Month: June 2022

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Oh… This is getting So out of hand.

The other half got a haircut yesterday.

You’d think something as mundane as that wouldn’t be fraught with controversy…

You’d be wrong

We live in a mad mad world.

The stylist was talking with another stylist about a customer she’d had the day before.

The customer in question, was apparently transitioning from one gender to the other. “Okay, this is probably going to go off the rails,” I think.

As the story unfolds, apparently the stylist referred to the customer as a “She”. OMG! The horror!

The customer corrected the stylist’s use of pronoun defiantly proclaiming the proper pronoun was “IT”.

At this point in the story I’ve got my “What The Fuck” face on. The other half ignored me and continued the story.

The stylist, of course apologized explaining that she meant no offense. This wasn’t good enough for the mortally aggrieved customer. (He/She/It… whatever) Continued to manufacture outrage over this insignificant incident, turning everyone’s trip to the hair place into a crazed social justice nightmare.

A) How was the stylist to know “It” was the preferred pronoun?
B) The Stylist did the professional thing by apologizing.
C) The aggrieved customer had all the social decorum of a turd in a punchbowl.

The other half was laughing and said to me, “All I could picture as this story was being told was YOU sitting in a chair during the actual incident.”

Good Point!

I wouldn’t have been able to let it pass. I hate shitty behavior and the shitty people exhibiting it.

The first thing that popped into my head was that since “IT” didn’t have their pronoun tattooed on ITS forehead how was anyone to know? I’m sure that my expressing that thought would have added fuel to the fire.

The second thing that popped into my head is that “IT” usually refers to an object. Then I remembered being a boy in the Deep South.

The first word I ever learned to describe a Black person was the “N-Word”. But the context was that one went to get the “N-Word” to clean up a mess.

For Example: “Bill, please go get the broom to sweep up this mess on the floor.”

My childhood memory has the statement from my Grandfather telling me, “Hey boy, go get the “N-word” to clean up that mess.”

In my experience the “N-Word” was used to reduce a kind thoughtful human being, (Eddie would tell me jokes and ride me around on his shoulders and we’d laugh the whole time,) to nothing more than an object on par with a mop or broom. (For the sake of clarity, Eddie was an employee of my Grandfather, and I probably wasn’t more than 5.)

As I thought about the implications of a human being demanding to be called “IT” I couldn’t help but notice the similarity.

What completely astounds me, is that any human being would willingly demean & diminish their own humanity in this way.

People like the aforementioned customer, would loose their shit if I, a white CIS male, were to refer to an African American as “IT”. They’d be saying I was racist or any number of other ugly things. (Then again, most of the ugly words they’d call me have lost much of their former impact and meanings.)

Then they’d turn around and make a spectacle of themselves in a public place demanding to be called “IT”.

All the while annoying the rest of us “normal” people who use pronouns based in history and languages dating back 5 thousand years or more.

The other half is right…

It’s a good thing I wasn’t there for the incident itself.

Depending on how screeching they were, I could easily see myself leading off with,

“Nobody gives a fuck about your pronouns! Now sit the fuck down and shut the hell up. There are actual humans in this business, trust me they do not consider themselves the equivalent of a dildo or pocket pussy. Both of which, by the way, are ITS.”

No, I don’t think it would have ended well at all…

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Huh, When the Universe Speaks…

Who the hell am I, to not listen up?

So here’s the saga thus far…

I ordered an M1 MacBook Pro. I wasn’t really ready to buy a new computer. But I ordered a new machine, because I was going to have to rebuild my current Intel machine from the ground up.

I thought to myself, “If I’m going to go through all this trouble, let me look at a new machine.”

It’s not that rebuilding is that much of a pain in the butt, I was worried however that if I didn’t order a MacBook Pro with the new M1 chip and the Touch Bar (Which I like) that I wouldn’t be able to get another machine with the Touch Bar. I was thinking this because Apple has phased out Touch Bars in the 14” and the 16” Mac Book Pros.

