Moving to Mac
I ordered a MacBook Pro yesterday; I can’t wait until it gets here. It’s fair if people say that the only reason I did that is because I was bored and there’s nothing else to do with my money with everything being closed down because of the coronavirus, and that I don’t really need a new computer.
In fact, my old Windows desktop computer, with an i7-860 microprocessor, seems to work just fine speedwise, for the most part. That’s a testament to the fact that Moore’s Law has significantly slowed down. In 2010, a computer with a chip that’s was more than 10 years old would have been dog slow and practically useless. Actually, the desktop computer was indeed pretty dog slow before I replaced the main HDD with an SSD and relegated the original HDD to being extra storage for media files and documents. SSD drives are game-changers. Also, the original graphics card would have been pretty useless today, but I replaced it at least twice. With an Nvidia GTX 1050 TI graphics card, I can play Overwatch with a 60 fps frame rate.
Running the Jetstream 2 benchmark test on Chrome, the Windows desktop computer scores approximately 60, while a new Chromebook that I purchased for my 81-year-old father (who is too computer illiterate for me to allow him to use Windows, he always manages to install all sorts of malicious browser extensions despite the computer having Bitdefender antivirus software) scores approximately 50 on the same benchmark. Thus we see that a brand-new cheap computer today is less powerful (although only slightly so) than a power-user’s computer from 10 years earlier.
The Asus Windows laptop that I bought a year and a half ago, in retrospect, really sucks.
- The HDMI output is only capable of a maximum resolution of 1080p, doesn’t work with my 1440p monitor, and of course won’t work with a 2160p (4K) monitor if I ever upgrade to that. That makes the Asus only suitable for use strictly as a laptop computer and not suitable as a desktop replacement you can use with a high-resolution monitor.
- It has a fake USB-C port and not a real USB-C port so it won’t support the peripherals of the future. Or in the case of wanting high-resolution video output, which would be possible with a real USB-C port, it doesn’t support the monitors of today.
- The webcam sucks. The webcam on the MacBook Pro is criticized for being only 720p, but I assume it has to be as least as good as the webcam on my seldom-used 2012 MacBook Air and that webcam is superior to the crappy webcam on the Asus. This is a fault I never noticed until recently, because before March of this year I never used the webcams on any of my laptops, but now I routinely use them for Zoom meetings.
- The built-in display doesn’t work at 60hz because of crappy hardware design, and running at 48hz results in occasionally unsmooth framerate display with 30fps and 60fps video.
- Every so often I get this weird “Audio renderer error. Please restart your computer.” error and I have to reboot the computer to keep watching YouTube videos. I have no idea if this is Asus-caused crappiness or Windows-caused crappiness. I’m looking forward to the Mac’s reputation for “just working” the way it’s supposed to.
My plan for the new MacBook pro is to use it as a complete replacement for my Windows desktop, but one that I can unplug when I want to take it to a different room of the house. I want to force myself to become a Mac person and wean myself off of toxic Windows. (I am not alone, Mac has steadily increasing marketshare over the previous seven years.) I intend to only use the old desktop to play Overwatch. (The achilles heel of Mac is that it doesn’t play games. Another achilles heel is that any older software that’s 32-bit won’t run on the latest 64-bit Catalina operating system. That includes Microsoft Office 2011. On the other hand, one of the reasons why Windows is so buggy is because it tries to maintain so much backwards compatibility.)
Some other cool things about the Mac which I recently discovered is how it can seamlessly integrate with other Apple devices. For example, you can receive and send text message to your phone number right on your Mac. The Mac has better built-in support for Apple Airpods. The Airpods do work with windows computers, but only as generic Bluetooth headhpones. So if you stay within the Apple ecosystem, the Mac does some pretty cool and useful stuff.
MacBook 2020 product lineup.
The model of the 13” MacBook that costs $1799 is the best one to buy right now. The less expensive MacBook Pros only have 8th generation Intel microprocessors, one cooling fan and two Thunderbolt 3 ports. The more expensive MacBook Pros have 10th generation Intel microprocessors, two cooling fans and four Thunderbolt 3 ports. The second cooling fan, according to reviews on the internet, results in a quieter computer (because neither fan needs to spin as fast), and higher sustained performance because two fans working together allow the microprocessor to run at a high load for a longer time without overheating. The more expensive MacBook Pros also have Iris Plus G7 graphics which are reported to be significantly faster than any other version of Intel integrated graphics. About 40% as fast as an Nvidia GTX 1050 TI videocard, so it should be fast enough to play some of the few computer games that are Mac compatible.
I bought the $1999 model which has a 1TB SSD drive instead of the 512 GB drive on the $1799 model, because I know that I store a lot of files, and if I’m going to use this as my main computer, I’m definitely going to want all of that space. But if you have no idea why you need a 1TB drive then you don’t need one and you can save yourself some money by buying the lower-specced computer.
It’s dubious whether the lower-priced 13” MacBook Pros really offer an advantage over MacBook Airs, because the latter all have 10th generation Intel microprocessors so they are more advanced than the so-called “Pro” computers, and the Airs now have hiqh quality “Retina” displays (whereas the older MacBook Airs from a few years ago had lower resolution screens with a pretty crappy color gamut making them bad for watching movies because the colors were always all off).
