

Sat Jan 02 2021 14:31:16 EST from Nurb432

 

ink has worked out well for me.

The readers i use for 'techbooks', while i agree you cant flip around easy, do allow writing 'on' the pages where you are at. Mine also do 'raw' note taking, which isn't tied to any particular file. For novels, i have never cared about taking notes.

DRM? What is that? Never heard of it!  Kidding aside, i do agree that DRM is evil and hurts everyone, even content providers. As far as 'digital ownership with no intermediary', it would be trivial to add block-chain tech to 'digital media' and provide that.  Doubt we will see that happen any time soon, but i suspect it will happen eventually ( it would actually strengthen DRM for the companies to rely on that instead of their piss poor hacked-up encryption schemes ).  of course that would tie you to being online, unless DRM accidentally is removed on your files. ( or by design, when you first load it so you dont need to check ownership every time you read.. )

I have seen some cases of transfer between owners in 3rd party 'stores'. Also loans, like from the library where after x days it goes poof. But ya, it does still require a 'central authority' as things are today. And with that comes risk.

ink has worked out well for me.

Tellingly, there has become no real good, standard way to engage in a fee-less secondary transfer of digital licensing rights from one private party to a second with no intermediary.

It could be done. The people who control the digital content don't want to do that. They want their cut of every transaction we make, and ideally, would rather we make all transactions directly with them. 

I've actually got one of the original full size Kindles with an integrated keyboard and lifetime free 3G wireless. 

I don't know if that actually still works. 

e-Ink readers work for me for leisure reading, generally speaking - and offer a lot of advantages. For technical reading - where I'm flipping back a few pages to review, flipping forward again, going back a chapter here or there... I find e-Ink inferior, with all its markup and bookmarking tools. Analog is just superior. Also, I can have a few different references open and spread out at one time. I've got multiple kindles at this point, but it isn't the same. 

And that is all before I raise objections about the model of digital content licensing. 

This was an early article on the subject - as I was coming to the conclusion that digital content actually robs residual resale value from consumers - ensuring that there is *no* secondary market for used CDs and books. 

https://www.techrepublic.

Digital data is the devil.

Fri Jan 01 2021 15:49:32 EST from Nurb432

Until i started using e-ink, it was questionable. But i totally love e-ink..  

Back when i worked at Delco in the late 80s ( via EDS ) we had a tape robot. No operator needed.  Was actually pretty cool. Not OSHA approved tho.. Get too close to the track you might be smacked in the head with a tape.

At Ford, years later, we had a parts storage building that was robot controlled . Also really cool stuff, ahead of its time. 

Fri Jan 01 2021 13:36:07 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

I have always cataloged my stuff.  That way i could search for
something even before i dug out whatever media it was on.  "this
file is on DVD xyz, in box 42"

You need a mainframe! DFHSM does that built-in to the system. Your file remains in the system catalog, and when a program tries to access it, the program blocks, and an operator (or an automated library) is instructed to mount the tape. The file is loaded back from tape to its original location, and the program unblocks.

Until i started using e-ink, it was questionable. But i totally love e-ink..   CRTs were painful. LCD tablets, used them due to the convenience factor, but it was not 'nice' to read on it. I remember when amazon came out with the first kindle and was thinking " just a new way of marketing LCD, yawn" Wife wanted one, so i got it.  few months later i happened to take a peek at what i just blew nearly 500 bucks on, and realized it was no marketing scam. it was really something different.  

After a bit of research, i discovered that ironically back in the 80s i was trying to make what we now call e-ink. Just didnt have a name, and i didnt have the funding to pull it off beyond making sploches of shapes on glass using HV coils, iron powder, and the conductive glass from torn apart surplus LCD calculator displays.  ( not practical by any means, but it was similar in principle to what e-ink is today )

Few years ago i pretty much purged my dead tree library.. thousands of books/magazines... replaced them all with digital versions.  Only thing i kept was art books, and ones that had special meaning. but 'content', it was all out the door to a yard sale, and then what was left, donated.

Speaking ink, i just picked up another large format ( 10.x" ) ink last week. And yes, i did get in on the first round of color models. While cool, its not yet really ready for prime time, but in a generation or 2, it should be.

Now we also have the term 'e-paper' which was just reflective LCD ( think old style LCD watches ), but some companies are now calling e-ink displays e-paper, due to trademarks.. Makes it all a confusing mess.

Fri Jan 01 2021 13:54:40 EST from ParanoidDelusions

I print out PDFs. Digital documents don't work well for me.

Fri Jan 01 2021 12:58:36 EST from Nurb432

Any more i toss manuals and get PDFs.. damned paper is ins such small font you cant read the damned things. ( age side.. while a factor, they are smaller too )

Tue Dec 29 2020 14:08:34 EST from ParanoidDelusions

I print out PDFs. Digital documents don't work well for me.

Fri Jan 01 2021 12:58:36 EST from Nurb432

Any more i toss manuals and get PDFs.. damned paper is ins such small font you cant read the damned things. ( age side.. while a factor, they are smaller too )

Tue Dec 29 2020 14:08:34 EST from ParanoidDelusions

Any more i toss manuals and get PDFs.. damned paper is ins such small font you cant read the damned things. ( age side.. while a factor, they are smaller too )

Tue Dec 29 2020 14:08:34 EST from ParanoidDelusions

I always make a valiant effort - but eventually, there are home appliance manuals in the file folder that was supposed to just be "personal electronics" manuals, and there are phone accessories in the box that was supposed to be just USB accessories, and USB accessories in the box that was supposed to just be phone accessories, etc. 

Tue Dec 29 2020 12:44:43 EST from Nurb432

Im one of those weirdos who used the Dewey decimal system for my bookcases..  and label all boxes, 

 

 

 

 

I always make a valiant effort - but eventually, there are home appliance manuals in the file folder that was supposed to just be "personal electronics" manuals, and there are phone accessories in the box that was supposed to be just USB accessories, and USB accessories in the box that was supposed to just be phone accessories, etc. 

Tue Dec 29 2020 12:44:43 EST from Nurb432

Im one of those weirdos who used the Dewey decimal system for my bookcases..  and label all boxes, 

 

 

 

Im one of those weirdos who used the Dewey decimal system for my bookcases..  and label all boxes, with a list of contents.. And collar shirts only go in their correct drawer, while T-shirts have another...   Tool box A contains common tools for the little car, while box B has jeep tools.. And box C is reserved for air tools.. etc etc.

its not so much now as i have gotten older, but i do have a 'general order' inside the chaos.

Mon Dec 28 2020 23:30:41 EST from ParanoidDelusions

You saw my approach to transitioning my Citadel from Pi to Debian on Intel, right? 

That mosh-pit of doing so many different things that by the time I figure it out, I don't know exactly what I did to get there... 

Is pretty typical of my general approach to life. It works for me - it makes other people observing it have anxiety attacks.

I can be organized, and when it is required professionally, I'm really good at it. Every now and then I do it personally, for a while, but it inevitably always devolved into anarchy and chaos on a personal level. Entropy works quickly in my personal organization. 

 

Mon Dec 28 2020 18:37:22 EST from Nurb432

I have always cataloged my stuff.  

 

 

 

You saw my approach to transitioning my Citadel from Pi to Debian on Intel, right? 

That mosh-pit of doing so many different things that by the time I figure it out, I don't know exactly what I did to get there... 

Is pretty typical of my general approach to life. It works for me - it makes other people observing it have anxiety attacks.

I can be organized, and when it is required professionally, I'm really good at it. Every now and then I do it personally, for a while, but it inevitably always devolved into anarchy and chaos on a personal level. Entropy works quickly in my personal organization. 

Mon Dec 28 2020 18:37:22 EST from Nurb432

I have always cataloged my stuff.  

 

 

I have always cataloged my stuff.  That way i could search for something even before i dug out whatever media it was on.  "this file is on DVD xyz, in box 42"

Some of my stuff started as a Atari formatted 3.5" disks and IBM 5.25" disks from the late 80s, then tapes, cds, DVD...  eventually it all ended up on a 8TB USB drive with a mirror of that, as i'm paranoid.

