Odd, I grew up in cities and had no allergies, moved to the middle of nowhere and developed allergies, moved back to a city and the allergies stayed with me. You might be wrong about that.
One of the more common genetic modifications is to make seeds grow more quickly without additional nutrients (e.g. fertilizer) for distribution to regions with poor soil and no access to viable fertilizers (typically due to being more poor than the dirt they can't get plants to grow in, which renders simply buying fertilizer a non-option). Suddenly, when you realize that, what I said applies again.
So, then, you're saying that our ability to produce food is the only factor in how many people this planet can support? Land surface area, temperature, the ecosystem's ability to cope with increased waste and emissions, and other factors don't apply?
The number of people the planet can support is limited by the speed of the chemical processes by which the planet recovers from our actions. Those aren't getting any faster; mind you, they aren't getting any slower, either, but more people means more waste and, eventually, those chemical processes won't be able to keep up. We're already starting to see the effects of this.
Yes, there is also this. I'll add that the soil plants grow in has a finite nutritional content, as well. Sure, you can grow double the volume of plant in the same soil if you modify the plant "correctly", but does what grows have the same nutritional content? Physics, chemistry, and common sense all say no; plants were already pretty damned good at extracting nutrients from dirt before we altered them, all we're really doing is making them bigger and less nutrient dense.
From a nutritional perspective, we're not feeding more people with GMO crops. Yes, more people are eating, but feeding is the act of giving food and food is a substance with nutritional value; the less nutrient-dense we make it, the less foodlike our "food" becomes.
Phrased another way, an acre of properly prepared soil contains enough nutrient load to support a finite number of people. Past a certain point, doubling the number of ears of corn grown in that acre does not double the number of people that acre can support; it just doubles the number of ears of corn one person must eat in order to be fed. We reached that point without genetic modification.
Want to modify crops to be more resistant to infection and infestation? Go for it. Want to modify it to have a longer storage life? If you can do so without reducing its nutrient load or altering the balance of those nutrients, go for it. Want to make it grow bigger or faster, or increase yields? No. There's only so much a person can physically eat and we need to be able to get our nutritional requirements from that amount; make food too nutrient-sparse and we can't do that.
It's easy to starve yourself on a full plate if you don't eat right. Nutrient-sparse foods will do that to the whole world.
And what I'm saying is I actually like Apple's products, though less and less each generation for nearly a decade now, and want to see them correct course before it's too late. Step two in that is getting them to see the error of their ways; step one is getting a larger portion of their customer base to see it and tell them.
First of all, I don't oppose it; I oppose not regulating it. I generally fall on the "less is more side" regarding regulation, but we're talking about a necessity, here. On one hand, lifting regulations will allow it to be applied more widely; on the other hand, one unregulated mistake in the gene editing process and we've got "corn that kills" (literally) on the store shelf and millions will have eaten it and died before the cause is identified and the recall process can even begin. From that perspective, if my goal were population reduction, I would be a yuuuuugeeeeee supporter of unregulated GMO crops.
And it was rodrigoandrade who said there was, not me; I was merely explaining what rodrigoandrade was talking about. I do see how you could be confused on that point if you have trouble following conversational flow. Do you have trouble following conversational flow?
I was actually going for Informative, not Troll, as the AC to whom I was replying clearly did not know what rodrigoandrade meant by "Apple Tax". Someone should not have mod points today.
That attitude is spreading, and has been for the past 5 years or so, actually. Having a ton of money doesn't make Apple successful; on the contrary, Apple's past success has mad them a ton of money. That in no way protects them from current or future failure, it merely insulates them (not their users, in case you were confused about that) from the impact of their failures which, of course, serves to make it more difficult for them to identify and correct those failures.
You're sitting here defending Apple like you think I'm attacking them. That's the mistake you're making.
Some people do value discourse with others who don't share their views. It's a pretty good way to expose yourself to new ideas, learn, and grow as a person. Perhaps you should try it?
Hey, I didn't mean to beat you up, it's just that we've had enough back and forth that I expect that there will be an assumption that I've done at least the basic troubleshooting before I set in to complain about an issue.
