hackshack

I’m old enough to remember when they complained about Macs not having parallel ports. …And yet, Macs still work adequately. (Parallel ports!) For years now I’ve had a 27” iMac and a homebuilt PC on my desk, for mechanical and electrical design, embedded work, and VR development. I use both, happily. Toolchains tend to work on both. Never understood the Mac vs PC jingoism myself; in this old hacker’s opinion, “upgradeability” generally was a legacy of the 90s when components were more dear. I rarely “upgrade” in a box’s lifecycle beyond adding storage. I certainly don’t add more RAM or swap CPUs after the purchase date. I would say, it is fun building a PC to be “just so.”

There are some great suggestions in this sub-thread... don't get a gadget for the sake of getting one. That said, if you have a considered need for one, here's my take: I "think by writing" and unfortunately my textfiles are more organized than my physical papers. The reMarkable 2 was worth it for me. The thing eliminates all my paper clutter and is so close to paper it's effectively identical. There's tooth to the paper and drag on the "pencil." It OCRs your handwriting and is searchable. Options: I recommend absolutely spending the money on the eraser-equipped stylus. Otherwise you have to manually switch tools using the slow eInk UI and it would be a nightmare. I got the grey cloth cover and it's a great understated look compared to the leather. Just looks like a notepad. My reMarkable 2 had an odd build quality issue where the back was bumped out a little. I got an early one. The device goes past the uncanny valley right into a paper replacement. I had to stop myself setting a coffee cup on it because I forgot it was 'lectronic. Re: durability, I still use paper pads at the electronic or mechanical bench due to worrying about scratches on the reMarkable. The screen has not scratched yet for me but I do worry about it.

LibreCAD is the closest I've found for my use case. I strictly used AutoCAD for making architectural floorplans. I used the relative ("@") command heavily and LibreCAD has the same feature. The UI also feels somewhat similar. LibreCAD still lacks powerful grouping and block functions, and text could be better when compared to AutoCAD's DTEXT/MTEXT. It's one of those FOSS projects that feels like there's a lot of potential, similar to Blender before its big overhaul last year.

I think by writing, both on a keyboard and paper. Tendonitis was prevented by using the Dvorak layout (keyboard model more or less irrelevant) and a fountain pen. Fountain pens reduce or eliminate cramping by not requiring pressure. You just drag the nib across the page to make a mark. The ink stands out as blacker for a given pressure compared to anything else I've used except maybe a thick technical pen with India ink (which clogs easily). I prefer older pens with flexible nibs. Modern fountain pens are designed for people used to ballpoints, so the nibs are very stiff and it feels like writing with a nail. These newer fountain pens may actually require pressure to make a decent mark, which goes against the ergonomics for me. Price is irrelevant; my Parker 21 or Noodler's Ahab, both with flexible nibs, write nicer than my Mont Blanc which admittedly looks prettier. The Noodler's takes some noodling to get the way you want (pulling nib tines apart, messing with the feed) which can be a pain in the butt similar to setting up X configs... sometimes you just want the tool to work. The Parker just runs beautifully as long as it's clean and used with Quink. Anyways if you write a lot, consider these, along with the Blackwing pencils if you prefer graphite. Also props to the reMarkable 2 (with the fancier "erasable" stylus).

They warranty the repair for 90 days.

Ugh, that’s terrible. AppleCare phone support can be hit-or-miss. You could try another rep. If you were up to it, you could book an appointment with a Genius at their store, and calmly but firmly lay out your case. Perhaps they would make it right, considering it’s destroying your satisfaction with their products. Failing that, you may be able to have it repaired less expensively by Louis Rossmann’s shop. (Not a customer, but I know they do these kinds of things.) Definitely reset the SMC and PRAM if you haven’t already, but I suspect the update might have borked the firmware on a chip. I’m just a random user though.

Just say there are massive polar gold deposits on Mars. Funding solved end of next week.

This. Mac user since 1991. In 2016, I needed a VR development box with a fast GPU, so I supplemented the 27” iMac on my desk with a homebuilt PC and 27” 4K monitor. That little PC has earned its keep! I use the PC about 95% of the time. The iMac is now my Pixelmator and OmniOutliner appliance, and backup OBS video capture device.

Win10’s last 2 years of “builds” are very good. It still rots like regular Windows, but I got 3.5 years of heavy use before reinstalling it. Main apps are Unity, Visual Studio 2017, and some hardware design stuff (SOLIDWORKS, KiCad, SEGGER). It feels so liberating to have all my niche apps on the PC without having to virtualize.

User experience on Windows is a little jankier, but the utility of the niche apps makes up for it. I miss AirDrop. If I were to advise Microsoft on one thing: fix the Control Panel situation in Win10. It’s like layers of bad makeup.

Windows also restores much worse than macOS. I miss Time Machine. I purchased a tool called Macrium Reflect which gets me close enough, and actually can restore a bootable system.

Nordic’s pretty good. It’s not $5/module - closer to $15 - but is very good from a low-level embedded perspective. Their toolchain is first-rate and may have been validated by your target audience.

I keep meaning to have a bumper sticker made: “Solar Power is Nuclear Power!” with a cute little trefoil for one of the O’s.

Until we can do profitable fusion, though, “alternative” energy may be the best, holistically.

Neighborhood-, ward-, and city-sized nuclear à la Taylor Wilson’s proposal would be ideal, but humans will be humans and we can’t afford such a security risk. This pains me to no end. We’ve been given a near-magical metal (see XKCD, “Plutonium”) but we’re too... base to manufacture and use it appropriately.

I’m butchering it, but the quote that keeps coming back to me is, “Nuclear is a 22nd-century solution to a 20th-century problem.”

If you’re into fate and religious stuff, I have a suspicion it was deliberately dangled in front of us as the one way to conquer interstellar space, if we can maturely manage the material itself.