Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not all heroes wear capes.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

The revolution will be supervised.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

We won’t go back.

Bark louder, little dog.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

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Reader Interactions

199Comments

  1. 1.

    Kristine

    Just finished mowing the lawn in anticipation of passing showers…which have just started. The rest of the day will be spent on writer business stuff (newsletter, book formatting), writing writing stuff (short story due end of month) and the fitness stuff (steps, light weights, etc).

    I love Henry, moving or still.

  2. 2.

    eclare

    Henry!  Yay!

    I am a sloth as I listen to the yard guy mow my lawn.

    I tip him well.

  3. 3.

    Another Scott

    I just saved about $1700 by not buying a refurbished M3Max MacBook Pro. (I ordered a refurbished Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 11 and will put Linux on it, instead.)

    My existing 4 year old browsing laptop has a wonky keyboard and I want to move off Winders where I can…

    Yay me!

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  4. 4.

    TaMara

    I am baking sandwich rolls (Yay toaster/air fryer oven for not heating up the kitchen) in anticipation of my niece’s arrival tomorrow for a week of hiking. Got some good (and hopefully less crowded) ones planned.

  6. 6.

    Mel

    Henry’s sweet expression just made my afternoon better. He’s so darling!

    I’m getting ready to make a cherry cheesecake this evening.

  7. 7.

    Steeplejack

    @Another Scott:

    Congrats on the new computer! I love my ThinkPad (T480), especially with my clicky-clicky external mechanical keyboard. Might consider an X1 next time around.

  9. 9.

    JoyceH

    I’m just hanging around the house planning to do some house cleaning. I’m mainly keeping an eye on Whimsy. She’s supposed to be coned till her sutures are removed next week and she’s already destroyed a donut collar and is working on the cone. I’ve got another one of each on order and they’re supposed to arrive tomorrow.

  12. 12.

    TBone

    Getting ready to use the last of my Amish preserved peach halves in a cinnamon streusel cake.  Contemplating how best to incorporate them so I don’t make mush instead of cake.  They were fabulous pureed in a tangy peach glaze for pork chops this week.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    @trollhattan:  I had to stop watching about 1/3 of the way through – kind of like baklava is so rich you can’t eat the whole thing in one sitting.  I’ll come back to it later.  Wow.

    I assume you didn’t have a hand in creating that?  You are reposting because it’s awesome?

  14. 14.

    MattF

    @trollhattan: Ahhh… I’m just a teensy bit suspicious about that one.

    As for me, I’m pushing through the second part of Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities trilogy.

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    @Another Scott: New hardware always a love/hate thing for me, as I wend my way through the always opaque setup process. “Tell us how much you’d like to spend each month on Office 365. Go!”

    Hoping your love:hate ratio mostly favors the first.

  16. 16.

    RedDirtGirl

    Was up early for my morning stationary bike ride, Saturday laundry, and then a walk in Prospect Park with a friend. Tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. Now that I’m older I am so much more sensitive to the sun and its heat! Now I’m lazing about and thinking about chores. Thinking being the operative word!

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    PSA:  We have an Authors in Our Midst post tomorrow at 4:30.  Remember commenter J. who is really Jennifer Schiff who writes the Sanibel mysteries?  She has written a new book – not set in Sanibel (!) – that she really loves.  She’ll tell us about it tomorrow.

  18. 18.

    VFX Lurker

    Adorable photo of Henry. ❤️

    It’s been a week since my husband applied online for his green card renewal. USCIS notified him two business days later that they would reuse his existing biometrics, so no biometrics appointment would be needed or scheduled. Yesterday, they notified him that his green card was being produced.

    I don’t want to jinx it, but this is going much faster than we expected. He might get his renewed green card before I get my renewed USA passport.

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    @WaterGirl: I would tip the blower dudes that do next door every Monday Giant Moneys to take those twin fucking 2-stroke blowers and run them over with their F-150. Loudest blowers in California.

    Big Bucks. BRINKS TRUCKS bucks.

    We no longer have the lawn, so…. (Besides, I was my own mower person.)

  22. 22.

    citizen dave

    Just got home from a 3 hour trip (it’s 25-30 minutes away, also lunch and a couple other stops)  to my local small outdoor market that is my pine bark mulch supplier.  Opening a couple amazon envelopes, includes the new Willie Nelson album (cd).  I know it’s a short (35 minutes–has some fine reviews), and I could stream it, but felt like having the physical product, and floating some money Willie’s way.  Usually I rip them once my library gets their copy.  It’s his 75th studio album.

    Sad about astronaut William Anders.  It’s a profound photograph.

    I will always prefer to buy Office outright.  (And I didn’t buy it at all on this home PC I am using; have it thru work on that laptop; and bought it outright on my older personal laptop)

    Subscriptions are the devil’s work.Ψ

  25. 25.

    Ken

    @trollhattan: I thought you might be referring to the rally Trump held. In Arizona. Outdoors. In 104F heat. Reports are 11 hospitalized, so far.

  26. 26.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @trollhattan: I skipped here and there through that – I hate getting subjected to videos when the written word works just fine – and I’m still not sure that was a genuine video rather than some sort of composite thing.

  30. 30.

    RedDirtGirl

    @trollhattan: The trouble is I’m thinking from the comfort of my couch, and I’m getting way too comfortable. Time to get up and stop thinking and start doing!

  32. 32.

    Raven

    @Jay: We are trying out “Dead Silent ” lawn care. All electric and manual. It’s a neighborhood kid who we’ve known for years so we’re a little nervous about how it will go if he doesn’t work out. The expense is one thing but he’s going to have to up his communication as far  how  and for how many people. In other news we’re going to replace our brick front sidewalk with a concrete one since the crepe mertyle has pushed the bricks up and I’m going to fall if we don’t do it (and probably if we do). The bricks are really nice old Nelsonville Salt fired decorative bricks and I’d like to sell them but the boss has other plans!

  33. 33.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: I mean, the M3 Max is twice as fast as the Thinkpad, so yeah, the Thinkpad ought to be way cheaper.

    I’ve got an M1 Max and it’s still faster than a 7950X3D desktop gaming processor by about 20%, and the M3 is about 25% faster than the M1.

  36. 36.

    Martin

    @Raven: I’ve been doing that for about 20 years now. German push mowers are pretty good, and I was able to age into battery powered equipment. I would have foregone the electric leaf blower but Ms Martin loves the thing.

