I was over in the MacRumors message forums recently, where a big debate broke out about the hardware specs. It seems like a whole lot of "Mac faithful" believe it's about "more consumer choice" for Apple to offer these lower-spec options.

I strongly disagree. From the perspective of someone who has done I.T. support for decades? It's a disservice to customers to sell computers that are gimped by a lack of system resources. Sure, you can find all these use-cases where "8GB is enough RAM" or where a "128GB SSD is enough mass storage". So what? Bottom line is, the consumer just paid a good chunk of change for a computer that should be able to handle a large number of tasks that it's crippled at performing, simply due to the resource constraints. That not only limits its resale value for the original buyer, but often forces them to upgrade needlessly early if their needs change and they find themselves wanting to do something new with the computer.

Another thing I've observed with the Macs with less RAM is, they'll do an "okay" job running some applications, only because the SSD is fast -- but the OS is doing a lot of disk swapping at that point. That means they're putting a lot of premature wear on it, and it's usually soldered in on the Macs. So if it dies, that means the computer is going to need to be sent in someplace for service (likely a whole new logic board).

With Apple already charging a premium price for their computers? They really should equip all of them with at least 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Better to have that and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

This isn't saying the government can't do anything.

It just says that law enforcement has to explain to a judge why they need the data. That's all. It's not a high bar.

Thousands of warrants are issued every day.

You must have liked the robot in the Lost in Space reboot.

Thing is, this one is humanoid enough to fool you (well, me) into thinking it should move like a human. But it doesn't and I find it very eerie and disturbing. No, that doesn't make logical sense but never the less, perhaps it should look less human.

Tunisia is also a democracy.

That's a weird/negative take on things. My actual point is that people are social creatures and we're generally far better about communicating what we need in a personal conversation at work, vs having to write it out in an email or typing it up in a Teams chat....

The fully remote team of infrastructure engineers I interact with regularly at my workplace is a great example. When I first started working for this company, they would pop in the office at least once a week for various tasks or a meeting. It was really productive to catch one of them at one of these times and let them know about some upcoming change that we might need them to prepare things for, or ?

With them working remote? Now, it's far more rigid. They tend to set themselves away/unavailable in their chat client and only respond to email after a full day or two. Usually, when they do respond, they're asking for more clarification or another piece of info. They spend a lot of time in meetings with their their boss or vendors, so we're cut off from direct communications with them most of the time. They think, "What's the problem? Just tell my boss what you need and he'll let us know." That's a problem because their boss is busy with so many other things, he's not likely to communicate the concern or request on to them either accurately or quickly. Quite often, they'll give the other teams push-back, questioning why we need what we're asking for. And this just wasn't an issue when you could have a few minute "face to face" conversation about it and establish what was going on.

All in all? I think I'm equally productive in the office or working from home -- but there are certain things I get done more efficiently in the office while others, not so much.

Actually? This was in the midwest -- and in a part of town where yes, I'd be worried myself about banging on someone's door at midnight, expecting they might have a gun.

So apparently you just give people too much credit for having some sense!

The UAE supports neither. The leadership of Hamas resides in Qatar, not the UAE.

The UAE has diplomatic relations with Israel and has pledged to maintain relations despite the current conflict.

The UAE sees Iran-backed Hezbollah as an enemy.

I'll go way out on a limb and guess it evaporated from the ocean.

UAE doesn't burn oil to generate electricity.

They do burn gas, but much of it would otherwise be flared.

UAE's liquefication plants and export terminals are already running at capacity.

UAE plans to double their gas export capacity in the next few years, but peace in Ukraine is a risk.

Your theory is the opposite of reality.

As temperatures rise, the ice caps melt, and deserts are expanding, not shrinking.

There were warm regions and inland seas, but there were also large ice caps and big deserts.

Are we completely sure that this was caused by anything and wasn't entirely within the realm of possible, but unlikely weather? Highly improbable events occur all the time.

People who insist every single weather event is due to climate change aren't much different than the sort who think the weather is all government controlled or that everything is secretly somehow the fault of the Jews. Go back far enough and there was likely a rainfall just as large or even larger. Since it would have happened before anyone could accurately measure it and probably before the industrial revolution, I'm sure it was probably blamed on the gods being angry.

I wonder if there's this massive body of water nearby where some water could evaporate from. I suppose it could always be aliens as well.

Money is fungible. If you don't spend the money on panels and batteries, you can pay off your credit cards, pay down your mortgage, or invest the money in T-bonds. Any of those will be a better use of your money.

There may be non-financial reasons to build a battery-backed solar system, but otherwise, spending $15k to save $90/month doesn't make much sense.

Disclaimer: I have solar panels (good investment). I do not have batteries (bad investment).

This sounds like a great idea until you stop to think what would happen in reality. How many accidents are you willing to tolerate that are due to people driving on completely shot tires or ones hastily patched up because no one wants to buy a new set of $4,000 tires. Fuel taxes encourage people to buy more fuel efficient vehicles, which is good for the environment. Yearly license based on weight and other vehicle characteristics is a better bet, even though it doesn't perfectly reflect use. You could conceivably try to include mileage into the equation, but expect people to find a way to cheat on that.

Best solution is an automated toll collecting system. That's something that could be done today, and is certainly feasible in the future. The biggest issue are the potential privacy concerns as well as the potential for abuse of the data by authoritarian governments. Perhaps there are solutions to those concerns as well.

Only at an interest rate of 0%.

The current prime rate is 8.5%. 30-year mortgages are 7%. At those rates, you'll never break even.