Until very recently, I've never seen trashing Prefs and/or NVRAM/PMC/SMC Reset as a solution for something a Mac has done to itself but, rather, a solution for something someone has done to their Mac. That includes updating the OS while incompatible settings are configured, which I'd blame here but the machine shipped with Sierra and the issue predates any OS upgrade. In fact, the issue started from day 1, before any configuration of any kind had been done, when the NVRAM should, for all intents and purposes, be as clean as can be. Further, the first of these machines, which developed a crack starting at the top side of the screen within a few days and was exchanged, also exhibited this issue, so it's nothing specific to this iMac -- but I covered that already when I explained that the issue affects several Macs. At any rate, as high as you might think my horse to be, what's actually high here are my expectations, because that's where Apple's marketing and fanbois have set them. Less than a decade ago, my expectations were at their highest and Apple had no problem meeting -- even exceeding -- them; although I now lower my expectations with every release cycle, Apple seems to fall farther and farther short of them each year.
Regarding the iPad, there's no assumption here, it's the same model I have and I've got mine plugged in to a port on my monitor that only supplies 1A, had it there for months, and it's always at 100% when I unplug it. That's the only place I plug it in, so I know it's not getting a charge from anywhere else, and I've plugged hers in to the same spot to test and it charges there as well. I've even tried blaming the cables she was using, but I had to give that up after testing each of her cables in that same configuration and they all worked. As for the suggestion that she use the supplied charger, USB is a standard and there's no reason that should be necessary; on top of that, she has no free outlet near her desk to plug it in to -- her print work has expanded to the point that she has printers and cutting machines plugged in to every available outlet in the room. Well, she has 12-outlet UPSes plugged in to the wall outlets; and the UPSes are physically full of plugs right now.
While it's great that transferring data and settings from one Mac to another works wonderfully for your friends, I'd like to point out that this is something that is only done once when you buy a new machine and, if it fails, is only an inconvenience once when you buy a new machine. We're looking at apples and oranges, considering that the things being complained about here are basic everyday operations that simply don't work, though they worked under Jobs' Apple; this functionality has slowly deteriorated under Cook's Apple.
I would, however, like to point out another interesting observation I made as I was writing this. I'm the tinkerer, between my wife and I. I'm the one who digs in and changes things that I'm not supposed to change and does things that could potentially be system-breaking if an update were to try to apply itself on top of my changes. Under Jobs' Apple, I was the one who ran into issues (for which I didn't blame Apple, realizing they were of my own making) and things "Just Worked" for my wife. That has actually reversed itself over the past handful of years; I'm still the one who dicks around where I shouldn't and she still leaves things be, but now she;'s the one having problems and all of my tweaks and bodges "Just Work".
That's what's changed.
I should expect issues, simply due to my own actions, and she should expect smooth sailing. And that used to be the reality of Apple.
#1 is a given that the display in question is a drawing tablet with HDMI input only. #2 only applies to USB display adapters using a DisplayLink chipset. #3 doesn't apply to a late 2015 iMac with a grand total of 0 USB-C ports. It exhibits the same issue with the native HDMI port on the 2014 retina MBP (no adapter, also no USB-C), Apple's DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter on the iMac (no USB-C) and the 2012 MacBook Pro (no USB-C), and with Apple's USB-C-to-HDMI adapter on the 2016 MacBook Pro. That rules out the computer itself, as it happens on multiple machines; the adapter being used, as the issue persists when with different adapters, and no adapter is used; and the monitor itself, as the issue persists across all affected systems with several different monitors (as previously stated).
Regarding Bluetooth issues, been there, done that. One of the first things I try when a Mac is acting up is to nuke the NVRAM/PRAM, reset the SMC, and nuke preferences. Needing to do that, by the way, is the antithesis of "Just Works".
Any model iPad I've ever seen (more or less all of them) will happily (if slowly) charge on a 1A charger and a Mac's USB ports will happily supply 2.4A. An iPad not even registering that it's plugged into a power source when connected to a USB port capable of providing in excess of its minimum charging current of 1A is certainly not working as intended.
