TFS says the vape would use Bluetooth to connect with the phone/app. The vape won't work w/o the app, so they'd build any extra functionality into the app, like ads, tracking and geo-fencing. See my other post Why stop there?

If the vape is going to be app-locked, then the app can be (a) tracked and (b) geo-fenced. Establishments/locations can post if they allow vaping and the (nanny) app can track where you are and disable the vape if it's prohibited. Marketing bonus: The app will probably be running a lot, so the data it could collect could be HUGE. /s

Of all the early computer start-ups, Apple is the only "started in the garage on a shoestring budget and passion to create something everyone would love" that I can recall hearing about. Were they they only ones to get started like that?

And I see so many people already trash-talking Jobs... business sense without a great product has nothing, but tech genius without business never takes off. Both are necessary! It takes a good product and a good salesman to make a successful brand. Apple was fortunate to have both, it was their recipe for success.

The UK actually has a king, by design; the US not so much.

... as long as they don't store it in a Vatican basement. :-)

I've started to see warnings in terminal when using keyed SSH, something along the lines of "vulnerable to store-now-decode-later attacks". I assume this is due to not using eliptic-curve codes in my PK generation?

The most recent crashes I've had were all due to external hardware. (usually a dock being unplugged) I haven't seen that recently though so maybe that was addressed.

I've also had issues in the past with not going to sleep / waking back up properly, but again haven't really seen that recently so maybe that too was addressed.

Pretty much 100% of my recent related issues have simply been "system's getting slow, and no my memory hasn't all leaked away, it just wants a restart", and so I DO restart it, and I get all my performance back. It's annoying, but not impactful. Not sure what's getting gummed up under the hood, I don't see anything getting logged or showing up in any monitoring tool.

I tend to push my machine pretty regularly though, and end up being coerced into rebooting about once a month.

I do a lot of photo manipulation, and I HAVE ran into a problem with Finder's QuickLook gradually getting slower after tens of thousands (yes really) of videos and images being quick-looked, but I can just kill the Finder's QuickLook process and it automatically bounces back fresh as a baby. So whatever "general slowness" issue I've been encountering after weeks of uptime could probably be fixed if I knew what needed to be bounced, but nothing is making itself obvious with high cpu time or memory use, so I just have to reboot to get it back.

A bit OT but I do find it a bit sad that windows has decided to do away with the traditional BSoD, not by making the OS more stable, but by hiding it when it happens. "Nothing to see here, everything's fine!" (NakedGun)

maybe not? Look at cache for example, there's L1, L2, and L3, each getting bigger and slower. Just because L2 is slower doesn't mean it doesn't get used.

Or look at some of the older storage techniques like hybrid drives. (such as 1tb of spinning platters, with 32gb of ssd)

Modern SSDs are even doing that. Watch the IO speed when you write a large file, see how it's fast to a point and then gets slow? that's a write buffer getting filled up.

Maybe the same technique could be used with ram, basically on the same lines as the VM files that unix systems (including Mac OS) use?

So there's plenty of precedent for adding higher latency storage, simply because the big increase in capacity is worth a little added latency. Carefully managing what you use it for greatly reduces the impact of the latency.

I suspect Windows supporters will claim Mac users are less intelligent, which would suggest they do MORE stupid things. And if stupid things correlate with crashes, Macs would crash more.

But they don't. So somebody is wrong about something, or there's more missing information.

Legally speaking, threats fall under "assault". If I raise my fist to you and step up and punch you, I'll probably be charged with "assault and battery". Where "assault" is the "imminent, credible threat of physical violence" of raising my fist and approaching you, and "battery" is my actually hitting you, (and if I miss or you dodge, that trades n the Battery for a second Assault charge) It's an important distinction because the laws and consequences differ

A threat of physical violence must be credible to be assault. That usually places the bar at "a reasonable person would genuinely fear for their safety as a result of the words and actions".

"Remote threats" are handled a bit differently. They used to go through the US Mail and so were addressed with "mailing threatening communications" (part of 18 U.S. Code) although that requires a lot more investment and consideration. Get out pen and paper, think about what you're going to write, draft the threat, stuffit in an envelope, add a stamp, take it to a mail box. That involves lots of time to reconsider, plus the investment of time, paper, envelope, stamp, and finally time to go mail it. (all while reconsidering and being able to change your mind) Most threats never made it into the mailbox as tempers cooled and emotion gave way to reason. But if it made it all the way through that process, a reasonable person would more easily be able to conclude the threat was credible

Now, it's fifteen seconds of "furiously type a line or two of rage and click Send." And it's handled by the FCC now since it's using an interstate communications network. There's a separate "legal bar" for it to pass, but it's essentially the same thing. The laws are much more recently authored, and so require a bit more since courts now rely more on letter of the law than interpretation by a judge. They're looking for Intent (specifically, are you venting, intimidating, or announcing your intentions), does the message describe a credible threat to the victim, and is it specific about what's being threatened.

"I'm gonna dance a jig the day someone ends you!" - lacks intent
"if I get my hands on you l'm going to launch you into space and watch you suffocate!" - not credible
"you're going to regret the day you pissed me off!" - not specific

(Law Abiding Citizen demonstrates masterful avoidance of legal classifications by careful choice of words)

Although as mentioned above, power and money can press a thumb down on the scales of justice and get an investigation launched regardless of established legal standards.

Yup, 'cause there's no money in porn... /s :-)

From Adult Entertainment Market Report 2026:

(That growth rate is close to the average S&P 500 of 10%.)

If there's one thing this Administration really doesn't like, it's public scrutiny - any scrutiny really. /cynical

To be fair, you don't have to DO anything criminal, you just have to be a suspect, or piss off someone with power and money. (like Patel) Then they get a court order, and then information is legally required to be handed over for investigation.

And so as long as you didn't actually do anything criminal, your identity should stay private and only visible to the investigators, and get swallowed by the system as the investigation gets closed. (unless above power/money pushes for a public arrest/hearing, regardless of merit)

Thunderbolt (4 etc) has been leading to things like external graphics cards and external PCI slot boxes hitting the market. This may end up taking a significant share of the "expandability" crowd away from the "internal upgrades" market.

I see this as especially significant with laptops. For years I've been using a large thunderbolt dock with my laptop at home, making it a pretty good desktop machine when I'm at home. It adds a 24" display, big external speakers and bass, camera, conference mic, external storage, gig ethernet, etc. And yet I can pull a single plug, stuff it in the bag, and hit the road with it, something not easy to do with a desktop computer. (not that it stopped us from hauling towers, monitors, keyboards, etc to LAN games in the 90s!)

I'm a little surprised I haven't seen performance CPUs or additional ram available via thunderbolt 4 yet. (or does it exist and I've just missed it?)

Maybe the next "mac pro" won't be a stand-alone computer, but instead it'll be a plug-in accessory that turns ANY mac into a mac pro?

It's been through several major design changes, maybe it'll get re-released with a more "classic" design sometime down the road?