Went thru things last weekend finally, killed off 2TB of dups and stuff i honestly will never care about again ( like C64 software.. )

Sun Dec 27 2020 19:10:53 EST from ParanoidDelusions

Well, Linux had a BIG win with me this week. I had a file, no idea what the file name was, no idea where it was stored. Downloaded off the Web about a decade ago, I'd guess, onto a FreeNAS that was probably all of 200gb - maybe more like 70 or 80. That grew into a PowerEdge NAS with more storage... and then got backed up to an external backup drive, then got moved onto a WHS that maybe had 500gb. At each point, things like phone upgrades were getting an entire MicroSD dumped as a file directory onto the NAS, new folders and shares were made for features from each different NAS until I found myself with about 12TB on my current Synology NAS with another 11TB external drive, plus all the other external drives and SD and CF and Thumbdrive and other mass storage devices I've collected along the way. 

*snip*

 

We also have one app ( deployed to about 40k desktops ) that uses the IE web-installer thingie where it installs an executable from the web.. even without admin rights...  That was done in-house however and not via a vendor, and it needs to go.

Sun Dec 27 2020 16:02:06 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

Ooooh, I forgot all about OCX embeds in Internet Explorer. A lot of us said at the time, those aren't web applications, they're Windows applications running inside a browser. Who knows, we might still be stuck in that kind of hell if the desktop computer was still the primary way people used the web. Apple deserves some of the credit for that.

Well, Linux had a BIG win with me this week. I had a file, no idea what the file name was, no idea where it was stored. Downloaded off the Web about a decade ago, I'd guess, onto a FreeNAS that was probably all of 200gb - maybe more like 70 or 80. That grew into a PowerEdge NAS with more storage... and then got backed up to an external backup drive, then got moved onto a WHS that maybe had 500gb. At each point, things like phone upgrades were getting an entire MicroSD dumped as a file directory onto the NAS, new folders and shares were made for features from each different NAS until I found myself with about 12TB on my current Synology NAS with another 11TB external drive, plus all the other external drives and SD and CF and Thumbdrive and other mass storage devices I've collected along the way. 

And I could not find the file. 

But... grep -iRl did it for me. Took most of the weekend, but it found it. 

I know there are ways to do this with Windows boxes - but I didn't r

Sun Dec 27 2020 18:37:55 EST from darknetuser

2020-12-23 22:59 from ParanoidDelusions
I just assumed that Linux was still behind the curve on automounting
and would require me to relearn assigning a mount point to any device
I plugged in, and would struggle with anything not a native *nix OS
filesystem, still.

You made me sad with that paragraph.

lol.  ya. i do agree tho.

Sat Dec 26 2020 22:55:24 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

(And then there's the "serverless" fad, which is a stupid name, and pushed by stupid people. As if all those third party APIs are produced out of the ass of a unicorn somewhere instead of running on a server.)

i will give them credit about the front end.  As it was also in Delphi, and tied to internet explorer due to an OCX, it ether had to be redone, or they would cease to be a product. The app is over 15 years old, so its not like anything easy to make structural changes to.

Their first attempt used a 'web toolkit' and they choose poorly. Silverlight.. oops.. Lost several years of work on that one.  The next attempt was 'just' HTML5 and took them a solid 2 years. ( but i suspect some of the javascript libraries will bite them in the ass eventually ). New GUI has been out 1.5 years now, and we are hoping to migrate Q1.  Still working thru bugs with them that effect us however. They are not the best organized dev team out there. 

Before the GUI rewrite, the last big thing was to drop Oracle DB support about 10 years ago. Sure, incremental improvements and feature adds, but nothing structural.

Sat Dec 26 2020 22:55:24 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

No one rewrites big applications without a VERY compelling reason to do so. 

Darn I had a wonderful long winded response and the downtime yesterday ate it :(

The short version:

Our shop still has a LOT of .net/sql/iis apps and are pumping them out all the time. Most of our 'system admins' are windows people. Here its like a 20:1 on support needs, with our smaller, but growing, Linux team pulling more weight per person. ( tho we all are all understaffed, in every department so i'm not casting stones at the windows guys ) Perhaps we are the exception due to our market, but i dont see our Linux/windows ratio changing much over the short term. On a persona level,the app i support at an admin level, not code, will never be moved off a Microsoft infrastructure. And ya, i realize never is a long time but i dont see the vendor ever taking that project on and basically starting over from scratch. This is one of the few apps i have ever seen where their core was written in Delphi.

I do see a move in data centers to ARM for cost savings ( cheaper chips and lower power, and cooling costs per 'computing unit' ), if its passed down to the customer. As long as it runs their 'job', performs acceptable and is cheaper to them, they will choose it. but i do agree that few will choose it purely by architecture. Some, but few.

And i also had personal slam about missing several trends due to personal bias ( like the entire internet thing... or blockchain )

Thu Dec 24 2020 12:36:35 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

I think in datacenter space its a done deal, and ARM will directly
compete.  For workloads that dont require windows 'services', it may
even overtake. Who knows. I agree those 80 core chips were never

As a data center professional I can tell you this with certainty. Very few server operators are choosing Windows Server nowadays except when they need to run Microsoft's own server software. And even that is becoming less prevalent, since they make such a strong case for running things like Exchange and Sharepoint in their hosted model instead of on-prem. New software (Teams) isn't even available on-prem.

Go look at the ads for developer jobs these days. Sure, you might find a few .Net holdouts that are still running on Windows, but largely you're going to find people looking for developers who can build javascript with Node and Angular and the rest of the hip, hot, totally-what's-happening open world stack.

Microsoft *knows* this and they no longer care, because they are now a cloud company, enjoying the #2 spot in hyperscale. They make plenty of money on non-Windows workloads, which now comprise the majority of Azure subscriptions.

In my data centers we do a small

For mainstream distributions, it has been several years. 

Fri Dec 25 2020 00:36:11 EST from ParanoidDelusions Subject: Re: 5FE4123C-0046BF01@uncensored.citadel.org

I think "years" is an exaggeration. 

 

Now make SAMBA install by default, unless you disable it, and autoconfigure too. 

Fri Dec 25 2020 00:36:11 EST from ParanoidDelusions Subject: Re: 5FE4123C-0046BF01@uncensored.citadel.org

You had to *account* for it - and it wasn't something you could just click a "Yeah, I want this," at install. 

I think "years" is an exaggeration. 

As recently as when I was trying to get Citadel running on the Pi - Linux was still hit and miss about auto-mounting external storage, and storage with non-native file systems - if we're being *generous*. 

You had to *account* for it - and it wasn't something you could just click a "Yeah, I want this," at install. 

It looks like that has changed. About -got-damnt-time-. 

Thu Dec 24 2020 15:22:12 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

I just assumed that Linux was still behind the curve on automounting
and would require me to relearn assigning a mount point to any device

That's old news. Desktop versions of Linux have been automatic mounting removable storage devices for years now. It works more or less the same way a Mac does it. The bus sees the device, it triggers an event, the desktop manager consumes that event and sets up a mount point in the logged in user's directory space, opens a file manager window to that mount.

If the machine is set up as a server, no graphical desktop running and no one logged in at the console, most server operators prefer to mount devices the traditional way.

Yes, i do agree on that, it can be hit-miss.  Making matters worse, it can depend on the distribution of Linux.  ( another reason i dislike the Penguin ecosystem, no one follows standards if they dont like them. but if i stick with ONE then at least i know what its doing, for the most part )

Wed Dec 23 2020 23:30:22 EST from ParanoidDelusions

I did poke around in /dev and /mnt before I saw /media and thought... "Maybe somewhere in there, eh?"


It was far clearer in the root OS X system where an external device was liable to be mounted.

 

 

LOL

Wed Dec 23 2020 23:28:47 EST from ParanoidDelusions

Lots of win going on for *nix right now over at wallofhate.com

 

I did poke around in /dev and /mnt before I saw /media and thought... "Maybe somewhere in there, eh?"