I would buy the proximity excuse for AirDrop except that it requires that you are connected to the same wireless network in order to function, not that you are simply nearby; in fact, proximity doesn't even play a part in AirDrop functionality. The same wireless network can span multiple buildings; but as long as you're both on wireless with the same SSID, it'll work just fine. It's certainly not making a peer-to-peer connection without dropping you off the network with a single radio (see: early 2011 MacBook Pro, which predates AirDrop, has a single 2.4GHz radio, and works just fine without dropping off the network), or from two buildings over (not my use case here, but one I've encountered) where the two devices are not within range of each other (or even the same access point). There's no reason it can't work over ethernet and, in fact, it can, but not reliably. I couldn't get it working for the iMac, but that method works wonderfully on the 2011 MBP.
Likewise for the Apple Watch; it uses Bluetooth for proximity detection, so why does it need WiFi to unlock?
I think the issue is that you're running such an old OS on such old hardware that you are quite out of touch with how the Apple products of today function. You're running Mavericks, which means the system you are using is, at best, an early 2014 model. Believe me when I say a lot has changed in 4 years. Or don't; you can always buy a new Mac and find out for yourself.
It's fatal if it affects your use case. We have a $2300 iMac that mostly goes unused, in favor of a Windows gaming laptop we had laying around that doesn't exhibit these issues. Why? Because these issues get in the way of a graphic designer getting her work done. To a business, anything that prevents work is fatal.
- if the Bluetooth keyboard disconnects itself while the computer is asleep, you can’t log back in unless you have a usb keyboard to type your password. Plugging the keyboard in with the lightning cable does not reconnect it (specifically, Apple's own keyboard exhibits this issue)
- non-Apple Bluetooth keyboards and mice won’t always connect until you log in after restarting, which is a problem when you can’t log in without a keyboard (this happens intermittently but often enough to make me go back to apples god awful carpal tunnel inducing keyboard)
- I have to have WiFi turned on for air drop and unlocking with my apple watch to work (even though the Mac is connected via ethernet to the same LAN as the other devices)
- none of the USB ports put out enough power to charge my iPad (this might be a problem specific to my iMac, I haven’t tried it anywhere else)
- the charge port for the mouse is in the bottom so you can’t use it while it’s charging
I’m sure there’s more that I can’t think of right now
I'm not sure what your wife's definition of "Barely" is; but I don't have ANY kind of experience that I would call "barely working".
The brokenness of multi-display support in the last two releases of macOS her her biggest issue. It's a battle to get her late 2015 5k iMac to wake her 2nd display after the machine sleeps, which has only been an (widely reported, mindyou) issuesinceSierra. It's not the Mac, either; nor is it the display. Every Mac we have with Sierra or newer (2 personal laptops, 1 business laptop and the iMac) exhibits this issue when this, or any other display is connected. These are Macs and displays which worked together just fine prior to Sierra.
Milti-display support isn't a niche feature; it's integral to the workflow of many a graphic designer -- drawing tablets with built-in displays are quite popular among that crowd -- and the vast majority of professional users who actually have a desk to work at. It's quite a major issue for them to seemingly be ignoring; it's the kind of thing you'd expect they'd have addressed in an early point release of Sierra, not something they'd let linger nearly half a year into the following release (and still not have fixed).
That's just one of many issues she's encountered in the past handful of years; to someone who remembers Macs "Just Working" since the mid 1980's, though, that's a world-breaking issue.
I'm speaking less in terms of product direction and more in terms of release quality at this point. Yes, bugs happened under Jobs; no, passwords being stored plaintext in log files didn't happen. "Just Works" was true under Jobs; it's still true today, though the definition of "just" has changed from "only" to something more closely resembling "barely". Those aren't my words, I'm paraphrasing my wife, a life-long Apple fangirl.
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Odd, I grew up in cities and had no allergies, moved to the middle of nowhere and developed allergies, moved back to a city and the allergies stayed with me. You might be wrong about that.
One of the more common genetic modifications is to make seeds grow more quickly without additional nutrients (e.g. fertilizer) for distribution to regions with poor soil and no access to viable fertilizers (typically due to being more poor than the dirt they can't get plants to grow in, which renders simply buying fertilizer a non-option). Suddenly, when you realize that, what I said applies again.
