Good morning. Hello. How are you? #411
Maybe I should just do a Trigger Warning edition every once in a while. This one isn't it but boy, it starts dark.
Good morning, there. How are you doing this Saturday? All right? I hope so. I wasn’t going to write today and I stalled around this morning reading this horrific story about the discovery of secret, unmarked graves of over 200 children in a residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia that was operated by the Catholic Church until the 1960’s, and.. oh wow yeah that is not a super great way to start off the edition, is it? But I watched this video from the chairman of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (god we need one of those) and it made me just start crying so, yeah, really off to a great start this morning.
I WAS thinking yesterday it’d be kind of fun (perhaps not the right word) to do a “depressing roundup” edition of GMHHAY. Like pick one day a week and just allow myself to get all my bleak thoughts out, and talk about all the very depressing topics of the week. Could be kind of interesting. Could trigger warning the thing then just let ‘er rip. I kinda like the idea because I worry, probably irrationally, about the infectious nature of really depressing topics and I don’t want to, like, bring anyone down unwittingly. But I often feel that GMHHAY is realistic when I ignore the more sobre aspects of life. I can usually reconcile the two with my stellar, Boston-honed gallows humor, but it doesn’t always work and sometimes I am too sensitive of a rare bird to be okay with the gallows humor.
But sometimes, I’m sitting here with a blank page thinking “oh I should write about Maria Menounos because she is on my list of topics,” (n.b. I do not know who Maria Menounos is) “but god, I really don’t want to, because I am super depressed that there is a slow-rolling coup going on and everyone’s just letting it happen.” It is… hard.
But, then, it could really go one of two ways. Like, today I’m in a pretty good mood, it’s Saturday, I am excited about spending time with Jane and drilling a hole in the wall, and I am probably mentally able to spend a few brain cycles on super depressing shit without it sending me into a tailspin. So it is conceivable that doing a trigger warning edition could be very useful today, when I am in an all right mood. Help me process things and come to terms with them. And, of course, conversely, if I am already in a state of existential dread about the world at large maybe I shouldn’t do one that day. Maybe it would make things worse.
I could, of course, try and keep doing it the way I have been doing it, and there’s a lot to be said for that, but I do feel like the mix is off, and due to the inherent nature of this approach, the mix would always be off, because who likes a funny story that ends with “but of course everyone’s gonna die so what does it matter.”
Here’s a picture of the white vinyl edition of The New Year’s final album, Snow, to which I am listening right now, as a pallette cleanser.
In any case, Miami issued a report saying that they were probably going to have to spend $20 billion to put a sea wall all around the city and right through their pretty bay to protect the city from climate change. Of course every single person in the world knew that this is inevitable but it is forcing “South Floridians to reckon with the many environmental challenges.” Yes. That is rough. All I will say is Miami is immensely lucky so many wealthy tech investors have moved there in the last few years. Miami can definitely, absolutely, rely on these people to be good citizens and pay their share of the taxes necessary to built this wall. You can count on them.
Speaking of tech bros, who is fallowing the Apple silicon saga? To recap, Apple has embarked on making their own chips for Macs. This is very good and very exciting and Intel can go screw. Apple wisely decided to start the rollout at the lower-end of the Mac line, because those users use fewer apps, and more of the apps are made by Apple (Mail, Safari, etc) and will be ported to the new chips more quickly. They don’t use a bunch of weird legacy apps. The transition will take two years, Apple says, and by then, they assume that all of those fancy pro apps that people use on the high-end Mac Pro will be translated. We are just over a year into the transition. So the time has come to start thinking about the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
Because I am a douchey tech dude, albeit one who moves places without considering the tax implications, and who willingly, if not always joyously, pays his whole tax bill, I own a high-end Mac Pro. A twenty-eight core one, in fact. It is a remarkable machine and I love it more than any other non-living thing. But obviously when an Apple Silicon Mac Pro comes out I will want it so, so much. Right now, the single chip, 4-core low-end Apple Silicon MacBook is nearly as fast as my machine. It is insane. When they finally bring their silicon over to the pro line it is going to be the single-greatest leap in processing power that Apple has ever delivered. Also, though I make extensive use of pro apps, most of the ones I use are already ported to Apple Silicon. I’m re-learning Premiere, but it’s only in beta. Other than that, I’m mainly good to go. Photoshop, Logic, iMovie, Garageband, MakeMKV, VLC, Excel, Keynote, etc. — all already ported to Apple Silicon.
But the big question is: Are they going to make me buy an entire new machine, or are they going to let me just swap out the cores? Everything else about this machine is still top-of-the-line. It has five years, easy, of productive life ahead of it. You can open the machine right up and swap parts. Even right now, you can swap the processors in it. It’s a warranty-breaking move, but it is compltely doable.
It is going to be insanely stupid if Apple does not offer a processor upgrade for the current line of Mac Pros. Insanely stupid. It also seems 100% likely given Apple’s history.
Who wants to place bets?
The TV adaptation of Anaïs Nin’s erotica, Little Birds, is coming to America. It is debuting on Starz tomorrow. The New York Times has given it a surprisingly strong review. I watched it all last year — it aired on Sky in the UK, I pirated it because I am a bad person — and it is… pretty good! This review made me reconsider it and realize all they got right. I mean, of course an Anaïs adaptation should be made by women. Though given this has not historically been the case, I guess credit should be given for all of these things. Anyway, it does have some stuff going for it. It’s probably worth your time if you like far-off destinations and period pieces and sensuality and that awesome influencer model lady Keely in Ted Lasso.
Today’s mix is just a mix. New and old. New Prince, which is super exciting, and a crazy-ass new Wombats song that I thought was kinda boring in the beginning but then gets fantastic. And I’m super into Holly Macve. I don’t know anything about her yet, but she is just great. And a new James album is out yesterday it is very good. I’ve only given it a couple listens so far, but it is pretty great. Ditto the new Gruff Rhys. Enjoy.
Anyway, short-ish edition today. Gotta go get Janey from bed. I like to spell it Janey and not Janie because of the Cindytalk song “Janey’s Love.”