IT Director for a non-profit in Washington, DC. Man About Internet.
Monday is my birthday. My parents came to visit this weekend and as a gift to me, my father helped me install a lattice enclosure underneath our deck to prevent the dogs from going under it (and covering their paws with clumpy awful clay mud which they subsequently track into the house).
It took us all day yesterday to install it, but once done, I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Thank's Dad.
CONAN Highlight: Knowing their new watch might be too pricey for some, Apple is launching a budget-friendly alternative. More CONAN @ http://teamcoco.com/video Team Coco is the official YouTube channel of late night host Conan O'Brien, CONAN on TBS & TeamCoco.com.
Since Apple's "Spring Forward" event announcement on March 9th, there has been much hemming and hawing about the design of the new MacBook. I won't be the first to say this new machine is not target at the geek audience, but I wanted to express my own thoughts about it nonetheless. This afternoon I started Tweeting an incomplete thought on this subject but after several Tweets stopped myself, and decided it better expressed via this blog post.
First, let me say that I detest wireless-anything because of its current inferiority to wired-anything in terms of speed and reliability. Of course there are instances where this doesn't apply: AirPlay, Sonos, my iPhone are three products I use daily that come to mind. When mobility is not a requirement, however, I prefer speed and reliability. Maybe someday wireless will be able to stand as being technologically superior to wired in terms of these properties in all instances, but that day is not today. It maybe be in two years, but I highly doubt it. It may be in five years, but again I doubt it. It may be in ten years....probably.
But that day is not today.
This is why I have no desire to own the new MacBook. This is also why the new MacBook was not designed for people like me. The people who it was designed for do not prioritize speed and reliability over all else. The people it was designed for prioritize portability and convenience over my values. If I were someone who traveled more, or left my house more than once or twice per week (I work from home), then I might value this machine more. That Apple made this machine is okay with me, however, because the Mac Pro and Retina 5K iMac both exist. And this will continue to be okay with me, as long as Apple still makes these desktop machines.
I think that most of the controversy around this machine comes from people like me who fear the new direction of the MacBook is an early indicator that Apple plans to eventually do away with the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Pro, etc etc, in favor of more machines like the new MacBook. They are upset about the new design because Apple came out with a revolutionary and groundbreaking new product that was not designed for them! Their beloved Apple is forsaking them!
Calm down.
Eventually when wireless technology catches up to all of our existing ports and is able to transfer as fast as gigabit Ethernet, Thunderbolt, USB 3, and Displayport 1.3, then Apple might just come out with MacBook-like products across their entire product line. Apple is not stupid, though. They realize what and how people use their current products. They know that people still need MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs -- why else would they have released spec refreshes to those machines last week as well, if they did not?
In the meantime, that day is not today. But that day is coming within the next 5-20 years. In the meantime, rest easy, sit back, and lets enjoy witnessing progress happen during our lifetimes.
From earlier this afternoon.
PHOTOGRAPH BY LILLIAN ELAINE WILSON/ CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES
Virginia Heffernan writing for the New York Times:
Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.
I retweeted this the other day when I first saw it, but I love it so much I wanted to post it here as well.
Sebastian Anthony, writing for Ars Technica:
VESA, the standards body responsible for such luminary technologies as DisplayPort and the omnipresent VESA monitor mount, has published the specification for version 1.4a of Embedded DisplayPort (eDP). The new standard builds upon DisplayPort 1.3, which was published at the end of 2014. In short, eDP 1.4a allows for laptops, smartphones, tablets, and all-in-ones with 8K displays (7680×4320) or high-frequency (120Hz) 4K displays—but it includes a few other neat features, too.
eDP 1.4a appears to be almost entirely based on DisplayPort 1.3—which was published in September 2014—with a couple of new features thrown in for good measure. eDP 1.4a specifies four high-speed (HBR3) lanes between the graphics adapter and display, with each lane capable of 8.1Gbps; the lanes can either be used individually, in pairs (more on that later), or all together for a total theoretical bandwidth of 32.4Gbps. That's enough bandwidth to drive a 4K display (3840×2160) at 120Hz with 10-bit color or an 8K display at 60Hz.
So sometime in in late 2015 or early to mid-2016 for iMacs and Mac Pros to be able to use this to support beefier external displays?
