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Think on this: What if the order you watched the episodes changed the content of the subsequent episodes? Would you have to start over again and make different choices in your order?

What if the order you watched the episodes changed the content of the episodes you already watched?

These questions are important to many different disciplines such as Biology, Economics, Mathematics, Robotics, and many, many more.

I usually recommend two books that touch on the subject: For Economics I recommend, "The Origin of Wealth" by Beinhocker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077... . It is very readable and will stretch the mind. For Technology I recommend, "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly. It is also very readable, and will also stretch your mind https://kk.org/kevinkelly/out-... . I recommend the PDF version because Kelly added more illustrations, annotations and footnotes.

In Economics, Frederich Hayek proved, back in about 1929, that this type of complexity made true command and control Economics implausible, and probably impossible. Marxists, Socialists and Stafford Beer (before he bankrupted Chile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , should have taken notice.

In the last 3 months I have seen this exact technique described and reported in 6 different books on Psychology and persuasion.

The technique, sometimes called "voting report card" depends on the assumption that people can be "nudged" into "responsible" behavior by adjusting the ways in which they are given choices, either through policy or environment. Although the book, "Nudge" by Richard Thaler https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-I... advocates a more free choice approach to shaping peoples' behavior, it can easily be abused, especially if the targets are somewhat vulnerable. Thaler's work has influenced many authors who write books on self-discipline and personal achievement. An example of where it is being used to great effect is in the UK, in what is referred to as the "Nudge Unit" https://www.amazon.com/Think-S... . This unit has also done some successful consulting in the USA. The book, "Think Small" is a pretty good introduction and a very interesting read.

But what then? Let's suppose you are able to get an additional 10% of the voting population to vote: Is that good or bad? Are these people qualified to vote? (Eligible, yes. Qualified, who knows?) In over 40 years of asking I've only found 2 people (who were not lawyers) who knew the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States of America. The majority of the US population is woefully ignorant about US History and Economics https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007... . Most of them (WARNING! GENERALIZATION ALERT!) are unable to recognize and adjust their thinking to the 22 main rhetorical fallacies. Are we a more free country when we let idiots vote?

In the last 3 months I have seen this exact technique described and reported in 6 different books on Psychology and persuasion.

The technique, sometimes called "voting report card" depends on the assumption that people can be "nudged" into "responsible" behavior by adjusting the ways in which they are given choices, either through policy or environment. Although the book, "Nudge" by Richard Thaler https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-I... advocates a more free choice approach to shaping peoples' behavior, it can easily be abused, especially if the targets are somewhat vulnerable. Thaler's work has influenced many authors who write books on self-discipline and personal achievement. An example of where it is being used to great effect is in the UK, in what is referred to as the "Nudge Unit" https://www.amazon.com/Think-S... . This unit has also done some successful consulting in the USA. The book, "Think Small" is a pretty good introduction and a very interesting read.

But what then? Let's suppose you are able to get an additional 10% of the voting population to vote: Is that good or bad? Are these people qualified to vote? (Eligible, yes. Qualified, who knows?) In over 40 years of asking I've only found 2 people (who were not lawyers) who knew the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States of America. The majority of the US population is woefully ignorant about US History and Economics https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007... . Most of them (WARNING! GENERALIZATION ALERT!) are unable to recognize and adjust their thinking to the 22 main rhetorical fallacies. Are we a more free country when we let idiots vote?

In the last 3 months I have seen this exact technique described and reported in 6 different books on Psychology and persuasion.

The technique, sometimes called "voting report card" depends on the assumption that people can be "nudged" into "responsible" behavior by adjusting the ways in which they are given choices, either through policy or environment. Although the book, "Nudge" by Richard Thaler https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-I... advocates a more free choice approach to shaping peoples' behavior, it can easily be abused, especially if the targets are somewhat vulnerable. Thaler's work has influenced many authors who write books on self-discipline and personal achievement. An example of where it is being used to great effect is in the UK, in what is referred to as the "Nudge Unit" https://www.amazon.com/Think-S... . This unit has also done some successful consulting in the USA. The book, "Think Small" is a pretty good introduction and a very interesting read.

But what then? Let's suppose you are able to get an additional 10% of the voting population to vote: Is that good or bad? Are these people qualified to vote? (Eligible, yes. Qualified, who knows?) In over 40 years of asking I've only found 2 people (who were not lawyers) who knew the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States of America. The majority of the US population is woefully ignorant about US History and Economics https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007... . Most of them (WARNING! GENERALIZATION ALERT!) are unable to recognize and adjust their thinking to the 22 main rhetorical fallacies. Are we a more free country when we let idiots vote?

Still accurate after 20 years.

Medicine + computer = computer

"Make sure the doctor fills in the pharmacy address and phone number for us."

It is obvious you aren't a programmer. You aren't thinking about it from a programmer's debugging perspective. Would you rather:

* Start from a simpler base that ALREADY works (such as an Earthworm) and trying to figure out how the pieces work, or

* Start from complexity literally billions of order complicated and TRY to debug that???

Just to put the connections into perspective:

* Each neuron may be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons,
* The minimum total number of connections is estimated to be 100+ trillion. The number of these synapses are at least 1,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy. Yeah, good luck simulating THAT !

> It's like saying we can only make a functional wing from feathers, and not aluminum.

No, that analogy is flawed.

When reverse engineering you ALWAYS start with something that ALREADY works.

You don't start from scratch and "HOPE" it "eventually" works when you don't have a way to determine if it is or isn't working correctly. That is the height of stupidity.