Hana Kimura apparently commits suicide
She was so cute and bubbly, I feel so bad.
UPDATE
Now having watched the episode of Terrace House that caused her to to receive so much online hate, I see that she’s not so cute and bubbly as I had previously thought, or rather that behind the cuteness and bubbliness was immaturity and self-centeredness.
But still, very sad that she’s dead and couldn’t find a better way to deal with her past mistakes.
The latest word is that Terrace House is suspended and there won’t be any more episodes released.
Covid-19 IFR by age group
Assuming that the overall infected fatality rate (IFR) in NYC is 1% (which in turn is based on the assumption that 25% of NYC has been infected), and that each age group has the same percentage of infected, then I have used the data located here to create the following estimates:
0-17 0.003%
18-44 0.1%
45-64 0.9%
65-74 3.0%
75+ 7.5%
Here’s a prediction of total deaths in the United States, by age group, if we let the virus run unfettered until we have heard immunity (70% infected)
0-19 1722
20-44 76,209
45-64 528,570
65-74 711,690
75+ 1,151,850
So “only old people will die” is false. If we don’t do anything to stop the virus, there will be more than 600,000 dead who are under the age of 65. Plus another million people 65-74 who might have had another good 10 years ahead of them if not for the virus.
Also, only looking at this as a binary dead vs not dead doesn’t take into account how many of those who were hospitalized but survived will suffer permanent disabilities because of the virus, which we don’t know yet.
Warm weather doesn’t stop the virus
NY Times article about big virus outbreak in Nigeria. Nigeria is a very tropical country, so this totally shatters the theory that warm weather will make the virus go away, as morons who know nothing about viruses were insisting during the winter.
And yet, I still keep hearing about a “second wave” that will come in the fall. No, I predict that the second wave will come during the summer, because the United States is relaxing social distancing restrictions too quickly, before the first wave has even ended.
Will work-from-home kill New York City?
Some optimists say that 9/11 didn’t kill New York City, why should the virus pandemic?
But the pandemic feels different to me in two major ways.
(1) As bad as 9/11 was, the pandemic has had a much bigger impact, and the impact is not just on New York City but the entire world. I lived in Arlington, Virginia at the time, which is where one of the planes crashed, and 9/11 had no impact on my life at all, except that I got hired for a job that was a direct result of 9/11 (increased money for hiring contractors to work at federal agencies involved I homeland security). But the pandemic has changed everyone’s lives. Nearly all white-collar workers in the entire world are now working from home.
(2) Never before in the history of mankind has the technology been as good as it is today for doing so many jobs from home. Nearly all of the remote collaboration tools I use daily didn’t exist back in 2001. Today there wasn’t a good reason for people to go to the office except for inertia. Meaning that’s the way it was always done, and certain managers saw no reason to change it because they liked managing people in person. But now it has been changed.
I think that, for health reasons, no one is going to be required to go into the office for at least another year, and by the time it’s safe (because the virus is totally gone, probably because of vaccines), everyone will be used to working from home, and renting expensive office space will seem like a waste of money to corporate CEOs.
So my bet is on New York City going into a vicious-circle type of downward spiral.
Why Covid-19 is disproportionately infecting and killing the poor
When the pandemic first began, I observed the irony that it was the rich who were getting the virus, because they were the ones flying around the world to vacations and dumb conferences where the virus initially spread.
But that’s no longer the case (with the exception of doctors). Once the rich people seeded the virus, it began to disproportionately affect the poor. These are the reasons (some mentioned in mainstream media, and some only here):
- Except in New York City, poor people take public transportation to work while rich people drive.
- Rich people are able to work from home, while blue collar jobs require workers to be physically present.
- Rich people are more likely to say “screw work I’m staying home and staying safe” while poor people don’t have that luxury.
- Poor people have lower IQs, so they are not as good at understanding social distancing rules.
- Poor people in Chicago have been having big parties and ignoring the social distancing mandates. This is probably happening in other places as well.
- In general, rich people have higher future-time-orientation with respect to their health than poors, so rich people are just trying harder not to catch the virus.
Work-from-home vs. libertarianism
The pandemic has shown us that the vast majority of white-collar workers are perfectly able to work from home.
A wide variety of groups ought to strongly support this. For conservatives, work-from-home means an end to the dominance of liberal “blue” cities like New York. For liberals, work-from-home means less carbon emissions from people commuting to the office. For people who actually can work-from home, it means no more time and money wasted in commuting, the freedom to live anywhere they want to.
Who is actually opposed to working from home? I guess big businesses which think that they make more money if they force everyone to go to an office, and libertarian types who say that we must let business decide what’s best. The same libertarian types predicted disaster for bars and restaurants if government banned cigarette smoking at those places. Well governments didn’t listen, smoking was banned, and bars and restaurants made even MORE money as a result because people no longer stayed away because they were repulsed by the disgusting cigarette smoke.
