Disqus - Latest Comments for shortformblog

Re: The last Hackintosh

Ernie Smith — Tue, 28 Jan 2020 12:03:57 -0000

Hey Dave, this is stuff to keep an eye on, but it’s going to realistically take many years for a T2 lockdown to occur, in part because the company is still selling at least one computer without the chip, and other devices without them only went off the market recently and will still be usable for a number of years. There’s a sea of 2015 Macbook Pros without T2 chips, for example, and there’s no reason to drop support for them at this time—as long as those are still working it will be hard to lock things down. It’s a 2025 problem rather than a 2020 problem.

The notarization problem was a relatively easy fix, if I remember right—it can be turned off in Clover. This gives me the belief that, at least for now, Apple is more focused on adding things like T2 and notarization to protect users rather than to lock out Hackintoshes.

Re: Seat Belt History: The Patent That Was Given Away

Ernie Smith — Wed, 26 Dec 2018 11:11:29 -0000

There's a whole country full of people who still have belts. The driver of each of the vehicles you listed is wearing a belt. The engines of most of those vehicles rely on some kind of belt—even in the case of the bike, where some variants use a belt instead of a chain. And the bag you carry when walking might have a strap, which is made of similar material as a belt.

Whatever the case, the story isn't about the first line.

Re: Hometown Proud: IGA's Business Model Brilliance

Ernie Smith — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 23:25:06 -0000

Yes, I'm aware Guam is an American territory. But the average person doesn't think of it in terms of the Mellencamp vision of a "small town," which was the point of the passage.

Re: How Marketing and Lobbying Built Thanksgiving Traditions

Ernie Smith — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 13:44:04 -0000

I think you're missing the point—nothing about what I wrote takes away from the value of Thanksgiving as a holiday or minimizes what it represents, but instead reframes it in a way that makes you think differently about the details. Pondering details, piece by piece? That's, objectively, the opposite of shallow. The goal of this piece is to point out, really, that Thanksgiving—or any holiday—is the sum of its parts, and those parts aren't necessarily bad. They just have different roots than you might have expected. Just because something was inspired by something a business did doesn't mean it's bad. It just means it was inspired by a business.

I think you'd also be surprised to find out that I left Sweetest Day on the cutting room floor because I decided to make the piece all about Thanksgiving rather than writing about a bunch of different holidays, which was my original plan.

As I said, the myths are important. Arguably, they're more valuable! But they're more complex than the mere truths.

Re: How Marketing and Lobbying Built Thanksgiving Traditions

Ernie Smith — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 08:43:56 -0000

Thanks man, that really means a lot.

Re: Police Training Simulator History: A Parallel Path With Gaming

Ernie Smith — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 21:47:34 -0000

I spend hours writing these things and yet I'm taken down by a single letter in the first paragraph

Re: Silicon Persistence

Ernie Smith — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 17:09:00 -0000

Modern PCs are likely capable of doing most of what old SGIs can do—a $2,500 tower or souped-up cheese grater Mac Pro is functionally more powerful. But I think that there are often reasons beyond practicality that lead some to use SGIs. Perhaps they're part of an old workflow that might prove difficult to replace, such as the medical imaging systems Ian Mapleson mentioned to me; perhaps they've used the technology in the past and have an affinity for IRIX, its operating system. Or perhaps, as with the people I highlighted here, they're generally interested in the technology, which has some interesting cultural value outside of the norm.

Perhaps it's not seen as traditionally practical to use an SGI Indy, just as it might not be practical to roll on an Amiga or a DOS machine in 2018. But sometimes the decision isn't as simple as "it's the latest and greatest." Certainly this technology is very niche and was so even during the height of its prominence. But for those interested in it, they have their reasons for booting one up.

Re: Silicon Persistence

Ernie Smith — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 16:08:21 -0000

Hey there, thanks for writing in. It's not an error, but a difference of opinion. Both are correct grammatically: http://www.baltimoresun.com...
For what it's worth, the main difference between the two definitions is that "font" is a reference to still water, with "fount" referring to moving water, as in a fountain. The reading I had in mind was the former as I was thinking of a baptismal font, due to the reference being about historic data rather than something more actively flowing.

Re: Disk Compressor History: A Microsoft Antitrust Prelude

Ernie Smith — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 09:31:51 -0000

Fixed, thank you.

Re: Disk Compressor History: A Microsoft Antitrust Prelude

Ernie Smith — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 10:31:30 -0000

There's always stuff that predates everything—it's the nature of technology. Over the years, I've covered at least half a dozen examples of early attempts at the internet, email, forums, and so on. So I make no claims that Stac was first, just that it was successful enough for Microsoft to try to rip them off.