Theory ALWAYS comes AFTER application.

There are a few big problems in Science at the moment:

* Scientists don't have a fucking clue what Consciousness is. There is (currently) no ability to measure it, store it, load it, etc. Without a way to MEASURE it, HOW do you know if what you are doing is moving towards or away from the goal post??? Science will advance when Consciousness is part of the equations.

* Scientists are under the delusion that Consciousness is this magically emergent property. This is the typical ignorance of man -- viewing things ass-backwards.

e.g. Rene Descartes got it completely backwards. It is NOT I think, therefore I am but I AM, therefore I (may) think. (It is obvious Descartes never spent any time learning how to meditate without any thoughts for any significant period of time..)

The actuality is that Consciousness is the Foundation of reality -- not energy. Peter Russel does a great job explaining this in his Primacy of Consciousness talk. Anyone who has had a shared OBE can tell also tell you this -- but unless you have had one you don't have a frame of reference to understand the implications of this -- Consciousness has the ability to operate outside the confines of space-time. Tom Campbell's My Big Toe is a REALLY interesting "map of the territory" so to speak that goes into more detail.

* Trying to use a Linear process to understand a Non-Linear system will never work. Scientists have yet to (re)discover that Consciousness is Non-Linear due to the Property of Free Will. /sarcasm Yeah, good luck trying to use a deterministic system to modal THAT.

* Mind != Brain. There have been dozens of experiments showing the Non-Locality of Mind. Using a Linear system will never modal that.

  But like Max Planck said:

Science Advances One Funeral at a Time.

The entire approach to the solution (and problem) to AI, like creating Artificial Life, is all wrong.

I would buy the Huawei Mediapad M5 in a heartbeat were it sold at a store I could go to.

Well since it seems you have internet access: https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-...

"(Apple I'm looking at you) "

It is funny that you call out Apple when they trend for iPhones has been towards increasing thickness for the past four years. The iPhone X is thicker than the iPhone 5.

"make a decent interface for a battery case that doesn't involve a clumsy and bulky pass through of the USB port."

There already are cases that use wireless charging instead of a pass-though connector, such as: https://www.ugreen.com/product...

"There are a lot of us (myself included) who wouldn't mind a modestly thicker device in exchange for a bigger battery, better camera, etc. "

iPhone battery capacity has been trending up for for the past nine years. iPhone Camera sensor size (not pixel count but physical size) is also trending up.

"It would be trivial to allow people to add the audio jacks to the case "

So trivial they already exist; for example: https://www.amazon.com/Headpho...

Basically, the things you want already exist.

You are so very wrong. Read up.

Does the study say anything about people that have their own brand of coffee?

[ Asking for a friend. ]

No, but there is an appendix about people who have their own brand of salad dressing.

Today it is hard to get a technical book published because the docs for everything is online and free.

I wrote the enterprise Java book for Prentice Hall and Sun Microsystems. The first edition did spectacularly well: https://www.amazon.com/Advance... . The second edition not as well: https://www.pearson.com/us/hig...

The book I am most proud of was a commercial failure, even though it got great reviews and IMO had better content than competing books. It was High-Assurance Design: https://www.amazon.com/High-As... . All these are out of print although you can still get them due to on-demand printing. The High-Assurance Design I collaborated with Peter Neumann, an author of Multics and the author of the ACM Communications Risk column. I learned from that experience that programmers have almost zero interest in building reliable and secure systems - they are interested in "how to" books that enable them to hack something together as quickly as possible. My first book was that kind of book; but High-Assurance Design was a thoughtful book, full of design patterns but no code and no APIs, and people were not interested in that.

Today it is hard to get a technical book published because the docs for everything is online and free.

I wrote the enterprise Java book for Prentice Hall and Sun Microsystems. The first edition did spectacularly well: https://www.amazon.com/Advance... . The second edition not as well: https://www.pearson.com/us/hig...

The book I am most proud of was a commercial failure, even though it got great reviews and IMO had better content than competing books. It was High-Assurance Design: https://www.amazon.com/High-As... . All these are out of print although you can still get them due to on-demand printing. The High-Assurance Design I collaborated with Peter Neumann, an author of Multics and the author of the ACM Communications Risk column. I learned from that experience that programmers have almost zero interest in building reliable and secure systems - they are interested in "how to" books that enable them to hack something together as quickly as possible. My first book was that kind of book; but High-Assurance Design was a thoughtful book, full of design patterns but no code and no APIs, and people were not interested in that.

Does the study say anything about people that have their own brand of coffee?

[ Asking for a friend. ]

This AC is telling the truth: https://www.amazon.com/two-4-f...

ShanghaiBill proposed:

> but it's an experiment we can do, so why not do it?

Prompting Antique Geekmeister to respond:

That's a reasonable question. It's a profoundly expensive experiment in terms of electrical power, engineering and scientific time, and the exclusive use of one of the most demanded scientific resources in the world. So those are good reasons to weigh the potential scientific benefit of the results, and include the chance of any usable results.

The scientific benefit of this experiment's results will be to more-or-less-definitively rule in or out whether antimatter is subject to the same gravitational rule (the deeper the gravity well, the more strongly it attracts stuff) as is matter. The usable result will either be "Okay, then - moving on," or "Okay, then - back to the drawing board." In view of the rather monumental paradigm change that would be compelled by the latter conclusion, it seems reasonable to perform the experiment simply in order to determine whether that will be necessary, does it not?