Just as with cigarette smoking, it’s time for government to step in and address this free-market failure, and ban companies from forcing white-collar workers to work in the office. For good, and not just until the threat of the virus is past us. The end result may even be more profit for business because they won’t have to rent expensive office space. The only real losers will be the people who own commercial real estate. And I say, screw them.
Response to Dreamer’s comment
Dreamer writes:
Thanks for re-opening comments. I don’t comment much but I do lurk and read. When it comes to trying to read conservatives viewpoints. This is one of my listening posts. In theory, regardless of my own views, I try to keep an ear to various venues. To pick up points which becomes litmus tests and proxies to the core tenets of the group.
But once comments here got shutdown, I lost a major area to follow discussions for the area of what’s used to be called the manopshere, I had to look for other venues. And so much I can’t listen and place some kind of litmus test at all that doesn’t already fail to me.
What I mean by that are things like masks – I am suppose to not agree with masks when the data say the countries that wear masks has much less infections? Am I suppose to want reopenings when no other country has reopened with anywhere near the same numbers? Then there’s the discussions about hospitals are faking it or even the disease itself. It’s takes me 5 minutes to text a few friends who works in the hospitals – including a close friend who’s sister is a doctor in NYC and the responses that it’s chaos in there. Where do I even start with 5G? And I see where the vaccines discussions is gonna go.
Yes, it’s here too, and that’s why you closed it. But at least there’s a discussion. I might actually see disagreements and people would actually make arguments with various points to each other. It’s actually a semi-marketplace of ideas. Not just a bunch of accepted “facts” that all I can gather are lines being drawn in the sand that I can tell the long-term implication are we are going have to pick sides.
1. I don’t think this blog is part of the “manosphere.”
2. Masks do a lot to protect other people from catching the virus from the wearer. Thus I totally support requiring people to wear masks in indoor places like supermarkets. Originally, our CDC said NOT to wear masks. The total incompetency from our government is unbelievable.
Wearing a crappy mask does little to protect you from other people. A lot of people seem to think they have lots of protection by wearing a mask. I suppose that people believing that is a beneficial lie, because some people are too selfish to wear a mask for altruistic reasons, but they would wear one because they think it makes them safer.
3. Re-opening: it depends on what’s being re-opened. I don’t agree that parks should have been closed, because the virus is very hard to catch outdoors with brief contact between people. Except for super-crowded New York City parks which were NOT closed. Go figure.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to open barbershops or hair salons right now. Not while there are more people being admitted to the hospital every day with the virus.
4. No matter how often people are wrong with conspiracy theories or other dumb theories (like it only affects Asians, or it will magically go away in April), they just latch onto new dumb theories.
The future economy
MASSIVE government debt, who pays that off?
Many companies out of business because of bankruptcy.
People without jobs don’t spend money.
Employers lay off more people because there’s no demand, creating even more people without jobs who don’t spend money.
People become used to ordering stuff online, lots of demand for retail never returns.
People become used to a lifestyle of more saving and less spending. The Great Depression of the 1930s created a generation like that. Will probably happen again. This further reduces demand.
Democrats take over House, Senate and Presidency in January 2021, with mandate to do radical stuff. What will they do?
April 27 Coronavirus update: No light at the end of the tunnel
Too many people are taking about re-opening the economy soon. Let me remind you that nothing has changed:
Not enough people with antibodies to have herd immunity. Not even close. Not even in New York City where it’s estimated that 21% of the population caught the virus. And we don’t even know for sure that antibodies guarantee immunity. Scientists are unsure.
No proven scalable cure. (But it’s been proven that the malaria medicine that was hyped by the bozo in the White House doesn’t work.)
No vaccine.
We have not totally eradicated the virus like China was able to do. It’s all over the United States, and no state has locked everyone down to the extent that the virus could disappear as much as it did in China.
Massively incompetent leadership, and they are not being replaced until January 2021. The massive incompetency at the top goes beyond just the bozo in the Oval Office. Even Dr. Fauci, the seemingly wisest member of the coronavirus team, said on March 9th, that it’s OK to go on a cruise, when clearly it was not OK. On February 8th, I wrote “all cruises need to be canceled immediately.” As you can see, I was more than a month ahead of Fauci on the virus, and Fauci is considered the best of the team. There was total incompetency at the CDC which couldn’t test anyone and denied tests to anyone who hadn’t traveled to China even when it was obvious to me that the virus was silently transmitting. Total incompetency at the FDA which wouldn’t let anyone create their own tests. Total incompetency all over, and those same people are still running things.
* * *
Also, I hold to my previous statement that the need for more testing, at this stage, is being overstated. Anyone who has any sort of flu-like symptoms should be assumed to have the virus and be required to quarantine. Even if it’s another less deadly virus, it’s not acceptable at this time to allow any respiratory viruses to spread around. And for people without symptoms, it’s impossible to test everyone every day. At least I can’t imagine how that would be possible within the next year.
Although, ideally, we should be able to test medical workers every day so they don’t infect other staff members and patients. Yes, that would be very valuable if we could do that.
Lion of the Blogosphere 