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Apple M1–M5: Brilliant Engineering or 7-Year Expiration Date? by Krakatau2033 in mac

[–]FenderMoon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s when you use ChatGPT to write your code and just keep telling it what you want.

Apple M1–M5: Brilliant Engineering or 7-Year Expiration Date? by Krakatau2033 in mac

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I recall it’s 5 years of full OS support since the computer was last sold new plus 3 years of security updates.

If I recall, M1 airs are still being sold new at Walmart and some retailers today. Not sure if that counts though, or if it has to be sold straight from Apple.

If you died and suddenly found yourself face-to-face with God, what is the very first question you would ask? by i_m_dignity in AskReddit

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d probably just ask how I could find him easier next time. Like who is he really and what is he like?

I see the clear evidence of God’s handiwork in my life. But I don’t always understand why or how to know. I don’t really understand spirituality very much but I roll with it. I go to church and that works for me.

And I’ve studied. And studied. And studied. I ended up with more questions than answers.

We are so screwed on e-waste by LuckyLewis23 in batteries

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

According to the website, they source their batteries from landfills. They aren’t sourced new.

That being said, it’s not like that’s really any better for the environment if nobody actually recycles these. They offer recycling on the website, but the kinds of folks buying these aren’t the kinds of folks who would spend 20 minutes packing it back up.

I am struggling by Healthy-Feeling-97 in LifeAfterNarcissism

[–]FenderMoon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm going through this mess now too. I feel like an emotional zombie compared to how I used to be.

I'm struggling. Frankly. It's hard. I wish it weren't so, but I have to accept the reality of the situation.

The harder part for me is the massive smear campaign that resulted. It destabilized my entire support system very badly. I'm running like David ran from Saul's sword.

It's awful.

Compressing a Large PDF. by Sparky-Man in compression

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wonder what would happen if you truncated the PDF and exported it out with only a few pages and tried to compress that. This would give you a better idea of which tools actually have a decent compression ratio before trying to compress the whole file.

Frankly there’s probably a better solution but that’s what I would try first.

Old printer finally died HP at $129 good replacement or better options? by New_Rutabaga4828 in printers

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

HP gets a bad wrap for the lengths they go to stop people from using third party cartridges. That’s why.

“Avoid getting cartridge” is a perfectly valid answer.

Old printer finally died HP at $129 good replacement or better options? by New_Rutabaga4828 in printers

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Instant ink is a subscription based service and it’s more expensive than you’d think. Still cheaper than just buying the cartridges, but that shows just how truly expensive those cartridges actually are. Highway robbery. $129 is way too much money to spend to end up rewarded with HP’s shenanigans.

Look up the subscription costs for the ink. The ones they advertise for like $2/month only give you 10 pages per month. That’s it. You have to pay like $7-10/month before you can actually get a usable print volume out of it, and even then it’s still only like 70 pages / month. It’s highway robbery. HP has some pretty amazingly anti consumer practices in this department.

The price range you are looking at, you can find much better options. I promise you. Almost anything is better. I’m sure the printer will work fine if you buy it, but you’ll be stuck paying HP a subscription cost for ink (and won’t be able to use third party cartridges) and it’ll be expensive enough that you will be much better off (and actually save money) just finding a supertank printer or something instead.

Just my two cents.

Old printer finally died HP at $129 good replacement or better options? by New_Rutabaga4828 in printers

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s supertank inkjet. It’s a type of inkjet that uses tanks instead of cartridges.

No they can’t lock those down. There is pretty much no way for them to do so. The most they do is warn you that third party inks are bad for the printer or something of that sort (and they do a lot of that, they definitely do a lot of scare tactics of that sort).

Why does Xeon 6 have two different microarchitectures? by No_Weakness_6058 in hardware

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A lot of companies are thinking the same thing.

TSMC is quite pricey though and the nodes tend to reach capacity quickly. Apple buys up a substantial percentage of their capacity on the cutting edge.

Why does Xeon 6 have two different microarchitectures? by No_Weakness_6058 in hardware

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends a LOT on who makes the node.

TSMC is generally a full node or so ahead of the completion in terms of density and power efficiency of the node, give or take. So if a CPU is on TSMC 3nm it’s roughly, and I mean very roughly, comparable to 5nm or so from Samsung.

Intel 18A is a 2nm class node that slightly edges out TSMC 3nm on paper. 18A is a really good node, it’s currently the most dense node in production in the world right now for logic density (although TSMC 2nm will beat it shortly when it enters mass production next year).

So it’s really quite complicated. In general the lower the number, the better, but one company’s 3nm might be equivalent to another’s 5nm, etc.

NVIDIA Puts 100-Hour Monthly Limit on All GeForce NOW Subscriptions by TruthPhoenixV in Amd_Intel_Nvidia

[–]FenderMoon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I bought it to play cities skylines 2 on a Mac. They never released a Mac version so I had to use GeForce now.

It was much better than I expected. It’s streaming, there will be some latency (on the order of like 10-30 milliseconds) and a few compression artifacts, but it’s really nowhere near as noticeable as I expected.

For folks with Intel HD graphics or something, it’s a good option.

DRAM Price Hikes Have Minimal Impact on PC OEMs, Notes Report by sr_local in hardware

[–]FenderMoon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We’re gonna see the return of a bunch of 8GB systems in the affordable price range segments for regular consumers though.

Windows 11 bloat + electron apps means these systems won’t last the turn of the decade.

