Apple doesn’t want people using the mouse with the cable attached because it would cost them a fortune due to failed charging ports within the warranty period. It’s a wireless mouse. Using it plugged in will fuck it up.

I fix computers and an apple mouse with a bad charge port is just a throwaway.

Mac Mini M1 when it was released was a good deal compared to same form factor machines at similar prices. Same for the M1 MacBook Air, despite the base RAM.

That advantage lasted a while, too, considering battery life and build quality.

I can corroborate that it gets crazy even in courses expecting high literacy. I had the painful experience of teaching a 3rd year course in communication studies that was part of the media production stream. It required writing preproduction documentation and a script. There were a lot of questionable attempts but there’s always a range of interest and skill, right? One student, and let me remind you this is third year at a university, I called into office hours. I’m a fan of poetry, so I just had to be sure that she wasn’t cleverly lampooning Gertrude Stein in some ironic way. Sadly, no, she just had no fucking clue how to write ANYTHING coherent. Amazing.

iMac G4.

The iMac G5 started the fat monitor on a leg design.

Drupal scales well and is very extensible with features that allow complicated permissions systems, etc. I have built some complicated courseware with it, and big document archives, etc. It has a skilled developer community. I wouldn’t use it for small inexpensive sites, but it’s top tier and free/liberated.

Joomla’s code a decade ago was so inefficient and clunky to work with I could never recommend it, my main interaction with it was troubleshooting and helping folks escape it. Maybe it’s improved.

Hey watch it with that ‘never’ commitment eh!

A long time ago business class Brother printers weren’t always that easy or reliable, and the HP’s were rock solid and straightforward. If Brother enshittifies, the rankings will change.

You cannot call slapping on an external storage device “upgrading storage”, WTF are you on about? Are you just completely unaware of what a *ridiculous* solution that is to a problem that the OEM _intentionally_ created?

Oh I am very aware of how annoying and hostile it is to users: I repair computers, including macs.

I didn’t write upgrade, don’t twist arguments or it’s bad faith. Adding TB4 drives to a workstation is just normal in the industry, don’t take it out on me. In that situation it’s no big deal, and yes all the gear is expensive to an amateur.

We are getting off the original point that someone trying to break into an industry has to hew to the existing standards, and those standards often use FCP ProRes files so you better give in. While your tone was contemptuous and dismissive, you seemed a little curious about why that might be. I have tried to address that.

Suggesting that a young professional trying to break into a decent paying job in the media production industry would use a chromebook or any version of linux for production is a non-starter.

If a Framework workstation (I had no idea they made one, thought it was all laptops) runs something other than Linux or Windows, I am curious what it could be.

Still, if you had to provide support for a wide variety of everyday users, I suspect your opinion on ‘user-friendliness’ would shift. Even Mint is problematic for most users as soon as they are required to step out of basic admin production. Windows is worse, unless you fully bend over for MS.

Now I have to get back to ungluing a shitty battery out of a shitty macbook., hidden by sleazy little pentalobe screws.

[Side note that “botched” means incompetent or clumsily made, i.e. intentionally broken.]

I thought we were talking about media production but your goalposts are over there in the playground.

Botched means I asked for more industry standard production files and you gave me something else, because you don’t understand ROI in industry. Equipment is cheap compared to time. Just use the tools the job requires.

I used to teach guerilla filmmaking back in the day of “desktop video is the next big thing” so I see where you’re coming from, even if you hide your ignorance about the work behind ideals. Knock yourself out learning to edit with a cheap gaming rig and the free version of Resolve, make cool stuff and upload, start a wedding video business.

But get work in a large production as a contractor? The tools are cheap compared to time and amortized quickly in taxes. Buy the tool the job requires. Skills should be platform agnostic.

Thunderbolt4 is perfectly usable in high bandwidth situations. WTF are you on about. Do you even compute?

Framework = Windows (consumer hostile in extremis) or Linux, fine for me and thee but user hostile for most.

Maybe. You think I’m getting ProRes RAW files from your Win11/Premiere rig? Fired.

I hate apple with an intimacy and intensity you likely don’t, but the alternatives are either equally indefensible or difficult for average users and thus also anti-consumer.

Just never buy an iMac, get a Mini or Studio with adequate RAM (you can add storage later) and a nice 4k monitor and you then get what you are paying for with some reliability.

I note that you only denigrate, and are not supporting a viable alternative.

Let me introduce you to a little thing called media production workflow, where there are over 500 different file formats in active use, and getting it right forms the basis of most links in a chain hundreds of links long.

You start sending me botched files with the wrong codecs and see if I don’t find another subcontractor immediately.

I think the suggestion is that if they leave the content available, they can still write it off.

I wonder if it’s because 28 Days Later was shot on a handful of Canon XL-1’s, which was a breakthrough as they were one of the first prosumer cameras that could pull off a film like that.

Kind of a nod and a wink at the heritage of the story to shoot on consumer hardware.

Why are you calling a polite irish male voice “she”?

So, you mean the proper response to the failure of a shitty business model is to introduce a worse business model?

Our local high school cafeteria program has been running a sophisticated version of this without the biogas element for years. Fish in very large tanks feed the leafy greens hydroponics growing in ranks of pipes on the walls, it’s very productive. Greens get used in the popular cafeteria (open to the public) and also the salad food truck they run in the summer months. Fish used are tilapia. Power is solar.

The students studying food services get a lesson in energy systems and food sourcing as well as running a business. Superb food, too. All mostly due to one chef-teacher with vision.

I used to own a W124 series Benz (bought used for 5% of sticker price, I ain’t no fauntelroy). Nearly everything on it was redundant or excessively skookum.

When systems that weren’t as rugged started going down, like the vacuum controllers for doors or the 4matic computer etc, the car still worked safely with reduced convenience. A few minor design flaws like the wiring harness but that’s it. Room to work under the hood, too.

It was built in '93 when the engineers still ran the company.

Current main driver is the super reliable '03 CRV.

One of our cars is a 2016 GM and I just unscrewed the cell antenna instead of ripping out the cell module. Tracking disabled, or at least unreliable. The subscription nav is useless and easy to ignore. I would like to figure out how to prevent the siriusxm ads built into the infotainment system, still.

I look forward to better infotainment hacks down the road.

May I just point out the elephant in the room?

“Gook” is a nasty slur for asian person. This word literally means ‘unintelligible like the nonsense languages of asians’

Let’s just let this word fade away like so many other bullshit slurs, thanks.