Time is short before the facility goes offline for upgrades and maintenance. It won't be available for longer-duration projects until sometime in 2021. (Just because the upgrades and maintenance have been completed doesn't mean the accelerators can simply be switched back on. It'll take additional months of testing and calibrating before they're fully back up and available for use in actual research - assuming that there aren't any design flaws discovered in the new upgrades that will need to be resolved first, even further delaying the facility's return to a useful state.) This one won't take months of observation to complete, so it seems to me that this is as good a time for it to be scheduled as any...

(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)

--

Check out my novel ...

New name: DisgraceBook

See the excellent documentary, The Facebook Dilemma: A Two-Night Special Event. All the Facebook officials answered questions by avoiding details of any depth. They only pretended to answer.

Because of the many interesting details, I think this book may be helpful: Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President Facebook was used to manipulate voters.

Oh the shame I feel!
Golly creimer has won the day and put me in my place. I feel like such an idiot for mistaking his sockpuppet for him!!!
Well now that you're triumphant everything I said has changed!!! Microsoft and Amazon aren't going to rob your temp agency of their shitty government contracts. Every local FBI office and government office park around the country will keep an entire backoffice running so that you can fulfill your dream of working until you keel over of old age!!!

Have you seen these headlines:
Amazon now offering (UaaS) Unemployable as a Service to all creimers
Microsoft swears revenge on the obese for deletion of COMMAND.COM in the 1990s

jythie observed:

Well, progress tends to make some life better and other life worse. This was a NIMY issue, they were not against progress itself, but did not want it done on a site that would take something away from them. They see it as their sacred site, thus their decision regarding what it can and can not be used for, while other parties want it for their use instead. And that is the classic problem when someone feels they can make better use of a resource than the people who are currently using it... often from a macro perspective we give them a pass since it 'contributes to society', but it still involves taking something that other people were using and destroying their use. The land the telescope is built on and the land around it will no longer be usable for their purposes, and that is what they were upset about. The utility of the telescope is irrelevant for people who are being asked to pay a price so others can profit.

I'm disagreeing only with your statement:

The land the telescope is built on and the land around it will no longer be usable for their purposes, and that is what they were upset about.

The fact is that the native Hawaiians never used it for any purpose. It is, according to their religious belief, sacred ground; the home of the goddess Pele, which no human may visit uninvited by her. Building a telescope there is ipso facto sacrilege to them.

However, in all fairness to the good people of the TMT International Observatory, it's very much still the case that the native religious practitioners are free to shun Moana Kea's summit in obedience to Pele's will. Nonetheless, it's all but guaranteed that faithful Kanaka will assemble there to attempt to block construction of the TMT, whenever that commences.

By now, you'd think the contortions the religious mind can put itself through in order to justify its actions wouldn't surprise me in the slightest way - but the phenomenon continues baffle me, every time I learn of a new variant. In this case, I see as ludicrous the fact that the Kanaka have somehow talked themselves into believing that them voluntarily commiting sacrilege to protect their goddess's home from unbelievers commiting a different variety of sacrilege as something of which Pele would approve ...

(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)

--

Check out my novel ...

Or you can have the best of both worlds: a phone case that is a battery, with a pass-though charge port.
Plug in the charge cord at night, and both the phone and case are charged.

If at any point during the day I get below 20%, I hit the case "charge" button, and my phone charges to 100% in my pocket.

So handy, it really ought to be a manufacture option - if they are unwilling to put a proper (not a little super thin) battery.

I prefer the off-brands,but this is a good random example:
https://www.amazon.com/d/Cell-...

> But now I would barely break even on the price of the modem by the time my service got upgraded and I needed a new modem.
> So I could keep buying new modems every 4-5 years,

Huh??

DOCSIS 3.0 was released August 2006. I'm not sure when cable companies allowed customers to use their own cable modem but its been at least 5 years.

A basic DOCSIS 3.0 modem was like $70 a few years back. Your cable company charges you a rental fee of ~ $10/month so buying your own cable modem would pay for itself within a year.

Hell, the Motorola Surfboard SB6141 is down to $40 now.

> My current ISP also doesn't charge for modem rental

Now THAT'S the key difference. They DO charge for it -- just no upfront. It is bundled in with the subscription rate which is rather snarky of them.

Bold experiment at least 70 years old. I grew up in the 80s with one of these in the house:
https://www.amazon.com/Christi...

I'm sure there's examples going back to the middle ages and probably even ancient Greece if they survived that long.

Unmanaged 8 port $429 @ https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QS...

Unmanaged 12 port $574 @ https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QS...

Unmanaged 8 port $429 @ https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QS...

Unmanaged 12 port $574 @ https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-QS...

Mac Mini just releasing hardware with Intel NUC specs that's been out for some time now.

Maybe I'll just buy this NUC8 beast instead for half the price and dualboot both.

-dk

Hyperkin has made a system that should basically be prior art already: https://www.amazon.com/Hyperki...

The left (especially the party leadership for the Democrats) are acting more and more like they're building an extremist cult. They act increasingly deranged and disconnected from reality, and set increasingly insane and impossible goals. This is a necessary step to create a cult; it isolates the membership from the mainstream, to keep them from seeing how deranged their leadership is, and how deranged they, themselves are becoming. I suspect the party leadership has realized how screwed they are, and are just digging in, and trying to keep the money flowing in.

It's like the DNC is using Eric Hoffer's The True Believer as an instructional manual.

combined with,... a flat display
and a headphone jack.
That isn't an old model, a modern, powerful one. Try to find one, it no longer exists.

Here you go.. I've had mine for about 6 months, and got it at a slightly better price. It's plenty fast for me, and also supports up to 256 GB of extra storage via micro SD.

