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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 14th, 2023

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  • Just took a look at Framework, it’s a cool concept. I wish the company was older just to see how it forms it’s sea legs. As a mass market item, I can’t imagine the general populace upgrading their own laptop over time, though maybe I’m just old. I didn’t see any computers made from Valve, but I had not thought of them as a hardware company.

    But yeah I agree, companies will form their optimization function for profits not people (by design) so people should never put their faith in them. This M1 Air is my first Mac, but I do have to say it is really nice. Excited to see what other companies do to combat it.



  • I don’t work for Apple, so I don’t really know, but I have worked at many electronics companies. A few points:

    • Companies lock down or will open source IP (software/firmware/hardware) to meet a particular business strategy. In the mass product market, litigation is common for patent infringement so careful control is taken on each technology. I’m not sure I believe in opensourcing everything. Companies need to stay competitive. Behind a company is ten of thousands of employees that are being paid a livelihood (not just all developers making $250k+/yr, plenty other people in operations, quality, distribution, marketing etc)
    • Apple’s strategy is to build a vertically integrated tech stack internally that is aligned with their vision. This is their brand and the people who like the company vision will buy it. You don’t have to like all their choices, but they have done the math and have figured out the proper moving average between pissing off consumers and providing value to know where they stand. They like doing things the Apple way, ensure the company can continue to make money and innovate
    • You don’t have to buy the product. Just because you think the price is absurd doesn’t mean others can’t afford it. Personally, in the work I’m doing, my cheaper MacBook Air is having more value to me than my Linux computer I spent 3x more. The OP is designed for a specific type of user, it’s not meant for everyone. For work, I don’t need my computer to be opensource, I need it to work, so I can get my job done. For personal geekiness, I love the opensource nature of linux and have contributed to many projects, however, a company like Apple is definitely needed to make landmark improvements in technology. There is a reason why you go out to an Italian restaurant and get a $26 pasta dish when you can make it at home for $4.
    • In your thought process, hardware is hardware. But there is also a mission that is attached with it. Apple leads in terms of mitigation of environmental impact which I think is pretty cool. It offers buybacks for most (all ?) products. I don’t know how much they actually recycle per part or if things are just getting shipped off to Zambia and being sold as refurbished. If I’m paying a little more to benefit a company that aligns with my values than so be it. They aren’t going to sell a product for a loss (unless strategically). There are too many retirement funds in Apple for it to be losing money

  • Not sure why this user is getting down voted. They made valid points. I have been using Linux as a personal computer since the I was old enough to type, however, my job uses M1 macs. I can definitely say MacOS in terms of UX is a pain (especially without making some third party updates), but I cannot talk shit about the hardware performance.

    I initially grimaced when I received a 16GB RAM M1 computer from IT, however, the battery life along with the compute power has not failed me. I run 3D CAD, write software, and design simulation models and have been honestly amazed compared to my 64GB RAM + Nvidia GPU Linux computer.

    Everyone talks about Mac fanboys, but I think the anti-Mac fanboys are just as bad. Seem to automatically hate Apple stuff without even using it. If you take a look at what is going on (outside of Apple) with supercomputing and high speed serial links, you would understand why Apple is doing what it is.






  • Any launch from the moon would require launch back from earth to retrieve the rocket so it can be put to use again.

    Space elevator and orbit launch is an interesting thought. I think it’s a tough sell. In that case we would be launching uncontrolled asteroid-like dumps towards the earth. Sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. Every city would need a missile defense system 🤣. The resource dumps would have to be big enough to warrant the investment in the space elevator and not burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, or, we would need a space elevator on earth too (which would be the biggest engineering and political feat humans have ever done).

    Mass driver. That’s another cool idea. From some research it looks like most metals have a temperature which they stop being magnetic and getting into Earth’s atmosphere would put most metals past that. Having a mass driver on top of a space elevator, or just a giant mass driver, also sounds like a head scratcher if most resources we would want can’t be ‘slowed down’

    The problem with all these cool engineering ideas is that they seem to require a united human race. The universal earthling concept is probably lifetimes away or until we face some (un)natural disaster that causes countries to unify. With the way the world is right now, I am having a hard time imagining uniting for ‘progress’.