    Ours are Makita, same batteries as my power tools, so no added cost on batteries or chargers. Everything works really well, pretty quiet, no need to fuss with gas. I replaced my string trimmer with Makitas new professional shaft tools and that’s been okay. The equipment works great, but it’s heavier and that was maybe not the best idea as I get older, but I’ve managed okay so far. Trimming my trees with the extension on it requires a proper rest afterword.

  38. 38.

    raven

    @Martin: We have a battery powered blower and a Dewalt String trimmer that is as powerful as any gas model I’ve ever see. As far as a push mower our yard (three yards) is highly sloped and terraced and, even before my mobility problems, I couldn’t have done it manually.

  39. 39.

    opiejeanne

    I have a question: I haven’t been able to verify what several people have been telling me, that members of the jury have been doxxed, as early as last weekend. I know that Cohen was, but I haven’t been able to find any report that jury members have been.

    Is this just a case of people confusing witnesses with the jury?

  40. 40.

    Martin

    @raven: I couldn’t have done a lot of the lawns around here with mine due to the very dense type of grass that is usually grown here in SoCal, but my yard was sodded with something a lot more forgiving. The professional string trimmer sweeps out almost as large of an arc as the mower covered that just out of laziness I usually just use that for the whole thing.

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: @trollhattan: 

    I hate buying new expensive things.  I was traumatized by spending $4k on my first real computer and seeing the much faster successor being $1k less 6 months later.  🤪. So, I almost never buy the absolute latest stuff any more.  I also hate setting up a new computer, so I try to keep machines running for 4+ years.

    Apple makes good stuff that lasts a long time, but I can’t justify the premium right now – especially when everyone is chasing AI processors so who knows what the next 1-2 years will bring.  Spending $1.5-2k extra right now might be a mistake.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    @opiejeanne

    That report about the jury which set the RWNJs all atwitter (pun intended) was quickly debunked as emanating from a bozo self-described as “a professional shitposter.”

  45. 45.

    Jay

    @raven:

    The good German push mowers are a mix of cast steel, sheet metal, steel tubing and carbon fibre.

    They weigh less than an electric and are a fraction of the weight of the old cast iron ones. They also don’t rely on the mass to keep momentum up.

    Like all push mowers, actually all mowers, sharp blades are key. They also sell, now, cordless drill powered sharpening kits and feeler guages, to make keeping the blades sharp and with the correct clearance a piece of cake.

  46. 46.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato: SETTLE DOWN, CICADAS!

    Here in northeast Illinois, the die-off has begun, with dead and dying ones all over the ground. I pity the people I see walking dogs, because to the dog it’s a buffet.

  47. 47.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Henry looks like:

    “I don’t think there’s anything in that black bag those Amazon boxes for me.”

    The predicted late afternoon rain came at noon today instead so since the cleaning chores are done, I’m thinking a nice long walk.

  48. 48.

    TBone

    @NotMax: that’s the link I posted above at 43.  Judge Merchan is as even-handed as he could be.  But why does the NY Unified Judicial System have a Facebook page?  Seems like an invitation for fuckery.

  49. 49.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Sounds a bit more serious than shitposting, more like swatting, given the number of deranged cultists Trump has. “I was totally kidding when I posted Judge Alito’s address as that of a Trump juror!”

  50. 50.

    Lyrebird

    @Another Scott: ​
    Have you or anyone here found a good, reliable Excel alternative? LibreOffice and OpenOffice have both let me down (corrupted files, data loss) in the past year, really not fun. I can use GSheets for some things but not everything, and R for some other things but it’s not helpful for simply looking at the spreadsheet…

     

    ETA: Thank you WaterGirl for another adorable Henry photo!  Both his ears on!

  51. 51.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax: I know about that and the “professional shitposter”.

    I’m just surprised that people I know in Real Life and some online are saying the jury was doxxed last weekend, but there are no news reports about it.

  52. 52.

    trollhattan

    @Martin: The struggle is real! Smooth sailing on your mission.

    CA’s going to halt sale of gas-powered yard equipment but that’s not going to slow their use. Technically forbidden here by the AQMD on “spare the air” days but there’s no enforcement arm.

    From now until October they’re only moving the same heap of dust and debris from one parcel to everywhere else, nearby. Especially treasure blasting gutters and parking lots while I’m cycling past.

  53. 53.

    opiejeanne

    @TBone: Yes, I’ve seen that. It was already debunked by the time I read about it. I’ve been working in the garden and doing other stuff, and not so much online this week.

  55. 55.

    TBone

    @TBone: oh AND Dotard was up in the middle of the night shitposting his demand for MISTRIAL.

    Thanks again Fuckerberg, you absolute twit.

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    @Lyrebird: ​
    My kid used the Google Office-like apps through college and I guess they worked for her. But when she’d share something for me to edit or modify, I found them extremely limited compared to the real thing.

    I blame Adobe for the whole rent/can’t buy bidnez model.

  57. 57.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken: My sister said her dog basically ignores them.  Haven’t had to police that during walks morning or night.

    The pooch is currently curled up on her living room bed sleeping because of course.

    Oh, and our walks seem to be before or after the day’s cicada screaming.

  58. 58.

    opiejeanne

    @trollhattan: There was a guy out in the heavy rain recently who was blasting the water away from the ditch next to the property. Just pushing water around, but away from the drainage area. We were under a flood watch at the time.

  60. 60.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: Computers do that quite often. A lot of users make the mistake of thinking that buying performance buys longevity – that rarely correlates. Generally, at least now (things were different a decade+ ago) your device will either need to be replaced because some component wear out or because it goes out of service life and you want the new software. Generally, buying near the bottom of the product grid for Apple is the way to go – the cheapest MacBook Air or Pro one tick above the base RAM will probably last you until tire of it, it gets stolen, you spill your orange juice in it. 8 years is pretty likely, and if you get one refurbished, you can probably still turn it over before those 8 years for a reasonable fraction of that.

    When buying technology, the rule of thumb for most things is budget about $1 per day of its lifespan – a ($700 iPhone that lasts 2 years for instance, and any additional time because you don’t feel compelled to upgrade just lowers that cost – my iPhones usually get to about $0.30/day), and for a computer as much as $3 depending on how intensively you use it (I’m a gamer, so I buy toward the max). My top of the line MBP M1 Max was pretty expensive, but it’ll hit $3/day at the end of this year and then start dropping. Did I get a cup of coffee’s worth of utility out of it each day? Hell yeah. Could I buy the same number of flurbmarks for less money the following year? Yeah, but that’s not my measure – the $3 is my measure. As long as I’m out for $3/day or less, I consider that a good purchasing decision.

