cougarmeat

They certainly tricked me. On the way to completing an order, there was a radio button selected for free shipping.  Because my order qualified for free shipping, I left it and moved to the rest of the ordering procedure. But that button was for Prime Free shipping - which would arrive 1 day earlier than the usual Free shipping. AND - leaving that button selected automatically signed me up for Prime!

Now to be fair, the signup was for a 30-day trial. But I was going to be out of the country and, amazing but true, wouldn't be using Amazon within those 30 days. So I called to have the Prime status canceled and asked if the 30-day offer could be reset so I could consider it on my return. It could not.

Trust is a fragile thing. I'm sure the marketing department considers themselves very clever. And I'd expect they have statistics showing their antics glean more new customers than they lose. After all, who are you going to buy from if not Amazon?

With Microsoft leading the AI advance, I no longer fear AI taking over the world. I think of all the programs MS has "acquired" and made worse while driving better-designed programs out of the market.

I predict, that when it comes out, the power plug will be incompatible with everyone else's power plug.

Any time you make a list, one item will be at the top and one item will be at the bottom.

Long ago, before there was dirt, I was in a High School Latin class. My daily test scores put me 3rd from the bottom. Eventually, the two students below me dropped out. In the next test event, I appeared at the bottom of the list. The teacher asked why my performance had dropped. I told him my "level" had not changed. It was just that the two people below me had dropped out. The teacher didn't bother me again.

(Note - I had a profound hearing loss that no one told me about until I failed my Army Physical during the Viet Nam ... police action. Reading/writing different languages is a normal challenge. Hearing a foreign language is a no-go).

So it doesn't matter if items are at the top or bottom of a Gross Sales list. The important thing is they are selling. An iPad Mini may be at only 9%, but how is it doing compared to its competition. ... Oh, that's right, there is NO competition for that handy, very portable, device.

You suggested an incremental backup "setting" and mentioned a default "fill disk" setting. I couldn't find any setting for that in the options I was presented (M2 Mac, OS 14.4.1).

The one time I wanted to use a TimeMachine retrieval was to re-establish a wallpaper photo. It wasn't clear if I could just use TimeMachine to reset the system to some hours (or a day - whatever the increment) earlier, or just recover the wallpaper photo file (the laptop owner didn't know where she stored it).

I could see how to copy known files over but not reestablish to an earlier system status. The wallpaper photo wasn't in any obvious place.

For my own work, I set up an SSD for TimeMachine with a 2-hour increment. But you can't run from TimeMachine if your system drive goes down. So I use SuperDuper to make a nightly smart backup to a Clone. If there's a problem with the main drive, I can operate from the clone until the issue is resolved.

Note that there are 3rd party TimeMachine apps that provide more options - especially in scheduling.

I wish Parallels was more forthcoming about the need for a Windows License - which would add about $200 - or a total of $300 - to get you up under Windows OS. They do say you'll need a Windows LIcense - but it's twice the price of Parallels itself. You could get a used PC for that. There are occasional sales for the Windows OS - down to about $30. But their description always says it the sale version won't work under Parallels.

One (of the many) things T. has taught us is that bad actions have no consequences (except to the people they are acted against). 

Seems like all you mentioned was the cosmetics.  A wire is a wire. Perhaps you can add a bit about why the electrons like the Thunderbolt 5 wire more than the Thunderbolt 4 wire. What is it - not the external braid or the plastic or molded cover on the plug - that makes the electrons travel faster (trick question)? And why does that process cost $70?