So I ordered a new machine. The new machine was delivered on Friday, and was defective right out of the box. That’s the only time in 20 years I’ve had an Apple product not work as expected.

Saturday, I contacted Apple to arrange for the new machine to be replaced. The replacement wouldn’t be available until late June or Early July.

Today, Monday, I took the new machine to FedEx to return it.

I came home and all was right with my world. I’d just have to wait on the replacement like a kid waiting for Christmas.

After doing a few chores it was lunch time.

I pulled up Apple News while I was eating my lunch. As I was scanning the articles, I noticed that the Apple WWDC opening address had been going on while I was delivering the defective M1 machine to FedEx.

I opened the article describing the WWDC and began reading. About 2/3 through the article there was mention of the new MacBook Pro 13”. Guess what? The new MacBook Pro has an M2 processor, can be configured with 24GB of RAM, and a 2 TB solid state drive.

Impressive, and not unexpected. I knew going in that my M1 would be last years model.

What was significantly surprising was that the new M2 machine also comes with a Touch Bar.

Well now, that blows a big hole in my reason for buying a new machine in the first place, doesn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong, while the M1 was doing it’s thing, It was amazing! But! I no longer have a driving reason to purchase a new machine at this moment in time!

I was bummed out that my new M1 wasn’t right. Now I’m not as bummed out.

I just cancelled the M1 order completely. I don’t need to spend the money quite yet.

If I wait a few months, I can get an M2, increase my computer memory by 1/3, have a 2 TB drive, the Touch Bar, and spend essentially the same amount of money.

I’m preparing to rebuild my Intel machine as I type this.

I can wait 6 months. Perhaps I’ll be able to walk into an Apple store where I can open and test the new machine before I leave.

Maybe, the universe doesn’t hate me as much as I thought it did…

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Bummer! That didn’t last long

The new machine is going back to Apple.

Bummer!

On the plus side I was able to basically build out an M1 system and I’ve got a complete backup of that system.

Because the decision to return and replace the machine was made in less than a day, I still have my original MacBook to fall back on. So it’s an inconvenience and a delay but not the freaking end of the world. I’ve got a computer.

So here’s the deal.

As I mentioned yesterday, the new machine smelled funny. It was an acrid smell, (which is how I described it to the Apple Folks,) unfortunately “acrid” is one of those words that’s become buried in dictionaries but is rarely used these days.

I had to use the sentence, “The smell is reminiscent of a smell commonly associated with burnt out IC chips in old computers or printers.”

That registered with the Tech Support people….

Sigh.

English is such a rich, complex language. It’s a pity so many people, myself included, have poor command of it.

I digress.

The first symptom I noticed was that the Start Up chime had no bass. I wrote that off to the machine having a down level version of the OS, and I’d seen some articles suggesting that there was some kind of sound issue on M1 systems which had been corrected via software.

The second symptom was the acrid smell that increased the longer the machine was running and decreased if the machine was sleeping or turned off. This smell was not the usual smell of a wave soldered circuit board warming up for the first time. That smell is the smell of rosin which is almost sweet smelling. This smell was bitter, and irritating to sinuses, and mucus membranes.

The third symptom was that any and all audio played through the internal speakers had about half of the bass missing.

I don’t listen to music through the internal speakers of my computer very often. One thing that can be said about Apple machines is that their onboard sound systems are quite good.

This particular computer sounded like a Dell from 1990.

These combined issues caused me to seek guidance from AppleCare.

They, as always were nice, polite, and helpful. Tech support made the suggestion that the machine should be swapped out. I was fine with that except that the machine’s configuration is somewhat unusual and the unit has to be built special in China.

The Tech support people went Oh, that could be a problem.

They transferred me to a super nice man named Josh who walked me through all the necessary steps to wipe the machine, remove it from my Find My, and iCloud account.

Then he carefully explained the exchange process. When he quoted me the lead time, I’m sure that he had his earpiece well away from his ear.

In this case he needn’t have worried. The lead time, is late June or early July. He asked if this was alright.