  63. 63.

    Rachel Bakes

    Have a bunch of baking to do. I always bake for my son’s special Ed team (all 8 of them) at the holidays and end of school year. But, but, but I just got home from the library with a bagful of books! Trying to find something that will hold my interest!

  64. 64.

    Martin

    @trollhattan: I did almost all of my data science work in Google Sheets instead of Excel when I needed an actual spreadsheet. Way more predictable, easier to automate and integrate, easier to do version tracking/rollback if you don’t want to rely on git for that kind of thing. Excel is VERY creaky under the hood – bugs get incorporated as features as users come to rely on them.

  65. 65.

    TBone

    @Jackie: I remember when they were freezing to death because he was too cheap to bus them back to their cars.  One way bus for ingress only 😆

  66. 66.

    opiejeanne

    @TBone: Oh Lord, I’d go nuts. We already have a deaf-as-a-post neighbor who is always out doing something noisy to his landlady’s property, next door to us. He sits in her enclosed patio with Fox News on full blast so everyone can share in its glory, because he can’t hear, but he is mightily annoyed by the dog on the other side of us who barks with joy when he’s let out to run around the yard for a few minutes several times a day (He’s not neglected, but he has some neurological issue). The dog’s name is Axel, but when his owner calls him it sounds like “asshole”.

  67. 67.

    Sister Golden Bear

    I was planning to join others with a Free Mom Hugs group at one of the smaller Pride events locally, but my plantar fasciitis and ankle issues had other plans (painful to stand and to drive).

    So trying to continue taking it easy to give them a chance to heal, but getting cabin fever. Between that, discovering I have midfoot arthritis (plus some minor knee arthritis), and the ongoing mysterious shoulder problems, it feels like my body has decided to do rapid unplanned disassembly before my 60th birthday next month.

    I realize some of you are saying “oh you sweet summer child” right now, but it’s the first time I’m having physical problems that are clearly age-related and I. Do. Not. Like. It

    Oh, did I mention I very probably have undiagnosed inattentive ADHD — waiting for the official diagnosis next week. Squirrel!

  68. 68.

    WereBear

    My first Book Fair! Small and regional but I saw old friends and made new ones.

    And sold a book, which was my goal. But lots of business cards were taken.

  69. 69.

    RedDirtGirl

    @NotMax: Love that a fellow in Hawaii knows more about what’s going on in my neighborhood than I do! Tells you all you need to know about my social life!

  70. 70.

    trollhattan

    @Jay: Street gutters. We have no rain for 5-6 months and the accumulated debris MUST be blown elsewhere.

  74. 74.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: The MPB was to be a quasi-futureproof purchase, while the X1 is a muddle through for a few years one.  Different classes for different purposes.

    I originally was planning on a MBA, but the M3 throttles too much there.  Why pay for a speedy processor that throttles??  (The X1 has the same problem if one puts a “Performance” processor in it.)  So, I started looking at the MBP, and then was on the treadmill, “for just a little bit more…”

    :-/

    As I said, they’re good machines, but I can’t justify spending that much now.  (I’m glad I wasn’t set to try to approach our Friend in the Business here who can get anyone who asks a much bigger Apple discount.)

    YMMV!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  76. 76.

    trollhattan

    @Martin: Excel not intuitive to me at all. Finally took classes at the local CC and now it heels like a show dog for my uses. Integration with Word docs makes it mandatory in my working world.

    Highest-end users I’ve been around are toxicologists doing environmental cancer risk and non-cancer hazard calculations for Superfund sites. Holy mother of god.

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Sheila in nc:

    What a thrill! Such a gorgeous work. Was it recorded, and will it be available to stream or watch on YouTube or something?

    I’ll bet you’re feeling high as a kite, in the very best sense.

  80. 80.

    Another Scott

    @Lyrebird: I have to use MS Office for work, but I’ve never had issues with LibreOffice when I’ve used it for some minor stuff.  (I used to do my taxes in LO on a MacMini.)  I wish I could use Impress (their PowerPoint alternative) all the time – it doesn’t get in the way PPT does for me.  But, of course, there are always compatibility issues moving between them.

    There are lots of Excel alternatives these days (Apple, Google, LO, WordPerfect Office, etc.), but you may have to stick with MS’s version if you’re doing complicated things or if you have to share with others.

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  82. 82.

    smith

    @Sister Golden Bear: Welcome to the golden years. Last week I learned I have osteoarthritis in both knees, not that it was much of a surprise. I’ve already had both hips replaced, and am resigned to going fully bionic by the time I die. In the meantime, though, I’m trying to figure out how to garden without any knees.

  83. 83.

    TBone

    In the ‘not a surprise but now we have concrete evidence’ dept. of election rigging

    Emails from elections officials, obtained through a request under North Carolina’s Public Records Law, show the pro-West Justice for All Party authorized three people to pick up and drop off signatures for them statewide — and all three are current or past employees of a Colorado-based Republican political firm called Blitz Canvassing.
    Blitz Canvassing has worked for numerous Republican House and Senate candidates and took in more than $14.6 million in payments working for Never Back Down, the main super PAC that supported former GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to campaign finance reports.

    “In the same way that Republicans have quietly pushed ballot access for the Green Party across the country for years, there’s concrete evidence — not rumors, but evidence — in North Carolina and in other states of an organized Republican effort to get Cornel West on ballots, using Republican consultants and vendors that the West campaign is not paying for,”…

    https://digbysblog.net/2024/06/08/whos-rigging-the-elections/

  84. 84.

    debit

    In January I trapped one sibling of a group of clearly abandoned cats, about 8 months old (I have a Ring camera on my feral feeding station and these guys suddenly just showed up).  I made an appointment to bring her to the Humane Society a couple weeks later, but my daughter worked on my non stop and she wound up staying, completing my transformation into my final form of crazy cat lady. I couldn’t get any of her sibs, and after a while they stopped showing up.

    This morning, a calico that looks enough like her to be a sibling or her mother came into my yard and asked very nicely if she could come inside.  I have her in my quarantine room, and luckily the Humane Society can take her tomorrow.  Then a couple of hours later, a black cat that could be one of the siblings (there were two initially) also showed up, but is super skittish and won’t be handled.  I’ll work on trapping that one next.

    I’m just so relieved.  I continue to feel bad know these cats were dumped and not at all prepared to cope with suddenly being homeless in a Minnesota winter.  I’m glad a couple of them are still around.

