NathanielK

> since the storage is encrypted at rest with the key stored in the Secure Enclave

Bitlocker on W10 allows you to export the long key it to a file or printer. I've used this to swap SSDs from family members laptops with out much friction. This makes for simple upgrades or getting them going quickly after a failure. Perhaps Apple's implementation is different, but it doesn't need to be.

> (Also, a brand new laptop has just as much chance of being stolen or suffering water damage or mistaken file erasure or a thousand other things that would destroy the data. Two months without backup is lunacy)

For laptops used mostly at home, it's surprisingly difficult to kill the SSD inside them. Everyone's risk is different.

I had an english prof who'd take a mark off if you ever handed in anything containing "utilized". Now I see it every where.

Sony[1] has a ruggedized version of their flagship with all the same fancy specs. You might not like the price however.

https://electronics.sony.com/mobile/smartphone/professional-...

I disagree. With modern materials, the thinness is the root of durability compromises. I've used my Xperia XZ1 compact for several years without a case. I've dropped it on concrete floors, sat on it, and used it in the mud. There're some chips in the paint, but the fiberglass body underneath is fine. Any scratches on the Gorilla Glass 5 are barely visible.

My old phones with cheap poly-carbonate backs(cracks easily) and thin GG3(cracks,scratches are apparent) were fragile in comparison. The material science has improved with modern phones, but manufacturers choose to make fragile phones.

You don't need thick overmoulding and port covers to make a phome durable without a case. The materials are strong enough on the high end phones. The problem is that when you make the glass thinner and exposed at the corners, it will crack with much less impact. The overall thinness means less flexural rigidity (rigidity is proportional to thickness cubed), you can snap a modern phone with your hands. Cheap new phones get it even worse. They use flimsier materials to cram a better SoC in, and still are rarely waterproof.

Skip Silence[1] for chrome does exactly that.

[1]https://vantezzen.github.io/skip-silence/

> Like the M1 runs as fast as current gen x86 processors, while running cooler. How?

The M1 is one "node" ahead. Apple forked out the cash to get all their chips on TSMC's 5nm process. This is about 2 years of advancement over the 7nm process AMD pays TSMC for. Intel's latest 10nm node is similarly behind TSMC 5nm.

Semiconductors are tricky. Small performance gains take large increases in power. If you play with overclocking, you'll learn power increases quadratically or even cubically with clocks. The mere "2nm" shrink may seem inconsequential, but for these iso-perfomance comparisons(performance@constant-thermals), it is key.

All this to say, you get what you pay for. Chips can get the same performance on TSMC's 5nm node while using 70% of the power as chips on the 7nm node.[1] Compared to TSMC's 10nm (similar to Intel's popular 14nm still in production), 5nm chips can be expected to use ~45% of the power.

Hopefully that shed some light on the M1's biggest advantage for you.

[1] https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15219/wikichip_tsmc_logic_...

That was the game change with the original iPad. When you strip all the other specs away and put an original iPad next to a 2010 laptop, you realize just how awful the mainstream LCD panels were at the time. It's an exciting change I think will benefit consumers. Less being upsold on questionable i7s and more nice displays please.

I've found similar. Clearing all paths is not always a priority. In the winter it is was necessary for me to find alternate routes for my bicycle commute.

Single lane roads with no shoulder can be very dangerous in the winter. Fortunately where I am in Canada, there's adequate space for cars to pass on the roads I take.

> bicycles are still quite horrible in the winter. I find the opposite. The activity itself is fine, but the winter is quite horrible on bicycles. Salt and slush can really make a mess of the mechanisms.

I went to a college with that problem. After your mandatory password change, any device autoconnecting to wifi would trigger a lockout. Since the same password was also use to log into network computers, there was no way to visit the webapp to unlock your account.

Unless you had data on your smartphone or had a friend who was logged in, you were SoL.

For home gamers, keep in mind the price of the machine is only one part. Large laser cutters are expensive to ship (from china), and take up a big space. Most materials will also require adequate ventilation.

As others have suggested, jobbing it out or joining a makerspace is often the best choice for occasional use.

The problem is that there is a lot of of variance in preferences. Clothing etailers have the same problem where some people are used to it being snugger in different areas. Folks who share dimensions may be used to different fits.

If it's not your personal phone, you can just turn the work phone off when you do not want to be spied on.

Intel Tigerlake and Amd Renoir both support 128bit LPDDR4x at 4266MHz. Maybe you're confusing the desktop chips that use conventional DDR4? The M1 isn't competitive with them.

150% compared to what?

Intel has. Many M1 design choices are fairly typical for desktop x86 chips, but unheard of with ARM.

