aleph

"Why don't you buy Apple products?"

Me: Gestures broadly at this:

Ever the innovators, Apple introduced a new dimension to repair that our scorecard simply didn’t account for: namely, that you could take a highly repairable design like the iPhone 14, install a genuine Apple replacement screen or battery, and then… it fails to work. Following the correct procedure was no longer enough.

Today, you need one more thing: a software handshake, using Apple’s System Configuration tool. It contacts Apple’s servers to “authenticate” the repair, then “pairs” the new part to your system so it works as expected. Of course, it can only authenticate if Apple knows about your repair in advance, because you gave them the exact serial number of your iPhone, and they’ve pre-matched it to a display or battery. This is only possible if you buy the screen or battery directly from Apple. Forget harvesting parts—which is a huge part of most independent repair and recycling businesses. It’s also impossible to pair any aftermarket parts—which means only Apple-authorized repairs can truly restore the device to full functionality.

Possibly, although there's also the fact that "blockchain" is the trendy new buzzword that companies like to use because they think it makes them look cool.

They didn't lie, though.

The quote you refer to said:

"Aware of the crypto thing," he tweeted. "We were told there was no NFT/crypto component but looks like that may not be the case. Waiting for responses to our emails/phone calls like others."

Which is a misunderstanding on the part of the author of that tweet: blockchain ≠ crypto. While it is the technology that crypto and NFTs are based on, blockchain can be used for a wide variety of different purposes.

So while the organizers probably should have been more clear about how they were going to implement the technology, it appears they didn't say anything that wasn't true.

Basically it sounds like a bunch of people getting upset for no reason because they think blockchain = crypto.

Pretty much, yeah. Seems that people heard the phrase "blockchain" and instantly assumed the idea was to flog NFTs, which is unfortunate for the people behind the platform.

That said, this seems to be yet another example of people using blockchain unnecessarily. Wouldn't a centralized database/authentication server have been a simpler choice?

They didn't disclose the fact that the passes would be using blockchain technology, apparently. Quite why they thought this was necessary is not clear, but it's not inherently a bad thing.

Unfortunately for them, however, blockchain/cryptocurrency/NFTs are all interchangeable according to the general public, so this has created a bit of a backlash.

Gaming these days is generally excellent thanks to Proton. Certain titles do still have issues, but it's on a case by case basis.

Audio latency is a good point - I don't know how that fares under a VM these days. Pipewire has brought many improvements over Pulse, so it's possible that the situation has also gotten better.

If you're hanging onto Windows for just one app, you could try running it in a virtual machine. I do that for a few work-related apps that have no Linux/web versions and it works great.

You could also dual boot, if VM performance doesn't quite cut it.

One wonders why but each to their own, I guess.

Yup, and even when doing quick A-B testing, it's usually a slight volume disparity that makes it possible to tell them apart.

The idea that Tidal sounds noticeably better because it offers FLAC instead of a lossy codec is pretty much a myth.

The audible difference between Tidal and Spotify is way overblown even with audiophile quality gear.

Apple Music does sometimes sound better by comparison, but that's more to do with the fact that they tend to curate their music library with better sounding master recordings than it does with what codec/bitrate they use.

The downsides of AM is that it can be a pain if you aren't already in Apple ecosystem, and its suggestion algorithm often isn't as good.

There's a difference between purchasing a product and paying for a service.

Paying for Spotify would be the latter.

Ah, I see. If the phones themselves support > 3.0, that would certainly be less egregious.