  87. 87.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: My buying philosophy is different.  I pick a budget and figure out the “best” thing I can get for that amount of money.  Once I’ve been looking around a while, I’ll adjust things if necessary.  $2500 has generally been my upper limit for Mac things (J has been a Mac person since the olden days).  Her latest Mac was a M2Max Mac Studio for $1800 last November.  For PCs I put together myself, $2k is about the limit (I’m not a gamer).  For mess-around laptops at home, $1-1.5k is about the limit unless something compelling happens.  And since installing and upgrading and updating and all the rest is such a time consuming pain, I try to limit new computing devices to a 4+ year cycle.

    We have a couple M1 iPad Airs that are set up to show the current weather radar and similar things (saves me from being distracted by setting up a home weather station) – one by the door, one in the main bathroom.

    I don’t like spending more than $700 for a phone, and try to keep them 3-4 years.  I lucked out on my last new phone – I was able to get a new S24 Ultra for $600 off on Google Fi, (with no change on my $30/month phone plan), so it was cheaper than a Pixel Pro, so the choice was easy.  (It was actually cheaper than the used S20+ 5G that I bought earlier on Swappa!)

    J’s iPhone 13 Pro has been doing a bunch of phantom dialing and staring apps for no reason, so we’ll probably be looking for a new phone for her next…  :-/

    YMMV!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  88. 88.

    Jacel

    @Sheila in nc: In the early 1980s I sang in Carnegie Hall a number of times with the St. Cecelia Chorale and the New York Choral Society. What group are you singing with now?

  91. 91.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @TaMara: less crowded hiking trails sounds like a miracle. Can you backpack in and stay overnight? The second day of trail would be less populous.
    camping has gotten so crowded and challenging in Colorado.

  92. 92.

    NutmegAgain

    @Another Scott: I’m a great fan of refurbished electronics, in general. But a note of warning for anybody considering–I bought a used iPhone on Gazelle and it was a puddle of yuck. They had not ascertained that the phone was paid for by the seller, and it stopped working soon after I bought it. Turns out that telecomm companies don’t like it when somebody bails on their contract!

  93. 93.

    Rob

    I was on a bird walk this morning in a park in Wheaton, Maryland (a few miles north of Washington DC). We saw both Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, and heard Warbling Vireos singing, all high in the trees. We also saw two Brown Thrashers below eye level, one of them with a twig in its beak as if it were gathering nesting material. One of the thrashers was singing. This is the first sighting of the species in this fairly well-birded park in three weeks!

  95. 95.

    Scout211

    WaterGirl, I just love your Henry pics.  Every single one.  He’s just so adorable. 😊

    I was out working in my garden and sadly, my whole raised bed full of salad greens had to be pulled.  The triple digit heat this past week caused them all to bolt.  But at least our neighbors’ goats were happy with their treats.

  96. 96.

    Jay

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    it feels like my body has decided to do rapid unplanned disassembly before my 60th birthday next month.

    We have been trying to call you about your warranty,……..

  97. 97.

    pluky

    @Sister Golden Bear: When your PCP hands you a slip with an ortho referral on it for consideration of metal joints get back to me. On the bright side, they work really well these days!

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:

    The apartment complex I live in has an electric leaf blower. It is quietER. It is still not quiet. But every little bit helps….

  101. 101.

    Another Scott

    @NutmegAgain: Good reminder.

    I’ve had good luck with Swappa, but I only buy from really well scored and long-time sellers there.  And my spidey-sense goes nuts if anything is “too cheap” anywhere on-line.

    As always, caveat emptor!!

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  102. 102.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    Standard, automatic response at the summer camp where I was employed whenever a young camper would ask in advance what the movie would be on movie night that week was “Arthritis Can Be Fun.”

    Worked to deflect the question better than “you’ll see” or “I don’t know either” and served to elevate whatever the actual film turned out to be even if it was a clunker.
    :)

  103. 103.

    Chris T.

    @Another Scott:

    so I try to keep machines running for 4+ years

    I’m still using several from 2008-ish and my laptop is from 2015. I did just (well, a few months ago) set up a new server to take over from the 2008-era one though. I installed three moderate-size spinning-rust drives and have terabytes of free space, vs the maybe 1 TB of accumulated data.

  107. 107.

    Jackie

    Did anyone post this yet?

    Lauren Boebert was invited to a Colorado radio station to give an interview. As she was being introduced, the Beetlejuice film score began playing… 🤭😂

    “Let’s talk about the intro music!” Boebert exclaimed. “Are you kidding me?”

    “That’s producer Dragon’s — producer Dragon,” struggled Kaminsky. “Was that — was that ‘Beetlejuice’ music?” he asked.

    “Of course it was,” Boebert snapped back.

    “I’m not — I’m not going there. I’ll let other people ask those questions,” Kaminsky said.

    https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-awkward-radio-interview/

    That producer deserves a raise!!!

    Sadly, Boebert will probably get him fired.😞

  108. 108.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    I’ve had computers for a long time because we used them at work to program machine tools. My first computer was an Apple II. Not a IIe, before that, in 1978. We used it to punch 8 bit 1 inch paper tape to feed programs into machine tools. Was about 2000% better than the used teletype machine we bought some years before that, where any mistake meant start over or use adhesive patches with 8 across holes x 8 rows so that any punched holes didn’t have to be redone, just tape a new segment and carry on. These were called numerical control machines or NC, and was before RS232 communications in the machine tools, so paper tape or standing at the machine punching in one key at a time. And NEVER make a mistake, it was possible to crash the machine, which did it no good whatsoever. Also might not be healthy for the operator….

    The world of computers and machine tools has come a very long way since the late 1970s.

  110. 110.

    Burnspbesq

    Was watching cricket earlier (because everything is geared toward Indian prime-time teevee—that’s where the money is—games start at 9:30 a.m. US Central time). South Africa barely avoided a loss to the Netherlands, and Australia gave England a proper spanking.

    Tomorrow is the game that a billion people want to see: India vs. Pakistan. It’s long since sold out, and good seats are going for Final Four prices. The Mets are hosting a watch party at Citi Field, and it may draw more folks than the average Mets game.

  111. 111.

    Jackie

    @Villago Delenda Est: Yah, he doesn’t need their votes anyway.🤪

    I try to feel sorry for them, because obviously they aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer – but I can’t. 🤦🏼‍♀️

  113. 113.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: You talking about the Apple Silicon one? The Intel ones throttled like all get out, but AS really doesn’t very much. The Air will throttle a bit – no fan, which is why the Pro series exists – fan.

