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.

And remember, $2,000 in the 70's was much more than $2,000 today.

But while more cores are nice, I'd prefer more time spent on "smart" utilization of those cores. For example, over the decades there have been many development languages for Mac, Current examples would be Xojo, X, and Swift. But trying to take advantage of those multiple cores is a major challenge with them and often the overhead - especially when development time and maintenance are factored in - exceeds the benefit.

A simple answer is, "Well that application is not one fit for parallel processing." But is that always the case? I'd like the compiler to say, "Well, well, well, looks like I have 8 (or more) CPU cores. How can I segment this code so it executes in the shortest possible time?"

In other words, it seems like the field where it's beneficial to have multiple cores is pretty narrow. Sure, it makes great marketing copy. But it seems that unless one is actively involved in video editing, multiple cores, CPU or GPU, will hardly make any difference.

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.

"... the document, this this anti-disinfectant warning highlighted ..." What I don't understand about this generation is the amazing number of typo/grammar errors I see in their published work.

These errors are so easily picked up by using simple, inexpensive software grammar-checking tools. Also, listening to text read back (Option-Esc) would audibly point out the "this this".

I am not picking on the author; he had the misfortune of being at the tipping point of my ire. It just amazes me how blatant and frequent such errors have become. The younger generation thinks we are picking on them because they didn't invent the transistor, or laser, or space exploration. They give us Rap "music". But then again, to be fair, they are improving battery chemistry.

I'm avoiding making this rant a commercial for a grammar-checking product so I won't name, names (and there is more than one). It's just that more and more, with professional online posts, newspaper articles, and even headlines, such errors stand out so clearly to non-professional proofreaders. And they take so little effort to avoid. Why not try?

I certainly make mistakes in mine, but I'm not a professional writer. I don't get paid for the quality of my product. But I do make an effort to avoid such mistaks.



Yes, that was a joke.