Science and Technology thread

[rome8180]

Okay, so actual top of the line is one of their $20,000 desktops. But this about the best laptop they sell.

 

[ZackM]

Okay, so I'm sick of dealing with recording latency and lack of storage space on my Mac. Selling a few things and using some savings to buy a new Mac.

Decided I'm going top of the line. It's expensive as shit, but it should serve me for years.

The specs:

Hardware​

• Apple M2 Max with 12‑core CPU, 38‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
• 32GB unified memory
• 2TB SSD storage
• 96W USB-C Power Adapter
• 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display²
• Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port
• Backlit Magic Keyboard with Touch ID - US English
• Accessory Kit

Will a 96w charger be able to keep up under heavy use?

 

[rome8180]

No idea. But it doesn't seem like there's another option with this particular setup.

Besides, I'm used to Mac chargers being pieces of shit. It's just built in to the cost of owning one. I've generally gone through at least four chargers with every Mac I own.

 

[CK86]

@rome8180 Dunno if you saw but there was a new Apple conference announcing a bunch of new products. Your ideal setup may go down in price (probably not much but maybe a couple hundred dollars).

Mac Studio Gets M2 Max and M2 Ultra Support - IGN

Apple has unveiled the latest Mac Studio with the option to configure it to either a M2 Ultra or M2 Max chip.

www.ign.com

 

[rome8180]

@rome8180 Dunno if you saw but there was a new Apple conference announcing a bunch of new products. Your ideal setup may go down in price (probably not much but maybe a couple hundred dollars).

Mac Studio Gets M2 Max and M2 Ultra Support - IGN

Apple has unveiled the latest Mac Studio with the option to configure it to either a M2 Ultra or M2 Max chip.

www.ign.com

I wonder how soon that will happen. I can't really afford to wait.

Part of my impetus for wanting to do it soon is that I need a new battery. It doesn't make sense for me to shell out for a battery if I'm going to get a new computer anyway. But the battery is so bad that I basically have to have it plugged in at all times. Means I won't be able to work at coffee shops with no outlets or on trips.

 

[CK86]

@rome8180 Dunno if you saw but there was a new Apple conference announcing a bunch of new products. Your ideal setup may go down in price (probably not much but maybe a couple hundred dollars).

Mac Studio Gets M2 Max and M2 Ultra Support - IGN

Apple has unveiled the latest Mac Studio with the option to configure it to either a M2 Ultra or M2 Max chip.

www.ign.com

I wonder how soon that will happen. I can't really afford to wait.

Part of my impetus for wanting to do it soon is that I need a new battery. It doesn't make sense for me to shell out for a battery if I'm going to get a new computer anyway. But the battery is so bad that I basically have to have it plugged in at all times. Means I won't be able to work at coffee shops with no outlets or on trips.

Obviously I didn't look super deep into it but it says that June 13th is when the new products go on sale. When I sold iphones, usually the prices dropped within a range of a week out of the new product coming to a week after it launched. Lot of times though, it was very quickly after an announcement that the price dropped on older stuff so hopefully you'll see some benefits shortly.

 

[DurhamSon]

Adaptive Cruise Control is good enough, we don't need this self-driving bullshit, good grief

 

[rome8180]

@rome8180 Dunno if you saw but there was a new Apple conference announcing a bunch of new products. Your ideal setup may go down in price (probably not much but maybe a couple hundred dollars).

Mac Studio Gets M2 Max and M2 Ultra Support - IGN

Apple has unveiled the latest Mac Studio with the option to configure it to either a M2 Ultra or M2 Max chip.

www.ign.com

I wonder how soon that will happen. I can't really afford to wait.

Part of my impetus for wanting to do it soon is that I need a new battery. It doesn't make sense for me to shell out for a battery if I'm going to get a new computer anyway. But the battery is so bad that I basically have to have it plugged in at all times. Means I won't be able to work at coffee shops with no outlets or on trips.

Obviously I didn't look super deep into it but it says that June 13th is when the new products go on sale. When I sold iphones, usually the prices dropped within a range of a week out of the new product coming to a week after it launched. Lot of times though, it was very quickly after an announcement that the price dropped on older stuff so hopefully you'll see some benefits shortly.

It ended up being that a new Macbook Air and a new Macbook Studio were released. Since I was getting a Macbook Pro, it didn't affect me. I considered the new Air, but ultimately there weren't enough upgrade options for what I needed.

 

[rome8180]

Got my new laptop yesterday. I can't tell you how freeing this is. My old Pro only had 500 GB of space. That's enough for most people, but if you make music that fills up very quickly. I was going through my laptop once a week, backing up everything on an external SSD, and deleting everything I didn't need quick access to. Even after doing that, I was still regularly at the 90% full mark. You're supposed to keep around 50 GB free for optimal performance.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Twitter on its last legs. I’d bet on Google or Microsoft to step in and replace it.

 

[DurhamSon]

I don't think large scale anonymous social media is an inherently profitable venture, by concept. It's no coincidence that these companies' entire existence outside the startup/VC phase has been in the long era of zero interest rates; Twitter and Reddit and their peers in normal macroeconomic conditions are never going to make it long term.

Leads me to believe only social media (more like "content media" I guess) which is tied to real identities visually like Facebook/Tiktok/Youtube are viable, as it's much easier to drive longer engagement with the video medium than it is reading a post, and much easier to target advertising demographically.

 

[rome8180]

Less than half of what Jerami Grant will make annually.

I assume this was supposed to be in the NBA thread? Unless maybe Reaves is a cyborg.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Yeah I will move it to make you look like the idiot.

 

[rome8180]

I don't need any help with that.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

He should not try to run 3 companies at the same time.

 

[DrKlahn]

I would imagine that the penalty for running a child porn site with nearly 500 million users is steep.

 

[CK86]

I don't think large scale anonymous social media is an inherently profitable venture, by concept. It's no coincidence that these companies' entire existence outside the startup/VC phase has been in the long era of zero interest rates; Twitter and Reddit and their peers in normal macroeconomic conditions are never going to make it long term.

Leads me to believe only social media (more like "content media" I guess) which is tied to real identities visually like Facebook/Tiktok/Youtube are viable, as it's much easier to drive longer engagement with the video medium than it is reading a post, and much easier to target advertising demographically.

I think the only way you're gonna successfully monetize a Twitter type platform is by charging from the start. Trying to charge 10+ years into its existence, no one is gonna go for that especially when there's absolutely nothing useful about the additional 'features'.

 

[rome8180]

I'm super happy that Apple brought back the magnetic Magsafe port/magnetic charging cable on their new laptop. I have no idea why they did away with it in the first place. It's such a great design if you're clumsy like me. Prevents any disasters where you trip over your charging cable and pull your laptop to the floor.

 

[bfactor]

Probably saves my 8 year old Air multiple times a day.

 

[CK86]

Signed up for the "Threads" app. Seems easy enough to use but we'll see how it does against Twitter. Was hoping BlueSky would be available to a larger audience before Threads launched to give it a fighting shot against Facebook but guess not.