jdw

JP234 said:

jdw said:

JP234 said:

jdw said:

I suppose one could argue that celebrating the birthdays of the DEAD have meaning because that day compiles us to consider their life.  But technically speaking, birthdays were concocted by the living to celebrate the ongoing life of the said person, showing them that another year has passed and celebrating the fact that they still remain with us.  Need further convincing? How many of you literary lovers celebrated Shakespeare's 458th "birthday"?  While one could counter-argue the Christmas serves as the greatest example of celebrating the BIRTH of a man, it can also be said by those who are believers, that He is still alive today, which rather nullifies the counterargument.

I am alive (obviously), but I prefer to not spend all my time reading birthday wishes on FaceBook or being forced to respond to them when they inevitably come my way.  Interestingly enough, today is my birthday, and FaceBook is overflowing!  It may brighten the day of some, but to me it is an annoyance.  I am no longer a child who really cares about such things like cake and presents.  As another interesting twist, I need to attend a funeral today.  

I would prefer that people recognize me for who I am today and what I still have to contribute, putting a lesser eye on the past.  

But with the dead, we only have the past for them.  And while we could IMAGINE what Steve Jobs would do at Apple today, it is the realm of fantasy.  Steve didn't want Apple to constantly think: "what would Steve do?"  He considered death the best invention of life insofar as it demands CHANGE.  So it is with our thinking on celebrating "birth" days of the dead.  Perhaps we would do well to CHANGE that aspect of our culture, and instead just glean the best of Steve Jobs and mix that with our own ideas for making a better future.  Steve won't be mad.  "Great artists steal" was his personal philosophy.  

So we reflect on Steve Jobs, not as a morbid celebration of the birth of dead man, but as a daily reflection on how we need to motivate ourselves like Steve did to accomplish something insanely great.

If you prefer not to spend time reading your birthday wishes on Facebook, why not deactivate your account?

You appear to be someone not privy to the existence of interesting vintage Mac Facebook groups!

:-)

I'm aware of them. And they're all time sucks.

Only someone who is not a vintage Mac fan would say what you did.  Quite a shame. But perhaps not surprising.  

My first home computer was the Mac when I was 13 in 1984.  Many Mac users I came to know in later years were converts from Windoze.  None of them had the same appreciating and respect for the Mac that I did.  Indeed, my love for vintage Macs often transcends my love for modern Macs.  I also have a great appreciation for those in the vintage Mac community, regardless of whether they be on the 68kMLA, TinkerDifferent or in the FaceBook groups you sadly have chosen to despise.

AppleInsider,

The article is not detailed enough and requires us to make assumptions, which I don't like to do.

Is this talking exclusively about macOS Ventura?  An OS version I happily have NOT upgraded to because I like Monterey better? :-) 

Or will DropBox dump its awful new version onto us Monterey users too?

If the ticket to avoiding trouble is using Monterey, I am happy to stick with it.  I strongly dislike the facelift of System Preferences in Ventura.  Older is better.

"The future is still the future" is the story of SIRI's life.  When SIRI first came out, it was new, so people such as myself gave it some slack.  And at the time, we all recognized its limitations but hoped and prayed for a better future.  Fast forward 12 years to today.  SIRI is hardly better today than it was originally back in 2011!  I ask it on my iPhone to do the most basic things, but in almost every case, it tells me it can't do that.  I'm talking about turning on or off super basic functions of my phone.  Sorry... Can't do that.  And then when it comes to getting information, SIRI is pretty much brain dead.  In some ways, Apple has deliberately hobbled it, perhaps for "security" reasons, which to me as a user is really stupid. SIRI is stupid.

So when I read all this talk about AI and Bing, I can only yawn when it comes to the part that shows it to be seriously flawed in certain areas and then the story turns "to the future" and how much better IT COULD BE.  Yeah right.  SIRI "COULD BE" so much better too, but it isn't.  "Yes, but ChatGPT is quite different from SIRI!" you say?  Ha!  Let's travel in our time machine to a decade from now and see who's right.  A version of the flawed functionality we have today is probably all we will get.

Disagree with me and work for Apple?  Great!  PROVE ME WRONG by making SIRI vastly better.  I dare you!

They're BRAVE enough to copy the industrial design of the original compact Mac but TOO CHICKEN to put a rainbow Apple logo on the front left?

Pah-leez!

I read all the comments thus far, and the only one that sounds somewhat reasonable is that from Stimpy.  The rest are all negative, bashing change, and defending the status quo.  We've got comments that go as far as say that crushing old computers isn't all that dangerous to health, with other comments trying to call in the blood sucking lawyers, and then other comments which talk about the untrustworthiness of right to repair advocates.  Someone even defended democracy in what I assume to be the USA by saying we can at least be thankful we have elected officials who implement "our values," forgetting that America is divided 50-50, and that a house divided cannot stand.  All the while, not a single person here is trying to propose a way to improve things.  Not a single one.  Everyone complains and screams "Safety!" and "Security!" and "Lawyers!", and nobody really cares, and nothing improves as a result.

Bravo.

There needs to be a way for sensitive data to be reasonably and securely erased in such a way that the electronics of a given device can later be repurposed rather than destroyed.  Any argument that defends the status quo of "destruction is the only safe method" is not a sustainable solution and therefore requires a rethink.  That's why I appreciate stories like this because it challenges us to rethink what we are doing now and asks us to think about a better way.  Anyone thinking that crushing computers is a better way or the only way isn't thinking hard enough.  And with all the self-praising advertising that Apple does about sustainability, solar panels, recycled materials, use of less toxic materials, etc., it behoves that same Apple to think further about how to keep its beloved machines in operation longer, even if that means some people may opt for an older Mac, now and then, rather than a new. 

I can only be thankful that this security and recycling madness didn't happen in the distant past.  As a result, I can thoroughly enjoy vintage 1980's and 1990's Macs today.  Computing history from that era is preserved.  Toying with an SE/30 or Color Classic may not be completely practical, but it is a fun hobby and there's an active community built around mods and upgrades.  We still have some very old hard drives, such as the GCC HyperDrive, still in use today because folks back in the day didn't put a drill through every one out of data theft fears.  And hobbyists today aren't going around sharing stolen data either, even though there is an abundance of old data still residing on ancient drives housed in machines sold at yard sales for low prices.