cosmic_slate

This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen and I am here for it.

How loud is the room with the tubs?

I switched to a Mac a couple years ago but I'll always at least keep a Linux VM and a separate Linux laptop just in case.

As for why, generally speaking, Apple puts a lot of really, really good work into making a machine that feels immediately productive with little fiddling around, they're ahead of the pack in some ways, and for advanced stuff it's "good enough".

My reasons:

1. Cross-device integration (at least with Apple) - I already use an iPhone, iPad, and AppleTV. The integration between iOS and macOS is just really, really good. Android+Linux just doesn't come anywhere close. And that's even if you put in the hours it'd take to set a bunch of disparate apps up to try to replicate it. Anyone telling you otherwise is completely full of bullshit or is showing that they actually haven't used Apple devices.

• Using my iPad as a secondary display takes literally 2 clicks.
• Setting my Apple Watch to unlock my laptop takes literally 4 clicks.
• Casting my screen or even just sound takes 2 clicks.
• Handoff is just magic. If you recently used something on your phone and have the matching app on your Mac, you get a shortcut in your Dock to load whatever you had on your phone on your computer to pick up where you left off. If I am in a Signal chat, I can instantly open the chat I was viewing on my phone. Same for browsing websites, text messages, and a bunch of things.
• Airdrop between devices "just works".
• If I connect to a wifi access point from my phone, my laptop will prompt me to automagically copy the password over (i think) bluetooth. Or if I'm at a friend's house and they use an iPhone, they'll get a prompt to share their wifi network password with me.

2. Device restoration - Restoring a Mac is just impressive for how little effort it requires. If someone stole my laptop, I can drive 15 mins to an Apple Store, buy a new laptop, point it at my NAS, and be back running in an hour or less to exactly where I left off. Similarly, If I buy a brand new laptop, copying data from the old one to the new one is incredibly boring -- in all of the right ways. All apps/info/config/etc gets moved over. No weird quirks or workarounds or anything needed.

3. M-series laptops - At the time, there were no other good options for ARM CPU laptops, especially ones that can be spec'd to 64GB of RAM. The M CPU laptops are crazy fast and efficient. I can literally use my laptop for 9-10 hours in a day going full-hardcore, and still have juice to spare. Yeah I know Asahi Linux works for the most part now, but I don't have time anymore to beta-test my main box.

4. Adequate Unixy bits - The terminal does everything I need, the utilities are fine. I use Nix (and some Homebrew) to maintain various CLI tools.

5. Software - I wanted to save this for last since everyone quotes this first. I wanted to meddle with music and Ardour doesn't really scratch the itch the same way Logic Pro does. Another example: as bad as the Mac version of Microsoft Office is, it's still far more nicer feeling than LibreOffice and requires much less work to get a good looking presentation/etc. out the door on a time crunch.

Gluetun is great for when you want a container that should only use the network on the other side of a VPN.

The world is getting better in a lot of ways but the uplifting headlines don’t garner clicks and views. A lot of people only post the doom-and-gloom headlines.

Lemmy hasn’t been any better than Reddit in this regard.

US centric answer here: Local Facebook Groups and maybe Meetup.com (this seems to have gotten worse until and through the pandemic but lately it seems to have gotten new activity in my area)

Look for a board game group for your area or a 20s/30s social group (assuming that’s your demographic) on those sites.

I nominate this thread for “sketchiest question on Lemmy”.

In all seriousness, at the end of the day, the legal side of this hasn’t been thoroughly tested. I would personally err on the side of caution and abide by the stricter of the laws between your country and your instance’s country. If either prohibit criticism of government, you may run into issues depending on the combination of countries. It’s safe to assume instance owners don’t have a gigantic legal fund either, so they may be more easily forced to give up access logs which could be used to trace you.

There’s also the forever unsaid “don’t be a dick” clause. If a country prohibits some form of speech, don’t intentionally try to get instance owners in that country in trouble.

It depends on the mattress. I’ve slept on cheap mattresses until 3 years ago when I purchased a Personal Comfort mattress. They’re an adjustable mattress like Sleep Number but a little cheaper and I liked the assembly a bit better since it lets you replace individual layers should they wear out, and the mattress can be “upgraded” to something more plush over time.

It was pricy and hard to justify at first but I’ve slept so much better.

Being able to adjust the firmness has been less gimmick and actually kind of nice but probably isn’t useful to everyone. It’s handy if you’re sharing the bed with someone though.

If you order a mattress, find a place that’ll let you trial it for a month or two. You should be able to tell if it’s helping or not in that timeframe.

Laptop by far, it’s not even close. There’s practically no advantage to a PC I’d be missing at all. I can quickly grab it and bring what I’m meddling with anywhere I go quickly, and the battery makes it so I can jump between my desk, couch, or down the street. If I need to run an external peripheral for some strange port, I have a Thunderbolt external PCIe enclosure at my desk.

That said, I wouldn’t consider a Chromebook a practical replacement. Not because it’s a laptop, but because a lot of what I fiddle with is just easier on a normal OS.