Tag: PC

Cool

Let’s Make A List

A couple days ago I posted that I was contemplating allowing myself to get sucked into the Apple ecosystem. I still find it ironic that Apple at one time advertised themselves as the anti-establishment brand. Remember the 1984 super bowl ad by Ridley Scott? The PC back then was still associated with IBM and conformity. Now? Apple is the very picture of conformity. All the cool kids want to be in the massive Apple ecosystem. The edgy, rebellious, hackers are all using PC’s, Android devices, and gasp, Linux based machines. Kids of today have no idea.

Anyway, the rest of this post probably won’t be of interest to most folks, other than a few tech-curious people. I’m going to walk through my thought process on maybe, maybe not switching ecosystems.

First up, my current setup. I “work” in two locations, often for weeks at a time. My main location has my desktop PC. It’s about three years old, reasonably beefy (for its time) and capable of decent video and photo editing. My second location has a very old tablet PC (the very first gen Microsoft Surface. 2 cores and a massive 4 GB of RAM) that has never been capable of anything and finally bit the dust.

Option one, in a perfect world, I’d have a powerful video editing machine at each location so that I’m only carrying an external drive back and forth. That option is too expensive.

Option two is to have a powerful machine with a form factor that I can easily transport back and forth.

Option three is just replace the tablet with something inexpensive and continue to do my video/photo editing in just one location.

Here’s what Apples options look like:

  1. The new Macbook Air 15″. 8 core CPU, 10 core GPU, 16GB memory, 512 GB storage, 2 ports. Would not need to buy a monitor. $1,700
  2. Mac Mini. 8 core CPU, 10 core GPU, 16 GB memory, 256 GB storage, 4 ports + HDMI. Will need to purchase at least one monitor. $800
  3. Mac Studio. 12 core CPU, 30 core GPU, 32 GB memory, 512 GB storage, 8 ports + HDMI and SDXC. No monitor needed. $2,000

So my thought process goes like this… Option 1 is clearly the most portable, but I’ve always worked at a “desk” environment. It gives the option to work at a coffee shop, in the backyard, on the couch, etc… but it’s unclear if I’d ever take advantage of that. It’s just not something I’ve ever done.

Option 2 is reasonably portable. Adding a second monitor and keyboard puts the price pretty close to option 1.

Option 3 is clearly the best choice for video editing. But it’s not really portable so I’d have to also buy an inexpensive iPad for location 2 and continue to just edit in one location.

All three options will require buying external drive(s). Apples SSD storage is ridiculously expensive and slow. Additionally, moving to the Apple ecosystem will require buying an iPhone eventually.

So what to do? I think option 3 is out. The Mac Studio is an amazing machine for the money. Maybe someday if I develop a YouTube empire, but probably not realistic for now.

Option 1 feels like it gives the most flexibility. But if I ever decide I want a regular monitor/keyboard experience in both locations, option 2 becomes the most cost-effective choice.

Or maybe… I just get an inexpensive iPad to see if I even like the Apple interface and readdress all this in 2-3 years when my desktop PC is too outdated and/or my existing phone dies?

Analysis paralysis is real my friends. And don’t even get me started on looking for a new office chair…

Cool, Daily Life

It’s All About The Ecosystem

I live in a bifurcated tech family. I worked for Microsoft for much of my career. Mrs Troutdog works for Apple. Somehow, we’ve survived this great tech divide all these years. I will admit that early on I was a bit of a PC snob. As a software engineer, I scoffed at the closed environment of Apple. I laughed at their early attempts to hide bugs and security risks from the users so as not to damage their image. I’d smugly think to myself, any real tech person would want to have access to the inner workings of the machine. And iPads? Please, those were for children and grandmas who only surf the internet looking for recipes.

Time went on and I eventually left the (once) evil empire. My opinion on all things tech have significantly mellowed over time. And Apple, to their credit, have been putting out some serious hardware. A number of my former MS colleagues have gone over to the Apple side of the world.

I don’t have much criticism of Apple these days. Their price points are ridiculously high. They often seem to design products with the sole purpose of making whatever you currently have, instantly obsolete and non-upgradeable. But then again, the diehard Apple fans will happily re-mortgage the house to get the latest and greatest version, so it’s obviously working for them.

At this point in my life, I can honestly say I hold no allegiance to any particular tech platform. I happen to be PC and android based but would happily switch if it made sense. And there’s the problem. Apple has focused on creating a walled garden. An ecosystem that sucks you in and is hard to get in or out of. They don’t play nicely with non-Apple technology. Yes, I can keep my Android phone but I miss out on iCloud syncing, Facetime, etc… For example Mrs Troutdog and I try to share personal calendars, but events coming across from Android to the Apple calendar give her constant errors.

So for me to switch ecosystems, I’d need to change my music service, download new versions of all my software, and switch phones. I have data stored on USB thumb drives that would still require a PC to read. I don’t know if all my little peripherals (keyboards, speakers, monitor, mice, etc…) would be compatible or have to be replaced. None of that would be the end of the world. Just inconvenient and potentially a little costly.

And yet even with all that to consider – drumroll please – I’m seriously considering it.