For example, the M1 has 128 bit wide memory. This has been standard for decades on the desktop(dual channel), but unheard of in cellphones. The M1 also has similar amounts of cache to the new AMD and Intel chips, but thats several times more than the latest snapdragon. Qualcomm also doesn't just design for the latest node. Most of their volume is on cheaper, less dense nodes.

Anecdata, after a non-techy family member's phone stopped being updated, it had an uptime of over 2 years by the time it was replaced.

If more people had the option of long-term support releases and live kernel patching with computers, I would expect similar results with laptops.

> There's something about the Firefox's scrolling behaviour that I find really annoying. Old versions didn't enable fractional scrolling by default. On Debian 9 XFCE, GTK3 apps and chromium both had it baked in.

Fractional scrolling is what lets you move just a pixel at a time with your trackpoint or trackpad scrolling. Maybe it has been patched since then, but at the time firefox needed a tweak. Afterwards trackpoint scrolling felt more precise than my W10 thinkpads.

Your site is broken on some browsers that do not support darkmode. On Firefox 78.9 ESR the text is #EBEBEB on #FFFFFF, so it's illegible. Firefox 78 ESR is supported till September this year.

You can use the launcher too. If you set the launcher to open a new tab, it'll bring the keyboard up too. This means you're one tap from searching your query in the browser.

If you have a good keyboard, you can even use DDG !bang syntax. I find this very helpful for finding what I want fast.

> Debian stable is very old for a workstation.

For a programming workstation perhaps. Many people can do their work with the software provided with Debian Stable. If they're job isn't changing much, there's less to worry about over the life of install too.

I still crave (you)s on HN. Even though HN has no notifications or inbox. I still check my threads frequently to see if anyone has replied to me. Maybe you are happy using throw-aways and shouting into the void, but I think that is a minority.

I love this combo! Since the NC31E were pack-in earbuds, they were dirt cheap on the grey market. I purchased my pair for ~20CAD just before Covid. They work well with my XZ1 compact. After the XZ1, they removed the special 5 pole jack so new Xperias lack the feature.

The implementation is clever too. The wired-noise cancelling doesn't require extra chips. Sony used the built in noise-cancelling feature on the Qualcomm audio chips. The chips also support a "transparency mode" like feature, but there is no convenient way to use it in software.

> Sony phones too seem to be quite underappreciated.

Their phones are excellent, but their not available at all in many marks (they left Canada recently). Xperias are very expensive. For example, the Xperia 10ii costs twice as much as the Moto G8. Both phones have the same SDM665 SoC and budget eMMC storage. On paper, many people would cross shop them.

Since I've owned my XZ1c, I've come to appreciate the durability of Sony phones. I've dropped it, caked it in grease and batter, and generally abused it with no case. It works fine, just some chips in the paint. Based on this I would recommend Sony. They use thick Gorilla Glass 6 and even the cheaper models are IP68 rated. Cell phone durability doesn't translate well to a spec sheet or tv ad very well though.

What is wrong with swiping for the notification from anywhere to reach the media controls?

Foobar2k android is lovely, but it has quirks. If you use the "Shuffle albums/tracks" feature, then go back, there is no return. Reopening will reshuffle all the media again.

There are fewer apps designed for small phones. For my 4.6" phone with a large UI scale, I found foobar2000[1] very functional. It truncates even less than Phonograph and has high contrast themes.

[1]]http://foobar2000.com/get-android

If you're short on time you'd also be more likely to order from Deliveroo, making this situation even uglier.

BlackBerry only lets BlackBerry hardware install it from the playstore. BlackBerry Manager[1] was an MIT licensed program that let you patch and install on unauthorized devices. Sadly, it looks like repository was deleted in the last few months(DMCA?). Silly considering they haven't released any Android 10 devices.

Maybe there's still BlackBerry Manager apks around. I'd recommend trying it out, it's still an excellent typing experience. Haven't found anything to replace it yet.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20201121204253/https://github.co...

That's about as thick as most phones with a "Tuf" case.

BlackBerry's keyboard software is excellent too. I use BlackBerry Keyboard[1] on my compact Xperia. The auto-suggests appear on the keys themselves. This saves valuable real-estate compared to having an extra row of words above the keyboard.

Sadly BlackBerry haven't released new hardware for ~3 years and their software is barely on life support. A shame since they have a knack for functional design.

[1]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackberry...

For long distance driving speed is key. Highways can be faster even when they are indirect. This is what the OSMAnd "Fuel Efficient Way" routing is based on. It biases towards the shortest routes that may have lower speed limits. This is nice for road trips and bicycling, but can be quirky with city driving.

I remember that. Part of the Intel Graphics driver kit. W10 is pretty good about including basic drivers so that is probably when it stopped working for you. The shortcut still works for anyone who's gone through the hassle of installing Intel's drivers.