harryk

As cool as the Framework laptop is from a tinkerer and enthusiast standpoint, I still do not see real value in the upgradeability. Right now Framework sells a full laptop with 12th gen i5 for $1049. They also sell an upgrade kit with the same 12th gen i5 for $538. So a hypothetical user with an existing Framework laptop could swap and upgrade their motherboard for $538. Or sell their current machine for $250 (made up number but seems reasonable if not low) and then purchase an entirely new machine for $1049. In summary: upgrade for $538, or completely new machine for $799. While upgrading is less expensive, personally I would likely spring for the new machine which likely includes other minor or major upgrades and no wear. Especially since a typical user likely upgrades every few years. Meanwhile, the old machine continues to be useful with a new user for at least a little while. Versus an orphaned motherboard which even if it can be repurposed as a mini PC, quite frankly is half a step away from being e-waste. IMO all this attention to upgradeability and repairability is misplaced and would be much better oriented towards developing methods for actually recycling e-waste which is going to be created no matter what.

Yes, there are browser extensions for this. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ultrawide-video/lngfncacljheahfpahadgipefkbagpdl

A good teacher, and I mean a properly good teacher is quite rare. You absolutely should not expect every teacher to be good, or even adequate. And you should use outside resources (books, YouTube, tutors...) even if the teacher for a given course is good. Independent learning and knowing how to find resources on your own is a skill more valuable than any physics or engineering topic. Learn how to learn. However, if you have recourse to submit complaints or request a different teacher, then utilize those options. It might not go anywhere but at least let your voice be heard. You don't have anything to lose. Unfortunately, failing to respond to communications is an extremely common trait of academia. Many are too lazy, too distracted, too scatter-brained, too overwhelmed to respond to the quibbling questions of a student. Like I wrote above, learn how to answer your own questions, it will take you far in life. But also don't give up on asking your teachers. If they fail to respond, send the question again. Go to their office. Ambush them in the hall. Do whatever you need to to get their attention.

You are correct. I misread/misunderstood the explanation on Wikipedia.

I'll give Musk credit for leading successful companies, but do not compare him to Edison who is several levels above Musk in many regards. Musk is arguably good at bringing together other skilled people and creating environments for them to be successful. But don't fool yourself, Musk himself is not an engineer or inventor. He may have novel ideas, but so do children. The difference is Musk has enough money to pay people to try to make his ideas reality. Also to set the record straight: Musk did not found PayPal. He is not even listed as a co-founder. Musk created a small competing website which merged during PayPal's early days. Then Musk was ousted before PayPal boomed in success. Musk benefitted from PayPal because he held a significant number of shares when the company released its IPO. Musk did not found Tesla Motors. He bought his way in during series A funding. Tesla has become successful under Musk's leadership and he deserves credit for that. Musk did found SpaceX. He can have credit for this one, and for leading it to success.

Headlight washer cover

In the past I strongly considered building one of these: https://chiselapp.com/user/dmpop/repository/little-backup-box/home However, I instead bought several large capacity SD cards and I'd encourage you to do the same. SD cards are cheap. You can purchase ~1TB of storage for less than $100 USD. The exception is if you absolutely require the most expense cards with very high write speeds. SSDs are generally not cheaper than SD cards. So if you're buying storage space, just buy the SD cards. While a small backup box sounds nice it is really another point of failure. If it stops working for any number of reasons, you're stuck with whatever limited memory cards your have. If you transfer all your data to one SSD and it fails then you lose everything. A backup box requires power. And if you're transferring lots of data it will have to run for hours, consuming power and requiring somewhere to set it up and keep it safe. SD cards are cheap. Unless you're expecting many TBs of data. Just buy some SD cards.