Hold my beer. I have a plan.

that need a bunch of other things in place to become available before they really are successful.

The iPHone wasn't the first smartphone; as a developer I used a number of early attempts at "converged" phones. The first was probably the IBM Simon A massive 18 ounce brick of a phone with a monochrome display and a one hour battery life. These early converged phones were tour-de-forces of the day's technology, but they were still too big, too slow, too crude, and too battery-hungry to be anything more than curiosities.

What Steven Jobs did with the iPhone was catch the wave at exactly the right moment, when screens and processors and batteries and networks and UIs all got good good enough, cheap enough to make a blockbuster product possible. Other people were close -- Palm's Treo devices were pretty good, but ever-so-slightly clunky due to their legacy tech. Jobs had the advantage of a clean sheet.

It's not vision that's lacking in most failed attempts to get a new concept off the ground, it's timing.

The Apple adapter is more of a mini-dock than just a video adapter, it allows for power pass-through on USB-C, a USB-A port, and HDMI. Also it's only $69, not $80.
https://www.apple.com/shop/pro...

If the higher priced and more capable mini-dock is too much for you then buy something cheaper. Such as this $16.99 HDMI adapter from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonB...

Amazon also offers a mini-dock much like Apple's but for nearly half the price. If you think Apple is charging too much, or that it might not work with your Dell, then don't buy it. Amazon claims their adapters are fully compatible with Apple computers, as well as recent Windows versions, and appears to have a very good return policy if it does not work. You aren't forced to buy Apple adapters for your Apple computer.

Go ahead though, keep propping up strawmen to make your case. I'll just knock them down.

No, it has around 3000 : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=n...

That's dozens. 250 Dozen, to be exact.

Idiot.

No, it has around 3000 : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=n...

You forgot the requirement to use iCloud, which absolutely is a requirement when the base MBPs ship with 128gb hard drives in them

Considering that "Pro" applications NEVER store DATA on the Boot Drive, you'd likely be better served to get something like this Ruggedized 4TB USB-C external for $107 from Amazon. And it looks like it supports USB-A, too, in case you need to transfer to an older Mac. Depending on how much on-the-road stuff you do, pick up a couple and you're all set:

https://www.amazon.com/Silicon...

BTW, I have NEVER used iCloud. Period.

USB-C is really nice if you embrace it.

Cool story. Hey can you copy this off my memory stick? Oh what? Everyone needs to embrace your thing now? What about my perfectly functioning hardware? Yeah just bin it like a good consumer.

I have embraced USB-C in the only sane way. My laptop has USB-C and USB-A. My desktop has USB-C and USB-A. Defending the removal of the most widely used accessory port in the world is frankly indefensible and you should feel bad for defending the action.

Here. Hand me that USB stick...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J...

Now, what were you saying?

For people who miss Magsafe there is a solution.

Amazon also has literally dozens of solutions:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=usb...

> What experience is sub par?

Gee, soldering the RAM and SSD to the MBP mobo ISN'T a dick move???

Stockholm Syndrome much?

Sorry, no.

It is a RELIABILITY move, especially when, as other posters have pointed out, a vanishingly small percentage of laptop users upgrade their hardware, even when they HAVE the opportunity. Proof positive is the fact that some other laptop OEMs do the same thing. Are they all Dicks, too? Why no Slashdot hand-wringing about THEM???

I love my MBP and iPhone 7+ too but let's cut the bullshit of Apple's anti-right-to-repair shenanigans.

Their gimping of the Mac Mini also isn't winning any fans.

IMHO, the reason they originally went from a 4 core to 2 core CPU in the 2014 Mac mini was issues with Thermal Dissapation. I realize that they could have updated the mini in late 2016, along with the original TB MBPs, and gone back to a Quad-Core CPU (and updated Ports); but I honestly think they were contemplating a bigger change for the mini.

We will know about that in about 4 days from now:

https://www.apple.com/apple-ev...

Instead of embracing Vulkan (or OpenGL) they have NIH syndrome with Metal.

That's already neatly taken care-of:

https://moltengl.com/

The above also includes MoltenVK; which is Vulkan under Metal 2.

And, BTW, Metal 2 is actually far better than OpenGL and Vulkan. And, as far as "Not Invented Here", it is important to point out that Metal Development was started BEFORE Vulkan; so, it is rather disingenuous to say that Metal is some kind of "Interloper":

"As for the direct comparison, first of all we have to mention that Apple started developing Metal and implementing it way before Vulkan was even proposed or dreamed, with the release of Metal being in 2014. I think that Apple would have never thought about developing Metal if the industry itself moved to a low-overhead API sooner. Anyway, as far as we know Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,0 while Vulkan provides a 3,5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro...

HTF am I supposed to charge AND listen to my wired headphones on the iPhone now? Oh that's right buy your shitty overpriced Beats headphone garbage. NOT. Fuck this "courage" nonsense.

.5 secs on Amazon found these solutions (among many) :

https://www.amazon.com/HIOTECH...

https://www.amazon.com/Lightni...

Or, if you want a "Y-Cable" type:

https://www.amazon.com/Jackiey...

Or, if you need "Calling" (headset, not just headphone) use:

https://www.amazon.com/Certifi...

Apple has lost their way. All they care about is branding and making money. The _also_ used to care about technology at one time.

Right.

Recent things like adding eGPU support to macOS, releasing an iOS version which IMPROVES performance on older hardware, multi person FaceTime, Metal 2, SmartWatch with FDA-Approved ECG built-in, brand new COW FileSystem, vastly improving LogicProX and FCPX, etc. etc. None of those are "branding and making money" Projects.