So, then, you're saying that our ability to produce food is the only factor in how many people this planet can support? Land surface area, temperature, the ecosystem's ability to cope with increased waste and emissions, and other factors don't apply?
Technology, my friend, is limited by physics. You can't mitigate that limitation with technology, because the limitation itself prevents that.
The number of people the planet can support is limited by the speed of the chemical processes by which the planet recovers from our actions. Those aren't getting any faster; mind you, they aren't getting any slower, either, but more people means more waste and, eventually, those chemical processes won't be able to keep up. We're already starting to see the effects of this.
You're speaking as if food production is the only factor when I'm fairly positive you know it is not.
Yes, there is also this. I'll add that the soil plants grow in has a finite nutritional content, as well. Sure, you can grow double the volume of plant in the same soil if you modify the plant "correctly", but does what grows have the same nutritional content? Physics, chemistry, and common sense all say no; plants were already pretty damned good at extracting nutrients from dirt before we altered them, all we're really doing is making them bigger and less nutrient dense.
From a nutritional perspective, we're not feeding more people with GMO crops. Yes, more people are eating, but feeding is the act of giving food and food is a substance with nutritional value; the less nutrient-dense we make it, the less foodlike our "food" becomes.
Phrased another way, an acre of properly prepared soil contains enough nutrient load to support a finite number of people. Past a certain point, doubling the number of ears of corn grown in that acre does not double the number of people that acre can support; it just doubles the number of ears of corn one person must eat in order to be fed. We reached that point without genetic modification.
Want to modify crops to be more resistant to infection and infestation? Go for it. Want to modify it to have a longer storage life? If you can do so without reducing its nutrient load or altering the balance of those nutrients, go for it. Want to make it grow bigger or faster, or increase yields? No. There's only so much a person can physically eat and we need to be able to get our nutritional requirements from that amount; make food too nutrient-sparse and we can't do that.
It's easy to starve yourself on a full plate if you don't eat right. Nutrient-sparse foods will do that to the whole world.
And what I'm saying is I actually like Apple's products, though less and less each generation for nearly a decade now, and want to see them correct course before it's too late. Step two in that is getting them to see the error of their ways; step one is getting a larger portion of their customer base to see it and tell them.
First of all, I don't oppose it; I oppose not regulating it. I generally fall on the "less is more side" regarding regulation, but we're talking about a necessity, here. On one hand, lifting regulations will allow it to be applied more widely; on the other hand, one unregulated mistake in the gene editing process and we've got "corn that kills" (literally) on the store shelf and millions will have eaten it and died before the cause is identified and the recall process can even begin. From that perspective, if my goal were population reduction, I would be a yuuuuugeeeeee supporter of unregulated GMO crops.
Second, google "devil's advocate".
Unless you have (very common) pollen allergies...
GMO is helping to feed the world. Why would we not support it.
Because there are more of us than this world can support already.
That's one good reason. The list is long and I'm sure you wouldn't read it if I dumped it here; how many do you need?
CRISPR does not belong in my lettuce.
And it was rodrigoandrade who said there was, not me; I was merely explaining what rodrigoandrade was talking about. I do see how you could be confused on that point if you have trouble following conversational flow. Do you have trouble following conversational flow?
I was actually going for Informative, not Troll, as the AC to whom I was replying clearly did not know what rodrigoandrade meant by "Apple Tax". Someone should not have mod points today.
That attitude is spreading, and has been for the past 5 years or so, actually. Having a ton of money doesn't make Apple successful; on the contrary, Apple's past success has mad them a ton of money. That in no way protects them from current or future failure, it merely insulates them (not their users, in case you were confused about that) from the impact of their failures which, of course, serves to make it more difficult for them to identify and correct those failures.
You're sitting here defending Apple like you think I'm attacking them. That's the mistake you're making.
The Apple Tax is a fee paid to Apple, not by them...
Some people do value discourse with others who don't share their views. It's a pretty good way to expose yourself to new ideas, learn, and grow as a person. Perhaps you should try it?