It was far clearer in the root OS X system where an external device was liable to be mounted.

Lots of win going on for *nix right now over at wallofhate.com

My Macbook Pro spiked up to 168 F doing this search - so I moved to the G4 PPC... but I've got a feeling the i5 Debian box will make quicker work of scanning these drives for the file without freaking me out that it might cook itself trying to do it.

I can't believe the i7 MBP hits core temps that hot doing a simple Grep search. I really should take it apart and replace the thermal paste with Arctic Silver - but you've got to take the whole thing apart to get to the bottom of the board to take off the heat sinks...

The Mac Minis are no better. But this Dell Optiplex 3020 has the same kind of modular insides as a Dell PC or a Proliant. You press tabs, and whole parts of the subsystem unplug, giving you access to other parts of the subsystem. I've never been a huge fan of Dell quality - but they do the whole modular design thing excellent.

Wed Dec 23 2020 19:20:29 EST from Nurb432

Heck, I guess technically, if I'm patient, I could plug the drives into a couple of Pis running Raspbian and let them chip away at finding the missing file.

I just assumed that Linux was still behind the curve on automounting and would require me to relearn assigning a mount point to any device I plugged in, and would struggle with anything not a native *nix OS filesystem, still.


I haven't actually tried it - but I've got a test machine - and if it works, I could have a couple of different machines scanning different external drives for this lost file simultaneously, saving me a lot of time. I'll give it a shot now.

Wed Dec 23 2020 19:20:29 EST from Nurb432

just plug it in?   automouter is a wonderful thing.  ( saved typing a command each time )  Should auto mount fat, fat32, fat32 extended and NTFS .. at least it does here.

 

Im doing an Rsync mirror of a 6TB usb drive in the background ..  monthly backups. ( well 8tb drive 6tb of 'stuff' ).   and 'vvv' for a file indexer.

Wed Dec 23 2020 18:11:06 EST from ParanoidDelusions

"Google, how do I mount an external USB PC formatted drive on Linux"

 

just plug it in?   automouter is a wonderful thing.  ( saved typing a command each time )  Should auto mount fat, fat32, fat32 extended and NTFS .. at least it does here.

Im doing an Rsync mirror of a 6TB usb drive in the background ..  monthly backups. ( well 8tb drive 6tb of 'stuff' ).   and 'vvv' for a file indexer.

Wed Dec 23 2020 18:11:06 EST from ParanoidDelusions

"Google, how do I mount an external USB PC formatted drive on Linux"

So on topic, *nix and especially Mac are scoring a major win with me right now. My Mac is happily humming through a 2TB external drive doing a grep -iRl *pagan*.* ./

Just plugged the USB drive in, looked at the root directory, thought, "/Volumes seems like the place where external devices would mount... CDed to it, and... shockingly - it WAS... saw the drive, FreeAgent Drive, CDed to it, and ran the command from there. 

You might claim that it would be no harder on Linux - but I have my doubts. :) 

"Google, how do I mount an external USB PC formatted drive on Linux"

4 hours later... 

Amazon will drive that. They have bought into the entire thing and will not want long term dis-incentives for people to migrate to servers on their own chips.

Wed Dec 23 2020 14:54:58 EST from LoanShark @ Uncensored

2020-12-23 14:33 from Nurb432
I think in datacenter space its a done deal, and ARM will directly

eventually we'll get there. but for certain workloads, not yet--Java performance lags on ARM. Erlang's JIT is only available on x86. Etc...

LoL

Not all of them are that bad, but ya, lots are.

Wed Dec 23 2020 14:39:32 EST from LoanShark @ Uncensored

But yes i do know people who are stuck in their box, and afraid of
anything that isn't within it.  Not a problem i have ever had,
personally but i see them. 

consultants, man...

I think in datacenter space its a done deal, and ARM will directly compete.  For workloads that dont require windows 'services', it may even overtake. Who knows. I agree those 80 core chips were never meant to be in the hands of us consumers. But, with NVIDIA putting out desktop class ARM now ( tho targeted to AI ) and AMD about ready to, there will be proliferation of ARM desktops i suspect.  Sooner than we expect.  ( and for a "lower power" desktop or portable ARM is already there and you can buy them today, just have to choose the correct SoC they are not all created equal ). Not sure how the overall market will shake out, as most people wont care whats in it.. "does it run xyz?"

I have seen a few developer stations being sold recently. Still pricey for end-consumers but its part of the supply chain that is needed, and its there, today.

Those 80-core ARM systems are shipping out to their initial target market, which is hyperscalers looking to start deploying fleets of ARM kit.  They buy from server manufacturers that even most people in IT have never heard of.  If you've ever heard of the pets vs. livestock analogy, these machines are designed to be livestock.  They're built to the lowest possible price point and designed to be basically disposable; when one fails, the workload moves somewhere else and the data center operator discards it.

Enterprise data centers don't work that way.  They want a Dell or an HPE server that is designed to last through its expected service life and handle an intentional workload.  Even if it's part of a VM farm, it was installed for a purpose, and the data center operator has amortized its cost over the expected service life.

Don't worry, if ARM takes off, there's no way Dell and Lenovo (and for that matter, Microsoft) will allow Apple to run away with the desktop ARM development market.  All the evidence you need is the fact that Microsoft built WSL -- yes, Linux running on Windows!! -- because they saw all the web developers buying Apple laptops.

This could turn out to be nothing, or it could be a long overdue inflection point.

Some of their stories, make me jealous

" found this stack of 1 year old macbook pros on the corner out at the local school"  or " ya, these 10 xeon servers, sitting in a box beside the dumpster" " or this Altair at a garage sale for 5 bucks"  why cant i ever be like that?

In my decades of being in the business, i have found ONE machine like this.. People next door to me in a double moved out and left an Apple II on the kitchen floor, that i noticed due to a 'shared' driveway..  ( not including things i have got by doing upgrades myself and 'hauling' away the old stuff as that wasn't technically 'found' ). not new by any stretch, but i was still collecting retro machines at that point, so it was a nice find for me.

Wed Dec 23 2020 10:19:35 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

Either way - my point was kind of clear... 

A big part of the *nix community is made up of people who dumpster dive behind computer stores for their next machine... God bless 'em. 

 

Either way - my point was kind of clear... 

A big part of the *nix community is made up of people who dumpster dive behind computer stores for their next machine... God bless 'em. 

Wed Dec 23 2020 04:32:29 EST from darknetuser @ Uncensored

And i donno, if you are pulling old PCs out of the dumpsters you are

better off with NetBSD.   Modern GUIs on Linux ( or FreeBSD.. )
suck resources too, just like Apple's or Microsoft's. ( its obscene
really ).  But to be fair, on 1:1 hardware, *nix runs faster then
windows, as there are far fewer background process eating away at
things. I think OSX is better in this regard too.  Its even worse if

you are on a corporate network with all its overhead.

I think both Linux or Net/OpenBSD work well for dumpster hardware.

Modern Linux desktop distributions suck because they consume so much in resources, agreed, but you can always get a bloatware desktop environment kicked out and replaced by something more lightweight.

The entire reason NetBSD exists is "we support everything, even your toaster".. True, sometimes it just means 'it boots, good luck', but at least they try.

OpenBSD is more about security than universal compatibility. Not sure they are really any more platform friendly than FreeBSD is these days. 

Desktop wise, i stopped using 'environments' like KDE decades ago, and now stick with something simple and light like LXDE.  I'm sure that does skew my 'comparisons' with windows.   Perhaps in years gone past i might have "needed" the integrated extra bits that a true DE can give you, but as i slowly moved to standalone apps over the years ( and none of my own code used the extra features either ), the overhead became just that, overhead. While its not for me anymore, I do see the advantage for some people to have a unified toolkit/interface, and i do admit to missing something like the old pre-SUN Star-office, when even the browser was integrated in one consistent 'blob of stuff' ( i was a fan of Framework back in DOS days too. for the same reason..   )

But, the idea of changing out desktops for the 'average guy' may not happen.  Back to the old 'its an appliance, i use what i get' mentality that keeps us in 3rd place.