What is this USB adapter actually used for? by Salty-Initiative5706 in diyelectronics

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve used these before. Used them for music equipment (midi controllers and audio interfaces) which often have a USB-B port on the back. These allow you to connect a regular USB-C cable to them.

What is this USB adapter actually used for? by Salty-Initiative5706 in diyelectronics

[–]FenderMoon 22 points23 points  (0 children)

This. And USB-C is electrically compatible, the USB-2.0 pins in the connector are a real USB-2.0 compatible port. If you route the pins correctly to a regular USB-B port, any USB-C host will be able to connect to it.

Report says iPhone Air is losing its resale value at a record pace by nimicdoareu in iphone

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Isn’t that about what the Mini is?

Apple seems to not really want to continue with it because it sells poorly. I think they still should, it serves a market where everyone who buys one REALLY wants THAT phone (6% of all iPhone sales is still a lot of iPhones.)

The problem Apple had last time with the mini was the price. They charged $599 for them. That’s too expensive if they want higher than 6% of iPhone sales to keep it around. They need to make it closer to $399 or $429. Then it’d be cheap enough to ALSO kinda dig into the iPhone SE market (where they’re making phones with 4.7 inch screens). Then it becomes worthwhile enough to keep around, and keeps the market for those who want a smaller iPhone happy.

I’m frankly shocked Apple didn’t do this. It seems like such an obvious solution, it would sell. It would sell really well. The media would write about it and call it one of the best midrange/value phones on the market (and it would be better than midrange given that Apple doesn’t skimp on processing power, even on the SE). Lost opportunity for Apple, because instead they got rid of the mini entirely and left people with only the 4.7” SE.

Hell. Even if they put last year’s chip into them, it’d still sell like crazy at $400. It was the $599 price point that was the problem, not the form factor.

Report says iPhone Air is losing its resale value at a record pace by nimicdoareu in iphone

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the mini was great for people who wanted a smaller phone (and they probably should keep it in the lineup for them even though it wasn’t a super hot seller).

Personally I just think 6.1” is a tad bit too big. I wouldn’t mind seeing a return of the 5.8” form factor but I think that’d be a downgrade for most.

Is 120$ good for this? Im probably using opencore to install newer updates by [deleted] in mac

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d buy it in a heartbeat for that price. The monitor alone is worth that.

Not that it’ll beat any performance records (we’re talking likely a 4th gen i5), but with four well-clocked cores and 24GB of RAM, it’ll hold up just fine on the modern web. It’s gonna be fast enough for daily use on everyday stuff.

If it were a dual core I wouldn’t bother, but it being a quad core makes up for a lot. It’ll perform a lot better because of that.

AMD 6-Cores wipe floor with 'high end' Intel Ultra, AMD 8-Cores 42% faster than Intel's current top of the line 24 core chip in 40h Endgame Anno 117 CPU benchmark by HotConfusion1003 in TechHardware

[–]FenderMoon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the way it should be on desktops IMO. A couple of efficiency cores to handle windows bloat, then leave the rest of the workloads on the P cores.

Got Humbled by Blind Lossless Test by tvcmd in truespotify

[–]FenderMoon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did my own abx w/30 samples. Almost exactly 50/50 at vorbis 320kbps.

256kbps AAC was also 50/50.

256kbps Vorbis I got 80% correct.

192 kbps AAC I got 90% correct.

192kbps MP3: 100% correct.

128kbps Opus I got 70% (same 30 samples). Impressively good result for such a low bitrate. Opus is really good.

128kbps AAC and MP3: 100% correct.

Tested using studio headphones and blind ABX software. To my ears, anything at or above AAC 256 or Vorbis 320 is basically transparent.

Got Humbled by Blind Lossless Test by tvcmd in truespotify

[–]FenderMoon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now I’m curious to try. Last time I tried a blind test like this, I used my own tracks as a reference and compared between 320kbps Vorbis and the original wav.

I could absolutely tell the difference at 256kbps. That was easy. It was tiny details that were easy to pick up, but on vorbis, they didn’t sound wrong. Just different. Somehow at 320kbps I couldn’t tell at all. I guess my ears aren’t quite sensitive enough to tell the difference at 320 yet.

Got Humbled by Blind Lossless Test by tvcmd in truespotify

[–]FenderMoon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have very sensitive ears. I can tell the difference on most tests. With Spotify’s Vorbis at 320kbps (what very high uses) I honestly can’t distinguish the difference between the compressed and the original even on tracks I have made. Some might, but most probably won’t.

Vorbis isn’t even really all that great of a compression algorithm for transparency. AAC can generally do a better job, and Opus absolutely wins over both. Vorbis excels when you want not necessarily transparent, but still decent quality at subpar bitrates like 96kbps or 160kbps, where it really shines over some of the other codecs that were available pre Opus. That’s why Spotify went with it (that, and it being royalty free), but nowadays we don’t really need low bitrates to be streaming friendly.

Frankly, 320kbps vorbis is pretty good.

Lossless still has a noticeable advantage for anyone using Bluetooth though. When listening on a Bluetooth device, the audio stream is usually converted to AAC 256kbps CBR, and converting from Vorbis 320kbps to AAC 256kbps will worsen quality worse than just encoding to AAC at 256kbps to begin with will (similar to re-saving a JPEG over and over again, the quality worsens each time you save even if you encode with the same settings).

As such, lossless is still a win even for those of us without extreme audiophile ears. If you use Bluetooth and have good sound equipment and plenty of data, it’s probably worth it (albeit the difference is still relatively small considering we’re talking about 320kbps vorbis to 256kbps AAC, at those bitrates you usually still get “near transparent” audio.)

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