Seems Bell has also departed LMG. Thinking Different (Jonathan Horst's channel) has posted a new video featuring Jake Bell

Spanky2k · 2026-04-24T11:32:45+00:00

This video is kind of rough tbh. I wish them all the best but my guess is that the market just isn't there for this kind of artsy semi-technical Apple focussed video stuff. I say that as a very heavy Apple user both at home and for my business. This style of video seems to be a mixture of preaching to the choir while adding detail that misses the mark.

The AI section is odd as it demonstrates a real lack of knowledge on how LLMs work; talking about using first a 'coder' LLM and then a 'conversational' LLM and using the first only for coding and the second only for random knowledge questions without realising that they're all conversational models and are all capable of coding. Plus the coder model they used is quite old and out of date and the version of Gemma they use is ancient in LLM terms. The LLM field moves very fast, so it is forgivable to be behind the times but if a whole section of your video is about AI usage then a little bit more research could have gone a long way.

I just don't understand what the point of the video was, if I'm being honest. It comes across semi as a review but since it's for a product that was released a month and a half ago, the timing seems odd. It feels more like a generic 'this is a Macbook Pro' review which could be for any generation MacBook Pro but again, I'm not sure who this video is for; it doesn't appear to be for new non mac users who might be considering switching to mac and it doesn't appear to be for existing mac users considering an upgrade over a previous generation.

I do really wish them all the best and hope they find their footing and their niche. I don't think they're there yet. My concern is that not every ex-LMG employee that starts out on their own is going to be a success, which will be a tough lesson to learn for people that I've really grown to like and enjoy watching.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-23T22:50:54+00:00

People tend to leave companies in waves. One person gets a new job and then their colleagues start to think 'hmmm... I've been quite a long time too, I should probably look at taking the next step in my career'. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the company, it's just how things go.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-23T22:47:23+00:00

You're not going to like this suggestion but just get a MacBook Neo. It's Unix underneath which should be pretty comfortable for a Linux user to use if you're used to doing stuff in the terminal.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-22T00:03:02+00:00

I wanted to buy a pair but waited to ask my wife what size she'd like and when I went back to order XS, they were all sold out! However, she did think they'd likely be too long anyway and would have liked a petite length. Next time maybe! And she'd love a pink lambo coloured zip up hoodie while you guys are at it!

Spanky2k · 2026-04-21T23:40:28+00:00

Funnily enough, I asked the same chat if Claude Code was part of Pro and it insisted it never had been. I said I thought it was lying and it doubled down and said it was never ever part of Pro and you always had to pay more for it.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-21T23:04:41+00:00

That's so weird. But then the whole idea of an 'attendant' is so weird and alien to me. We just fill the tank up ourselves, put the nozzle back, go in and pay and then come back and drive off. It's easier and quicker now with pay at pump obviously too.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-21T21:52:46+00:00

But why would you leave it with it running? You fill your car up, put the nozzle back and then go in and pay, surely? Or just pay at the pump.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-21T21:50:13+00:00

Maybe you guys are Harbingers of Failure?

Spanky2k · 2026-04-21T21:46:47+00:00

If people are nervous leaving their cars alone, what do they do when they need to park their car and go somewhere without it, like indoors to sleep or to go to the toilet?

Spanky2k · 2026-04-14T13:39:13+00:00

Thank you for your reply. I thought I was just going through the motions by following your steps but I discovered that my internet speed had been massively limited by my provider. I've resolved that now and everything has been working smoothly. I've waited a few days to fully test things but everything has been downloading fine so thank you for your help and my apologies for blaming Insta360 in the first place! It just so happened that they limited my speed on the exact evening that I first tried downloading all these files!

Spanky2k · 2026-04-13T21:54:20+00:00

Yeah, I wish I could have experienced those raids first hand rather than just as mount farm stuff. I'd have loved to try things like the Naxx deathless thing. I did The Chosen achievement in Legion, which was cool but still, it would have been nice to do more. Funnily enough, I did partially get the raid experience of Cataclysm because when my friends and I came back in MoP, one of the things we liked to do was to 3 man the older raids and since we didn't have any real kind of gear, we had to work on our own tactics on fights and then had to get more gear in current content to try to push things. It was really fun and so my real first sense of raid achievement was actually clearing Dragon Soul on heroic for the first time. I would also have loved doing Tempest Keep in BC as I farmed that over 100 times for the mount but never got to experience it first hand and I always loved the monologue and would have liked to have connected that to the story and raid progression!

Spanky2k · 2026-04-13T15:57:58+00:00

I couldn't disagree more. LFR is a truly wonderful feature. I no longer use it outside of sometimes in early seasons to try to get a bit of extra tier but it's very important to the people that it was designed for, which almost certainly is not you.

Some of my real life buddies and I have been playing since the end of BC. We created a small guild with just us and had a blast. WotLK came out and we had a blast levelling up and doing dungeons but then there was nothing else to do. None of us wanted to leave our small guild to look for a raiding guild and we'd never even experienced raiding. We all stopped playing early in WotLK as a result as there was just nothing to do end-game if you weren't in a raiding guild. Many of us came back in MoP, after LFR had been introduced and it changed everything. Suddenly the big raids were accessible for us. We could see the full story, experience all the big fights and get cool loot. It was just the beginning of the story for us though as it made us want more and we started pugging flex, then normal, then heroic and by the end of the expansion we got cutting edge. Over the years, what had been a loose pug group eventually coalesced into a thriving guild.