> What experience is sub par?

Gee, soldering the RAM and SSD to the MBP mobo ISN'T a dick move???

Stockholm Syndrome much?

Sorry, no.

It is a RELIABILITY move, especially when, as other posters have pointed out, a vanishingly small percentage of laptop users upgrade their hardware, even when they HAVE the opportunity. Proof positive is the fact that some other laptop OEMs do the same thing. Are they all Dicks, too? Why no Slashdot hand-wringing about THEM???

I love my MBP and iPhone 7+ too but let's cut the bullshit of Apple's anti-right-to-repair shenanigans.

Their gimping of the Mac Mini also isn't winning any fans.

IMHO, the reason they originally went from a 4 core to 2 core CPU in the 2014 Mac mini was issues with Thermal Dissapation. I realize that they could have updated the mini in late 2016, along with the original TB MBPs, and gone back to a Quad-Core CPU (and updated Ports); but I honestly think they were contemplating a bigger change for the mini.

We will know about that in about 4 days from now:

https://www.apple.com/apple-ev...

Instead of embracing Vulkan (or OpenGL) they have NIH syndrome with Metal.

That's already neatly taken care-of:

https://moltengl.com/

The above also includes MoltenVK; which is Vulkan under Metal 2.

And, BTW, Metal 2 is actually far better than OpenGL and Vulkan. And, as far as "Not Invented Here", it is important to point out that Metal Development was started BEFORE Vulkan; so, it is rather disingenuous to say that Metal is some kind of "Interloper":

"As for the direct comparison, first of all we have to mention that Apple started developing Metal and implementing it way before Vulkan was even proposed or dreamed, with the release of Metal being in 2014. I think that Apple would have never thought about developing Metal if the industry itself moved to a low-overhead API sooner. Anyway, as far as we know Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,0 while Vulkan provides a 3,5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro...

HTF am I supposed to charge AND listen to my wired headphones on the iPhone now? Oh that's right buy your shitty overpriced Beats headphone garbage. NOT. Fuck this "courage" nonsense.

.5 secs on Amazon found these solutions (among many) :

https://www.amazon.com/HIOTECH...

https://www.amazon.com/Lightni...

Or, if you want a "Y-Cable" type:

https://www.amazon.com/Jackiey...

Or, if you need "Calling" (headset, not just headphone) use:

https://www.amazon.com/Certifi...

Apple has lost their way. All they care about is branding and making money. The _also_ used to care about technology at one time.

Right.

Recent things like adding eGPU support to macOS, releasing an iOS version which IMPROVES performance on older hardware, multi person FaceTime, Metal 2, SmartWatch with FDA-Approved ECG built-in, brand new COW FileSystem, vastly improving LogicProX and FCPX, etc. etc. None of those are "branding and making money" Projects.

> What experience is sub par?

Gee, soldering the RAM and SSD to the MBP mobo ISN'T a dick move???

Stockholm Syndrome much?

Sorry, no.

It is a RELIABILITY move, especially when, as other posters have pointed out, a vanishingly small percentage of laptop users upgrade their hardware, even when they HAVE the opportunity. Proof positive is the fact that some other laptop OEMs do the same thing. Are they all Dicks, too? Why no Slashdot hand-wringing about THEM???

I love my MBP and iPhone 7+ too but let's cut the bullshit of Apple's anti-right-to-repair shenanigans.

Their gimping of the Mac Mini also isn't winning any fans.

IMHO, the reason they originally went from a 4 core to 2 core CPU in the 2014 Mac mini was issues with Thermal Dissapation. I realize that they could have updated the mini in late 2016, along with the original TB MBPs, and gone back to a Quad-Core CPU (and updated Ports); but I honestly think they were contemplating a bigger change for the mini.

We will know about that in about 4 days from now:

https://www.apple.com/apple-ev...

Instead of embracing Vulkan (or OpenGL) they have NIH syndrome with Metal.

That's already neatly taken care-of:

https://moltengl.com/

The above also includes MoltenVK; which is Vulkan under Metal 2.

And, BTW, Metal 2 is actually far better than OpenGL and Vulkan. And, as far as "Not Invented Here", it is important to point out that Metal Development was started BEFORE Vulkan; so, it is rather disingenuous to say that Metal is some kind of "Interloper":

"As for the direct comparison, first of all we have to mention that Apple started developing Metal and implementing it way before Vulkan was even proposed or dreamed, with the release of Metal being in 2014. I think that Apple would have never thought about developing Metal if the industry itself moved to a low-overhead API sooner. Anyway, as far as we know Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,0 while Vulkan provides a 3,5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro...

HTF am I supposed to charge AND listen to my wired headphones on the iPhone now? Oh that's right buy your shitty overpriced Beats headphone garbage. NOT. Fuck this "courage" nonsense.

.5 secs on Amazon found these solutions (among many) :

https://www.amazon.com/HIOTECH...

https://www.amazon.com/Lightni...

Or, if you want a "Y-Cable" type:

https://www.amazon.com/Jackiey...

Or, if you need "Calling" (headset, not just headphone) use:

https://www.amazon.com/Certifi...

Apple has lost their way. All they care about is branding and making money. The _also_ used to care about technology at one time.

Right.

Recent things like adding eGPU support to macOS, releasing an iOS version which IMPROVES performance on older hardware, multi person FaceTime, Metal 2, SmartWatch with FDA-Approved ECG built-in, brand new COW FileSystem, vastly improving LogicProX and FCPX, etc. etc. None of those are "branding and making money" Projects.