Generally speaking financing any purchase is a bad idea, particularly non-essential purchases like a gaming PC, and particularly for someone young who is still learning personal finance (you're exactly the sort of person the creditors hope to prey on). Though there are some scenarios where it may be worthwhile. If you'll be paying any amount of interest, don't do it. If its a 0% interest financing plan and you can confidently pay the monthly requirement, i.e. you already have the money saved, then it is technically economically advantageous to utilize the financing plan because a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow (especially with current inflation). However be forewarned that these financing plans are almost always extremely predatory. If you fail to make a payment for any reason, the interest rates are high and your debt can quickly spiral out of control. Look at your monthly income and determine your level of disposable income after subtracting all regular and necessary expenses. Then imagine you had a sudden large expense of multiple thousands of dollars due to some unforeseen event. Do you have the savings to afford a large unexpected expense? How would it impact your ability to continue paying the monthly installments for your gaming PC? What if you suddenly lost your source of income? General wisdom is you should have enough savings to cover at least three months expenses. Also consider the event that the PC is damaged, stolen, or otherwise lost and insurance refuses to pay for it. Can you handle the loss? Keep in mind you will still have to pay the monthly installments even though you no longer have the PC. Lastly, be wary of building a habit of financing purchases. It's easy to think you can afford all manner of luxury items and pay for them over time with small monthly payments. This over-confidence in your ability to pay is exactly the trap the creditors are building for you. The future is unpredictable. Avoid taking on too much, or any, debt, and your personal finances will be much more resilient to unforeseen events.

IANAL but I have looked into importing cars before (as an enthusiast). Essentially the tldr of the law is, it cannot be imported unless it was originally manufactured for the North America market. Modifying the car to spec is usually a no-go. There are some exceptions and loopholes which people have used before, but only rarely and typically for something special. At the end of the day, it's almost never worth it to import a car. Importing a Motor Vehicle | U.S. Customs and Border Protection Requirements for importing a personal vehicle / vehicle parts

I really like the idea of integrating the power supply into the base, it would allow the power cable to lay flat on the desk and simply disappear. Unfortunately Apple seems to be very attached to the one-piece aluminum stands they've been using for years. I agree and this wouldn't be the first time they've neutered a product last minute. Even if it didn't allow running full apps etc, but just simple features like Airplay receiving and video calls would really set it apart. I wonder if they're waiting for wireless to improve in order to carry 5K video without significant loss. Imagine a truly wireless monitor, just set a MacBook down next to it and it automatically connects like a docking station.

This is a very valid reason to use an external power supply. Yes. Don't underestimate my dislike of external power bricks lol. For the HomePod, which has a similar 'non-removable' cable, finding a replacement cable is not a challenge. Apple will replace it for $29 and there is no shortage of them to buy from third parties. I fully expect similar for the Studio Display.

Final Cut does generally have larger and simpler UI elements compared to Adobe Premiere Pro. Though I can't say if it's going to completely solve your issues because there are still many small symbols and icons. I did just check and they all scale as expected with the computer's UI scaling settings. I wouldn't often recommend it, but you should consider iMovie. It lacks the typical editor UI and many see this as a detriment, but for this reason it may fit your use case nicely.

If I had the choice between a 300 W power brick and proprietary connector, or a simple AC cable which I had to go to the Apple Store to replace (or likely find on eBay soon), I'd definitely choose the latter. But that's just me I suppose.

Possibly. Likely the C5/C6 over the C7/C8 to have the Earth ground. Either way both are limited to 2.5 amps, or ~300 W which is probably very close to the max power consumption of the Studio Display. Looking at dimensional drawings show these are still in the 17 mm range, so fitting one is likely still not possible.

This is AC line voltage, not some 12V data cable. The regulations are much stricter and harder to change. I don't recall ever seeing a custom AC power cable. The cable on the Studio display takes significant force to remove. So much that many didn't even think it was removable. I think that puts them safely within consumer product regulations to call it 'non-removable.' The M1 iMac has a 143 W power brick, and power pass through is limited to 15 W, hardly comparable to the 96 W from the Studio Display.

I like the idea of powering the display with USB C, but unfortunately that too isn't possible. Current USB C specifications only allow for 100 W of power delivery. New specifications announced last year allow for 240 W but I don't believe those are implemented yet. Apple does not quote the power consumption for the new Studio Display but the comparable LG 5K display specifies a 'normal' power consumption of 140 W. The new Studio Display is likely similar if not more considering it has a higher peak brightness. Add on 100 W of power to charge a laptop and we are at the 240 W limit of USB C. This is before including any other peripherals or loss in efficiency.