Hey, I didn't mean to beat you up, it's just that we've had enough back and forth that I expect that there will be an assumption that I've done at least the basic troubleshooting before I set in to complain about an issue.
Until very recently, I've never seen trashing Prefs and/or NVRAM/PMC/SMC Reset as a solution for something a Mac has done to itself but, rather, a solution for something someone has done to their Mac. That includes updating the OS while incompatible settings are configured, which I'd blame here but the machine shipped with Sierra and the issue predates any OS upgrade. In fact, the issue started from day 1, before any configuration of any kind had been done, when the NVRAM should, for all intents and purposes, be as clean as can be. Further, the first of these machines, which developed a crack starting at the top side of the screen within a few days and was exchanged, also exhibited this issue, so it's nothing specific to this iMac -- but I covered that already when I explained that the issue affects several Macs. At any rate, as high as you might think my horse to be, what's actually high here are my expectations, because that's where Apple's marketing and fanbois have set them. Less than a decade ago, my expectations were at their highest and Apple had no problem meeting -- even exceeding -- them; although I now lower my expectations with every release cycle, Apple seems to fall farther and farther short of them each year.
Regarding the iPad, there's no assumption here, it's the same model I have and I've got mine plugged in to a port on my monitor that only supplies 1A, had it there for months, and it's always at 100% when I unplug it. That's the only place I plug it in, so I know it's not getting a charge from anywhere else, and I've plugged hers in to the same spot to test and it charges there as well. I've even tried blaming the cables she was using, but I had to give that up after testing each of her cables in that same configuration and they all worked. As for the suggestion that she use the supplied charger, USB is a standard and there's no reason that should be necessary; on top of that, she has no free outlet near her desk to plug it in to -- her print work has expanded to the point that she has printers and cutting machines plugged in to every available outlet in the room. Well, she has 12-outlet UPSes plugged in to the wall outlets; and the UPSes are physically full of plugs right now.
While it's great that transferring data and settings from one Mac to another works wonderfully for your friends, I'd like to point out that this is something that is only done once when you buy a new machine and, if it fails, is only an inconvenience once when you buy a new machine. We're looking at apples and oranges, considering that the things being complained about here are basic everyday operations that simply don't work, though they worked under Jobs' Apple; this functionality has slowly deteriorated under Cook's Apple.
I would, however, like to point out another interesting observation I made as I was writing this. I'm the tinkerer, between my wife and I. I'm the one who digs in and changes things that I'm not supposed to change and does things that could potentially be system-breaking if an update were to try to apply itself on top of my changes. Under Jobs' Apple, I was the one who ran into issues (for which I didn't blame Apple, realizing they were of my own making) and things "Just Worked" for my wife. That has actually reversed itself over the past handful of years; I'm still the one who dicks around where I shouldn't and she still leaves things be, but now she;'s the one having problems and all of my tweaks and bodges "Just Work".
That's what's changed.
I should expect issues, simply due to my own actions, and she should expect smooth sailing. And that used to be the reality of Apple.
#1 is a given that the display in question is a drawing tablet with HDMI input only. #2 only applies to USB display adapters using a DisplayLink chipset. #3 doesn't apply to a late 2015 iMac with a grand total of 0 USB-C ports. It exhibits the same issue with the native HDMI port on the 2014 retina MBP (no adapter, also no USB-C), Apple's DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter on the iMac (no USB-C) and the 2012 MacBook Pro (no USB-C), and with Apple's USB-C-to-HDMI adapter on the 2016 MacBook Pro. That rules out the computer itself, as it happens on multiple machines; the adapter being used, as the issue persists when with different adapters, and no adapter is used; and the monitor itself, as the issue persists across all affected systems with several different monitors (as previously stated).
Regarding Bluetooth issues, been there, done that. One of the first things I try when a Mac is acting up is to nuke the NVRAM/PRAM, reset the SMC, and nuke preferences. Needing to do that, by the way, is the antithesis of "Just Works".
Any model iPad I've ever seen (more or less all of them) will happily (if slowly) charge on a 1A charger and a Mac's USB ports will happily supply 2.4A. An iPad not even registering that it's plugged into a power source when connected to a USB port capable of providing in excess of its minimum charging current of 1A is certainly not working as intended.