Wed Dec 23 2020 04:32:29 EST from darknetuser @ Uncensored

I think both Linux or Net/OpenBSD work well for dumpster hardware.

Modern Linux desktop distributions suck because they consume so much in resources, agreed, but you can always get a bloatware desktop environment kicked out and replaced by something more lightweight.

At one point, i was CTO in a manufacturing company that was 49% American owned and 51% Japanese owned. President and QC manager were Japanese, so i learned to read enough Japanese to get by. ( VP was Chinese.. was really odd situation ) Was fun when the president was trying to teach me we woudl get to something "um, errr there is no translation" and we would move on. Nice unassuming old guy, had more power than anyone else i had ever met, even in the huge businesses i worked ro ( like EDS or GM or Ford ).  I remember one time in his office when he got a phone call out of the blue.  His girl came in "um, a guy on the phone says he is the chairman of the joint chief of staff and would like to talk to you".  The feds invited him to come watch a navy ship christening out in California.... Or when we needed business due to losing a major contract: "hang on... "  " ok, the CEO of Saab will be here tomorow afternoon, clean the place up"

1/4 of our line crew was Mexican ( migrant, mostly winter workers as we have a lot of farmland they would work at during summer ).. so had to relearn enough of that from high school so i didnt look foolish.

Fun place to be. Its too bad we had a CFO come in and bankrupt the place.

Tue Dec 22 2020 21:34:32 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

Yup. I get that. 

At the last place I really held a "real job," IT manager of the hosted healthcare and billing company in NE Ohio... when I first got there... they would pull me out of my office to take calls because I was the only one who could speak Spanish because I was from California. 

There was a collections agency next door to us, and they had a lot of Spanish speaking employees - because when you're collecting the money, you HAVE to know Spanish - not so much when you're *billing* them. 

 

 

Just had an "a-ha" moment with Macintosh and understanding why developers prefer it to Windows so overwhelmingly.


I've lost a file among literally about 20TB of total storage spread over a dozen different machines. I just recently saw it, and made a mental note to remember where it was - which I've since completely forgotten.

I thought it might be on my old G4 Quicksilver Mac, but Spotlight wasn't finding it.

I don't know much about the title, but I'm pretty sure it is "The Collected Works of Pagan Flames."

There may be spaces, there might not.

Then I realized, because of all my recent crash-course on Debian getting Citadel up and running, that an old PPC Mac was still BSD based and had a terminal.


So I dropped into it, SUed, and did a find / -name *collected*.*

And find / -name *pagan*.*

Both of which failed to turn up the file, and I'm certain it scanned the entire file structure from root - and I c

Interesting discovery...

Yup. I get that. 

At the last place I really held a "real job," IT manager of the hosted healthcare and billing company in NE Ohio... when I first got there... they would pull me out of my office to take calls because I was the only one who could speak Spanish because I was from California. 

There was a collections agency next door to us, and they had a lot of Spanish speaking employees - because when you're collecting the money, you HAVE to know Spanish - not so much when you're *billing* them. 

Anyhow... At one point, I was eating lunch late, there was a guy from the collection's agency in the room, and he was talking on the phone in Spanish. He got to a part where he was talking about his Uncle worry about not having his green card, 

"Mi tio no tiene una trajeta verde..." 

And when he said it, I let out a chuckle... 

And after that, everyone from that team would stop speaking in Spanish when I came in the breakroom for lunch. :) <

Tue Dec 22 2020 17:08:02 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

Oh, and at one point "you are the mac guy, aren't you"...  Or "the printer guy"

 

The curse of knowing a little of everything.. 

Oh, and at one point "you are the mac guy, aren't you"...  Or "the printer guy"

The curse of knowing a little of everything.. 

LOL

Perhaps my office is a bit different than yours.  We have several hundred Linux servers running various workloads ( oracle app servers, databases, API servers, bla bla ).  We also have several thousand windows servers running on top of ESX, so they are all 'tied' to Linux, in a way. I used to be the backup admin for that when we were smaller, along with my day job, but glad not to be now. We even have a small mainframe on site. ( thankfully never been asked to help that team, i gave that up in the 80s...no more big iron for me )

A previous job back in the 90s, i was considered the 'windows guy', ironically.   It was a Novell shop that had just started to convert due to costs ( ! ).  First week there, "hey, you are the windows guy, right" "um, i guess ", "great, pack your bags we need to go to the north side of the state for a couple of days, we had a crash at a clients site and no one knows what to do".Pretty sure it was NT4 ( i dont think it was 3.x, its been a few years now ). So not afraid of it, just hate it :). And i know it was part of why i got the job, knowing a bit of everything.  Before that i was supporting OS/2.. fun times there.

But yes i do know people who are stuck in their box, and afraid of anything that isn't within it.  Not a problem i have ever had, personally but i see them. 

Tue Dec 22 2020 16:22:14 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

APF BIOS transposer intersection A0:32:GG v.20 flux capacitor start failed - Retrying. (This may be caused by a Makecompile error in your semiphore transmap tablatures. Read "Man Tsrk.goo.figbar" for more information

Rambling is good for a BBS. If you don't have people rambling, your BBS is like mine... 

Hollow and empty like a goth kid talking to himself in a corner of the quad. 

First paragraph, I agree almost completely outside of the first line. I feel like Linux does a LOT of heavy stuff at startup - but I also agree, you're more aware of it because it is reporting it in a very old-school feeling text scroll that really doesn't mean anything to the average person: 

APF BIOS transposer intersection A0:32:GG v.20 flux capacitor start failed - Retrying. (This may be caused by a Makecompile error in your semiphore transmap tablatures. Read "Man Tsrk.goo.figbar" for more information
APF BIOS transposer intersection A0:32:GG v.20 flux capacitor start failed - Retrying. (This may be caused by a Makecompile error in your semiphore transmap tablatures. Read "Man Tsrk.goo.figbar" for more information
APF BIOS transposer intersection A0:32:GG v.20 flux capacitor start failed - Retrying. (This may be caused by a Makecompile error in your semiphore transmap tablatures. Read "Man Tsrk.goo.figbar" for more information
APF BIOS transposer failed, exiting. Did you co

Tue Dec 22 2020 07:53:54 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

Yes, *nix does start up a bunch of things too, but they are not nearly as 'heavy' as the stuff MS does.  OSX, being a mach based system is 'unix-ish' so it would be similar. At least until they start their proprietary crap towards the end. There are ways to hide all the flying boot text and just show a pretty progress bar of some sort, but its true most *nix people dont care. Many would actually turn it off.  It also seems that from a user standpoint, the GUI does start before many of the service so, so it 'feels' faster. Not tangible, but a feeling, which for average people, that all that matters.

I still do think its more than 'just the cause' for many ( but agreed, not all ), i personally see speed improvements, better stability ( which has taken a hit due to systemD.. ), lower cost, and in theory more freedom since you can, if you really want to, look at the code and even change it. Perhaps its poor/lack of marketing makes the barrier seem high, when it really isn't. If marketing changed, perhaps more commercial apps would appear that people want and then the cycle would start to become mainstream..  But i donno. you still have the issue of getting it at time of purchase, most people will use whatever they are given and want to use the same thing at home as office.  ( talking desktop here, not server side where there is a LOT of it, or mobile where its freaking everywhere. ).

I have converted several people, and companies over the years. and for the most part they didnt even notice. Everything they needed was either web, or spreadsheets and mail.   2 i had using LibreOffice already to avoid the cost of MSOffice, so the only thing they noticed was the start menu looked different, as i didnt bother trying to skin it to look just like windows. "just think of it like going from windows xp to 7, its an upgrade"   main reason for their desktops was either to save a few bucks and build machines for them, or when win 10 came out, drivers for their fully usable machines vanished overnight, If they had them locally where i could manage them, their servers were already converted, but I agree they dont care what it is in the closet, as long as its cost effective and 'just works'.

