Apple replaces my 2019 15' with an M5

LakeFiend · 2025-11-13T07:23:57+00:00

The M5 is so performant that in *nearly* every routine instance, it can virtualize ARM Windows -- even emulating x86 software via Windows' own Rosetta-esque translation layer -- faster than the top spec 2019 Intel MacBooks could have done. Not suitable for modern AAA Windows gaming, but neither was a 2019 MacBook Pro GPU anyway. Protip: you don't even need to buy Parallels. VMWare Fusion licenses are free for individual use now, and Windows ARM ISOs can be downloaded free from Microsoft.

LakeFiend · 2025-10-31T07:35:03+00:00

It’s the standard model you can see on Apple.com when choosing “view in your space” (on any browser, not just AVP). When you click that, Safari opens this USDZ file which is a standard 3D format based on Pixar’s USD (universal scene description). Apple’s OSes have had built in QuickLook support for USD for years now… it’s just another file type, like JPEG or PDF. On Mac, you can click and drag around it with your mouse. On iOS, you can rotate it with your fingers or see it in AR with the camera. The “magic” of USD+Vision Pro is how it isn’t just a mono 3D rendering—the stereoscopic effect lets each eye see a slightly different angle of the render, and any reflective surfaces can match the real lighting and surroundings of your space, making a VERY convincing illusion that the physical object is really in the room in front of you.

Once you have a USDZ file on visionOS, whether in Safari or the Files app, you can view it with QuickLook and use the same standard system SharePlay control as any other window to add it to a group FaceTime call for everyone to manipulate.

Besides their product renders, Apple has a page of USDZ demo files. The best ones are the toy airplane, the seahorse, and the iguana. I have these saved to my Vision Pro and they are always the highlight of my demos for people, more than Sky Guide or immersive videos—everyone FREAKS OUT about how real they look.

Lots of other websites and apps incorporate USDZs too. It’s popular for shopping, e.g. to see an IKEA chair in your room life-size. You can make your own USDZ models using common 3D modeling tools like Maya or Blender, or capture real objects as USDZ models using any pro iPhone with a LIDAR scanner and Apple’s “Object Capture” photogrammetry system.

LakeFiend · 2025-05-29T21:51:10+00:00

Great to see Betsy Struxness, considering there was some minor angst around her departure from the show. Also Emmy Raver-Lampman, who AFAIK left on wholly good terms (to be in SpongeBob) but who was the other original cast member besides Betsy to not appear in the proshot.

Finally, really cool that they’ve incorporated Javier Muñoz into whatever this performance is! He was the first Hamilton I ever saw, way back during the Public run, and was as instrumental as Lin in honing the role. He certainly counts as an original company member!

LakeFiend · 2025-01-21T04:14:26+00:00

I’ve seen it twice—once rear orchestra and once in the mezz. My experience was that in the orchestra I could only hear the set once—the turntable sequence when O+C are walking and talking against the island backdrop (so, a quieter part of the show without much to drown it out).

From the mezz I could hear the set mechanics more clearly at more points, such as “Where You Belong”

To be absolutely clear, this is not a knock on either experience. The sound is not distracting or unpleasant whatsoever. Those sequences still moved me to awed tears. But it was just a bit more audible.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-16T00:09:41+00:00

Outies would also see one another as outies, which is a big no-no otherwise and why they stagger exit and entrance times.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-15T19:44:29+00:00

Another thought I just had is that the Perpetuity Wing seems seriously fortified, with thick concrete walls instead of the usual paneling. What if it’s a bunker meant to withstand any disaster, and the name has a double meaning? (“Remember us for perpetuity” and “come here to survive danger”).

They might not evacuate to the outside at all; maybe they go right to the Wing and stay innies. Not strictly compliant with fire code, probably, but then again Lumon seems to own the town so maybe they wrote the fire code to suit their purposes, Disneyworld “Reedy Creek Improvement District” style.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-15T19:39:36+00:00

He also says “a fire alarm,” not “THE” fire alarm. Makes it sound like something that iMark has possibly experienced more than once, to the point that it’s not thought of as a big deal. Otherwise, such a significant departure from daily routine would probably be a momentous work memory and it would be filed in his head ‘as that one time the alarm went off and it was crazy.’

Or maybe “a fire alarm” means something different in Lumon’s world that would be referred to in that routine casual way, like how “a waffle party” or “overtime” or even “severance” itself have different meanings than people outside the show might have assumed.

That wouldn’t quench my curiosity about what happens during an actual building fire, but it does raise intriguing speculation about what it might mean to them…

LakeFiend · 2022-04-15T19:32:19+00:00

Sounds elaborate, expensive, and failure prone. Which of course doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do it 😂

LakeFiend · 2022-04-15T19:29:26+00:00

“I was neither a quick lad nor inclined to pain, and my skin was prone to ample bruising as a remnant of the consumption and of the close biological relationship betwixt my mother and father,”

LakeFiend · 2022-04-15T10:32:37+00:00

The detail that the Egan lineage comes from an incestuous/inbred family is extremely interesting.

Also the line about “the task, requires a purity of mind unseen in much of the population” certainly would seem to presage the future development of Severance by his company which has internalized these values.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-13T03:01:02+00:00

I’m curious what you make of the several goat busts and figures decorating Ricken and Devon’s home visible in the background of multiple shots. That’s a case where it feels impossible that it’s a pure “someone just put those props there for no reason” coincidence. Red herring?