    But ‘speedy processor’ means a LOT of things. If you want a responsive machine, the Air will do that just fine – it won’t throttle, because it’ll get the task done before it needs to. If you want to crank out a lot of video encoding – sustained performance, that’s where you need the fan.

    Note, the M4 iPad Pro is 20% faster at single core than any existing PC, including 150W desktop gaming processors, and that’s with it throttling as it lacks a fan. It’s ridiculously fast in that regard. It’ll start to fall down on multicore and on sustained use, if you have such a workload, because the desktop processors will have more cores and more cooling, but that’s rarely what consumers benefit from (and games even less).

    Here’s a head to head between the iPad and a top of the line AMD gaming processor.

    It loses on multicore, though probably not as badly as it ought to given you can power about 4 of them with what the AMD processor uses, and wrecks it across the board on single core, which is the thing you feel the most. And that’s with it throttling. Increase that another 5% or more if you want to see what it would do without a fan.

    So I think your calibration is a bit off. Sure the MBA will throttle without a fan, but even throttling it’s going to be a fair bit more responsive than any non-Apple computer you can buy right now, including desktops, unless you are overclocking and liquid cooling. So if performance is the thing you care about, a fanless Mac isn’t necessarily going to be slower than a PC with a fan. Here’s that same gaming PC up against the M3 MacBook Air. About the same single core, and slower multicore (again, as you’d expect).

    I think this is about what you bought, compared to the MBA M3. Lenovo is amazingly opaque about what processor is in these machines so I’m guessing here a bit, but this is the 12th gen Intel Core Ultra 5 135U and it’s between 28% and 40% slower than the fanless MBA, which, yeah, it throttles compared to the MBP with the same processor, but that just means the MBP would have been faster yet.

  114. 114.

    hueyplong

    If fewer than 100 get heat stroke it will reflect on crowd size. Now, more than ever, the greatest show of devotion is required.

  116. 116.

    Martin

    @trollhattan: Yeah, if you’re doing proper data science, you shouldn’t be anywhere near Excel or Google Docs – just the complete inability to document and do version tracking alone should keep you out of those products. Maybe to dump data to set up a presentation, but not for the data part. 95% of my work was in Python environments I built, but now and then someone needed something in a few hours and Google Sheets could usually get me there under the deadline.

    But anyone who went into STEM pre-2008 or so before data science really blew up probably learned using Excel or maybe a specialized app like R or Matlab, etc. Post-2008, there was a significant shift toward broader development environments like Python that could leverage a much broader set of tools, devops, and community expertise as more and more of the work was being done in large datasets and not just fucking around in whatever was convenient. (I won’t go so far as to say that it’s entirely due to universities post-financial crisis couldn’t afford all of their software licenses and shifted toward open source tools, but I lead my institution down that very path to close some monumental budget shortfalls and you can see the shift in the curriculum from that.) Even the folks on the periphery needed to develop a bit of rigor around this stuff to become productive, and that necessitated learning a bunch of new stuff, which not everyone took to. My son is currently cleaving through his employer as the circuit design expert that has automated all of his testing and sensor work using python, automated his documentation and CAD work with it, and is currently beating the rest of the enterprise into submission on proper version control of everything from CAD files to documentation. It’s turned into a proper generational turf war there.

  119. 119.

    CaseyL

    @Sheila in nc: ​
     

    You what? You sang in Carnegie Hall?? That’s amazing.! Congratulations, and no wonder you feel high.

    Today has been… interesting… for me.

    It is, conditionally, summer in Seattle: today was bright, sunny, and quite warm. I wanted to take a nice long waterfront walk somewhere. By a lake, a river, or Puget Sound… whatever. I searched a bunch of likely trails on WTA.org, and decided to try the Lowell Riverfront Park trail up in Everett. But the directions on WTA.org left out many important steps, and I wound up in the parking lot of a fancy new upscale “condo community” with no idea where the river was, much less the trail beside it. And Google maps wasn’t working right: first it told me I was half an hour away, then 10 minutes away, and then it tried to put me back on the freeway.

    So I gave up, and instead went to Richmond Beach Saltwater Park, which I by God know how to get to. It was delightful, and I once again yearned to snorkel out past the shallows. One of these days I will actually get a snorkel, mask, and flippers and do it.

    Then I came home and was unable to find my cat Oscar anywhere. Went all over the house, and all over the grounds outside, calling him. No answer.

    To make a long scary story short, just as a neighbor was volunteering to help me to look for him in the immediate neighborhood, I came back to the house and… there he was, drinking from his living room water dish.

    The brat. The utter, utter brat. (Of course I made a fuss over him, giving him so many hugs.)

    Anyway, what with that and a major grocery run, I feel like it’s been a full day even though it’s only mid-afternoon here.

  120. 120.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: Apple Silicon is king of the hill now because they have TSMC’s 3 nm process magic, and were able to start with a fairly clean sheet of paper.  AMD and Intel (and others) are catching up very quickly.  These technologies converge (I remember when “Intel is so far ahead, nobody will ever catch them”…).

    I’m not disputing that Apple is faster at the moment and has better screens and better build quality and make machines that will last.  I used a late 2012 MBP for many, many years…

    We have different buying philosophies.

    I’m not willing to spend $2700 for a M3Max MBP right now.  Not even willing to spend $2150 for an M3Pro MPB right now.  It’s just not worth it to me to spend that much for a laptop replacement that I use while I’m typing nonsense to LLMs on Balloon-Juice while J watches her TV shows.

    😜

    J has a recent M1 Air and it’s fine, but she has to have a UGreen USB adapter thing always hanging off he side of it for when she wants to plug other peripherals in it or plug it into the TV to watch some YouTube stuff because it doesn’t have enough of the right ports.  It’s not for me.

    If the $2700 M3Max MBP was everything that I thought I wanted now, and I thought I wouldn’t get upgrade-itis again in 2-3 years, then, sure, I’d bite the bullet and get it.

    And if I were a gamer, I’d probably get a PS5. And invest in a decent controller.

    ;-)

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  122. 122.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: I don’t think Boebert has that kind of clout, and the upcoming primary may render her clout-free. I think it’s June 25th. The producer will likely hold their job longer than Boebert holds hers.

  128. 128.