Sorry, you missed my entire point. Because of international safety regulations, Apple must use one of the already specified AC connectors if they want it to be user removable. Could they have pushed for a new custom connector? Perhaps, but that would likely take years, and the three pin design they used likely wouldn't pass user safety standards. It's a display with built-in power through-put for peripherals, including 96 W for a laptop. Not a crazy big power brick, but more than just a lower power display. Personally I dislike all power bricks. On the note of replacement in the instance it is damaged, would you rather replace an entire power brick or just a cable?

There is much ridicule of Apple's design decisions regarding the new Apple Studio Display and its power cable. However after thinking about it, there is more to this design decision than many are considering. According to the official documentation on Apple's website, "the power cord is not removable." However, as posted on twitter by The Verge's Nilay Patel, and subsequently tested on last night's WAN show, the power cable is in fact removable. Albeit it requires significant force to remove and is clearly not intended to be removed by the consumer. After removing, you can see that Apple utilized a custom three pin connector. So why did Apple design it this way? It comes down to consumer product regulations. The power cable is carrying 120V AC power and thus any plug or connector must follow international standards for AC power and plugs. Specifically in this case the IEC 60320 standards which specify the types and dimensions of AC connectors for household consumer products. This set of standards specifies the popular C13/C14 connector which is ubiquitous for computers and displays. The full IEC 60320 specifications are behind a paywall, but here is an exemplary dimensioned drawing for the C13/C14 plug which I assume follows the regulations. See that the plug depth itself is 17 mm, and including the surrounding structure and electrical connectors requires at minimum 20 mm of space. Now look at the Apple Studio Display dimensions. The actual display thickness is not specified but subtracting the VESA mount from the noted 3.1 cm, I estimate the display thickness as 20 mm. There is simply not enough room in the Apple Studio Display to include the standard C13/C14 connector, or I'm guessing any other IEC specified AC connector. Sure they could've made the display 50% thicker, or added a bump, or angled the connector to plug in vertically like many other displays. But this is Apple, and like it or not, design aesthetics are a major priority. Without enough room for a removable AC connector, Apple really only had two options: use an external power brick and a small DC power connector (like they did with the iMac), or make the AC cable non-removable. I suspect many companies would go with the cheapest option which is to solder the AC cable and make it truly non-removable. Apple found a middle ground though. They designed a custom plug which is difficult enough to remove, such that it is considered 'non-removable' but is still technically and easily replaced if necessary. Given the constraints, what is more consumer unfriendly? - Soldering the AC cable in place, effectively making it impossible to remove without complete disassembly - Using a DC power connector and external power brick requiring you to replace it if it becomes damaged - Using a non-consumer-removable AC cable which is replaceable, even it requires going to the Apple for replacement (though I predict we will see these cable available from third parties)

I discovered LTT back in 2014 when I was researching the then novel ultra wide monitors. I actually just looked up and watched a few videos from 6-7 years ago to contrast against their latest content. I noted many differences in their videos and find myself often not entertained anymore by the new stuff. The horrible click bait titles certainly don't help as they don't say anything about the content of the video itself. Linus himself seems to have become just a meme. Besides LTT Store callouts, he is always parroting phrases like "Here we go boys" and generally appears non-genuine. He doesn't appear vested or knowledgable in the topic of the video anymore and is just there as a host to act and behave like a monkey on energy drinks. I think part of this is because Linus no longer does the majority of the leg work behind the video, so he really isn't actually presenting his own work, and it shows. The last videos where I remember seeing a genuine Linus was when he did those more freestyle presentations in his office with the test bench and wall TV. As for video content, everything now is a formulaic "lets build a PC with this brand's part" or "lets react to this thing" or "lets put together this thing and pretend things are going wrong." There are no more, or very few, true ambitious or novel projects. There have been a few, but their presentation style doesn't change so they just blend in. Of course their production quality has greatly improved but it doesn't match their image. I enjoyed the scrappiness of the old kitchen set days more. Now they have all the gear, and staff, and a real studio but their production still pretends they are a startup in the house. Contrast this to MKBHD whose videos have a much more serious tone which matches their production. Not saying LTT needs to change their tone to be like MKBHD, but that it's hard/impossible to fake being scrappy. All in all, I think LTT has become a machine to feed the algorithm. Look up any advice for starting a Youtube channel and it says to make videos you're enthusiastic about and the viewers will come. LTT has done the opposite and only makes videos which are metrically successful. Linus even said so himself in a recent WAN show, that each upload needs to achieve 1M+ views to simply break even.