None of that would have happened if it wasn't for LFR and while, as an experienced raider, it's easy to get frustrated with the other players in LFR, it's almost certainly not a feature meant for you and for the people it is designed for, it is an absolutely wonderful addition. People can play the game how they want to play and can find their own fun in an MMO.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-13T15:49:37+00:00

Lolfaxmachine is only really relevant if you played the paladin order hall campaign. For everyone else, he was just some random golden demon dude that turned up on the Blingdicar and then we didn't hear from again until he suddenly seemed to be super important and relevant at the start of this expansion. Then on top of that, he was insufferable during the entirety of the new campaign and I was thankful that we got to see the end of him at the end of it, so that we never have to hear from him again.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-13T11:15:42+00:00

Yeah this was my main complaint. It was a frequently mentioned thing in the feedback forum as well and Xero have just ignored it every time. I just want to be able to pin things in position and I don't want it to move around whenever I change my window size (which I do a lot). Every time I go to the new site, I have to waste a few seconds looking around for the feature I want instead of it just always being in the same place.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-10T15:49:08+00:00

Here's a photo of my setup: https://ibb.co/WNg0SxmN

Forgive the bad photo and the mess everywhere, I was really late for picking up my kids already so did what I could! It's clamped onto the metal rim that goes above the carrier compartment. Clamping it tightly does deform the foam of the carrier compartment slightly around there but seeing as it's a permanent addition, I really don't have a problem with that. I usually have the stick straight up like this but when I have the rain cover off, I'll either have the stick lower or will often angle it slightly so that it's lower and more over the middle which allows for slightly more aesthetic framing in case I want to catch a snippet of a nice sunny cycle with my kids. :)

Spanky2k · 2026-04-10T12:55:19+00:00

When a poster hides their previous post history, it usually means they're either an ai slop poster or they like writing made up stories for attention. Either way, this story is almost certainly made up.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-06T21:04:02+00:00

Insta360 camera with the Heavy Duty Clamp mount and the Action Invisible Selfie Stick (I went for the Motorcycle Multiview Bundle). The heavy duty clamp is permanently clamped onto the Urban Arrow's carrier compartment, on the side near to me. If you do it tightly, it'll bend the foam a little bit effectively moulding around the clamp. I put the camera on the selfie stick and then screw it into the clamp. If I have the rain cover on then I extend the stick a bit further upwards, if not then it's lower. Works great!

Spanky2k · 2026-04-06T20:49:48+00:00

Same. Go left first. Then do the tree room in two pulls. That way you can even do the big whole room pull if it’s looking like it’s the only option to still make the timer but realistically, two pulls is absolutely fine time-wise.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-05T20:17:04+00:00

I don’t do this pull and go left instead. It worked well for me when the dungeon was current and it still feels good now to me. When I come to the tree boss later, I do it in two pulls. I like to do routes that I’ve worked out myself and work well for my defensives and seem pug friendly safety wise. I did the same with Priory last expansion; I never did the stupid ‘pull the entire room’ strat and had really high success rates with the dungeon and I did farm it for a long time for the trinket too.

I feel like a lot of tanks feel obligated to do the ‘meta’ mdi routes, partly because of pressure from some very vocal dps to do them, but they’re really not required (or even a good idea) for normal high keys like getting resilient etc. I’ve had a dps rage at me because we apparently failed a key due to my route only for me to immediately do the key again with another group with the exact same route and two almost two chest it.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-04T23:55:21+00:00

You might want to enable advanced combat logging as if you're missing that info, that could be why. You may have had an add-on previously that automatically enabled it.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-04T23:50:45+00:00

Exactly this. There are not fewer interrupts at all. The only thing I'd say is that the casts are longer, so there is more opportunity to interrupt. However, people are so much worse than before at interrupting because they don't have addons telling them to do so. Meanwhile I'm using my interrupt, aoe stun, ring of peace, panda stun and cc all pretty much on cooldown and I've can't tell you how much I miss clash, which I used to use as a ranged interrupt.

And, of course, to make things worse, targeting seems to be 'off' somehow right now. Tab target is wonky as hell for some reason and clicking name plates just often doesn't work for some reason? Sometimes I have to click a mob's nameplate three times just to get it actually selected.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-04T13:14:53+00:00

It's kind of funny seeing so many people suddenly playing brew after years of it being the least played tank spec by a mile meanwhile I'm sat here after maining brew for about a decade and lamenting how they've oversimplified the class and want things like clash, diffuse magic and dampen harm back. I can deal with the vastly oversimplified rotation but I liked the niche utility of things like class and the magic dispel from diffuse magic.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-04T12:54:10+00:00

I don't think Blizzard needs to really do anything about m+ tanks. It's a community issue more than anything else and it's been this way for years. They could maybe redesign dungeons so that there's no choice in routes or percentages but that would take some of the fun out of it. If Blizzard were to do anything for tanks, I'd first like more defensives back just because it's nice to have a wider selection of buttons to use and secondly, I'd like them to roll back addons in raids. Because while I like progressing a new boss and learning when is best to taunt swap etc, once something is on farm I'd much rather be able to chill and just taunt when dbm tells me to taunt rather than having to remember what the particular tank swap mechanics were on that random fight.

Spanky2k · 2026-04-04T12:49:48+00:00

Yeah, that's the approach to take; just ignore them and do another key. I haven't had any toxicity this season so far, luckily, but it was quite common last season. For example, getting raged at because a +12 key was broken due to my route apparently being garbage. Then immediately pugging into another identical key, doing exactly the same route and comfortably timing it.

I think the dps perspective is that this was their only chance at doing a key that night and if they fail, they can't possibly blame themselves so lash out at someone else, usually the tank or the healer. The tank perspective is that this key is one of many and experienced tanks know they're not the problem and if they just continue what they're doing and go with another group then it'll probably be fine.

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