I also know myself i dont call people names who choose other things, i may think they made the wrong choice ( in many cases, not all ) but i dont downgrade them personally.  Yes, there are too many out there like that, making the rest of us look bad. But not all of us.

 

But at this point im rambling.. 

 

 

 

Yes, *nix does start up a bunch of things too, but they are not nearly as 'heavy' as the stuff MS does.  OSX, being a mach based system is 'unix-ish' so it would be similar. At least until they start their proprietary crap towards the end. There are ways to hide all the flying boot text and just show a pretty progress bar of some sort, but its true most *nix people dont care. Many would actually turn it off.  It also seems that from a user standpoint, the GUI does start before many of the service so, so it 'feels' faster. Not tangible, but a feeling, which for average people, that all that matters.

I still do think its more than 'just the cause' for many ( but agreed, not all ), i personally see speed improvements, better stability ( which has taken a hit due to systemD.. ), lower cost, and in theory more freedom since you can, if you really want to, look at the code and even change it. Perhaps its poor/lack of marketing makes the barrier seem high, when it really isn't. If marketing changed, perhaps more commercial apps would appear that people want and then the cycle would start to become mainstream..  But i donno. you still have the issue of getting it at time of purchase, most people will use whatever they are given and want to use the same thing at home as office.  ( talking desktop here, not server side where there is a LOT of it, or mobile where its freaking everywhere. ).

I have converted several people, and companies over the years. and for the most part they didnt even notice. Everything they needed was either web, or spreadsheets and mail.   2 i had using LibreOffice already to avoid the cost of MSOffice, so the only thing they noticed was the start menu looked different, as i didnt bother trying to skin it to look just like windows. "just think of it like going from windows xp to 7, its an upgrade"   main reason for their desktops was either to save a few bucks and build machines for them, or when win 10 came out, drivers for their fully usable machines vanished overnight, If they had them locally where i could manage them, their servers were already converted, but I agree they dont care what it is in the closet, as long as its cost effective and 'just works'.

I also know myself i dont call people names who choose other things, i may think they made the wrong choice ( in many cases, not all ) but i dont downgrade them personally.  Yes, there are too many out there like that, making the rest of us look bad. But not all of us.

But at this point im rambling.. 

Mon Dec 21 2020 21:40:07 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

Apple in particular knows how to create the impression of "responsiveness" - a lot like the way BMW does - Your BMW isn't necessarily more agile than the Audi on the skidpad, being measured. But it FEELS less leaden in the corners, it feels more communicative. The Miata has a lot of this going for it. It has never been a tremendously quick car - but everyone who has ever drove it will talk about how much FUN it is to drive. 

The truth is that OS X is doing all of those things that Debian does at boot. It is *hidden* unless you specifically turn it on... because watching a string of line by line, "now I'm doing this... now I'm turning on the USB. Oh, you have a firmware bug, you should install this... timing out... moving on..." diagnostic noise makes the boot SEEM longer. Staring at a gray Apple logo with a progress bar SEEMS much faster. 

Even so... I just booted my Mac just to see - and although it is an i7 with 16 GB of memory and my Linux box is an i5 with 8, so it isn't Apple'

 

 

 

 

Apple in particular knows how to create the impression of "responsiveness" - a lot like the way BMW does - Your BMW isn't necessarily more agile than the Audi on the skidpad, being measured. But it FEELS less leaden in the corners, it feels more communicative. The Miata has a lot of this going for it. It has never been a tremendously quick car - but everyone who has ever drove it will talk about how much FUN it is to drive. 

The truth is that OS X is doing all of those things that Debian does at boot. It is *hidden* unless you specifically turn it on... because watching a string of line by line, "now I'm doing this... now I'm turning on the USB. Oh, you have a firmware bug, you should install this... timing out... moving on..." diagnostic noise makes the boot SEEM longer. Staring at a gray Apple logo with a progress bar SEEMS much faster. 

Even so... I just booted my Mac just to see - and although it is an i7 with 16 GB of memory and my Linux box is an i5 with 8, so it isn't Apple'

Mon Dec 21 2020 14:31:49 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

Faster as in response time doing similar functions. Of course in many cases its not the *same* application ( see below ), but functionality you can compare so its not quite apples and oranges. Sure, that speed is influenced by what is running under the surface, but if an OS is running a bunch of nonsense just to keep it running, yes i'm going to blame it. GUI toolkits also come into play, but as an 'overall user 'feel' you can compare them.

Boot times? Well, i can say on same hardware for me, Debian boots noticeably faster than windows. Have i measured it? No as to be honest, boot time on modern machines is not a factor to me, a few seconds there either way, i dont care. Its when it gets into minutes of waiting to login like windows can when its in a bad mood, then i care.

And yes for the most part applications are different and 'work a likes' across platforms, with a few exceptions, such as LibreOffice, blender, spyder ( i do python ), chrome, FreeCAD, PostGreSQL, and a few others. But i do tend to see faster "times" with Linux/BSD than windows/OSx. Earthshaking? Perhaps not, but a noticeable amount to me at least.

GPU performance, that depends on who's drivers you use. Opensource NVIDIA for example, they work well enough for video and such, but wont break any records for gaming.  OEM NVIDIA, work as well as a windows drivers. ( i'm sort of forced to use them on my NVIDIA AI boxes ) Mali drivers, same sort of situation. Intel, i cant tell a difference really between OSS and commercial. Perhaps INTEL actually opensourced theirs, i donno, never cared enough o look.

I think there is more than just speed issues keeping people from porting games away from windows and more about not wanting to making 2 code bases, just for a smaller market. Just my feeling, but not being in that world i cant talk intelligently about it.   Pretty sure games use a lot of OS tricks,  so it woudl be a pain to support 2 when there isn't large *paying* user base. 

Blender? All ill say is i have a been a fan boi even back when it was still a commercial product back in the early 90s, and being used by NAN for their business, and you had to pay to play. ( I still have my license, it was a work of art. And my signed manual... ) Is it hard to use? Thats relative, most 3D tools at that level have their own learning curve. 

I cant comment personally on the gimp/Photoshop thing. I know professionals who 'get by' out of principle after Adobe going cloud, but not sure if its at the same level at this point in time. But they get their jobs done, so does it matter?

 

That is all i got for a Monday :) 

 

Speaking of NVIDIA, ran across this today. I want one.. 

https://www.nvidia.com/content/dam/en-zz/Solutions/Data-Center/dgx-station/nvidia-dgx-station-a100-datasheet.pdf

Faster as in response time doing similar functions. Of course in many cases its not the *same* application ( see below ), but functionality you can compare so its not quite apples and oranges. Sure, that speed is influenced by what is running under the surface, but if an OS is running a bunch of nonsense just to keep it running, yes i'm going to blame it. GUI toolkits also come into play, but as an 'overall user 'feel' you can compare them.

Boot times? Well, i can say on same hardware for me, Debian boots noticeably faster than windows. Have i measured it? No as to be honest, boot time on modern machines is not a factor to me, a few seconds there either way, i dont care. Its when it gets into minutes of waiting to login like windows can when its in a bad mood, then i care.

And yes for the most part applications are different and 'work a likes' across platforms, with a few exceptions, such as LibreOffice, blender, spyder ( i do python ), chrome, FreeCAD, PostGreSQL, and a few others. But i do tend to see faster "times" with Linux/BSD than windows/OSx. Earthshaking? Perhaps not, but a noticeable amount to me at least.

GPU performance, that depends on who's drivers you use. Opensource NVIDIA for example, they work well enough for video and such, but wont break any records for gaming.  OEM NVIDIA, work as well as a windows drivers. ( i'm sort of forced to use them on my NVIDIA AI boxes ) Mali drivers, same sort of situation. Intel, i cant tell a difference really between OSS and commercial. Perhaps INTEL actually opensourced theirs, i donno, never cared enough o look.

I think there is more than just speed issues keeping people from porting games away from windows and more about not wanting to making 2 code bases, just for a smaller market. Just my feeling, but not being in that world i cant talk intelligently about it.   Pretty sure games use a lot of OS tricks,  so it woudl be a pain to support 2 when there isn't large *paying* user base. 

