apple

Apple Versus Facebook and Privacy

I don’t see how Facebook comes out of this smelling anything other than a big hairy turd that no one even wants to look at. They’ve already been caught in the small business lie which this article confirms. Realistically, it wasn’t a stretch to hear Facebook talk about how Apple’s privacy changes would affect small businesses on their site and not want to throw up. The mere thought of that made me almost rethink my whole existence. Since when does Facebook give a fuck about anyone or anything that doesn’t make them money? Perhaps, I slipped into a parallel dimension where Facebook cares about things other than itself.

Facebook has been attacking Apple with campaigns that say the iOS 14 privacy changes will hurt small businesses, as many of them use Facebook’s platforms to advertise their products and services. However, a former Facebook employee argues that these changes may not affect small businesses as these businesses are usually located in specific cities or states, which makes it easier to determine the ad’s target audience without using IDFA trackers.

Using Facebook makes them money. That is why I rarely use it for anything. If you truly don’t like what a company does then by all means, do not support it.

Sometimes I think that the people that use Facebook and have the nerve to bitch about it are the reason why we can’t have nice things and we’re not living on Mars.

Re-formatting a Flash Drive

I recently bought a 2TB flash drive. You read that correctly. 2TB.

I have been playing around with it and basically, I hosed this thing up. Every time I would insert the drive into my Mac, it would display 3 drives. It was driving me insane.

Today, I decided tom play around some more and discovered that those extra drives were actually called volumes. I discovered an easy way to get rid of them. Well, sort of.

There are actually volume controls on the main window highlighted below.

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All you have to do is figure out which volume you need to get rid of and hit the minus button.

…and hope that it works the first time. I’ll tell you that it probably won’t. I have had to hit that button a couple of times but eventually, the volume got deleted.

Once I got everything down to one volume, the next thing I wanted to do was to re-format the drive as ExFat which is the Microsoft version. The advantage on a drive like this is that you can use the drive on almost any computer. I love APFS but not everyone else does.

I found a great video about how to take care of the problem of APFS being your only obvious choice. If you expand what you can see, you just have to go a level up to have the option of reformatting in ExFat.

MacMost article is here.

General Thoughts

I have a quick drive by style post about something that I think is important to the world in general.

Diabetes and blood glucose readings.

I read an article yesterday about Apple getting close to having the technology to read blood glucose levels without puncturing the skin.

That is a game changer.

Can you imagine what would happen to the industry in general if they introduce a watch that can do that?

My friends equipment to allow him to constantly monitor his levels costs hundreds of dollars per every 10 days. It is ridiculous.

If Apple puts those types of criminals out of business, I would be a very happy individual.

Thoughts on M1 MBP So Far

It has been a full day with the new laptop and I have to say that I’ve been doing almost everything with it.

I had to install a crap ton of things and I have been doing all of that (including an operating system update to put this machine on the beta version of Big Sur) with the laptop only being charged up when I first got it.

I haven’t plugged it in at all and I still have a 55% charge even though I’ve been writing on it all day long.

My journal is one of the longest I’ve ever written, I wrote over 500 words for the latest short story, and tons of other things including this blog post.

The battery is amazing. I can’t see what I can get out of this thing.

M1 MacBook Pro 13″

I am happy to report that I just got my new MacBook Pro. I’ve been waiting for about a month as Apple had a backlog.

So far, I love this thing. My previous MacBook was a 15″ and I actually wanted the smaller version. It has all of the same things and the keyboard is tons better.

I’m not going to review it. Tons of people out there already have and would go into way more details than I would.

Night Shot

This is a picture I took this morning around 5:00 am. The sun isn’t anywhere close to being up yet but the camera makes it look as though it has. The cloud details are stunning.

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Apple Music Tidbit

I’ve been paying for an Apple Music subscription since it became a thing. I usually do this sort of thing with Apple services. I think it is really cool, so I buy it and may or may not ever actually use it.

Apple Music was one of those things that after I broke up with my girlfriend I lost interest in. Music lost all meaning for me so I stopped listening.

Recently, I’ve been re-examining my personal workflow and had an idea to bring up the Apple Music app and look for some kind of playlist that would suit the type of work I am doing. Music playing in the background tends to distract me. Meditation style music however, is different.

I’ve been listening to a playlist called Focus and it is perfect for what I am doing. It is a nice mix of background music that doesn’t get in the way of what I am trying to do.

If you are like me this may be the perfect way to bring a little music back into your life.

Europe’s Extortion of Apple 2016 to 2020

I’ve written on this subject in the past so I won’t go on about it.

The original context of this post is here.

The European Union decided back in 2016 that Apple wasn’t paying Ireland enough in taxes even though Ireland clearly said they were. Apple initially lost the ruling and has been paying the taxes into an escrow account.

Today, it was announced that they won their appeal.

I’m so happy that someone else recognized that the EU’s ecomomy shouldn’t rest of the shoulders of everyone else, including the companies of the United States. The very companies that invented most of your creature comforts. Yes. I went there.

It would be so cool if everyone else turned around and sued the EU for being total toolbags.