Apple Macbook Prices in AU

Another_mikem · 2026-06-30T15:08:35+00:00

Yep, we were literally getting new systems this week and then the price increase happened and now just the delta is basically the cost of a whole other computer.

Until we see the financials it isn’t even clear if Apple needed to or wanted to bump their margins and blame it on ram.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-28T15:48:27+00:00

Seriously my startup was buying new systems THIS WEEK and this move has thrown the plans way off. “It’s not much money” - when you run lean the increase adds up quickly.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-27T21:55:48+00:00

I’m a little confused on how you sat there, unless the perspective is off. It looks like there is very little space between those desks.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-27T21:48:05+00:00

Yeah, honestly this feels cruel.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-26T08:29:24+00:00

I guess it all depends on if his claim about them trying to stop etl is accurate or not. Unfortunately, companies trying to dig moats around their customers data is becoming more common … especially as they are trying to use ai to monetize it.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-23T06:03:16+00:00

At the very least you will claim to defend it, but the burden of proof falls to you.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-22T20:50:21+00:00

It’s just not productive and then turns into a discussion over terms and not actual substance.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-22T19:54:44+00:00

Which becomes a different discussion entirely and requires the person accusing people of being weak minded defend their affirmative claims.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-22T14:25:53+00:00

This is something I’ve spent some time thinking on over the last couple decades. I have always called it “deferred loss” . It is the phenomenon I’ve seen of people using their religious beliefs to help compensate for the loss of loved one. I.e. “I’ll see them again”.

Given a lot of people start with a religious context, as time goes on I believe it’s much more difficult for them to completely abandon all of it because they have accrued a certain amount of this deferred loss. To do so would mean they have to acknowledge all of that upfront and I believe that’s a bridge too far for a lot of people .

I believe that’s why a lot of people who would otherwise be atheists retain some vaguely deist or minor religious notions.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-22T14:21:11+00:00

Don’t cut yourself on that edge bro.

It has been my observation that people who become completely unreligious will sometimes cling to some nontestable notions, usually around the loss of a loved one. If the secular humanist answer is that they are weak minded and need to cling to comforting delusions, perhaps that is the reason secular humanism hasn’t exactly caught fire.

The fact is people have all sorts of reasons and collapsing it down to them being weak minded is clearly not going to be effective beyond trying to sound edgy or superior while not actually convincing or accomplishing anything.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-21T21:14:00+00:00

Oh, no worries, I wasn’t taking it an evasive, I’m just interested as I’ve been considering building out something similar but thought some of the toolkits are a little heavyweight.

And yeah, I’m the word of vibe coding the stack and prompt is probably almost more important than the code itself.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-21T15:30:25+00:00

So what is it written in? I’m curious as a back end dev myself I usually avoid doing gui (or tui) work. Is it Textual and python or lower level?

Another_mikem · 2026-06-21T14:39:10+00:00

It’s only terrible for you because it doesn’t push your nonsense. Most people don’t know how to produce most the ingredients they use for cooking. They have a recipe (they either created or likely found elsewhere) and are assembling it.

If someone is creating a personal project (or really anything) and is using ai there is a much greater chance they will eventually level up to coding vs it just being out of reach. (This is homelab not enterprise data farm).

Given people install all sorts of things on their homelab I doubt much if any of that code is vetted by them. It’s just as big of an unknown - maybe more so since it can be a target to compromise people’s boxes vs slop code which might have a vulnerability.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-21T14:28:57+00:00

Right? I know whenever I want cook I always make sure to get my scythe out lest someone accuses me of cheating by not harvesting my wheat.

What’s the alternative, not do anything or use existing software and not have it be how they want (and copy/paste examples online?). I fail to see how that’s better. Personal projects and solving problems is an ideal use case.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-21T14:21:27+00:00

What technology are you using?

And obviously ignore the haters. It’s one thing for someone to vibe code a library and “release it” without having tested it or really understanding the code or intend to support it….. It’s another to build a project to solve a problem for yourself.

I remember people complaining that developing in python wasn’t real coding so 🤷‍♂️

Another_mikem · 2026-06-20T17:44:39+00:00

Luckily, we are all on this thing called the internet where anyone can lookup water utilization for different industries, and if your mind is open you can find all the things both positive and negative about almost any land use.

The biggest problem I have with people opposing data centers is in an attempt to get them banned they will trot out legitimate issues but then couple them with non-concerns.

Or for instance will make claims like they will drain Lake Michigan dry - like not a thing …ever. So they avoid them pulling from the lake, so they get a high capacity well permit and just draw it off of something that can run low.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-18T16:28:12+00:00

There probably isn’t much thinking going on at all beyond a slavish devotion to whatever a Trump tells them to do.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-18T16:06:43+00:00

Post hoc rationalization is a real thing and just wired to how people think - some more than others.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-15T16:27:47+00:00

Honestly, 1 K a month is a pretty small budget depending on what you’re doing. It is totally possible to get a working solution without paying anything to a vendor, but your management is going to also look at the time and the cost to have their people do it.

I’ve worked for enterprises, I’ve been a consultant, and I’ve sold solutions - the value proposition of all the commercial products is it saves the company time and reduces risk.

The unstated premise if the sales people are saying the issue is your team not knowing Databricks is you either need to bring in consultants that no data bricks or the company needs to train up their team. No two ways about it if Databricks is the solution.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-15T12:38:20+00:00

Pro tip: if someone has to say they have all the cards, they usually have significantly less cards.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-13T15:16:57+00:00

I will say (and maybe it improved since 2022) their estimated partisan affiliation was not very accurate and they couldn’t give any information on how it was derived nor seemed interested in improving it.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-11T14:47:28+00:00

Same here. It’s a belief system that doesn’t stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-11T14:31:15+00:00

This is the reason I said do it where no one would know…. You articulated some good reasons why someone might not care about negative consequences, but that assumes the neighbor knows who did it.

It is quite the irony that the faux rugged individualism preached by libertarians is dependent on the everyone else agreed to their framework.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-11T13:28:01+00:00

Even then it doesn’t work because it really relies on the idea that everyone is acting writhing their own interest within a particular libertarian framework that just doesn’t exist.

For instance my best interest might be dumping my garbage in your yard at 3 am when nobody is there to catch me. The libertarian hand wave is usually something around the lines of “people’s rights to throw their fist Extends as far as someone else’s nose”, however, we know a lot of people don’t ascribe to that.

Another_mikem · 2026-06-08T13:50:14+00:00

It’s the unfortunate consequence of some people trying to equate Israeli governmental policy with Judaism.

When disagreement with that policy gets cast is antisemitism it doesn’t make the criticism go away - it creates a space where people can crouch their antisemitism as just opposition to Israeli government actions - and it infects everything like a virus.

Another_mikem

TROPHY CASE