bkkcanuck

boltsfan17 said:

bbh said:

I hope she prevails. I don't think we are a "police state". Yet.

The Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement doesn't apply at the border. 

While I believe you are correct with regards to precedent (sort of), there are multiple issues here - and some competing issues.  

When you enter the US the customs enforcement has the right to search whatever you are bringing into the country to make sure that you are not bringing in contraband or importing goods that you have not paid taxes or duties on.  When the constitution was written there was no concept of good that was not physical.  It is highly unlikely the writers of the constitution had any idea that it would be twisted to be used to search "your personal papers" since there for the purposes of duties and taxes they were of limited value.  In cases like this, the purpose of these searches is not for customs enforcement - but rather as a fishing expedition for security or policing.

Prior rulings of the Supreme Court have so weakened the 4th Amendment protections that the 4th Amendment going forward will likely be of limited protection.  They twisted it likely because in the case that came before them -- they did not want the defendant to get off... and thus ruled incorrectly when it comes to precedence.  In doing this they came up with a "test" (that was not written into the constitution) about "the expectation of privacy".  In the modern era where most of our personal papers are electronic data, and the devices backed up these "personal papers" to other computers - the courts have continued to twist the 4th Amendment by applying this test "the expectation of privacy" as anything not stored in a hole in your own backyard - you don't have an expectation of privacy...   Basically, the courts have not been faithful as to the intent of the constitution.  This is not the only part of the constitution that they have done this for, the laws with regards to allowing the government to expropriate your property for public use are another case.  I highly doubt they meant for public use to allowing the government to take your property and give it to another private corporation as to increase the tax base (did they even have property taxes back then ... ) .  Public use is very simply - roads, infrastructure, public parks... not legalized theft.  

IMHO, The Supreme Court should take the opportunity on a case such as this (assuming it gets appealed to the Supreme Court) to fix prior courts mistakes (IMHO).

Understand that the individual was an American.  For all that do not have citizenship, the immigration and customs can reject your entry into the country so even if the government protected "your papers" -- if you as a non-American refused... they could just refuse you entry.

(I am not an American, and don't currently live in the US).  

MacPro said:

This explains why all the sudden massive discounts of Mac Book Pro  models reported on AI these last few days I suspect.  Well, I only want a MBP for casual use so I grabbed a MBP with touch bar from Adorama thanks to the AI advertorial and have no regrets, heck of a saving. 

Will Apple use the Radeon RX Vega M GH Graphics GPUs on the next generation MBPs I wonder?

It is highly unlikely that this chip is the reason.  At most, we might see a small bump with a revision as another stop-gap measure until Intel gets it's act together.  

Even if Intel is able to churn out chips in limited quantity, the ones that Apple needs are typically the ones with the largest die size (usually the high-end graphics variant which takes up considerable die).  If there is a high reject ratio then the larger the chip, the larger (exponentially) the number of rejects - basically the cost of the product is more than what they can sell them at that point.  It still seems like Intel is at the point where CannonLake for Apple is far away - possibly even into 2020.  

 Soli said:

1) I wonder what the price bump is for an extra 16GiB of RAM.

2) I also wonder if Apple's MBP line will offer bth 16GiB and 32GiB options, or just jump to 32GiB for all models the way they now only offer 16GiB. My guess is they'll offer both capacities.

It is irrelevant to speculate on the price of the extra 16GB of RPM since it is so far off in the future (unfortunately) that with RPM prices -- right now -- we have no clue on the cost to Apple for that same memory.  It could be the same price as now, it could be half, it could even be more.  

Apple could put 32GB in right now if they were to use DDR4 instead of LPDDR3 -- but they won't.  The impact of changing to DDR4 for the first 16GB and then adding another 16GB of DDR4 drain on the battery - would be significant. As such we have to wait for Intel.  It is not that DDR4 consumes more power when active, or it consumes more power when inactive - the truth is that it most likely does not.  The difference between the two is that if you use DDR4 memory and it is active, it will not switch down into low power mode unless unused for a significant amount of time.  LPDDR3/4 switches from active to inactive almost instantaneously in comparison.  With the OS (even with the optimization that Apple did several versions ago), is constantly starting up and scheduling stuff to run in the background - with LPDDR3 it would go active, inactive, active etc.  With DDR4 - it would more likely stay active and not have enough time to switch down to inactive... hence it draws significantly more power just to have installed in the computer.  For the life of me, I don't know why Intel did not have an architecture update to support LPDDR4 since they obviously have been unable to master the die shrink... maybe they keep on thinking ... just a little more - not worth it... yet it has been years now.
 

DoctorQ said:

DavidEsrati said:

Still not upgradeable- no slots- while every PC in this price range can and does do both.

I'm waiting on one. We'll see what it runs like when it shows up.

I have a feeling slots are superfluous at this point, since it’s pertinent only to Intel. A PCI bus, in this scenario, is likely a bottleneck. Apple’s architecture calls for keeping the internal busses short as possible, such as with the system RAM. Will M series based Macs eventually have PCI slots? Beats me, but if there’s no hardware to fill the slots, what difference does it make?