I told him it had to be alright because the machine would have to be built in China, then shipped, and production schedules are what they are. Yeah it’s an inconvenience, but there’s nothing either of us can do about that.

He said, “Thank you for being so understanding about it, most of the time this is the point in the conversation when people start yelling and cursing me out.”

I told him that I had a long career in the industry. I got it. I mentioned that Apple could perhaps mitigate this kind of thing by maintaining a small supply of “Esoteric” builds of products in Cupertino.

Then I followed on explaining that might not work too well because there was no way for Apple to anticipate failures and it would represent dead stock racking up inventory tax just sitting in a warehouse.

The problem with this machine may just be infant mortality. It happens sometimes with complex circuits. Or it could be a manufacturing process issue.

If the problem is a manufacturing issue, Apple better move fast to nip it in the bud. This is the kind of thing that gives companies big shiners when it comes to public opinion.

Reliability gets you customers DOA equipment does not.

We know from experience that China gets sloppy with their manufacturing process from time to time.

Anyone remember tainted dog food? How about tainted Heparin (The blood thinner). Or blood pressure meds tainted with carcinogenic chemicals and in some cases metal filings? Oh, remember the tainted drywall, that was a good one, carcinogenic chemicals vaporizing in enclosed spaces like people’s homes? Then there was the defective lithium ion batteries in Samsung phones (How about a fire in your pants scarecrow?)

Good Job China! Great freaking quality controls you’ve got.

In fairness, given the number of products produced in China that work just fine perhaps I’m being a touch unfair. The problem is that with so much being produced in China, when they screw up, they really screw up on a massive scale.

This is why I’ve always questioned our reliance on goods manufactured in China. This isn’t to say that there aren’t manufacturing problems elsewhere in the world, but It seems to be China where executives are routinely murdered, only when their carelessness embarrasses the CCP. Otherwise everything is, “A-OK top notch…” even when it’s not.

You’ll note I didn’t mention anything about sloppy laboratory practices. We’re not supposed to say anything about a disease causing a panic that crippled the global economy are we? Sloppy laboratory processes, particularly in research labs, can have dire consequences. Just Sayin…

Honestly, I’d be much happier if all Apple products were manufactured here. For that matter I’d be happy if all our products were manufactured locally.

It’s a lot easier to fly a process engineer to Texas, or Oklahoma on a Sunday than to fly that same engineer to freakin China, to figure out whatever step, or steps, a Chinese executive decided to omit to speed up production.

Perhaps an executive forgot to whip the Uyghurs enough on a particular day???

I know, I know, I’m being hypocritical. I have no high ground to bash China when I’m feeding the beast like everyone else, purchasing goods produced for mass consumption under ethically or morally challenged circumstances.

Again, I digress.

Apple has indicated they’re going to be very good about the exchange. I’ve already packed the New Machine up in all of it’s original packing materials. I’ve printed the return label, and I’ll drop it off at a FedEx facility on Monday.

Then I’ll wait for a new, new machine to arrive sometime between June 25th and July 6th.

Although, if it’s a manufacturing issue… It could be longer.

On the one hand I’d like the notoriety of being “The Guy” that caught a problem with Apple’s production lines.

On the other hand, I’m not sure that would be a good thing if thousands of Apple customers have to wait another month for their machines, and know my name.

What would be nice is if Apple responded to my job applications, or better yet sent me the machine for free.

HA! I’m not holding my breath…

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My, My, My, Apple came through

I was in the process of writing a blog about the preparations I was going through to transfer to the new machine.

I was contemplating my next words, when UPS stopped in front of my house.

This is a rare event in my life, I do not have daily UPS, FedEx, or Amazon deliveries.

I thought that Apple had sent me the return kit for my old machine and was concerned that once delivered I’d have 14 days to return my old machine for credit and that this presented a problem since I didn’t have the new machine.

I groaned that I’d probably have to call Apple about it since the new machine wouldn’t be here until Wednesday or Thursday.