Blender? All ill say is i have a been a fan boi even back when it was still a commercial product back in the early 90s, and being used by NAN for their business, and you had to pay to play. ( I still have my license, it was a work of art. And my signed manual... ) Is it hard to use? Thats relative, most 3D tools at that level have their own learning curve. 

I cant comment personally on the gimp/Photoshop thing. I know professionals who 'get by' out of principle after Adobe going cloud, but not sure if its at the same level at this point in time. But they get their jobs done, so does it matter?

That is all i got for a Monday :) 

"Faster" is such an ambiguous and relative statement in computer processing, in most cases. 

Debian BOOTS slow as dogshit. It isn't just that you can see the entire boot process - there is a BUNCH going on. Today I booted a Windows PC (i7 water cooled desktop workstation with 32GB of RAM and Nvidia GTX1080 and RTX 2080 GPUs, 1TB SSD boot drive), a MBP 2012 i7 (500mb SSD and 16gb) and my Surface Pro (500mb SSD and 16gb). The Tower beat them all, the Mac beat the Surface Pro. 

But a lot of that comes down to my use models for the different machines. My Surface is my daily driver and loading a lot of things at startup. 

Then in real world performance - Macs have often claimed to beat equivalent PCs from competing manufacturers running Windows - but the reality has often been that thermal throttling prevents Macs from hitting their real world peaks for sustained periods of time - even if there is something about the custom PCB design and bus engineering that makes them tech

Mon Dec 21 2020 11:01:11 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

If you are doing AI or GPU mining, you pretty much need NVIDIA at this point. its why i have several. 

 

And i donno, if you are pulling old PCs out of the dumpsters you are better off with NetBSD.   Modern GUIs on Linux ( or FreeBSD.. ) suck resources too, just like Apple's or Microsoft's. ( its obscene really ).  But to be fair, on 1:1 hardware, *nix runs faster then windows, as there are far fewer background process eating away at things. I think OSX is better in this regard too.  Its even worse if you are on a corporate network with all its overhead.

If you are giving out money, ill take it.

:) 

Mon Dec 21 2020 12:51:35 EST from nonservator @ Uncensored

 

Every day I am amazed at how hard people make it for you to give them money.

>Ampere Altra review: 2x 80 cores Arm server performance monster

Top comment:

"Once again, I am excited to see alternative systems.

"Once again, I am disappointed to see I cannot actually buy one."

Same old, same old.

Every day I am amazed at how hard people make it for you to give them money.

If you are doing AI or GPU mining, you pretty much need NVIDIA at this point. its why i have several. 

And i donno, if you are pulling old PCs out of the dumpsters you are better off with NetBSD.   Modern GUIs on Linux ( or FreeBSD.. ) suck resources too, just like Apple's or Microsoft's. ( its obscene really ).  But to be fair, on 1:1 hardware, *nix runs faster then windows, as there are far fewer background process eating away at things. I think OSX is better in this regard too.  Its even worse if you are on a corporate network with all its overhead.

And I get why Windows people don't want a regular Intel PC with a Nvidia GPU and a Microsoft OS on it, too. 

Sun Dec 20 2020 22:49:24 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

 

"because they were better than their competitors (Windoze)"

I refer back to Ig's earlier comments. They're all the same. There are little differences - and those may make one choice better or worse relative to your particular use model on a personal level. But, they've all got warts, too. 

Linux is kinda like a butterface in this regard - you've got to love her for her personality, or that thing she does for you with her tongue - whatever it is that keeps you coming back -  in this regard.

I'm not judging. Someone has to give the ugly girls love too. I appreciate that you Linux guys stepped forward and took that bullet for the rest of us over here with our pretty, shallow and dumb OSes. 

;) 

 I get why OS X people pay so much more for the same hardware only hardware crippled by thermal limitations. I get why Linux people get so happy that they can get a full fledged modern OS running on a 3

Sun Dec 20 2020 11:15:11 EST from DutchessMike @ Uncensored

I don't see it as selling out - I used their tools to practice my craft (I write software and do networking/cyber-security nonsense for my clients) because they were better than their competitors (Windoze).  Now that they've taken a turn in a different direction, I wish them well - I'm sure there are legions of people doing other things or who simply want acceptance from their peers who are happy to continue using OS X and Mac products at any price.  OS X was neat for a while since they would use intel hardware and provide a BSD-like OS with a nice looking gui.  Sure, my Linux setup doesn't look as cool as OS X does, but my computer (with better hardware) does what I need it to do and I spent significantly less to get it up and running compared to buying another MBP.  I also "purchased" the freedom for issues like the one you described with the CPU usage.  My wife uses my old MBP which runs fine...except when it's 2 AM and I hear the fans on overdrive because of the same issue.

I have a project in 2021 that will need to be deployed on iOS and likely another that will need an app ported to OS X.  I'll begrudgingly buy a used mac mini solely for the purposes of running XCode and shipping builds for acceptance and deployment.  It will be far easier for me to spend a couple of hundred bucks on a machine to deal with Apple's ever-changing idiosyncrasies as part of the "hardware" toolchain than it would be for me to move everything over to a Mac for development.

Mike

Thu Dec 17 2020 12:30:17 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

I never bought in, so I won't ever have to sell out. 

 

I don't see it as selling out - I used their tools to practice my craft (I write software and do networking/cyber-security nonsense for my clients) because they were better than their competitors (Windoze).  Now that they've taken a turn in a different direction, I wish them well - I'm sure there are legions of people doing other things or who simply want acceptance from their peers who are happy to continue using OS X and Mac products at any price.  OS X was neat for a while since they would use intel hardware and provide a BSD-like OS with a nice looking gui.  Sure, my Linux setup doesn't look as cool as OS X does, but my computer (with better hardware) does what I need it to do and I spent significantly less to get it up and running compared to buying another MBP.  I also "purchased" the freedom for issues like the one you described with the CPU usage.  My wife uses my old MBP which runs fine...except when it's 2 AM and I hear the fans on overdrive because of the same issue.

I have a project in 2021 that will need to be deployed on iOS and likely another that will need an app ported to OS X.  I'll begrudgingly buy a used mac mini solely for the purposes of running XCode and shipping builds for acceptance and deployment.  It will be far easier for me to spend a couple of hundred bucks on a machine to deal with Apple's ever-changing idiosyncrasies as part of the "hardware" toolchain than it would be for me to move everything over to a Mac for development.

Mike

Thu Dec 17 2020 12:30:17 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

I never bought in, so I won't ever have to sell out. 

I dont think id go so far as saying they are "defeated", just they are going to take a hit.  Unless as you say, they have a 'plan'  ( unlike the Cylons.. "plan", my ass ). Google, Amazon, and Microsoft all looking elsewhere for their data centers, and Apple now for their desktops, it does mean some loss of revenue.   Mobile market is already gone.

And while i totally agree its nothing to sneeze at for income, military only goes so far, only takes one public breach for them to turn on you. Or you piss off the wrong person out in DC by accident one afternoon, or dont pay off the right one. 

Fri Dec 18 2020 22:31:08 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

What I'm saying is - you guys are all going, "We finally defeated one of the great Satans..." 

And I'm saying... "No... you made it more evil." 

 

What I'm saying is - you guys are all going, "We finally defeated one of the great Satans..." 

And I'm saying... "No... you made it more evil." 

This could also be evidence of my claim. 

It doesn't make sense that Intel is expanding so rapidly and building so aggressively if rumors like this are easily accessible to people like you and I. 

I mean... it *could* just be denial. But I worked in the company - and that isn't their corporate culture at all. They give you a book called, "Only the Paranoid Survive," the first day you join, and they're serious about you reading it. It is like their bible. 

Their biggest wins have not been in consumer or corporate markets for a decade. I knew about the football "instant replay 360" thing a half a decade before I saw it on the NFL. I couldn't disclose, not because of any NDIS I was still under, but because the trusted source who told me all about it was under NDIS - and one betrayal would have cut me off from lots of other insider information I could leak on Tech Republic. 