I would buy the proximity excuse for AirDrop except that it requires that you are connected to the same wireless network in order to function, not that you are simply nearby; in fact, proximity doesn't even play a part in AirDrop functionality. The same wireless network can span multiple buildings; but as long as you're both on wireless with the same SSID, it'll work just fine. It's certainly not making a peer-to-peer connection without dropping you off the network with a single radio (see: early 2011 MacBook Pro, which predates AirDrop, has a single 2.4GHz radio, and works just fine without dropping off the network), or from two buildings over (not my use case here, but one I've encountered) where the two devices are not within range of each other (or even the same access point). There's no reason it can't work over ethernet and, in fact, it can, but not reliably. I couldn't get it working for the iMac, but that method works wonderfully on the 2011 MBP.
Likewise for the Apple Watch; it uses Bluetooth for proximity detection, so why does it need WiFi to unlock?
I think the issue is that you're running such an old OS on such old hardware that you are quite out of touch with how the Apple products of today function. You're running Mavericks, which means the system you are using is, at best, an early 2014 model. Believe me when I say a lot has changed in 4 years. Or don't; you can always buy a new Mac and find out for yourself.
It's fatal if it affects your use case. We have a $2300 iMac that mostly goes unused, in favor of a Windows gaming laptop we had laying around that doesn't exhibit these issues. Why? Because these issues get in the way of a graphic designer getting her work done. To a business, anything that prevents work is fatal.
Typical room temperature, measured in Fahrenheit, is around 72 degrees. Anyone with an IQ over 70 would have understood what I meant.
My itemized list of other “barely works” issues:
- if the Bluetooth keyboard disconnects itself while the computer is asleep, you can’t log back in unless you have a usb keyboard to type your password. Plugging the keyboard in with the lightning cable does not reconnect it (specifically, Apple's own keyboard exhibits this issue)
- non-Apple Bluetooth keyboards and mice won’t always connect until you log in after restarting, which is a problem when you can’t log in without a keyboard (this happens intermittently but often enough to make me go back to apples god awful carpal tunnel inducing keyboard)
- I have to have WiFi turned on for air drop and unlocking with my apple watch to work (even though the Mac is connected via ethernet to the same LAN as the other devices)
- none of the USB ports put out enough power to charge my iPad (this might be a problem specific to my iMac, I haven’t tried it anywhere else)
- the charge port for the mouse is in the bottom so you can’t use it while it’s charging
I’m sure there’s more that I can’t think of right now
ugh... proofreading is important... "is her biggest issue", not "her her biggest issue"...
I'm not sure what your wife's definition of "Barely" is; but I don't have ANY kind of experience that I would call "barely working".
The brokenness of multi-display support in the last two releases of macOS her her biggest issue. It's a battle to get her late 2015 5k iMac to wake her 2nd display after the machine sleeps, which has only been an (widely reported, mind you) issue since Sierra. It's not the Mac, either; nor is it the display. Every Mac we have with Sierra or newer (2 personal laptops, 1 business laptop and the iMac) exhibits this issue when this, or any other display is connected. These are Macs and displays which worked together just fine prior to Sierra.
Milti-display support isn't a niche feature; it's integral to the workflow of many a graphic designer -- drawing tablets with built-in displays are quite popular among that crowd -- and the vast majority of professional users who actually have a desk to work at. It's quite a major issue for them to seemingly be ignoring; it's the kind of thing you'd expect they'd have addressed in an early point release of Sierra, not something they'd let linger nearly half a year into the following release (and still not have fixed).
That's just one of many issues she's encountered in the past handful of years; to someone who remembers Macs "Just Working" since the mid 1980's, though, that's a world-breaking issue.
I'm speaking less in terms of product direction and more in terms of release quality at this point. Yes, bugs happened under Jobs; no, passwords being stored plaintext in log files didn't happen. "Just Works" was true under Jobs; it's still true today, though the definition of "just" has changed from "only" to something more closely resembling "barely". Those aren't my words, I'm paraphrasing my wife, a life-long Apple fangirl.