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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • Not sure about jellyfin, but I assume it uses ffmpeg? The M1 is fast enough that ffmpeg can re-encode raw video footage from a high end camera (talking file sizes in the 10s of gigabyte range) an order of magnitude faster than realtime.

    That would be about 20W. Apparently it uses 5W while idle — which is low compared to an Intel CPU but actually surprisingly high.

    Power consumption on my M1 laptop averages at about 2.5 watts with active use based on the battery size and how long it lasts on a charge and that includes the screen. Apple hasn’t optimised the Mac Mini for energy efficiency (though it is naturally pretty efficient).

    TLDR if you really want the most energy efficient Mac, get a secondhand M1 MacBook Air. Or even better, consider an iPhone with Linux in a virtual machine - https://getutm.app/ - though I’m not sure how optimsied ffmpeg will be in that environment… the processor is certainly capable of encoding video quickly, it’s a camera so it has to be able to encode video well.


  • This. My Mac has 16GB but I use half of it with a Linux virtual machine, since I use my Mac to write Linux (server) software.

    I don’t need to do that - I could totally run that software directly on my Mac, but I like having a dev environment where I can just delete it all and start over without affecting my main OS. I could totally work effectively with 8GB. Also I don’t need to give the Linux VM less memory, all my production servers have way less than that. But I don’t need to - because 8GB for the host is more than enough.

    Obviously it depends what software you’re running, but editing text, compiling code, and browsing the web… it doesn’t use that much. And the AI code completion system I use needs terabytes of RAM. Hard to believe Apple’s one that runs locally will be anywhere near as good.


  • You don’t need metaphors. It’s pretty simple.

    The Spotify app should have a button that takes you to their website, where you can sign up for a premium subscription.

    It doesn’t have one because Apple would kick Spotify out of the App Store.

    Also - all other links to the Spotify website (support, terms of service, privacy policy, etc) take you to pages where the main navigation of the website has been removed so that you can’t find the signup page. Because again, Apple bans that. For the longest time apps have not allowed to have any way for users to find a signup form on a website.

    That policy is now illegal in the EU (and a growing list of other countries) and Apple’s attempt at compliance is a new API - only available in Europe - that informs the user that they might be a victim of theft, fraud, etc before they get taken to a website that is deliberately sandboxed… supposedly to prevent theft/fraud/etc but more likely because it makes it really difficult for Spotify to link that signup with an existing free account.

    Oh and if Spotify opts to expose users to see that horror show… they’d have to pay tens of millions of dollars per year to Apple. They have so far refused to do so, meaning the new regulations have failed (well, they were failing, until the EU declared Apple’s compliance efforts insufficient).






  • Apple has the target disk mode, but doesn’t the laptop need to be shut down for it to work?

    Modern Macs can’t do Target Disk Mode. If you had the right cables (thunderbolt or firewire) it was really fast, just as quick as a high end internal PCIe SSD.

    And yes, you did need to reboot - because the other computer had full arbitrary read/write access to the raw sectors on the drive with no safety checks or security. If you did that while the computer was running normally, you’d corrupt the data on the disk as soon as they both tried to do a write operation at the same time — and also TDM needed to be used with caution - the other computer could easily install a rootkit or steal all your saved passwords.

    It’s been replaced with “Mac Sharing Mode” which operates while the Mac is running normally, does have all the necessary algorithms in place to avoid corrupting the disk, full security to authenticate each read/write operation and block attempts to mess with system files, and therefore is orders of magnitude slower than TDM.





  • It was great, in 2017

    It hasn’t stopped being great. In fact it’s better than it ever was.

    We need better safe guards and checks so that some person can’t just delete France.

    The map is updated millions of times per day. There are checks in place, but minor edits don’t get much review especially if it’s something simple like “this street has a bus stop”. Deleting France, yeah someone would notice that change and block it. Most software doesn’t use the realtime map state - they use a slightly older version of the map in part to avoid using a version of the map that has been compromised.

    You really only see the current map state if you are editing the map.


  • Everything-but-Windows?

    No. Any device that implements a certain DHCP feature is vulnerable. Linux doesn’t support it, because most Linux systems don’t even use DHCP at all let alone this edge case feature. And Android doesn’t support it because it inherited the Linux network stack.

    I would bet some Linux systems are vulnerable, just not with the standard network packages installed. If you’re issued a Linux laptop for work, wouldn’t be surprised if it has a package that enables this feature. It essentially gives sysadmins more control over how packets are routed for every computer on the LAN.


  • That knowledge is mostly trivial. 7/10 repairs a regular Joe could do. Or worse comes to worse you can take it to a mechanic of your choosing.

    That’s not true anymore. Modern cars have really complex problems that even mechanics struggle to fix. Especially when it’s a software problem… usually those problems just never get fixed.

    As a software developer (not an automotive one) my take is the fix is to have everyone be running the same software, so that fifty thousand dollars diagnosing and fixing a problem for one car will result in it being fixed for all cars. Spread the cost out like that and it’s affordable. Otherwise it just won’t get fixed at all.

    Should we go back to basic cars? I think so yes… but then I ride a motorcycle that doesn’t even have water cooling or a battery. But most people aren’t like me. They want lane keeping cruise control/etc.






  • As an Apple user, I definitely have batteries die before the product stops being useful. The company provides feature updates for old phones for several years, and when that runs out they continue to provide security patches for several more years.

    A new iPhone battery is only $47 (if you do the repair yourself, and if you send your old battery back to Apple for a recycling credit), but it’s a pretty complex and arduous process with a fair chance of damaging your phone while attempting it. You also have to pay a deposit, over a thousand dollars, to rent the tools off Apple. Ouch.

    You can take it to an Apple store, but that takes even longer than doing the repair yourself. And it costs more (though you don’t have to pay the outrageous deposit for the tools).

    This legislation would force Apple to make it a simple process with no tools. Yes please.