Generally speaking there is very little profit to be had selling prebuilts

I don't think he blatantly lied about the license, he just failed to read the entire line of text on the XKCD webpage. Wrong yes, but not something to be upset over. As for the usage, WAN show is commercial however I think sharing the comic could fall under the super gray area of fair use. The comic was shown in commentary on another topic and was only very a minor portion of the whole show. Very different from what Randall Munroe aims to stop, which is the second hand selling of his comics. Additionally the XKCD license text reads: I interpret that Munroe does not mind people using his comics in limited capacity, even if it may be in a commercial setting.

Overclocking the processor in a modern printer will not yield any noticeable benefit. The processor is plenty fast to do what small job it needs to do. However CPUs are not the only thing you can overlock. Supposedly overclocking the physical printing mechanisms was a thing back in the day of dot-matrix printers when printing speed was terribly slow. I don't know if it was done much in the home enthusiast community but certainly the manufacturers would do everything to maximize the speed the mechanisms could run without sacrificing accuracy. So just like tuning a CPU, one could tune their printer and make modifications such that it would print faster than a stock version. With the proper skills and knowledge, in principle one could do similar tuning with a modern inkjet or laser printer, though this would almost certainly require creating an entirely custom control system to interface directing with the hardware.

Steve Jobs famously had an obsession with making impossibly powerful miniature computers. Famously they all are regarded as failures. Let's see how the latest iteration fares. Personally I have high hopes for the Mac Studio and will likely purchase one in the coming future.

Most satellite communication only replaces the consumer connection and not the backbones of the network. The satellites simply beam the consumer signals to and from a ground station which then connects to the network in a traditional manner. High orbit satellites, i.e. GEO, can capture signals from a large area and can send and receive signals across large ground distances like the oceans. Though these satellites do not have the bandwidth to replace the fiber optic backbone which connects continents. EchoStar 19 is "the world's highest capacity broadband satellite" and has 150 gigabit bandwidth. That's enough to replace a regional connection in many places but far short of the hundreds of terabits of bandwidth which make the intercontinental connections. Further, there are only a handful of these big GEO communications satellites, so even all of them together won't come close to the capacity of ground networks. Currently Starlink satellites generally work the same way, they rely on ground stations to connect to the existing internet. However the newest Starlink satellites are equipped with laser modules with which they can communicate with other Starlink satellites in orbit. It's not clear if this inter-satellite network is operating yet but the long term plan is to become non-reliant on ground stations.

In principle yes we could predict everything but in reality there are certain phenomena in physics which inhibit this. The classic textbook example is the double pendulum. In terms of mechanical systems, the double pendulum is quite simple and is governed by the fundamental equations of motion. So on paper (or rather with code) it is easy to model the motion and behavior of the double pendulum. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the motion is highly dynamic and extremely sensitive to the initial conditions. A slight change in the initial position yields a completely different state some time later. If it's extremely sensitive to the initial conditions, all we have to do is better measure them. In principle if we knew the exact position and velocity of every atom, then there is no reason we couldn't accurately predict the motion of the larger pendulum. We understand the basic equations of motion after all. Introduce the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, a fundamental piece of quantum mechanics. As defined by the uncertainty principle there is a fundamental limit to the accuracy we can measure the physical properties of particles. We can measure the position of a particle very accurately, but not the momentum. Or we can measure the momentum very accurately, but not the position. We can never know both with a high level of accuracy. Thus our knowledge of the initial state of the double pendulum is fundamentally limited, so our ability to predict its motion is ultimately also limited. This behavior is encompassed by the chaos theory. For systems which are highly sensitive to the initial conditions, later states are effectively random and unpredictable.