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Cake day: 2023年6月19日

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  • Not sure about jellyfin, but I assume it uses ffmpeg? The M1 is fast enough that ffmpeg can re-encode raw video footage from a high end camera (talking file sizes in the 10s of gigabyte range) an order of magnitude faster than realtime.

    That would be about 20W. Apparently it uses 5W while idle — which is low compared to an Intel CPU but actually surprisingly high.

    Power consumption on my M1 laptop averages at about 2.5 watts with active use based on the battery size and how long it lasts on a charge and that includes the screen. Apple hasn’t optimised the Mac Mini for energy efficiency (though it is naturally pretty efficient).

    TLDR if you really want the most energy efficient Mac, get a secondhand M1 MacBook Air. Or even better, consider an iPhone with Linux in a virtual machine - https://getutm.app/ - though I’m not sure how optimsied ffmpeg will be in that environment… the processor is certainly capable of encoding video quickly, it’s a camera so it has to be able to encode video well.


  • This. My Mac has 16GB but I use half of it with a Linux virtual machine, since I use my Mac to write Linux (server) software.

    I don’t need to do that - I could totally run that software directly on my Mac, but I like having a dev environment where I can just delete it all and start over without affecting my main OS. I could totally work effectively with 8GB. Also I don’t need to give the Linux VM less memory, all my production servers have way less than that. But I don’t need to - because 8GB for the host is more than enough.

    Obviously it depends what software you’re running, but editing text, compiling code, and browsing the web… it doesn’t use that much. And the AI code completion system I use needs terabytes of RAM. Hard to believe Apple’s one that runs locally will be anywhere near as good.


  • Here’s a tip on good documentation: try to write the documentation first. Use it as your planning process, to spec out exactly what you’re going to build. Show the code to people (on GitHub or on a mailing list or on lemmy or whatever), get feedback, change the documentation to clarify any misunderstandings and/or add any good ideas people suggest.

    Only after the docs are in a good state, then start writing the code.

    And any time you (or someone else) finds the documentation doesn’t match the code you wrote… that should usually be treated as a bug in the code. Don’t change the documentation, change the code to make them line up.


  • You don’t need metaphors. It’s pretty simple.

    The Spotify app should have a button that takes you to their website, where you can sign up for a premium subscription.

    It doesn’t have one because Apple would kick Spotify out of the App Store.

    Also - all other links to the Spotify website (support, terms of service, privacy policy, etc) take you to pages where the main navigation of the website has been removed so that you can’t find the signup page. Because again, Apple bans that. For the longest time apps have not allowed to have any way for users to find a signup form on a website.

    That policy is now illegal in the EU (and a growing list of other countries) and Apple’s attempt at compliance is a new API - only available in Europe - that informs the user that they might be a victim of theft, fraud, etc before they get taken to a website that is deliberately sandboxed… supposedly to prevent theft/fraud/etc but more likely because it makes it really difficult for Spotify to link that signup with an existing free account.

    Oh and if Spotify opts to expose users to see that horror show… they’d have to pay tens of millions of dollars per year to Apple. They have so far refused to do so, meaning the new regulations have failed (well, they were failing, until the EU declared Apple’s compliance efforts insufficient).






  • Sure we can make a different ticket for that to move this along, but we’re getting product to agree first.

    Ooof, I’m glad I never worked there.

    QA’s job should be to make sure the bugs are known/documented/prioritised. It should never be a roadblock that interrupts work while several departments argue over what to do with a ticket.

    Seriously who cares if the current ticket is left open with a “still need to do XYZ” or it gets closed and a new one is open “need to do XYZ”. Both are perfectly valid, do whichever one you think is appropriate and don’t waste anyone’s time discussing it.




  • what else do I get with something like CARROT that the default doesn’t offer

    More control over what data is highlighted as the primary metrics at the top of the report (or on widgets).

    Where I live the actual temperature and “feels like” temperature are often really far apart. Apps like Carrot can be configured to show “feels like” as the main temperature, but Apple only shows it if you scroll down all the way down past a bunch nearly useless stats like the sunset time (spoiler, it will be the same as yesterday) and how the current temperature compares to the historical average.

    Also, I live near the beach and want to know the tides. That’s almost more important than the temperature.






  • Sure, but the vast majority of Mac software at the time, including loads of first applications from Apple, couldn’t run on Tiger. You had to run it in the “Classic” environment - and they never ported that to Intel.

    Tiger shipped just 4 years after the MacOS 9.2 and plenty of people hadn’t switched to MacOS X yet.

    The reality is Apple only brings things forward when they can do it easily.

    Apple has done eight major CPU transitions in the last 40 years (mix of architecture and bit length changes) and a single team worked on every single transition. Also, Apple co-founded the ARM processor before they did the first transition. It’s safe to assume the team that did all those transitions was also well aware of and involved in ARM for as long as the architecture has existed.


  • Apple has the target disk mode, but doesn’t the laptop need to be shut down for it to work?

    Modern Macs can’t do Target Disk Mode. If you had the right cables (thunderbolt or firewire) it was really fast, just as quick as a high end internal PCIe SSD.

    And yes, you did need to reboot - because the other computer had full arbitrary read/write access to the raw sectors on the drive with no safety checks or security. If you did that while the computer was running normally, you’d corrupt the data on the disk as soon as they both tried to do a write operation at the same time — and also TDM needed to be used with caution - the other computer could easily install a rootkit or steal all your saved passwords.

    It’s been replaced with “Mac Sharing Mode” which operates while the Mac is running normally, does have all the necessary algorithms in place to avoid corrupting the disk, full security to authenticate each read/write operation and block attempts to mess with system files, and therefore is orders of magnitude slower than TDM.


  • If any of that is part of the hiring process - I don’t want the job.

    If HR is incompetent enough to consider things like relationship status or political opinions then what other bullshit policies does the company have? It’s probably the tip of the iceberg.

    By far most important thing is to have good colleagues, because without good colleagues your job will be miserable or the company will not last (or both). Made the mistake of working for a shitty job at high pay once and it was one of the worst decisions of my life.

    Don’t waste your life working for incompetent companies.

    Also, as someone who has hired devs… if you have a public profile, and it doesn’t make you look hopelessly incompetent, then your application is going onto my shortlist. Too many applications cross my desk to look at all of them properly, so a lot of good candidates won’t even get considered. But if there’s a GitHub or similar profile, I’m going to open it, and if I see green squares… you’ve got my attention.

    You’ll get my attention wether the username matches your real name or not, but bonus points if it’s your real name. Openness leads to trust. And trust is criitcal.