So... the thing is - that was SUPPOSED to be interactive. NFL Live, or whatever the cabl

Fri Dec 18 2020 21:14:17 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

Ran across a story tonight that Microsoft has been working with NVIDIA for a bit now, with end goal to make their own chips instead of getting them from Intel, much like Apple.  Mainly for their data centers and are not going to come out with a line of branded PCs. ( nothing new, as NVIDIA had their own IP licensed from ARM for some time now, not just their own GPU stuff.  I guess they are using RISC-V too, embedded into some of their GPUs as controllers of some sort )

And AMD is working on some ARM designs of their own for the consumer market.

Looks like Intel may be on the wrong side of progress in the coming decade.. ( not sure what ever happens to their 'strong-arm' line, which was licensed ARM IP, thru DEC or some such back room nonsense  )

Ran across a story tonight that Microsoft has been working with NVIDIA for a bit now, with end goal to make their own chips instead of getting them from Intel, much like Apple.  Mainly for their data centers and are not going to come out with a line of branded PCs. ( nothing new, as NVIDIA had their own IP licensed from ARM for some time now, not just their own GPU stuff.  I guess they are using RISC-V too, embedded into some of their GPUs as controllers of some sort )

And AMD is working on some ARM designs of their own for the consumer market.

Looks like Intel may be on the wrong side of progress in the coming decade.. ( not sure what ever happens to their 'strong-arm' line, which was licensed ARM IP, thru DEC or some such back room nonsense  )

I never bought in, so I won't ever have to sell out. 

I buy Macs as curiosity, and so that I have a passing experience with them when people tap me for assistance - and because I just have a general interest in OS platforms - what they do better, what they do worse. 

The .dmg package is an interesting install process - and it shows where commercial vendors just have a huge advantage over the FOSS community and its competing Yum and Apt package management solutions. 

I love some of the features of OS X, like how maximizing a window instantly sends it to its own virtual desktop, and how gestures so effectively switch you between those desktops. 

I love how transparently and user-friendly they make their e-mail client setup. 

And their overall aesthetic design is very pleasant. 

But, over the last week, I found the machine was spiking all the time from a normal operating temp between about 88 at idle and 143 max to averaging more like 12

Thu Dec 17 2020 11:14:54 EST from DutchessMike @ Uncensored

The move to ARM for Apple was the end of my relationship with them.  

WRONG About M1 Mac Speed — Apple Silicon Explained!

What do you think, fact or fanboi fantasy? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg0AF166eVI&t=709s

The move to ARM for Apple was the end of my relationship with them.  They announced this two years ago and I moved my MBP to run Linux instead of OS X and I ordered a Thinkpad to replace it about 6 months later when I was comfortable enough to run Linux full-time for work.  Forcing everyone to support rebuilding their apps to run on ARM rather than X86_64 is a pain for commercial developers, but will throw a dent in a number of open-source projects that are based on C++ or any other language that you use for speed and direct access for hardware... Python, Ruby, Java, and other languages will survive with their runtimes ported.  I've already started down this road for Pi projects that I work on in my spare time, but anything I do for the desktop in the future will need to be cross-compile friendly, and that's a mess of toolchains I wouldn't wish on solo developers.

4631074@Uncensored

No - I understand that - I think the situation is that low-cost, low power, lower performance ARM based CPUs have gotten good enough to migrate the vast majority of civilian technology platforms in that direction - and things like like Apple ARM illustrate that this performance is just going to scale. With clustering and distributed processing, and enough ARM CPUs... you'll be able to do what you're talking about, probably with a smaller physical and ecological footprint - with ARM. 

And, I never said Intel was going to get out of enterprise datacenter solutions. I think they're moving away from consumer platforms. I don't think that is any great conspiracy theory. They've competed less aggressively in this space for a while. They've given more ground to AMD. But a company that sees their core business diminishing doesn't continue to expand their operations, their headcount, their investments as aggressively as Intel is moving forward. They're seeing more competition in the corporate data-cent

It is worth noting - that part of the idea of why you divide a technology into "consumer/civilian grade good enough," and "military-industrial specific design," can be explained by looking at the gun control debate. Limiting us to semi-automatic weapons and different standards of ammo and armor - different grades of optics - makes it difficult or impossible to outmatch the government as civilians.  If you're going to do that with firearms - why wouldn't you use it with the technology you depend on to predict the civilian habits, to monitor and control their action, to snoop on what they're saying, doing and watching? 

I think we're being driven into a box canyon. 

Wed Dec 16 2020 11:30:35 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Meanwhile, as you like to point out - the web browser has replaced
the OS - A Chromebook is as effective as an i9 for what MOST people
are using their computing devices for these days - posting what they
had for dinner on Facebook. 

And as you pointed out in another room, you haven't been keeping up with enterprise architecture.

One thing that has really come into its own in the last few years is the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC). Functions that have traditionally been offloaded to specialized hardware -- the routers and firewalls and fabric managers and storage controllers and other "big boxen" that you find in a data center -- all of them are moving to software. In fact, the project I am working on *right now* involves rolling out private cloud environments that consist of nothing except a rack of servers and a pair of ethernet switches.

This means your server CPUs aren't just sitting around waiting for the disk or the network anymore. They are *running* the disk and the network, in addition to the normal server workloads. To do this you need fast, high density, multicore CPUs, and I can assure you the chips you find in a Chromebook aren't going to cut it.

In short, there is *always* an

Close enough to L.A. and California that the coastal elites in San Jose and Los Angeles can hop in their private jets and be here in an hour and a half. 

You may be on to something. 

Wed Dec 16 2020 09:10:36 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

Perhaps it really is the underground bunker, for the 'elite' when everything goes to pot next year.  Or where they are going to move the servers that house the copy Steve Jobs' brain, since California is getting pretty scary.. 

 

Or relocation of the Antarctic star-gate so the Russians dont get it first.

 

 

Perhaps it really is the underground bunker, for the 'elite' when everything goes to pot next year.  Or where they are going to move the servers that house the copy Steve Jobs' brain, since California is getting pretty scary.. 

Or relocation of the Antarctic star-gate so the Russians dont get it first.

They do have to build on bedrock, generally speaking - and they like to be in very seismic inactive locations. 

I just don't know why you would buy a plot of land with 4 stories of sand above the bedrock to build a fab there. 

It seems unusual, even suspicious, to me. The hole is big. Ig doubting me makes me wish I had taken a picture of the crane down in it, with just the tip barely peeking out. 

But it is more the exodus of tech companies and the influx of military-industrial ones that I find curious. 

And the timing of all of these things paints an interesting set of dots to connect - and I think Apple moving to ARM is just one of those pieces. Everyone is acting like Apple moving to ARM is the INTERESTING thing. 

But, I think that it is a convenient distraction. 

Tue Dec 15 2020 09:20:29 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

When i was with GM back in the late 80's we had an on-campus chip fab.  It was an impressive building. However, i dont think it reached down into the earth, other than for stability reasons. ( it was a building within a building. Anchored to bedrock or something to reduce vibration from nearby assembly plants and traffic )

 

Really cool stuff. 

When i was with GM back in the late 80's we had an on-campus chip fab.  It was an impressive building. However, i dont think it reached down into the earth, other than for stability reasons. ( it was a building within a building. Anchored to bedrock or something to reduce vibration from nearby assembly plants and traffic )

Really cool stuff. 

I don't think there is an underground government bunker down there. 

I think it doesn't make sense to dig that deep just for a fab. MOST of the building is underground. This isn't conjecture. I live here, I've been out there and seen the construction - and the hole is big enough to support a New York sized skyscraper. Bigger, actually. 

"Meanwhile, here in the world where people buy microprocessors, there's no such thing as "too powerful for you to have." A microprocessor that is overkill for an individual computer is perfect for a cloud server or supercompute node. "

Most of our lives, that has been true. But people haven't really been demanding more computing power since the Intel core series has been released - and lots of people are still happy with an 3rd or 4th generation core i5 - which will ru

Everything I wrote last night was absolutely true. Whiskey enhanced, but accurate. There is no embellishment there. 