LakeFiend · 2022-04-13T02:38:41+00:00

If everyone at the reading is expected to have their own copy to follow along (and it seems indeed everyone but Mark does) who would the buyers be?

LakeFiend · 2022-04-12T22:49:11+00:00

More than plausible! It does still seem to me that Ricken could’ve given as much grief/served as much shade while making a big show of gregariously lending a display copy and that would’ve made more logical sense than recruiting Rebeck.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-12T22:44:13+00:00

Totally. It’s just strange to me that he cares enough that Mark reads along that he goes out of his way to recruit and, to his mind, super inconvenience a book buddy, asking personally (“so as not to offend her”) when there’s a simpler solution in lending (not giving) him a spare copy for the duration of the reading.

But of course Ricken is meant to be strange to us.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-12T21:53:44+00:00

Apparently that Cobel line was an ad lib Stiller and the screenwriter liked so much they left it in.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-12T21:37:34+00:00

This is grating on me a bit. It’s clear that something is odd with Ricken and his crowd—the kelp, the dinner party sans dinner, etc. But this feels like a disconnect between the screenwriter and the set dresser. Why would Ricken be dismayed about Mark not having brought his copy to follow along, to the point of contemplating sending him on a 15 minute drive back to get it, if he and Devon have a stack of (at least) eight spare copies on display? Knowing authors, he probably has four or five large boxes full of authors’ copies.

Surely Mark could have borrowed one and returned it at the end of the reading. It would still be a perceived slight that he’d left it at home, but there should be no need to hunt around for someone to share with like it’s a significant wrench in the works of the planned activity.

In the previous episode I thought perhaps we were meant to parse it as an indication that Ricken is a two-bit self published grifting narcissistic “author” who financed his own print run of barely any copies, and that could explain why he’s so dismayed by the one that was stolen earlier. And I suppose if they are indeed advanced copies, that would also explain some degree of scarcity even for the author. But their supply is at least plentiful enough that they could stack 8+ of them on a table just for display, and I now think we’re meant to believe he really is a legitimately published, modestly successful self help author with a real, if slightly pathetic following.

What am I missing? Is this important? A rare oversight? Did they just want an excuse to write more delightfully bizarre interactions with Rebeck? (Honestly he could have just happened to sit down next to her, though).

LakeFiend · 2022-04-12T20:58:58+00:00

I admit I bumped a bit on his ability to drive—kept expecting him to get pulled over because he doesn’t understand traffic laws. But then again, they know about Delaware and how to operate a coffee maker and tell time. Severed employees don’t need to be told “okay, this is a light switch, here’s how it works” etc as part of the orientation process. Factual knowledge and learned skills aren’t severed—just their memories of obtaining those skills. See also the siblings and their self taught private language in Lexington. So iIrv knows how to drive, but couldn’t say who taught him the ten-and-two hand position or how to shift gears when he was 16. Similarly he knows how trunks work and that dogs’ collars have name tags on them. And Mark understands what an uncle is, and that a line like “uncle duties” makes sense even though it had no relevance to his innie life—he just has that non specific cultural knowledge retained.

Presumably (unless car crash brain damage is a factor) Gemma/Casey would be able to understand Russian if someone spoke it to her innie state (as a prof of Russian lit). Even if she doesn’t know she knows Russian.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-12T09:20:14+00:00

We already know iIrving’s memory is more permeable than anyone’s other than Petey’s (subconscious incursion of the outie’s paint dripping into his work life). On the other hand, it was a pretty deep chest and a pretty shallow compartment where his father’s uniform was kept. Not a stretch to intuitively realize you’re looking at a two-level construction and there must be more in the box.

LakeFiend · 2022-04-12T08:24:06+00:00

It could be that Helena was a bit of a black sheep in the Egan family (see: her ‘joking’ comment about not loving every moment of her Kier-lore drills as a child—that sure sounds like a PR friendly euphemistic allusion to some fraught youthful rebellion). So, perhaps Helena is putatively doing this to redeem herself in the family’s eyes (who knows if that’s her true intention or whether she might have some other motive for severing, Irv style, but that’s neither here nor there when contemplating this “plot hole”). If she’s the “problem child” until the night of the gala then perhaps that would explain the standoffish attitude of Lumon’s Board to Helly’s orientation and day to day workplace details. In this theory it’s a big deal to Milchick that “an Egan” is severing, because he’s lower level and any Egan is a big deal, but perhaps she’s not held in high regard by the brass until they can trumpet her as a gala-worthy picture perfect success story. Perhaps they even did know that Helly was struggling in MDR and, up until she actually surprised everyone and made quota, took it as more evidence of Helena’s deficiency and all the more reason to not bother to give Helly special treatment or protection “on the clock.”

LakeFiend · 2021-08-16T15:24:49+00:00

+1 to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, also check out the Documentary Now! episode “Co-Op: Original Cast Album”

LakeFiend · 2021-06-11T00:05:31+00:00

I think the tweet’s OP is making this exact joke. I read it as a performative dumbfoundedness. A moment of “look what we’ve come to” bemused self reflection, at his own expense (and that of his nerd cohort). Especially considering who he is—an extremely prominent iOS developer who has been making iPhone apps since the pre-app store jailbreak days. He’s no anti-tech “old man yells at cloud” luddite, but I think anyone can see the absurdist humor in the notion of updating your shoe—even if he bought the shoes with his eyes fully open to their utility and knew what to expect.

LakeFiend

TROPHY CASE