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Comment Re:"COURAGE" and all that (Score 1) 21

The M2-4 might be incremental taken on their individual merits. But the M1 was truly revolutionary over the extant Intel Macs in terms of performance per watt, and if you look at the increase in performance from the 1 to the 4, it's really quite impressive. One big leap forward, followed by smaller steps - that's a very typical Apple product pattern.

Comment Re: It really depends (Score 2) 213

"since always" isn't true at all; Apple used to have an ultra-modern plant in Fremont, California where they manufactured computers in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

Alas, this feels like a different planet to today's eye; a sad testament to what's been lost.

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FDk306ZkNOuc%3Fs...

Comment Re:Less than 4 years (Score 1) 275

The consequences of the current purge of reason will last for decades. You can't just turn off scientific research for a few years and then turn it back on – research is a process that requires focus and constant attention. For example, there are loads of advances in medical science that rely on the careful observation of patients for a decade or more. You don't simply scoop out a few years of observation out of the middle of a study and call it good. It degrades the quality of the data and the conclusions sit on shakier ground.

Add to that the fact that young people entering the sciences in the next few years will find both a dearth of opportunities due to the lack of funding and a generally negative attitude toward their fields of study and you've set yourself up for a lack of brains in the coming decades.

Is it reasonable to ask anyone in the sciences to wait it out for the next four years? Put their work on hold for what might be the most productive years of their career? How can they be expected to do that? And what will they do in the meantime - how will they afford groceries, which are showing no sign of becoming more affordable?

Comment Re:Free speech? (Score 3, Informative) 87

Notably, this is *not* a case of corrupt courts, because the courts aren't involved. This was a decision issued by an arbitrator that the author was in violation of her severance contract.

However, this is another example of how huge corporations force people to sign away their rights to access the court system.

Comment Re:Aww, Damn! (Score 3, Informative) 119

I applaud your dedication to Postscript, one my all-time favorite technologies/languages, but in this case, Brother is upgrading the printer's firmware - the software that *runs* the Postscript on the printer itself. The driver on your computer (if any) doesn't have to be altered for them to implement this kind of evil.

Comment Re:Also breaks DisplayLink (Score 1) 82

Those DisplayLink adapters have always been kinda janky on Mac, probably due to the drivers (which come from DisplayLink, not Apple). Very touchy, tending to go wonky every time there's an update to the system software, and then you have to wait until they release new drivers to compensate. I stay away from them whenever possible.

Comment Re:Data in the cloud is not secure (Score 1) 134

There is absolutely no need for a backdoor in the algorithm when you've got a $5 wrench law which requires a company to retain a copy of users' keys.

Yeah, it's still a security risk having the same entity holding your cloud data also having the keys to the kingdom, but that's always the risk when government starts swinging their $5 wrench.

...that's a backdoor. Literally, a backdoor. Perhaps not in code, but in policy, and equally dangerous.

Comment Re: PDFs for job search (Score 1) 249

Tell me you know nothing about where PDFs come from without... well, you know the rest.

Adobe owns the PDF standard but provides it free for everyone to implement. This means that while Adobe makes very fine tools that can create tagged PDFs like what you are describing, it takes time and effort to get it right, and they are not shy about charging their customers for the privilege of using these tools. The tools are excellent but the prices are high.
On the other hand, Joe Bob' Haus Of Software can throw together a serviceable word processor in a weekend that's good enough to make a presentable resume and export it to PDF. No fancy tagging, nosiree, just a PDF that looks like the screen. And Joe Bob's Scritchwryte is just $4 for a permanent license.
So what have we learned? Adobe isn't the problem here, weak sauce PDF libraries and wacky implementations are. Nobody is going to pay for and learn InDesign just to make their resume conform to an imaginary readability standard.

Comment Re:Unions (Score 1) 189

> Now... the government is directly involved in the protection of workers in workplaces

Get ready for that to change. The incoming US administration is hell-bent on burning the place down, including OSHA, EPA, etc. I'll agree that unions have shrunk in necessity in recent decades, but we're going to again need the collective power of unions very quickly.

Comment Re:Is Android Auto different? (Score 2) 143

That is precisely how CarPlay works. The Rivian CEO is just using this as a red herring to find some justification for not including what is increasingly a customer-required feature.

The notion that they're going to be able to do messaging better than my primary messaging device is seriously misguided. How could they possibly keep up with the pace of software updates to the various messaging platforms? And I don't see how they could possibly integrate with iMessage – which walls them off from a very large percentage of messaging between iPhone users.

Others will disagree, and that's fine, but my money won't be going into any vehicle without CarPlay. It's just too good of a feature to go backwards; the proverbial horse is out of the barn and no amount of stomping of CEO feet is ever going to get it back inside.

Comment Re:whatever (Score 1) 207

>If you think you have a problem, reach out for help.

LOL. If this worked, we wouldn't have any addicts in the world. A lack of insight is a key attribute of addiction.

>It's fun, but don't use too much.

The problem with this suggestion is that the old axiom "the dose makes the poison" applies here, except that you don't know what dose is going to cause YOU problems. There are some street drugs that are essentially impossible to dose – there's no way to know beforehand whether you're going to have a happy afternoon or spend a week in a coma. This is another case of there being a yawning chasm between how alcohol operates vs other drugs (and similar chasms between various drugs).

>Make sure that help is available and without stigma for people.

This, however, is a brilliant suggestion. Reducing stigma for those who need treatment is the key to making any societal progress on the issue of addiction.

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