I think Stac's success here is in part because of the algorithm it used and in part because it was targeted at general PC users at a time when PC users were running against their limits.

Re: Disk Compressor History: A Microsoft Antitrust Prelude

Ernie Smith — Wed, 05 Sep 2018 12:31:52 -0000

Ugh, sorry about that. Sometimes things get hazy when writing. Consider it fixed.

Re: Disposable Ballpoint Pen History: Pennies on the Dollar

Ernie Smith — Thu, 16 Aug 2018 12:57:30 -0000

Sorry, I just saw this. I think I was kind of playing with the metaphor a little bit—as the pens were much more expensive when they first came out, and were made into commodities. But to avoid confusion, I changed the references. Thanks.

Re: Disposable Ballpoint Pen History: Pennies on the Dollar

Ernie Smith — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 14:38:11 -0000

That's great—a total happy accident of ad placement. Here's the full ad, in case you were curious:

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Re: Plastic Straw Sustainability: Why Straws Are Problematic

Ernie Smith — Sun, 22 Jul 2018 17:38:48 -0000

I'm sure it's occurred to plenty of people—but there are still reasons to have a straw, including portability. If you buy a beverage and put it in your car, you still need a lid or the drink is going to go everywhere. Straws are a good solution for that, though "sippy cups" like the one Starbucks is testing out would be a better one.

The problem is scaling it. Getting one person to stop using a straw has a smaller effect than making changes at scale. This is where solutions like paper straws or plant-made straws come into play, by making a better alternative available.

So yes, your solution is sound, but it's one of those things that doesn't necessarily scale.

One thing my wife and I have been doing of late is asking wait staff not to bring us straws with the water we ask for. Of course, sometimes the water is brought to you even if you didn't ask for it, which is a whole 'nother bag of problems: https://tedium.co/2015/10/1...

Re: Cherry MX History: A German Company With American Roots

Ernie Smith — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 13:19:51 -0000

For what it's worth, the addition of the term "keyboards" wasn't by me but someone who edited the Motherboard piece. But I do think you can read that and not think exclusively of the keyboards they sell, but also all the extra parts and pieces that define a mechanical keyboard, which is why I was OK with keeping it in.

Re: The Creativity Driving DOS Nostalgia

Ernie Smith — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 07:41:10 -0000

One with an additional slash

Re: Smart Toilets: Is the World Ready For Connected Lavatories?

Ernie Smith — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 11:19:01 -0000

(I also meant my reply as a joke.)

Re: Smart Toilets: Is the World Ready For Connected Lavatories?

Ernie Smith — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 14:44:57 -0000

You know what happens when you put fake HTML inside a comment on Disqus? Disqus marks it as spam.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Also, you don't know how to write HTML.

Re: Smart Toilets: Is the World Ready For Connected Lavatories?

Ernie Smith — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 20:28:31 -0000

Here are some pictures of Seth Wheeler's paper patents related to rolled paper. As you can see, he did not differentiate between over or under in his patent drawings:

Over: https://patents.google.com/...
Under: https://patents.google.com/...
Under: https://patents.google.com/...
Over: https://patents.google.com/...
Both: https://patents.google.com/...

Seth Wheeler didn't care about the direction, and neither should you.

Re: Smart Toilets: Is the World Ready For Connected Lavatories?

Ernie Smith — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 20:19:31 -0000

If it fits, it's not the wrong way

Re: Smart Toilets: Is the World Ready For Connected Lavatories?

Ernie Smith — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 14:17:33 -0000

Good to see you didn't even make it through the first paragraph.

Re: Smart Toilets: Is the World Ready For Connected Lavatories?

Ernie Smith — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 14:02:34 -0000

I've been choosing not to worry about such silly things, because by accepting that there's a wrong way means that I would have to worry about it. I'd rather not.

Re: Smart Toilets: Is the World Ready For Connected Lavatories?

Ernie Smith — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 11:41:54 -0000

There is no wrong way to put toilet paper in the holder.

Re: Non-Performing Band Members: From Coldplay to The Grateful Dead

Ernie Smith — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 12:28:17 -0000

Chris Kuroda has often been referenced as a potential fifth member of Phish, but does not appear to have been officially designated as such. This article is about officially-designated "fifth members," non-musicians who are actually considered official members by the band.

Also, I never said this list was completist.

Re: Speak & Spell History: Texas Instruments' Greatest Product

Ernie Smith — Thu, 21 Jun 2018 12:07:07 -0000

The Speak & Read was more focused on building vocabulary rather than spelling, and the games were as a result targeted toward that goal. Hardware-wise, it was largely built using the same technology.