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• Post #721448

  RE: https://vox.ominous.net/@occult/116103841606429399 I miss the future.

• Post #719336

  @rootwyrm@weird.autos @graydon@canada.masto.host You missed an angle: Apple has a stockpile of not-good-enough-for-flagship-phones SOCs that are nevertheless adequate for low-end-laptop territory they previously ignored. Slap a cheap LCD screen, keyboard, and battery on it and it's a Neo. The chipset is *free*—otherwise they go in the trash.

• Post #718461

  @slowtiger@berlin.social @mwop@phpc.social The privatization subplot in The Delirium Brief was originally going to be the main matter of the book, but then the Brexit referendum happened and I realized I'd massively low-balled the chaos implied by the crisis at the end of The Nightmare Stacks. So I ended up having a coup and installing the New Management. Turns out I was consistently unable to predict the insanity of the following decade. (So now I'm fleeing, screaming, back to nice pred...

• Post #718334

  RE: https://dice.camp/@FredKiesche/116272837643264038 This is giving me a STRONG Onion "Interim Apple Chief Under Fire After Unveiling Grotesque New MacBook" vibe: https://theonion.com/interim-apple-chief-under-fire-after-unveiling-grotesqu-1819572211/

• Post #717720

  @su_liam@mas.to @bruce@darkmoon.social @dearlove@mathstodon.xyz That was a Heinlein shibboleth, back to the late 1960s I think (it was *definitely* in The Number of the Beast). So the Star Trek writers room was stealing ideas from elsewhere.

• Post #716550

  @rootwyrm@weird.autos @graydon@canada.masto.host In my case: if the Air was to be my main machine with a monitor hookup on my desk, I'd buy it. If I already had a desktop, and wanted a cheap travel note, I'd buy the Neo. (I've already got the mouse/keyboard/monitor/external SSDs plugged into my desktop.)

• Post #715428

  @robertklaschka@mastodon.online @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us But the WAY HS2 provides extra capacity is by taking high speed traffic off the rest of the network, thereby freeing up lots more slots for commuter/freight trains! High speed trains require greater spacing because their acceleration/braking distance scales as the square of the speed. This is idiocy.

• Post #714707

  @KaylaAllen@wandering.shop I have provisional plans for more New Management—specifically, a novella that might turn into a novel (if my publishers will take it). Imp needs money fast, so he takes a RED digital cinema camera on tour to Narnia to make amateur action furry porn. Only when he gets there via the ghost roads it turns out he's arrived in a version of Narnia that seems to have been written by William S. Burroughs …

• Post #714652

  @Colman@mastodon.ie I'm increasingly dissatisfied with my 11" iPad Pro M2 as a writing-on-the-go machine. It's not the hardware but the software that lets me down, every time. The mobile versions of the desktop apps *that I need* are inevitably inferior to the real thing. And I don't much like traveling with anything that expensive.

• Post #713896

  @isaackuo@spacey.space @NohatCoder@mastodon.gamedev.place Noted: Reagan's "star wars" pipedream was mooted in 1984. That's nearly 50 years ago! The tech arrived incrementally, in a steady drip. It still won't suffice to block a full-scale strategic attack by a superpower, but for anything much short of that, it's changed the rules of the game.

• Post #712758

  @spaf@mstdn.social It's really sad that the satire site felt the need to watermark that pic/headline …

• Post #712279

  @tclark@mstdn.social I'm pretty sure they'll change it! (I think it was pointed out immediately on the L&L forums.)

• Post #710506

  Meanwhile, a thought about the Macbook Neo: The Neo uses an A18 Pro SOC, the 2024 iPhone Pro cpu—the iPhone 17 Pro runs on the A19 Pro. (The Neo soaks up their stockpile of high-end phone rejects.) Apple's about to ramp up for the 2026 iPhones, which will release in September on the A20Pro. Phones outsell laptops by a huge margin so I think the current Neo will be quietly replaced by an A19 Pro model in September, to use up the reject stockpile once as iPhone 17 sales tapers off. /1