> What experience is sub par?

Gee, soldering the RAM and SSD to the MBP mobo ISN'T a dick move???

Stockholm Syndrome much?

Sorry, no.

It is a RELIABILITY move, especially when, as other posters have pointed out, a vanishingly small percentage of laptop users upgrade their hardware, even when they HAVE the opportunity. Proof positive is the fact that some other laptop OEMs do the same thing. Are they all Dicks, too? Why no Slashdot hand-wringing about THEM???

I love my MBP and iPhone 7+ too but let's cut the bullshit of Apple's anti-right-to-repair shenanigans.

Their gimping of the Mac Mini also isn't winning any fans.

IMHO, the reason they originally went from a 4 core to 2 core CPU in the 2014 Mac mini was issues with Thermal Dissapation. I realize that they could have updated the mini in late 2016, along with the original TB MBPs, and gone back to a Quad-Core CPU (and updated Ports); but I honestly think they were contemplating a bigger change for the mini.

We will know about that in about 4 days from now:

https://www.apple.com/apple-ev...

Instead of embracing Vulkan (or OpenGL) they have NIH syndrome with Metal.

That's already neatly taken care-of:

https://moltengl.com/

The above also includes MoltenVK; which is Vulkan under Metal 2.

And, BTW, Metal 2 is actually far better than OpenGL and Vulkan. And, as far as "Not Invented Here", it is important to point out that Metal Development was started BEFORE Vulkan; so, it is rather disingenuous to say that Metal is some kind of "Interloper":

"As for the direct comparison, first of all we have to mention that Apple started developing Metal and implementing it way before Vulkan was even proposed or dreamed, with the release of Metal being in 2014. I think that Apple would have never thought about developing Metal if the industry itself moved to a low-overhead API sooner. Anyway, as far as we know Metal provides a 10 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,0 while Vulkan provides a 3,5 times increase in draw calls compared to OpenGL ES 3,1."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Andro...

HTF am I supposed to charge AND listen to my wired headphones on the iPhone now? Oh that's right buy your shitty overpriced Beats headphone garbage. NOT. Fuck this "courage" nonsense.

.5 secs on Amazon found these solutions (among many) :

https://www.amazon.com/HIOTECH...

https://www.amazon.com/Lightni...

Or, if you want a "Y-Cable" type:

https://www.amazon.com/Jackiey...

Or, if you need "Calling" (headset, not just headphone) use:

https://www.amazon.com/Certifi...

Apple has lost their way. All they care about is branding and making money. The _also_ used to care about technology at one time.

Right.

Recent things like adding eGPU support to macOS, releasing an iOS version which IMPROVES performance on older hardware, multi person FaceTime, Metal 2, SmartWatch with FDA-Approved ECG built-in, brand new COW FileSystem, vastly improving LogicProX and FCPX, etc. etc. None of those are "branding and making money" Projects.

How about iphone USB cables that one cannot use on MacBooks?

Yes admitted that is an issue. Why they don't have a separate sku that comes with a USB type C cable is mind boggling.

You want separate SKUs for a difference in Charging cable?!?

Gimme a break. Just do this:

https://www.amazon.com/Syntech...

or, if you dislike adapters, just trade the included cable for one like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Lightni...

Phew! That was HARD...

How about iphone USB cables that one cannot use on MacBooks?

Yes admitted that is an issue. Why they don't have a separate sku that comes with a USB type C cable is mind boggling.

You want separate SKUs for a difference in Charging cable?!?

Gimme a break. Just do this:

https://www.amazon.com/Syntech...

or, if you dislike adapters, just trade the included cable for one like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Lightni...

Phew! That was HARD...

You can buy many of these built in safety systems and bolt them on.

Lane departure
Back up cameras
Collision Avoidance

Sure...maybe suspect or poor quality at the moment, but it will only get better,

You can buy many of these built in safety systems and bolt them on.

Lane departure
Back up cameras
Collision Avoidance

Sure...maybe suspect or poor quality at the moment, but it will only get better,

De-humidifiers are perfectly viable. This thing does 50 pints per day.

https://www.amazon.com/Frigida...

You most certainly do not want to drink the water out of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

They are also wildly energy inefficient than just filling up a truck and bringing it in as you point out. Also it depends on the climate you are in and the temp differential between the air, and the coil, and humidity levels. Usually not too bad as typically they are just little more than inverted air conditioners. Where I live I get quite a bit of water out of one. Put the same thing in say death valley? I would be surprised if you got much at all out of it.

It is kind of amusing watching this sort of thing. It is like the old patent rush of the 90s. "and with a computer" style patents. Now it seems to be "scam with a computer" which is just a slick presentation and a hint of looking like a SV company.

najajomo trolled:

Going from the image, they could also provide a water transportation system, that way the women wouldn't have to walk ten miles a day with a water bucket on their head. But I guess the men have better things to spend their money on, like $3,000 on a pair of shoes.

Nice little conflation you have there, pal. It'd be a shame if something happened to it.

Like someone pointing out that you're conflating rural women in Zimbabwe carrying water back to their villages with men in the Republic of the Congo (more specifically, in Brazzaville, its capitol, which is a distinctly urban environment with a functioning municipal water system) who identify with a fashion-centered lifestyle called "La Sape". The two images have nothing whatsoever to do with one another. In fact, they were taken on opposite sides of the continent.

As for your suggestion that the Skysource/Skywater Alliance "could also provide a water transportation system" so the women in the image from Zimbabwe could be spared a 10-mile daily walk? It's also blatant trolling.