    TBone

    Dolly kerfuffle update:

    The headline, “There’s Nothing Loving About Dolly Parton’s False Gospel,” caught many people off guard. Supporters flooded social media with messages critical of the essay, and the writer has now expressed regret for using such a beloved figure to make her point.

    https://www.yahoo.com/enter…

    I’m betting it’s a non-apology apology but don’t have social media so do not know.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @Martin:

    That’s a Gen12. I ordered a refurbished Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 11:

    Processor 13th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-1365U vPro® Processor (E-cores up to 3.90 GHz P-cores up to 5.20 GHz)
    Operating System Windows 11 Pro 64 (preinstalled with Windows 10 Pro 64 Downgrade)
    Graphic Card Integrated Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics
    Memory 32 GB LPDDR5-6400MHz (Soldered)
    Storage 256 GB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC Opal
    Display 14″ WUXGA (1920 x 1200), IPS, Anti-Glare, Non-Touch, 100%sRGB, 400 nits, 60Hz, Low Power
    Camera 1080P FHD IR with Privacy Shutter
    Battery 4 Cell Li-Polymer 57 Wh
    AC Adapter / Power Supply 65W
    Fingerprint Reader Fingerprint Reader
    Keyboard Backlit, Black – English (US)
    WLAN Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 2×2 AX vPro® & Bluetooth® 5.1 or above
    Warranty 1 Year Standard Depot Warranty
    Color Black
    Operating System Language EN:English
    Condition CERTIFIED REFURBISHED

    $1181 + tax.

    I’m also getting (on Amazon) a 4TB NVMe drive to replace the 256 GB stick. I’d have to mortgage the house to get 4TB on a Mac. ;-)

    Once I have it in-hand, the plan is to update the firmware, finish the Winders installation, update everything, then swap out the 256 GB stick, install the 4TB stick, then install Ubuntu.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    Sheila in nc

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Combination. Our Chapel Hill chorus plus students and folks from other choirs in NJ, MA, and FL. But we were a plurality. Our music director conducted the performance.

  131. 131.

    TBone

    @trollhattan: I must refrain from comment on her, uh, face?  Well, just one.  The windows to her soul closed up shop & left the false protection afforded by her eyebrows long ago.

    Imagine her at 85 👀

  132. 132.

    zhena gogolia

    @Sheila in nc: It’s what’s being sung as Inspector Morse dies in the last episode — he collapses in an Oxford quad outside a chapel where it’s being performed.

  138. 138.

    Sheila in nc

    @Jacel: just a travel thing set up for out of town singers. But I used to sing with Oratorio Society of Washington (it is called something else now.)

  141. 141.

    zhena gogolia

    @zhena gogolia: And it’s not a cheap shot because Morse’s love of classical music has been a theme throughout the series. I just rewatched the scene, and I realize that he’s still solving murders on his deathbed. The crutch!

  144. 144.

    trollhattan

    @TBone:

    85? I’m sure she’ll be the least-demanding resident at the home. (Actual fistfights among staff as to who has to deal with her.)

    How about being stuck in an elevator with Kimberly and Donny Jr.?

  145. 145.

    TBone

    @smith: 😆 she prolly uses a garden trowel to slap her foundation together and the plastic surgeon who did the rest is a hero, I hope he went to the bank giggling the whole way.

  146. 146.

    Sheila in nc

    @Jacel: one thing about Carnegie: it is by far the liveliest auditorium, acoustically, in which I have ever been privileged to perform. You can hear every other choral section perfectly.

  149. 149.

    trollhattan

    @TBone: ​”I regret using Dolly as the example for the point I was making in the article,”

    Gee, ya think?

    Suppose I could pull up Pope Francis’s “Who am I to judge?” but then he’s probably “a Papist” to this lot.

  151. 151.

    CaseyL

    @trollhattan:

    Ooh! Seabeck looks worth checking out.  And that’s an area of the state I haven’t been to, much, and have wanted to see for quite a while.

    A couple years ago, I went up to Rockport to see eagles in the winter.  It’s a big thing out there: they have info tables, guides, maps.  They love their eagles in Rockport :)

  152. 152.

    TBone

    @trollhattan: That’s a scene best contemplated on an empty stomach and mine is currently full 🤮

    An ex of mine had an elevator story that involved what he thought was gas, but ended badly and turned his white painters pants another color 🤎 no one escaped that ride  without serious injury 😆.  Hangover beer sharting!

  157. 157.

    Sheila in nc

    @zhena gogolia: So one thing about Faure is he didn’t leave it with the usual final movement of  requiem mass (the Libera Me). His Requiem adds a different movement, In Paradisum, which focuses on heaven and afterlife. Features soprano lines of great beauty. Make of that what you will.

  161. 161.

    CaseyL

    That clip from Digby, of Kimberly Guilfoyle reporting the 34-count guilty verdict in her FIL’s trial

    Guilfoyle used to be a prosecutor, back when she was at least semi-sane. The decades since (at Fox, and as Trump-adjacent) have obviously worn whatever professional ethical awareness she ever had to non-existence…but I do wonder if buried memories of what it was like to uphold the law tried to surface during that video clip.

  162. 162.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Getting ready for the Yankees vs Dodgers game.

    As General Tso once said, the enemy of the Dodgers is my friend.

  163. 163.

    hitchhiker

    @CaseyL:

    Hi from Whidbey Island, where we’re just a little cooler and a whole lot harder to get to. Moved here 4 yrs ago from Seattle & don’t miss it much at all.

  165. 165.

    persistentillusion

    @trollhattan: We’ve got all that in Colorado Springs ffs.  Plus pelicans.  Watching those babies get airborne is like watching a Mack Truck fly.

  166. 166.

    CaseyL

    @hitchhiker: ​

    Oh, how I envy you! I loveloveLOVE Whidbey Island. Seriously went house hunting there a few years ago, but the only things I could afford were either fixer-uppers or manufactured homes.​*

    *ETA: Manufactured homes in mobile home parks, I should say. A manufactured home on its own land wouldn’t bother me one bit.

  167. 167.

    Sandia Blanca

    @WaterGirl: Don’t you remember the Boebert incident of a few months ago when she and her date were thrown out of a theater for inappropriate activity during a performance?

  168. 168.

    Jay

    @Scout211:

    When we lived at the place, at the time,

    spring could go from 20c to 45c in a week.

    “stuff” would bolt, or get bitter.

    We had covers, designed for keeping insects off cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, etc.

    Using shade cloth before the heat hit, got a few more weeks out, before stuff bolted.

