Knuckledragger

I hope Tim Apple gets this one right.

Oof. That might be a complete nonstarter. The target machine's SSD is not big enough for my data. RIP.

Voice = Spongebob Narrator "Two Months Later" I got an idea how to resurrect my radio show even without a laptop. Stay tuned.

For those of you playing the home game, my 2015 Macbook Pro went tits up a few months ago. Since then I have been wrestling with the idea of a replacement. Apple's current lineup is ...old and kind of crap. Their recent "California Streaming" event was a massive disappointment (I will not be doing my radio show from a smart phone, KTHX.) More broadly, I'm kinda done with Apple's anti-repair bullshit. I'm not done with MacOS, but I think for the next period of time I'm going to be sticking with stationary Apple products (I still have an iPhone, which I dislike but view as an inescapable evil like taxes and leaf blowers.) I have never owned a PC laptop. I don't particularly like Windows. I mean, it's fine for video games and a few specific audio apps (Exact Audio Copy, Foobar 2000) but as a primary OS? shudder With all of this said, I'm seriously considering making my next laptop a Framework. There have been a bunch of positive reviews of them from prominent tech toobers. A certain Bob-the-Tomato-sounding Canadian who is prone to making heaps of cash and dropping things liked Framework so much he invested in the company. I don't have the operating capital of that high pitched hyperactive YouTube content machine, but as I said I do have a strong need for a new laptop. Linus squeaks out some good points in this video and the other one he made. iFixit did a far less, ahem, infotainment focused review, but they also really liked it: So far I have one beef with Framework's design and it's not a small one. The keyboard: What. The. Fuck. Are. Those. Arrow. Keys. It's 2021, not 1985. This is a laptop, not a shitty wireless keyboard meant to be used with smart TVs. That arrow key arrangement is utterly unacceptable. I'm so bothered by it I'm almost not willing to make a purchase. Keyboards are an important matter for me. I learned to type on an IBM Model M in the 1980s and the buckling spring permanently affected the way I interact with and view keyboards. Also, I have freakishly large hands (Canon pro DSLR bodies feel too small for me) and tend type with entirely too much force. I have broken ...3 laptop keyboards, including my current one. Again, Apples "fuck you" attitude about repairs is sufficiently annoying that a model with a replaceable keyboard (even with horrid arrow keys) is basically a necessity to me at this point. Framework's prices aren't too bad either, at least for someone who has been in the Tim Apple ecosystem for the last dozen+ years. I have a few major fires to put out in the next week including property tax (see above), car insurance (ibid) and two Eat Static album re-issues (a man has to have priorities.) When the dust from the above as settled and assuming our short-bus-on-bath-salts elected officials manage to raise the debt ceiling and not crater the world economy, I'm probably going to buy one.

This is both absolutely amazing and utterly terrible. Tears for Fears were always miles above most 80s synth pop, in all aspects. Their songwriting, musicianship and lyrics have stood the test of time for nearly 4 decades now. Roland and Curt are both impressive live performers, even if they don't particularly like playing out. (Not entirely true, they love playing but they hate touring.) In this performance from 2014 they absolutely nail all of their classic hits and a couple album tracks. The problem is that the video director (I refused to call him a cinematographer) that Spotify hired needs to be taken out back by the chemical shed and shot. The bright lights on behind the band are a terrible idea. It's not artistic. It's blinding to both the studio and video audience. The use over overly long lenses, entirely too shallow a depth of field and constant rack focusing isn't artistic either. It's absolute crap. It's like if a new photographer who just got his first 50mm F/1.4 and refuses to stop it down ever was put in charge here. All of the shots from behind the audience, using their out of focus blobs as a framing device aren't artistic. They are endlessly frustrating tripe. The reaction shots of the audience, while a staple of every live performance ever, are executed so poorly here it's mind boggling. It's not easy to film a live music performance, but it's not exactly rocket surgery, either. Point camera at performers. Keep performers in focus. When editing, try to switch to performer doing most important thing (solo, singing, etc.) Maybe include some audience b-roll. Light the stage so that performers are visible, distracting background details are not, and NO ONE IS BLINDED (except for key moments.) The director of this video failed on every front. They should be sentenced to a life of only working on dish soap commercials. In spite the wretched production, I watched the entire video. I have always had mixed feelings about Tears For Fears. Their music is amazing, but for me it's a time capsule to a chunk of the 1980s where I suffered extreme trauma due to a confluence of terrible things happening at once. I've never fully processed the aftermath and I'm not sure I will be able to. Tears for Fears brings me right back some of the worst moments of my life, but I still love their music. They still have it as musicians, as well.

This is probably longer than the average Slow viewer wants to sit through: I'd like to report a murder. No, not that one.