Low and behold, the UPS man was delivering my new computer.

I opened the outer box, then stood for a while deciding if I should start the transition process that evening or should I wait until Saturday. It was almost 7 PM. I didn’t really feel like spending the night screwing around with computer stuff.

Then I thought, “It’s here, I know this is going to take a long time. Best to get started,” and I did.

My plan was to bring the computer up without restoring anything from the backups. That meant that I’d be doing a lot of file copying from the server and possibly from the old computer in Target Disk mode.

I set the new machine on my desk and turned it on. I wasn’t impressed with the sound of the startup chime. Somehow it just didn’t sound as rich as the old machine’s.

Not an auspicious beginning. I persevered though.

I answered all the normal startup questions a Mac asks. I decided to link the system to my existing Mac ID. That would allow me access to the password file I’d cleaned up. I told the computer, “No, I don’t want to use an existing backup.” The machine thought about things for about a minute. Then It was up and asking for new instructions.

I went to the App Store. Logged in and went to the purchased software area. I thought this would buy me some time to cook dinner. I went through the list ticking off the applications that I wanted to download.

I’d just gotten up to go fix dinner, when the machine “binged”. “What now,” I thought. Surprisingly all the applications had downloaded. Damn this thing is fast!

“Okay smarty pants, let’s try this,” I thought smugly logging into the server. “This will give you something to chew on.”

I went to the folder containing my document folder. 100GB of files and folders. I selected all of them. Then dragged ‘em to the Documents folder on the new Machine.

“That should keep you busy for at least an hour or so,” I got up to go make dinner. Just a few minutes later I heard the “Thunk” sound distinctive to Apple systems saying the file copy was complete. “WTF?” I was just beginning to heat my soup.

Something must be wrong, I went back to the office to check, expecting only a partial copy or some other pain in the butt.

Nope, everything was right where it should be and the computer was waiting for the next command.

I selected the remainder of the folders to be copied from the server. I dragged them to their correct locations. This time I monitored the data transfer rate. It was astounding and the computer was still cool to the touch.

My older Mac would have been hot in some places and generally warm to the touch during this operation.

Frankly I’m impressed.

I also like the keyboard on the new machine better than the older machine. This one has a really nice feel. It’s similar to the wireless keyboard I recently purchased. The consistency between the keyboards feel is one of those unseen, unnoticed ergonomic touches that adds surprising comfort.

The new machine was up and ready to go within an hour. There are still some tweaks here and there, and there are a few applications that will not run natively on the machine.

I’m having a debate with myself about installing the rosetta application to enable compatibility.

The first backup took about an hour. But I was working on the machine completing some writing that I wanted to get done while that was going on.

Over the next days I’m sure that I’ll find things I missed but I doubt those things will throw a major monkey wrench into my day.

The only thing that is odd, is that the computer had a powerful acrid odor when I first started it up that grew stronger while I was loading software. The odor is much reduced this morning.

New computer smell, is not nearly so pleasant as new car smell!

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Well, I watched the Biden Speech

I really don’t like The President.

However, I found that I leaned toward several of the points that he made.

I’m still processing on the points, Here’s a list of what I mostly agree with.

Shootings

The shootings must stop.

An animal that walks into a school or a store and just opens fire, is to my mind rabid. As such, they deserve nothing but to be put down as you would a rabid animal. No mercy, no negotiation.

Something that I have noticed is that these animals always seem to go for “soft” targets. Whether that is a school, a church, a bar, or a shopping center. One thing these venues have in common is that they are almost always a Gun Free Zone.

A notable exception was the church in TX where one of the parishioners dropped a shooter on a sunny Sunday morning.

More Gun Control Laws

I’m not sure that more gun control laws will prevent these kinds of shootings. The so-called “Expanded” background checks I think are toothless.

I can say from experience that the “Gun Show” loopholes are largely red herrings. I’ve never been to a gun show that was “Cash & Carry”. If you purchase a gun at a gun show, you still have to pass the background checks and the gun must be shipped to a licensed federal firearms dealer. The purchaser can pick it up after providing appropriate documentation, and paying a handling fee. The same is true of Online Sales.

