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Comment Re: You say that like it's a bad thing (Score 1) 156

I think you replied to the wrong post.

Fallacious argument. A Macbook Neo is not the same as a sub-$200 Chromebook (I cannot find a single Chromebook for that cheap on Amazon, either. The ones that are close, in the $250+, are dramatically inferior to the Neo in every way I can see.). I am speculating, but I expect that a Neo would be more durable and longlasting than a budget Chromebook. The screen, keyboard, trackpad, and everything else is certainly better.

If school systems with 25,000+ students are deciding to make this investment, there is a reason. They also have far more information about the financial realities of using Chromebooks and the costs of acquiring 25,000+ Neos. The proof will be in the pudding, and we'll see what happens in the next several years.

My own personal opinion--Chromebooks suck and worst of all, they make computing utterly miserable for students.

Comment Re: You say that like it's a bad thing (Score 1) 156

https://selfservicerepair.com/en-US/macbook-neo/display

https://support.apple.com/genuine-parts-distributor

https://support.apple.com/en-us/docs/mac/301292

Apple went through a span of time where it was unfriendly to repairs. People rightfully complained, and they got better. That's everything working like it's supposed to, and Apple should be praised for improving.

Comment Re: You say that like it's a bad thing (Score 1) 156

So here we have the goalposts shifting. First it was "the whole thing has been pumped full of epoxy" and "you don't repair these things, you replace them" and now we've evolved to "That is repairable by the standards of Apple computers, not the standards of open hardware."

The repair manuals are available online. You can order replacement parts directly from Apple. A new screen costs about $200 (I would also guess that schools get dramatically reduced prices to repair, but that's purely speculation). Yes, I get it, that doesn't meet your value proposition, but clearly a large number of school districts disagree with your financial analysis.

My kids have Chromebooks. On average they need about 3 repairs a year, and my kids ARE careful with their stuff. They are complete junk, terrible trackpads, terrible screens, terrible keyboards. I have not touched a Neo, but I would expect it to be substantially hardier, faster, and with a much better screen than the budget junk my kids are forced to use. Yes, that does come with a higher initial investment.

Comment Re:Good (Score 2) 145

I was on with AT&T recently and the human on the other side sounded pretty American, with maybe a slight Eastern European accent. At one point during the call, something went haywire--I heard my own voice echoed back to me, sounding vaguelly Eastern European, while the person on the other side now sounded 100% Indian.

It was pretty impressive voice mod software (until it messed up!).

Comment Two sides to every argument (Score 0, Flamebait) 62

This would be a good time to point out that every political argument has two sides and two points of view.

I've seen the arguments for both sides of this issue, and have come to the conclusion that there is merit for both. People should really look at the specific charges being made, with examples, before coming to any conclusion.

Every time someone tries to rein in the news media, it's received by shouts of first amendment, freedom of speech, chilling effects, and so on; and yet, this leads to insane situations. Google most egregious US media failures in the last 10 years for a list of incidents, and note how many of these affected major political events such as a presidential election or national policy.

Should a journalist be able to walk into a church during service and interrupt the proceedings, and not be held accountable because he's a journalist? Should a major news outlet be able to report something without at least a cursory check to see if it's accurate? Should an interview answer be swapped with the answer from a different question?

I've come to the conclusion that knee-jerk framing is on purpose, everyone wants to get "ahead" of an issue, and if an erroneous/misleading/false statement is made they will simply say "oops... I made a mistake" and there's no repurcussions... except that the lie went out to the audience and a small percentage got outraged in the right direction, regardless of whether the statement is true or not.

A "straw-man" argument is where you put your opponent's viewpoint in the most absurd terms and then attack the absurdity. A "strong-man" argument is where you put your opponent's viewpoint in the strongest possible terms and then try to attack it.

Choose the "strong-man" argument here. Find out what the administration is complaining about, and see if you can fault their logic.

Comment The evidence (Score 5, Informative) 49

Had a look at the criminal complaint just to find out where the perpetrators had gone wrong.

Sending anonymous tweets and E-mails, they purchased pre-paid debit cards to send packages to their home, various harassment techniques such as ordering a pizza "pay on delivery" at 4:30 AM, and so on and so on... how on Earth did the NPD ever figure this out?

Turns out the perpetrators flew from California to Boston area (Natick) to put a GPS on the Steiners' car, which they couldn't do because it was kept in a locked garage, so they rented vehicles to surveil the Steiners, their license plates were noted and given to Natick Police Department (NPD), and the rental agency was contacted.

Once the eBay operatives were identified, they tried various misdirects and obfustication techniques, but NPD a) verified their statements, and so figured out they were lying, and b) contacted eBay directly, which had a security team respond in good faith, and the whole plan unravelled.

One, single mistake is all that stood between a long campaign of harassment and getting found out. One good local police department who took the trouble to look deeply into the problem and figure out the truth despite a torrent of misdirection and obfustication.

I wonder how many more campaigns of harassment are ongoing, led by people who know how to conduct vehicle-based surveillance, or encouraged by ineffective or lazy policing.

Comment Re:Sure but Siri is a dumpster fire (Score 1) 135

Yep, Siri has been a dud. iOS27 Siri is not perfect but is now much, much better.

One weird thing about transcribing that I discovered years ago...Siri would constantly get my transcriptions wrong. But if I said "Hash tag" and then the message, it would almost always get it correct, but written like a stupid Twitter hashtag.

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