Internal expandability of the computer is necessary when you are buying a product that as sold -- will not do what you need it to do.  The Trashcan mac was pilloried over this in the past, but the vast majority of this sentiment was because as sold it had insufficient graphics capability and other functionality.   If the computer you are buying does everything you need it to do for the requisite amount of time for it to pay for itself -- then internal expandability serves no real need.   The vast majority of users -- could not care a less about expandability as it by its self serves no functional purpose... just give me what I need to do the job I need done... that is what I need.   I never considered buying the trashcan mac, but now here I am waiting for 10 to 12 weeks (because obviously no-one is interested in this device) for the configuration I wanted to order...  for the new Mac Studio.

rossb2 said:

sflocal said:

What just stuns me are the reactions of the people around her.  Here's some cowardly guy that sucker-punches a woman right in the face, and everyone around her just stands straight up like a flagpole and do nothing.

People should have grabbed that man-child by the throat and have him kiss concrete.  I'm hoping someone did that after the video cut-off.

Well I hope you have deep pockets. She got $1500 for the face punch. What would he get from you on a "concrete kiss"?

That was likely negotiated as a way to clear the way for the individual to make a contribution to the police fund to make the charges go away.  It usually is only done once the victim is bought out.   7/11 workers make about 30 baht an hour so I would not expect a retail shop to pay that much more... so you are talking about 1500 hours wages in compensation.

Minimum wage I believe is 300 baht a day (yes that is more than 8 hours).

I just get the feeling that Intel is out of step with respect to Apple and processors available.  Microsoft went with Skylake early and had multiple problems with power management and other issues - which made me think that Skylake (other than a few niche areas) was maybe having a few problematic issues early on.  The Mac (mid range) often relies on Iris level intel graphics, and those chips are often missing from the earlier release of chips because of the size / yield issues.  If Apple is going to continue using Intel chips then they will have to work on a PowerVR replacement for graphics and either get chips without Intel graphics or have it disabled.  Either way the relationship is nearing a breaking point.  At a certain point I think Apple will have to seriously have to entertain Macbook line running their own Apple processors, or Intel allowing Apple to tape out their own graphics to a base Intel stock processor (using the Intel foundary).

seankill said:

Holding out for Intel’s 10nm chips, plus a keyboard worth a damn. Also hope they can get that battery closer to 90 whr. 
I just remember converting from Dell to Mac in 2012 and the differences between the Dell and Mac that sold me were:
- MagSafe (gone, couldn’t believe that the whole PC market didn’t use a similar design; now Apple killed a crazy practical option). 
- the keyboard (the new one sucks IMO)
- the trackpad (the new and old one are fine, the best on the market, but I do like the click of my 2012 more)
- the screen. (The new ones are as amazing as ever)
- SSDs & aluminum body. 

The GPUs in the MacBooks suck but having my desktop, high end GPUs aren’t important to me anymore.

I will miss the HDMI and USB 3.x ports. I don’t have a single USB C cable. It would be nice if the Touch Bar was optional. I’d ditch it a heartbeat, reminds me of the Galaxy S edge series, neat but not terribly useful. A gimmick to charge more for. 

A great upgrade over the 2016/2017s though. 

If you are holding out for 10nm Intel parts you have at least 2 years to wait -- likely longer.  Intel has stated that they will have some CPUs at 10nm at the end of 2019. (they gave that assurance 2 years ago - so the likelihood of further delays cannot be discounted).  So SOME CPUs may be available at the end of 2019, but the CPUs that Apple uses will NOT be available until likely late 2020 at the earliest (larger die CPUs, later, smaller ones earlier - until they get the rejected rates down to economics - it is exponential in nature when you talk about die size and associated reject rates).   That is why with great financial results - Intel stock was hit after that announcement.  You have at least 2 -- possibly 3 generations of Mac laptops until they will get chips for 10nm (other than maybe the Macbook 12").

cgWerks said:

Mike Wuerthele said:
It does 4K fine. It doesn't do 8K at all, but you'll find not much does on the computing side at the moment. It's fantastic that there are 8K TVs coming, but content is still a long way away.

Wouldn't you have to have a wall-sized TV for 8K to matter much? At some point, it seems like we're just doing spec jumps for spec (and new TV sales) sake... with the downside of using up our computer performance gains trying to drive them (and bandwidth too).

Also, just an update on my above comments about the Mac mini and noise... the little Turbo Boost Switcher app to easily turn off Turbo Boost takes care of that, for the most part. So, I have the performance when I need it, but most of the time, just turn it off so I don't have to be bothered by fans.

tadd said:

Apple website says orders on MacMini placed today are still arriving Nov 7th.  That's what it said just after the Brooklyn event.  It also says Apple Store Pickup is still currently unavailable. 

Out in Thailand the website button has not switched to 'buy' yet -- so I would have to wait if I were not already planning on waiting for a few weeks.

matthewkohler said:

It's bizarre. Apple is selling a mac mini with 8GB/128GB of RAM/storage for 800 dollars. The 8GB is okay but the 128 GB is absurd. My 2012 mini is 16GB/500GB. To get that much memory now costs 1400 dollars. Sure, SSD is better than a hard disk but it still doesn't add up. The extra memory can't possibly cost Apple that much even including a reasonable profit margin. They are either selling the entry level mini at a loss or are purposely overcharging for memory. The result is that I have to wait to upgrade. I don't see how it can be profitable for Apple to keep me and my 800 dollars on the sidelines just so they can charge 600 dollars for an amount of memory that is worth no more than 200 dollars. Yes, I can buy a samsung SSD for 100 bucks and connect it to the new mini, but I'll only do that if my current 2012 computer dies.  

Is the most valuable company in the world run by the smartest business people in history really shooting itself in the foot just to gouge its loyal fans? Am I missing something?