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Comment It was for the Altair. (Score 2) 134

Altairs had a little as 1K memory and you entered the boot loader by hand using binary switches. I got a lot of practice with octal using that very Altair computer that bill gates gifted my high school.

Why octal you might ask and not hex. The importance of hex only emerged after we started trying programs. But when you had to enter machine code by hand using 16 dip switches in a row octal could be done using three fingers on each hand. Try to slap four switches at the same time is two spastic a movement for most people's hands. You could go wickedly fast in octal

With the Altair there was no overriding operating system at all so comparing it to Linux is weird. No hard or floppy drives. To write a program you keyed in the boot loader that had enough brains to read something off cassette tape which was a more sophisticated loader that then could read in the 2K basic. The basic could then accept input from a teletype.
If you wanted a file manager for your cassette tape then you write one in basic and ran it.

Comment No worries (Score 1) 132

For me the phone is an appliance. I don't seek crazy standout features if it an anyway degrades my legacy knowledge and expectations in operating my appliance. I don't like relearning how to use a different microwave oven. A toaster is simple and all that matters is that it's a good toaster that cooks evenly and reproducibly.
But I like new features so I don't just want to keep my old phone. I just want an ecosystem that has tamed new innovations and integrates those across my existing apps well.
Getting the cheapest phone is never of interest. Anything you touch more times per day than your wife should be a graceful pleasant experience and so paying a dollar or even two per day for the best experience phone is a no brainer.

You may note I did not say the word Apple. If that sounds like I just described the Apple experience that is your imputation. But you'd not be wrong that Apple serves that customer better than any other

Comment Apple ecosystem, privacy, seamless processor chang (Score 1) 117

The competition has had years to study Apple, and even hire away their engineers but no one has such a user centric experience as Apple,

I don't need to care what processor I have inside. My privacy is as protected as much as possible. Devices last years. Everything works together. Apple saves time rather worrying about flash.

Apple has been creating its own processor and bus architecture letting it make fan free high performance long battery life computers. It may not be a new product category per se but it sure is innovative as it has let them create awesome performance systems.

You may recall Microsoft spent years failing at moving its OS to arm. Abysmal failure. Surfaces are still playing catchup.

I also like the expansion of my privacy on sppple with things like private relay and on board AI task specific entiiies rather than external servers.

The Apple AR system was sure shell of a lot better than anything Zuckerberg produced. Just because AR isn't being adopted fast doesn't change that they smoked Zuckerbergs
passion project

And the Apple ecosystem still "just works" better than the competition. The creation of a secure privacy centered seamless integration of long lived products is very satisfying to any user that values their time

Comment Apple M1 (Score 2) 117

Apple has been creating its own processor and bus architecture letting it make fan free high performance long battery life computers. It may not be a new product category per se but it sure is innovative as it has let them create awesome performance systems.

You may recall Microsoft spent years failing at moving its OS to arm. Abysmal failure. Surfaces are still playing catchup.

I also like the expansion of my privacy on sppple with things like private relay and on board AI task specific entiiies rather than external servers.

The Apple AR system was sure shell of a lot better than anything Zuckerberg produced. Just because AR isn't being adopted fast doesn't change that they smoked Zuckerbergs
passion project

And the Apple ecosystem still "just works" better than the competition. The creation of a secure privacy centered seamless integration of long lived products is very satisfying to any user that values their time

Comment Massive value to price ratio (Score 1) 107

You literally touch your iPhone more times per day than your wife. You spend more time concentrating on it than your wife. These things are part of your life. Paying less than a dollar a day for a fondle slab you will have a few years is good value. You'd have to be nuts not to buy the top of the line when it's so cheap and such high interactivity in your life. I'd like to say that wasn't true but sadly(?) it is.

Comment Who uses a power button on a Mac? (Score 1) 175

laptops don't even have a power button. Macs want to be shut off by software command to preserve state. The power button is just a last resort. It most likely is not actually even a power button but an affirmative shutdown signal. I think poking your finger under a lip or lifting the brick to find it are hardly impediments if you really really need to use it a lot

Comment So what do humans do? (Score 1) 138

Or dogs.
We may be doing much the same thing. All we are actually good at is 3D navigation and language. Everything else like say logic , math, science is super hard. We actually rely on models precisely because these go beyond intuition. But when it comes to symbolic reading then we exploit or ability to use language. I think AI are doing the same thing. They just lack that intuitive 3D navigation training like our brains evolved. But they clearly have the language part. So they can reason but maybe not perfectly. Neither can most humans

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