Your "water transportation system" would be hideously expensive to construct, even if it had to serve just one village located five miles from the water collection site, because everything needed to build it would have to be choppered in. Rural Zimbabwe has essentially zero infrastructure. There's no paved roads, no housing for construction workers, no local sources of water-grade pipe, and no source of skilled labor. Hell, I doubt there's so much as a screwdriver within 5 miles of the installation, much less a pipe wrench.

To distribute water from it to every village within that radius would be way, WAY more expensive. Where, exactly, is that money supposed to come from? The X-Prize payout wouldn't even cover the expense of piping water to a single village, much less dozens of them. The Zimbabwean government is one of the most institutionally-corrupt bureaucracies on the planet, and it rules over one of the poorest countries in the world. As a result, the Zimbabwean dollar has been experiencing Weimar Republic-level hyperinflation for decades now (for which you can thank Robert Mugabe, who was recently deposed from his position as president-for-life), so that rules out the national government as a source. (True fact: somewhere around here I have a Zimbabwean $1 billion coin that was issued back in the 20th century. Its current value is well south of one penny in U.S. money. The Zimbabwean government stopped issuing them after the value of their dollar fell so far that those coins became more valuable as metal than their face value.)

Here's a thought: why don't you get the fuck out of your mother's basement, go to Zimbabwe, and build that "water transportation system" yourself ... ?

(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)

--

Check out my novel ...

rickb928 claimed:

In Maine, at least, some legislation was enacted to discourage using wood in a variety of systems to heat homes. IT seems that some of those were pretty dirty. Gasifiers were pretty large scale, and usually used a lot of otherwise unused biomass. And were, as mentioned elsewhere, mot often located where the biomass was. One I knew of was located at the chip and lumber mill it served to power.

Not exactly.

In 2015, the EPA published rules regarding emissions standards and suggested supplemental state legislation regulating residential wood heating systems. Main's own EPA essentially xeroxed the EPA's regulations.

Other states (most notably California and Washington) enacted stricter standards, and certain individual cities and counties within California have adopted even less permissive regulations. Most of those localities already experience high levels of air pollution, and their tough laws were specifically intended to reduce or eliminate residential wood smoke emissions.

As is universally the case in the USA, the new standards don't apply to systems that were compliant with emissions standards at the time they were installed. (Essentially, if your home already had a wood fireplace, wood stove, wood pellet stove, or wood boiler system, the new laws don't apply to you. However, you may not be permitted to operate existing wood-based heating systems in some of those localities, because, while the systems themselves are grandfathered, their emissions are still subject to the new regulations.)

In extremely rural areas - and especially in montane ones - residential wood heating is still the technology of choice. I know for a fact that 50% or more of the single-family homes in Mariposa County, CA still use wood stoves or pellet stoves for heat. Many of them are fueled by deadfall wood harvested from state forests with the blessing of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention.

CAL-FIRE has learned the painful lessons that the U.S Forest Service's long-standing policy of extinguishing every fire on National Park and National Forest land taught them: Forests evolved to burn. Humans can only delay that. We can't entirely prevent it - and the longer a forest goes between fires, the more ground-level fuel (mostly in the form of deadfalls and underbrush) accumulates. When a fire does occur in such "protected" forests - especially during a drought - and the winds are high, it frequently turns into a holocaust that burns that forest to the ground. If, on the other hand, naturally-occuring forest fires are permitted to burn themselves out, with firefighting efforts limited to protecting inhabited structures, they tend only to consume that ground-level fuel and thinner, more readily-combustible branches. More importantly, they don't usually burn hot enough to entirely econsume healthy trees. As a result, when the fire passes, the forest remains standing.

And it grows like a motherfucker afterward, because of all the "biochar" fertilizer such a fire leaves in its wake.)

Sorry about the digression into wildfire management policy, but it's a subject about which I am passionate, because I used to live in Mariposa County, and I've seen what can happen when forests the Fire Service has "protected" for over a century burn. It's pretty damned scary shit ...

(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)

--

Check out my novel ...

I just got done reading a great book Mistake Were Made (But Not By Me) . It's a very good read and quite insightful about how we justify our actions. It goes into how for the most part, people can't admit they made a mistake. In your example, Bill Clinton did not own up to his mistake. George W Bush maintained that there WERE WMDs in Iraq and we were completely justified in invading and occupying them. When faced with facts, people will double-down on their clearly incorrect statements. It talks about in our criminal justice system, which is rife with this cognitive discordance. It's quite fascinating. Remember the Central Park jogger case in the 80s? Police were able to coerce those kids to confessing to a crime they didn't commit by using interrogation tactics. Even though their confessions didn't line up, they had these guys, they were weak, and the police went in "like a pack of wolves".

Your idea that only weak people admit to mistakes is part of the problem. That isn't the case at all, it's actually quite the opposite. How can you trust ANYONE who refuses to admit fault - without justification, without conditions? It's the strong that can admit making mistakes, and the weak who cannot.

[AC to preserve moderation]

It's perfectly legal to sell third-party replacement batteries for vintage Apple laptops, as shown by this top-secret underground sales site:
https://smile.amazon.com/Repla...

You just have to not advertise them as being Apple batteries.

> do you have any understanding clinical depression whatsoever?

Gee, only ALL of my life.

> The problem is that _nothing_ makes you happy.

Bullshit.

The correct phrase is: Nothing makes me happy Right Now.