  171. 171.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: They are not catching up. The IPC (instruction per clock) gap hasn’t changed at all. They’ve stemmed the bleeding by adopting architecture more reminiscent of the M1 (everyone is basically aping the M1 in the current generation of new processors), otherwise Apple would be even further ahead, but they have to make some really difficult architectural decisions to actually catch Apple. Even ARM’s own work lags. Qualcomms X Elite which was as much a clean sheet design that had the benefit of learning from M1 is similarly about 30% behind. Yes, there’s a benefit from Apple being on TSMCs N3E node instead of N4 like the X Elite, but it’s not 30%. You actually feel that difference more in power utilization – so it would allow thermal budget that might require a fan in N4 to be in a fanless design with N3E. So it explains why the M4 can be in an iPad but the X Elite requires a fan, but it doesn’t explain the performance gap on top of that difference. The benefit is the microarchitecture of Apple Silicon is quite different from the rest of the industry and that’s really where the performance comes from (not the power utilization which comes from the process).

    The main problem Intel/AMD have is that unlike Apple, they are unwilling/unable to jettison architectural decisions made in some cases decades ago, because backward compatibility is the thing they do, and it’s the thing Apple is willing to break and rely on a temporary shim to overcome (like Rosetta). A big part of the Apple Silicon advantage is there’s no early in the pipeline branch for 32 bit and 64 bit instructions because Apple killed 32 bit years ago, while x86 can’t possibly do that – it would break everything. It’s why the M4 can do 10-wide dispatch but x86 still struggles to get above (effectively) 4-wide. There’s a lot of technical debit in x86 that one way or another is going to have to be overcome, and the problem is that a lot of their customers are probably going to find that moving to Windows/ARM is going to be no less difficult than adapting to those x86 changes that will need to be made, and Windows/ARM will be more proven.

    Put another way, Intel/AMD have lost their last moat with Elite X – it’s a really good processor. Not on par with Apple, but ahead of Intel/AMD. Guessing that ARM captures at least 50% of Windows share within 5 years. And that might just be enough to starve Intel of their revenue to make them non-competitive. AMD still has a GPU market they can leverage – they can better make that transition. I think Nvidia will get massacred when the majority of the AI market moves on-device and they aren’t positioned to benefit from that.

    Intel lost their lead because they fucked up and backed the wrong process horse and got jammed on 14nm. Meanwhile, Apple was dumping cash into TSMC faster than Intel could afford to invest and pulled TSMC and mobile architectures up to where x86 was. Meanwhile, Intel/AMD are still stuck with architectural decisions made when laptops were an afterthought and sucking down 100W just to turn the damn thing on was your starting point. Meanwhile, Apple is pushing mobile standby power draw to as close to 0W as possible and building architectures up from that baseline, rather than down from a high power baseline, and in hindsight, that looks like a MUCH better place to work from. Intels stumble gave Apple an even easier road to push foundries to the front of the process pack (Samsung and TSMC) which meant that for the first time in decades you could mix and match your architecture and process, rather than having to rely on x86 to get you a decent process because both architecture and process were gated inside Intel’s concentric moats. TSMC destroyed one moat, and Apple coming out the gate with ARM processors that were faster than the fastest x86 stuff put a hell of a big crack in the other one.

    Microsoft, tired of their OEMs and silicon partners constantly fucking them over chose to pry that crack open, partner with Qualcomm, port Windows to ARM, and try and get a proper competitive Windows laptop market going – and it sure looks like they succeeded. They didn’t get ahead of Apple, but they’re less far behind. Understand your ‘non throttled’ laptop is probably clocked at 1.6GHz outside of turbo, which which is far less than the non-turbo 4GHz of the P cores in M3, and even the 2.7GHz E cores. That’s really where the performance gap lies – Intel can only get their performance for short bursts in turbo mode, otherwise they need to seriously underclock the machine in order to get any kind of battery life going because their architecture is designed for high power draw, while Apples is for low power draw, and it’s a lot easier to lift up from a low power foundation than try and starve a high power one (this may not have been obvious at the time, but in hindsight it absolutely is).

    Apple still has a fair bit of headroom in their design. They aren’t pushing clocks very hard. They have more money to stay on front in terms of process, and they aren’t particularly beholden to TSMC (they were a Samsung customer before) so if TSMC backs the wrong horse, Apple can jump to Samsung again, etc. And Apple because of their vertical nature, has more opportunity to make hard decisions regarding how to get performance out of their designs. They can kill 32 bit support by simply removing that from the App Store, the compilers, the APIs, and on down in however graceful a manner as their market needs, something that Intel and AMD don’t have control to do. Microsoft has nudged a lot closer to Apple’s model in that they do have a fair bit of vertical control now, but it’s unclear how hard a line they’re willing to run with their customers in terms of backward compatibility. That was always a big selling point for them.

    x86 is cooked as a leading architecture. It’ll be around forever, but it’ll be chasing the whole time. They’re outspent and Apple is infinitely more agile than these two component makers, with their reams of SKUs to appease a million different customers can be. Apple only needs to appease themselves, and they can make that architectural decision as an enterprise 4 years or more before anyone else even knows its happening and get the OS team, the compiler team, the language team (virtually all apps written for Apple hardware utilities their in-house languages), the APIs, the store support – the whole thing.

    Sure, Apple can fuck up, but man, that’s a rough thing to have to rely on to catch up. And X Elite helps keep Windows in the game, but it comes at Intel/AMDs expense, not Apple’s. Wintel infighting doesn’t hurt Apple, it just shifts the center of power in Wintel.

  172. 172.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl: What are you guys doing with triple digit weather?

    Actually, a big portion of California (that isn’t higher elevation or coastal areas) gets to the triple digits every summer, usually for only brief periods of time (more lately due to climate change).  Early June is very early for triple digits, though.

     

    @Jay: Using shade cloth before the heat hit, got a few more weeks out, before stuff bolted.

    I did put up the shade cloth over the hoops but I probably only got a few days extra.  Salad greens here in the hot and dry part of California are a winter or fall crop so I was already getting close to borrowed time.  I’ll plant another crop this fall when it gets cool again.

  174. 174.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: Unless I’m mistaken, Apple still regards the Mac as pretty much an afterthought in their corporate structure.  Their profits are from their phones (almost nobody on Earth makes profits on cell phones except Apple), the AppStore (the vig on all the apps downloads), and maybe AppleTV (maybe??).  They have almost no presence in the giant server farms that are taking over the world’s energy supply.  US Government use is still probably 95+% PCs (and it’s probably higher than that).