I have a very old PC tablet that finally went belly-up, so I have to replace it with something. Do I just go get a relatively inexpensive PC based tablet or laptop and call it good? Or do I go all-in and completely switch ecosystems? The problem is that my main machine is a relatively (as of three years ago) beefy PC for video editing. Switching teams would instantly make it a brick.

I spent the morning looking at all the various options Apple has. Wow, there are so many ways to go. Mac Studio and Mac mini. The new MacBook Air 15″ is an amazing machine for its price. The analysis can be paralyzing.

Big bucks to switch everything over now, or spend significantly less money and stay in the PC ecosystem? It’s actually a really hard decision to make. (oh, the first world problems we’re fortunate to have)

Sigh… why doesn’t the tech world play nice together? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could mix and match the best of both worlds? What to do, what to do? Stay tuned.

Uncategorized

The Enlightened State Of Wokeness

We are fast approaching an inflection point in this country. I like this definition of inflection point from investopedia: “An inflection point is an event that results in a significant change in the progress of a company, industry, sector, economy, or geopolitical situation and can be considered a turning point after which a dramatic change, with either positive or negative results, is expected to result.” Our inflection point is the cult of wokeness. Failure to embrace all things woke means being branded as anything from an intolerant rube to a white nationalist Nazi. The fear of not being woke enough has intruded upon virtually every aspect of our lives. Schools, your work, corporate PR, social and news media – every public statement or action taken today must be weighed against the sin of offending the woke army. That army will come down on you with a fury if you trespass against their dogma.

A trio of events made me think of this. The first was Tucker Carlson’s rant this week about wokeness in our military. He commented that the signal the Biden administration was giving is that our military is embracing wokeness by providing new maternity flight suits to pregnant pilots (I don’t know if I’m allowed to say female any more), while China’s military is becoming increasingly, well, militaristic. By pointing out the focus of our military seems to be drifting, Tucker committed the ultimate sin – he seemingly disrespected women. The woke army instantly began falling all over themselves to condemn and shame Tucker from every corner of the social media world. Cancel culture is in full effect with calls to boycott advertisers to the show, etc… Who cares what his actual point was – he implied women aren’t capable of fighting wars, which we hate anyway (wars, not women or whichever pronoun is preferred), but that doesn’t matter because this week we love our military again, I think (it’s hard to keep track), because we’re purging all those MAGA people from the military because, you know, Nazi’s.

Meanwhile, I watched Bill Maher’s monolog highlighting China’s relentless push forward while America gnashes their teeth and wails about being triggered by statues and the naming of sports teams or pancake syrup. Maher: “In China alone, they have 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. America has none. … We’ve been having Infrastructure Week every week since 2009 but we never do anything. Half the country is having a never-ending woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a dick and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they’re eating babies. We are a silly people,” You know things have gone bad when an ultra lefty is the one calling out the ridiculousness of our wokeness.

Last night I had a moment of sadness while watching the series “For all mankind”. Excellent, highly recommend. Spoiler alert – it’s about an alternate reality similar to “The Man in the High Castle”. What made me sad is I realized that our brief moment of American exceptionalism is probably done. Sure, there are still plenty of pockets of innovation scattered throughout the country. But every step forward will be dragged down by the burden of being woke. As a country we seem determined to quash our can-do spirt by ensuring that every endeavor spends equal amounts of time devoted to having the exact right minority representation, that we properly highlight all ethnic and religious celebrations, and that #internationalindigenouspeoplesday is appropriately celebrated. We’re probably not far from the government mandating that all businesses have an office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) that reports into the Federal Office of Fairness.

It’s not that social progress is a bad thing. We’ve made huge strides from our past in how we treat people in this country. That is a good thing. The problem is that equity is not the same thing as equality and we’re losing that balance in our rush to make everything fair. We want everyone to have the same chance at life. While it hasn’t always been upheld, that principle of equality is what made this country exceptional. What you make of your life is entirely up to you, your life choices, and your work ethic. While some people have more roadblocks than others, you have the freedom to determine what course your life will take. Yes, the rich and societally blessed will always have an advantage. It’s been that way since the beginning of time and will always continue. If your parents have the means to send you to an Ivy league college, you probably have one step up on the gal who has to go to community college and work nights to pay for it. But the beauty of today is that community college gal has the same opportunity to start a business, run for office, or become a fabulously wealthy Instagram influencer, as the Ivy league guy if she’s smart and works hard. There’s a reason much of the lower income world aspires to move to America.

Equity and wokeness is pulling our society towards mediocrity. Nobody is allowed to be exceptional because of the fear that someone’s success was at the expense of someone who was less fortunate. We cancel anything that doesn’t reflect the group think. Corporate PR departments heavily influence business decisions as they run them through their DEI filters. Today, any individual is one poorly worded tweet away from losing their job and being ostracized from their local community. We just had two presidential elections in which people were actually afraid to publicly express their choice for fear of retribution. Depending on what city you live in, having the wrong bumper sticker on your car could mean a smashed window, or wearing a the wrong political red baseball hat could result in harassment (or worse) if you walked in the wrong woke area. Is that really the society you want? I suppose it’s all good as long as you’re on the right side of the mob.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the inflection curve will turn towards something more sane. I hope so, but I have my doubts. Personally, I think we’ve already crossed the inflection point. We’re going to have to follow this curve down for now and see where it leads. At least until a new inflection point arrives.