1. Depression is TEMPORARY. One day it WILL end. That right there is HOPE.

Notice how I also said "right now." No one lives being depressed 100% of their life. We all have an innate curiosity -- especially as children. So what killed yours?? Use the "peeling an onion analysis" technique.

* I am feeling _x_.
* Why?
* Because _y_ happened.
* Why?
* Because _z_ did that.
* How did make you feel?
* I felt like _w_.
* Why?
* etc.

You are slowly peeling the layers off getting to the core of the issue(s).

2. You don't overcome a problem by doing nothing. You overcome it by pushing through it -- in spite of it.

3. *EVERYONE* has talents. The secret to life is find out what they are. You can't find out what they are if you don't try! Even if it means "just going through the motions", eventually SOMETHING will catch your interest. To use an old adage "Shit or get off the pot."

4. "I'm bored" is a fucking excuse. EVERYTHING one does CAN be interesting -- IF one allows it. You can ALWAYS learn from every situation or experience. Boredom is A CHOICE. Start making different choices!

Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything -- George Bernard Shaw

Anytime someone whines "I'm bored" that is an excuse for "I'm too fucking lazy to actually learn HOW to appreciate the moment for what it is."

5. You are 99.99999% responsible for EVERYTHING that happens in you life. Yes, (almost) EVERYTHING -- regardless if is positive or negative. You chose your life BEFORE HAND -- you just haven't experienced it -- yet. The sooner one accepts this truth the sooner they can start to make (positive) CHANGES. You have the gift of Free Will. Use it to do something positive.

But the fucking "blamethrower" away and take responsibility for your life. No one else will.

6. Viewing everything as a "problem" shows you don't have the correct mindset. You have literally been brainwashed into the propaganda of failure.

EVERY experience you partake is is NOT a problem but an OPPORTUNITY (to learn about yourself and/or others.)

7. Everyone loves to bitch about how hard life is -- especially the Lie of Buddhism: Life is suffering. No, the correct understanding is:

Life contains suffering. It ALSO contains compassion, and (unconditional) love -- funny how the POSITIVE is left out. Focusing only on the negative doesn't solve the problem.

The reality is Western life is a total joke compared to ACTUAL war victims who have/had survived torture. Is depression hard? No one is arguing that it isn't! BUT compared to THOSE war victims we have no "justification" for excuses. I found Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning -- which changed my life -- to be a brilliant book that describes the human condition. These people had absolutely ZERO reason to stay alive but they did IN SPITE OF the external evil environment.

These people learnt how to surrender to the moment because they knew they weren't DEFINED by the external.

READ books that people have found to be life altering. Anyone of these are good:

* A Man called Ove,
* Hinds' Feet on High Places,
* The Four Agreements,
* The Shack

> do you have any understanding clinical depression whatsoever?

Gee, only ALL of my life.

> The problem is that _nothing_ makes you happy.

Bullshit.

The correct phrase is: Nothing makes me happy Right Now.

1. Depression is TEMPORARY. One day it WILL end. That right there is HOPE.

Notice how I also said "right now." No one lives being depressed 100% of their life. We all have an innate curiosity -- especially as children. So what killed yours?? Use the "peeling an onion analysis" technique.

* I am feeling _x_.
* Why?
* Because _y_ happened.
* Why?
* Because _z_ did that.
* How did make you feel?
* I felt like _w_.
* Why?
* etc.

You are slowly peeling the layers off getting to the core of the issue(s).

2. You don't overcome a problem by doing nothing. You overcome it by pushing through it -- in spite of it.

3. *EVERYONE* has talents. The secret to life is find out what they are. You can't find out what they are if you don't try! Even if it means "just going through the motions", eventually SOMETHING will catch your interest. To use an old adage "Shit or get off the pot."

4. "I'm bored" is a fucking excuse. EVERYTHING one does CAN be interesting -- IF one allows it. You can ALWAYS learn from every situation or experience. Boredom is A CHOICE. Start making different choices!

Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything -- George Bernard Shaw

Anytime someone whines "I'm bored" that is an excuse for "I'm too fucking lazy to actually learn HOW to appreciate the moment for what it is."

5. You are 99.99999% responsible for EVERYTHING that happens in you life. Yes, (almost) EVERYTHING -- regardless if is positive or negative. You chose your life BEFORE HAND -- you just haven't experienced it -- yet. The sooner one accepts this truth the sooner they can start to make (positive) CHANGES. You have the gift of Free Will. Use it to do something positive.

But the fucking "blamethrower" away and take responsibility for your life. No one else will.

6. Viewing everything as a "problem" shows you don't have the correct mindset. You have literally been brainwashed into the propaganda of failure.

EVERY experience you partake is is NOT a problem but an OPPORTUNITY (to learn about yourself and/or others.)

7. Everyone loves to bitch about how hard life is -- especially the Lie of Buddhism: Life is suffering. No, the correct understanding is:

Life contains suffering. It ALSO contains compassion, and (unconditional) love -- funny how the POSITIVE is left out. Focusing only on the negative doesn't solve the problem.

The reality is Western life is a total joke compared to ACTUAL war victims who have/had survived torture. Is depression hard? No one is arguing that it isn't! BUT compared to THOSE war victims we have no "justification" for excuses. I found Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning -- which changed my life -- to be a brilliant book that describes the human condition. These people had absolutely ZERO reason to stay alive but they did IN SPITE OF the external evil environment.

These people learnt how to surrender to the moment because they knew they weren't DEFINED by the external.

READ books that people have found to be life altering. Anyone of these are good:

* A Man called Ove,
* Hinds' Feet on High Places,
* The Four Agreements,
* The Shack