Oh snap. Titan Quest Anniversary Edition is currently free on Steam(!) I sunk 100s of hours into the original version of this game in another lifetime. It's a fantastic hack n slash loot grinder. Definitely worth both the price of "as in beer" and your time: https://store.steampowered.com/app/475150/Titan_Quest_Anniversary_Edition/

Holy crap. I have waxed poetic about the golden era of Eat Static many times, especially on my radio show. The period from 1993-1995 when they had Steve Everitt working with them in the studio resulted in the best music they ever made. 'Static has been a Merv Pepler solo project for years now, and he occasionally strikes musical gold but it's never quite like the classic era. I have just about all of Eat Static's material on CD and/or vinyl. If I live long enough, I'll eventually get around to writing reviews of their better material. One thing I have never bothered to get is the PAL-only VHS tape they released in 1994. There was a time in the late 90s when I worked for an institution of higher learning where I had access to world format conversion decks (these things were insanely expensive, like $3500 in 1999 dollars) and could dupe tapes to my heart's content. Of course at that point, Discogs did not exist, eBay was in its infancy and I had no way to get the tape. It's now on YouTube in its entirety and ...it's okay. The video effects are amusing, but very dated. They're little more than fodder for a 1990s rave "acid wall" of TV sets. Weirdly, there are a handful of exclusive track on that video tape that have never been released elsewhere. This is odd as Eat Static have put out a number of anthologies over the years. I happened to look at Eat Static's social media for the first time in months, and discovered something amazing. They're re-releasing Abduction and Implant both as 3CD sets. They're ...expensive. 19GBP each + shipping form the UK (translates to "oww, my arse!") https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/eat-static-abduction-3cd/ https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/eat-static-implant-3cd/ Across the 4 bonus CDs on these pair of 3CD sets are just about all of the Everitt-era Eat Static, including the tracks from the Intrusion VHS (which, as I said, have never been released in another form.) I have everything except the Intrusion stuff, though I have never seen the remixes from the Gulf Breeze EP released in a digital form before. I have the original vinyl of course and FLACs of someone's needle drop that I got off slsk ages ago. The packaging on these sets is glorious. It reminds me of riding my bike in 1994 or so, to the local Media Play record store which had a weirdly good electronic music section. There I got Implant, Abduction and the US pressing of Epsylon with the bonus tracks from the Lost in Time EP. I'm not entirely sure HOW, but I am going to get both of these re-releases. Warning, copious porn below:

You know what is the definition of "damning with faint praise?" "I like Apple more than Epic."

Live right now:

I can live without a laptop until the new ones drop. I can live without a laptop until the new ones drop. I can live without a laptop until the new ones drop.

Hey guys, let's thread necro! At this juncture I can say I'm quite happy with BackBlaze and plan on extending my subscription shortly. Their backup widget for MacOS has a small footprint and is reasonably configurable. The only real issue I've had is that it's impossible (as best I can determine) to back up my Time Machine images.

This segment may prove to be prophetically relevant in the future.

I'm going to exhume by dormant HF account and post a comment saying that having experienced a JR Audio amp, I deem it to be equal in every way to a ca. 2008 McAlister product.

This is pretty fricken cool.

I'm actually typing to you on a PC now, which I built in late 2013. It has a newer GPU (8GB RX 580, which was supposed to be a stop gap) but other than storage is unchanged in 8 years. It was my plan to build a new machine Real Soon Now but the GPU (and high end CPU) market continues to get worse, no better. Also Windows is a horrid OS for anything other than video games. I have neither the skills nor inclination to run Linux. That leaves MacOS. While I could write a book on what I dislike about Apple in the modern era, their computer OS is really the only option if I want to get shit done. I DJ on MacOS. I edit photos on MacOS. I hoard terabytes of data (mostly FLACs and photos) on MacOS. As I have mentioned before, I am an old man with freakishly large hands and increasingly bad eyesight. I don't use smartphones anymore than I have to. The way the younger generation is "connected" with their mobile devices, I am similarly with a laptop. Part of the Apple Tax(tm) is accepting that one is buying a multi thousand dollar device that is essentially disposable.

As I mentioned in the broadcast thread, my laptop (which has been giving warning signs of going south for a while now) is stuck in a boot loop. I've been doing research on what precisely to replace it with and I have come to the conclusion that right now is a crap time to try to buy a new Macintop. The 13" MBP (too small for my freakishly large hands) is nearly 300 days old, and due for a refresh. The 16" is 650 days old and comically overdue. I've looked at Apple's refurb stock and it's underwhelming. Similarly, MacSales (OWC) has what can charitably be described as a picked over selection. Trying to buy a Mac laptop in 2021 is like trying to buy a GPU.

This may have been posted elsewhere, I dunno.

Since I pay for the Bozos Space Fund, I have access to AMZN Prime Video and sometimes avail myself of it. I watched a documentary on the late Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones a few nights ago. Prime Video's suggestion algorithm is hilarious, especially compared to the "we track your every move" nature of YouTube and Google. It suggested season 4 of The Grand Tour, which is the, ahem, spiritual successor to Top Gear. In spite of the fact that I find Jeremy Clarkson to be one of the most loathsome people in the history of humans (or things that are loathsome) I watched the first episode. It's quite well produced as one would expect. Apparently Prime has the first for seasons.