Mental Health

Mental Health Care must be expanded. I honestly don’t care how that is done, but I believe it must be done.

Red Flag Laws

I’m ambivalent about red flag laws. I can see the point and their usefulness. Alternatively, I’ve read horror stories where an aggrieved party abused the law to settle a score.

There’s one story that pops to mind where in a bitter divorce, the wife activated the Red Flag law. Her husband’s collection of rare and antique guns was taken, then the guns “disappeared” from police custody. The collection was worth north of 100,000 dollars. The wife demanded her half of the cash even though the guns were gone and therefore couldn’t be sold for profit. Depending on the Red Flag law, it’s possible to misuse it in a way similar to “Swatting”.

Age Limits

I’m not sure about the age limits on gun purchases. I do applaud The President’s speechwriter for addressing the military versus non-military aspects of 18 year olds purchasing guns. Yes, we send 18 year olds to fight in wars and kill people. Then those young people come home and can’t buy a beer. I’ve always found that to be wrong. On the other hand if the drinking age is 21, then I can see the gun purchase age being 21 as well. It is for handguns in most places.

And yet, we still have the weekly Chicago teenage shooting fest. This tends to imply, that criminals will be criminals regardless of the law or their age.

I completely disagree with laws similar to the California law that proposed making it illegal to hand a weapon registered to you, to another person, or member of your family. That disrupts a father being able to take his sons hunting, or to a shooting range. It also creates a complication if, for example, you’re at a range with a buddy and would like to try out his new Glock to see if you’d like it. (I don’t know if that idiotic law passed or not in California. I’ll have to look it up.)

Gun Safety

The President mentioned trigger locks, and safe storage of weapons. I can see that. (Although trigger locks can be defeated fairly easily.) The problem I have with so called “safe storage” is that a gun locked in a safe is no damn good if someone kicks your door down in the middle of the night.

Now you know why I sleep with a baseball bat at hand and some kind of knife nearby as well. Just as with a gun, I hope I’ll never have to use either of them. (Then again, caving someone’s skull in or gutting them wouldn’t disturb the neighbors like a gunshot would.)

High Capacity Magazines

The President referenced High Capacity Magazines again. This time he defined what he meant by high capacity. I lean toward agreeing, that 30 or 40 round magazines are high capacity. I’m not sure why someone would want that kind of capacity. I don’t know enough about that particular subject to intelligently comment.

I’ve been looking a Henry Lever action rifles for hunting. Most of them, top out at 10 round capacities. Several of them top out at seven rounds. These seem like reasonable maximums if you’re hunting.

I remember being told once, (discussing the model 1911 pistol,) that if you couldn’t hit what you were aiming at with seven rounds, you probably couldn’t hit it with 70. In my family, we were taught it was a very bad thing to waste ammunition. So I might be biased about the number of rounds necessary.

Other things said

One thing I noticed in comments that popped up after The President’s speech was that a lot of people were just badmouthing The President based on some of his comments earlier in the week. He said things like he wanted to ban 9mm.

Because of his earlier statements, people heard what they wanted to hear in his address Thursday.

In this post, I’m trying to maintain focus on what he said in his speech.

If in fact some of the legislation his party is proposing contains bans on 9mm, or AR-15 rifle mechanisms then I’ll have to re-evaluate.

9mm is one of the most common calibers on the market today. Most law enforcement use them and honestly if The President did actually ban that caliber, it would create chaos.

Law enforcement goes through a lot of testing before they approve a particular gun and / or caliber for their use. Having to resupply every police force in the country would impose a large financial burden on police budgets nationwide. Including The President’s own security forces. I tend to think The President misspoke earlier in the week referencing 9mm.

Size wise, a 9mm slug isn’t terribly different from a .38 so I’m really not sure why The President spoke about 9mm at all.

Then again, time will tell.