• Post #710402

  I don't need a Macbook Neo. My current "cheap mobile writing machine" niche is filled by a M3 Macbook Air. But my newest iPad and iPhone are two generation old Pro models. I suspect … no new iPad for me in 2026/27, but *maybe* a spec-bumped Neo in Sept/Oct, which will cover a lot of the iPad use cases (and is cheaper). Then aim to run it forever. (I'm overdue for a complete re-think of what I do with my herd of computers, and therefore what I actually need.) /3 (end)

• Post #710168

  @WellsiteGeo@masto.ai Nope. I'm pretty sure if the boys in blue got into my notes they'd only read as far as the phrase "Building black holes out of skulls!!!" before giving up and handing it off to psych. Who, due to the NHS backlog, might not get around to seeing me before I die of old age.

• Post #710106

  @WellsiteGeo@masto.ai @Verain@c.im At that point I pick a new destination!

• Post #710091

  RE: https://infosec.exchange/@bontchev/116271481696841313 Oh good grief, this summary is both farcical and tragic: also, Trump has fucked air travel for at least the next two years, never mind automobiles and logistics. The supply chain shock will get as bad as 2022 within a couple of months—then keep getting worse.

• Post #709873

  @smiletolerantly@awful.systems Iain was thinking of Elon Musk when he wrote the character Joliet Veppers in "Surface Detail". That's all you need to know about his opinion of techbro billionaires. And that was back in 2009-ish. Musk was already toxic.

• Post #708894

  @ianbetteridge@social.vivaldi.net @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us You can still see it live: I mean, is a band a tribute band if its front man is the original lead singer? (Look for Midge Ure touring with Band Electronica. Midge is still banging it out even though he's 70, but some of the others in the original line-up are older and retired for good, hence no more Ultravox after the 2011 tour.)

• Post #708833

  @Verain@c.im I don't outline: I visualize a destination and then have fun navigating from waypoint to waypoint.

• Post #708764

  RE: https://things.uk/@eclectech/116269216462815652 That was indeed a banger of an opening line! @futurebird@sauropods.win

• Post #708147

  @bjn@mstdn.social @Mikal@sfba.social @futurebird@sauropods.win It *definitely* triggered The Irish Times literary reviewer going by the cover blurb Iain proudly extracted from his hit piece!

• Post #708063

  SF STORY PREMISE: SETI program decodes an alien signal clearly targeting us. Hi! We see you're still facing the Great Filter! We want to help! Based on your anatomy per broadcasts we decoded, here is a blueprint for a device that will solve your problem! Humans: decode blueprint. It's for an improved guillotine.

• Post #700807

  @bjn@mstdn.social @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Nope. I see it as a way to set the parking brake on the housing bubble, not as w fuel to it!

• Post #700424

  @bjn@mstdn.social @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Did I suggest selling them off? Read again!

• Post #700096

  @lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com There was this *great* kids' cartoon show in the 90s called I Am Weasel, about a super-genius superhero mustelid, and his idiot frenemy I. R. Baboon, an arrogant and stupid baboon. My headcanon for Trump is that he's basically the POTUS version of I. R. Baboon …

• Post #699257

  @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Restart council house building. Only this time as starter homes for young folks, at low prices, to put a brake on the private/buy-to-let rental sector. Primarily studio/1/2 bedroom flats. Aim should be to enable young people in work to accumulate a mortgage deposit for something larger, without crippling the housing market (by deflating a lot of older folks' life savings), and to reduce housing-induced poverty. Need longer-term options for pensioners and the long-term di...

• Post #698429

  @philpem@digipres.club Run it as a variation on Scrapheap Challenge, only with a fully-equipped makerspace (and a stockpile of rockets, motors, and small drone rotor assemblies).

• Post #696541

  @fullsquare@awful.systems @techtakes Just put six words in front of the intro sequence: "After the year of the revolutions …"

• Post #696284

  #writerscoffeeclub Mar 18 - What's a writerly gift you've received? An author whose book I volunteered a cover quote for once surprised me with a bottle of Irish whiskey. Fittingly, it was Writers' Tears (and a very nice wee dram it was)! (Frankly, getting an ARC of that book to provide a blurb for was its own reward. No, I'm not telling you who it was.)