Mon Dec 14 2020 23:11:01 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

I love a good conspiracy theory, but the above was a little out there, even for me. Actually I've heard the story before, but the company was AT&T and the big underground government thing was supposedly beneath their Solid State Technology Center in Breinigsville, PA. Unfortunately for the government, I worked for two different companies that have occupied the space (AT&T itself during a 1993 internship, and the company that built a data center there, which my current employer acquired in 2013). I've gone down as far as one can go and there's no secret government lab.

Meanwhile, here in the world where people buy microprocessors, there's no such thing as "too powerful for you to have." A microprocessor that is overkill for an individual computer is perfect for a cloud server or supercompute node.
Intel Architecture, as much as they have evolved it, is simply an evolutionary dead end. RISC, as I'm sure some of you know, does not necessarily mean that

If it ever runs on Apple ARM it will suck. It will require reverse engineering drivers for their custom hardware. And you run the risk of Apple suing. as they are butt-heads. They also wont sell the chips to other people.

I also hope that it helps the movement of non-intel. but to be honest 99% of apple customers dont care what is in the shiny box. ARM was already moving into mainstream, just look at Amazon, but this may accelerate it.

I think the RISC revolution happened, just look in your hands.. 

Sun Dec 13 2020 23:40:05 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

And this could be the favor that Apple does for the entire industry, not just their own customers. If they can legitimize ARM for general purpose computing, to the point where Microsoft is forced to follow, the albatross of the x86 ISA will finally be gone and the industry will be awash in cheap hardware.
Initial reports about the M1 is that it's "actually pretty good" and it seems like Apple is about to demonstrate that ARM can be made in both "fast" and "low power" varieties.

Obviously it's great for Linux users, because Linux can thrive on any hardware.

Wouldn't you agree that the CPU world is overdue for a shakeup? Could the *true* RISC revolution finally happen, forty years later than expected?

So... 

"Could the *true* RISC revolution finally happen, forty years later than expected?"

No. I don't really think it is that at all. 

I think it is a different kind of revolution that made Apple leave Intel for Arm. Still - a revolution. 

These old, fat Asian men in Party Wool jackets walk together through the greenbelts of Chandler, talking in traditional Chinese. They walk with their arms crossed behind their backs and their wrists folded over one another - it is a thing. You can' tell what they're saying, but they're just bullshitting like any other older powerful affluent guy. Laughing, arguing about politics, talking about drinks... dudes bullshitting. I totally get it. Then a few steps back are the elder males, and behind that, the women, grandmothers, mothers, and children - they go out for evening walks almost EVERY night. And they always walk in the same order. I sit in my greenbelt home and watch them go by and wonder, "WTF is THAT about?!?" 

And the grandmothers do tai-chi in the park in the mornings... facing East as the sun rises - slow deliberate exercises that focus your chi. 


And if you're walking and you greet them, they look at you, very friendly, and smile and say "hello," in broken English.

Say it now... 

"ParanoidDelusions did not kill himself." 

Only The Paranoid Survive is Andy Grove's story of Intel's coming up. It is Intel Indoctrination 101. Intel was the first company where I had a clear vision that Fortune 100 companies run their internal operations on socialist governing principles. I'd get into that - but the main point is, the mailroom clerk and the CEO don't live much differently, really, in the company hierarchy. 

Anyhow. Grove, Moore and Noyce, the Intel Holy Trinity - ran the World's Largest Semiconductor Manufacturer in the 70s. Until Taiwan started eating their lunch. They were going to lose their company, their jobs - everything. And Grove claims he came up with this idea, that is like a dogma at Intel, about the "Critical Inflection Point." It is where your industry is changing so fast, so radically, you must adept or die. They decided to rethink themselves as CPU manufacturers. This is important. It worked, and Intel decided, they're not a CPU manufacturer, or a CPU manufacturer, or even a technology company. They ar

Probably not. I'd be really surprised. 

Intel is too powerful for consumer computing applications. 

Want a conspiratorial story? It is long? No? Ok, Imma tell you anyhow. 

Hold on... this is going to take another whiskey... 

Ok... 

In 2014 I moved to Arizona. Chandler. The welcome sign at the edge of town is Intel Blue and features a circuit board pattern. More than Folsom, California - Chandler, Az. wouldn't exist as it does without Intel. 

I worked at Intel Folsom between 2000 and 2003. I did some serious things for them. I was a part of a "black ops" team that worked outside of Intel P-100 restrictions in a special caged DMZ portion of their corporate datacenter HQ, which is in Folsom. We were *special*. They hired guys that were not the traditional Intel IT profile. Mavericks and renegades - I think you've seen enough of me to understand. They had an aggressive plan, and they wanted people who thought that insane risks were holdin

 





We were having trouble finding a house. Prices were going up 2-4% every month, there were severe shortages, we had been looking for two years. 

Sun Dec 13 2020 23:40:05 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Wouldn't you agree that the CPU world is overdue for a shakeup? Could the *true* RISC revolution finally happen, forty years later than expected?

Make that a "larger eMMC".. was looking at a SSD on my desk i need to stick in a server as i was typing. 

They have been selling SBCs for a while now. Generally regarded as decent in the community.

The pinebook however, sucks. Don't bother as its too underpowered to be useful. IT was a interesting 'opening act' but you dont want one.

The pinebook pro, however i love mine. But its not perfect:

• I ended up with first gen as i pre-ordered mine some 7 months in advance, so its an ISO keyboard. Not their fault, but annoying as hell. Now they sell both, too bad the case is different so no easy way to swap it.
• Track pad - overly sensitive.  They have released patches since i got mine to make it 'better' but still not great. 
• camera is a write off. Donno if they will ever release a better one to shove in there. But its a laptop, is that really that big of a deal?
• Research the M.2 if you plan on doing that. Some dont fit well inside the case. Others do.   ( found out the hard way, cost of being bleeding edge.  Ended up pulling it and getting a larger SSD instead of experimenting with other brands .. m.2 isnt cheap )

Sat Dec 12 2020 16:18:17 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Wow, it looks like the Pine people are really interested in bringing out a whole line of "open" hardware. Their laptops are decent and not too expensive (a problem System76 has). I'd consider their stuff for my next hardware purchase.

Took a bit, but i found it.

https://github.com/GloDroid/glodroid_manifest/releases

I dont think so yet, but there is a 3rd party project to bring AOSP 10 to it ( and other pine products ). "real soon now" i think is its status.

Sat Nov 21 2020 14:11:17 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Actually I'd buy and use a PinePhone with AOSP, just to have a version of Android I can do what I want with. Can it run AOSP or do you have to run stock Linux?

Fri Oct 23 2020 18:02:54 EDT from Ragnar Danneskjold @ Uncensored

It wouldn't surprise me, although I can't imagine why you'd really want to.
They can't even get app developers to optimize for the large screen iPad Pro......

So, the ARM Apple machines are out. Are they able to run iOS apps on day 1, or not? 

Fri Nov 20 2020 13:47:05 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

 

Found it. Interesting. At $199 - I wish someone would make a device like this ready to plug a MiSTer FPGA inside. 

And why is it that every so often my post is duplicated? Browser cache resubmitting?

https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

Fri Nov 20 2020 10:32:29 EST from ParanoidDelusions @ Uncensored

 

Fri Nov 20 2020 09:14:38 EST from Nurb432 @ Uncensored

 

 

 

Well, and off to DuckDuckGo I am... 

 

 

Its still a google centric device, so you cant easily get rid of the google stuff. ( tho its a minimal set, even hangouts i had to manually install )  what it does do is get rid of carrier and vendor garbage.   I have bought into the google ecosystem, so it works for me. Android one is basically the same as a nexus device, just from a 3rd party, and couple hundred instead of several hundred dollars.  Xiaomi ( one of the biggest Chinese tech companies. Often called the Apple of china" ) sells at least 2 models running Android One.  They also sell phones with their