    Yes, things change, and one of the things that drives change is increased efficiency and capabilities per dollar.

    It’s really good that Apple is pushing the industry.  The WinTel duopoly has damaged progress for a very long time.

    But, as long as a SSD upgrade to 4TB is $1000 from Apple while it’s around $200 from Amazon, they’re not going after masses of corporate customers.  Yes, they can charge a premium and see no need to cut their prices.  They make giant profits.  But they’re profits in other areas than the masses of computing.

    I think you’re writing off x86 far too early.

    We’ll see.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  175. 175.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl: It has nothing to do with it. I don’t think what movie was playing mattered. Of course they could have gone to the drive-in theater…

  176. 176.

    Ruckus

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Welcome to the old farts club. I turn 75 in a small bit. At least it’s all downhill from here. Of course downhill, uphill, flat ground, it gets mostly the same, other than climbing mountains. You have to be reasonably careful no matter what the hell you are doing. And take your time because most anything strenuous cranks up the heart. My point is that there is no perfect life, health or program to make any of it always work well or forever. You do the best you can, you work on the issues, and you know that in the end it all works out the same. I say enjoy the ride, push but not too hard or fast and it will be what it will be. And BTW, NONE of us like senioritis, the only thing to enjoy is the next day. Keep doing that as long as you can. The next day, the day after, the day after the day after – and so on.

    And sometimes a heating pad helps……

  178. 178.

    WaterGirl

    @Jackie: It must have had something to do with it or Boebert wouldn’t have gotten upset.

    I hadn’t taken note of the fact that they were at a performance of Beetlejuice when she, well, put on the performance of her own.

  179. 179.

    RevRick

    This morning I participated in a Zoom meeting of the Penn Northeast Conference Annual Spring Meeting. Basically, we just receive annual reports, but this meeting also included an in-person component of delegates of all four Pennsylvania UCC Conferences in preparation for a possible merger. I understand the circumstances of decline that are driving this process, but it seems like we’re writing a constitution without a Preamble.
    In the afternoon I went for my walk through the neighborhood, the spousal unit and I watched episodes of Jessica Jones and In the Footsteps of Vincent Van Gogh. After a nap I went to Patient First to deal with an infection brewing in my thumb. Good times.

  186. 186.

    hitchhiker

    @CaseyL:

    You can come visit me anytime. I’m in Langley and I know lots of great walks. :)

    (yeah, seriously)

  187. 187.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    Sometimes a manufacturer has to start over or lose a lot of business, because things do change, it is the nature of the world. Apple has one structure to pay attention to, it’s own. The rest of the computing world has to worry about all their competitors using the same basic equipment. Of course as an Apple fan boy I am a tad one sided on this issue but I’ve been using computers for some time and have had a cell phone for about 30 yrs. And yes I started with a very early Apple computer but ran with Microsoft based for a long time because the software I needed for business ran on Windows. But today? Apple isn’t the cheapest but really isn’t that much more expensive but you get it all from one place, one responsible party. If you have a problem it’s a one stop shop. Not electronics one place, operating system another and programs a third or more, each one willing to blame the others for issues. And the only issue I’ve had with Apple was operator error. Damned idiot……..

  188. 188.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl: She got upset because the radio station producer trolled her by playing music from Beetlejuice – the movie she was at when she was kicked out fore playing (pun intended) handsie with her date.

    I misunderstood your initial confusion, I guess. I thought you were questioning “what Beetlejuice the movie” had to do with their choice for heavy petting.

  189. 189.

    Scout211

    @Jackie: She got upset because the radio station producer trolled her by playing music from Beetlejuice – the movie she was at when she was kicked out fore playing (pun intended) handsie with her date.

     

    It wasn’t a showing of the movie, it was a live performance of the musical version of Beetlejuice.  I think maybe that might be some of the confusion. ??

  190. 190.

    Another Scott

    @Ruckus: Vertical integration is a big strength of Apple, no doubt.

    But MS is huge in big businesses and corporations not because it’s good (it often isn’t) but because (among other things) it has an army of “Certified Microsoft Engineers” and the like to provide support for their software to their big customers.  The giant USG contracts for cloud stuff isn’t supported by millions of engineers and technicians in Redmond, it’s a bunch of Beltway Bandits who know how to (kinda) bend MS’s software to their users’ needs.

    AFAIK, Apple doesn’t have a support system like that because they haven’t needed to.  They have users call Apple for their installation support, or have them take their machine to a Genius Bar, or read Reddit, but they don’t have people that can support, say, 50,000 seats at ZWAXY, Inc. or the Department of Funny Walks, who suddenly can’t login after an OS update and need a fix NOW NOW NOW.

    As long as Apple isn’t chasing after that kind of market, they won’t have a big place in it.  And WinTel x86 hardware and software will still be around.

    Of course, ultimately whether x86 software is running on real Intel or AMD hardware is another issue.  AMD has been a RISC vendor for ages (going back to the K5), and Intel was dragged kicking-and-screaming to join them as well a long time ago.  Nobody really makes “real x86” processors any more – they all have advanced way beyond that and have microcode to be x86 compatible. If Apple gets and stays as far ahead as they are (in some ways) then virtualization (VMWare, etc.) can become a more compelling story. (After all, one can even simulate a IBM System/360 pretty easily these days. ;-)

    My $0.02.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  191. 191.

    Jackie

    @Scout211: Oh! I didn’t recall it being a LIVE performance! That’s way worse than a movie!

    As for the radio station trolling her, the producer gets a standing ovation and BRAVO! from me!     👏🏻👏🏻

  192. 192.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @TBone: The author should regret ever taking a gig at a fascist publication like The Federalist.

  196. 196.

    CaseyL

    @hitchhiker: ​
     

    That’s wonderful of you! I’ve been to a fair number of trails on the island – a longtime friend lives there – but am always happy to find more.

    WG has my email address, if you’d like to contact me that way. (WaterGirl, it’s OK to give my email to hitchhiker.)

  198. 198.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    MS had me for business stuff if that wasn’t clear.

    But it clearly, really did not seem to have an idea, a concept, other than throw software engineers at it and see what comes out. I have no idea how it is today but I was not impressed when I had little choice because the software I needed was MS based. When I no longer needed MS, I took the best escape path and would do so again, except that I am solidly, absolutely no questions asked, reverse gear is broken – RETIRED and have zero need, concept, desire to make that lousy choice again.

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