I have written in several pieces that USB-C is not the silver bullet to the dongle problems. Even as Apple opened up its Lightning walled garden, presenters couldn’t simply say: ‘we have USB-C now’. It needed to be said what kind of spec this port will carry: how fast its USB protocol will be, how fast it will charge, and what other deviations it will support, and so on. One would think now this makes one less proprietary port, but I’m afraid the one bus to rule them all needs several other lesser busses to make it happen.
From Op-ed
Apple TV, VPN, and Geoblock Spiel
Anyone who is old enough to live through DVD era of human history and before that Paleolithic VHS period would recall something called region locks. It is an ancient ritualistic practice where contents holders would artificially divide the regions and lock the consumers out from playing them outside of said region. Historians believe the practice was to sell the same movie at a different price in a different market. I call it ritualistic, because with enough consumers agonizingly annoyed, most DVD players were willing to appease the buyers by dropping the region lock. Not to mention some consumers went the…
God of War: Ragnarok Spiel on Huldra Brothers
Have you finished latest GOTY contender God of War: Ragnarok? Because if you didn’t this might be a good time to pause for a moment and come back with visions of freshly destroyed family feuds. God of War franchise, in its Norse sequels, is shifting the focus from pure hack-and-slash fun to family drama. Huldra brothers, or just Brok and Sindri, probably the only family they have to each other, are the latest soap opera material we have.
Water Cooling on Mac Is Not Happening
Cooling is the universal subjects across any PC enthusiasts forums. Its encroaching importance on all fields results with more then few discussions getting swindled away into waste heat management. Be it may a building a new PC from scratch, buying or upgrading a part for existing PC, planning for future upgrades and maintenance, or even overclocking, all lead to cooling to a certain degree. Even Macs, the computer “not fit” for gaming, are included as Apple has history of disregarding cooling over aesthetics. It is truly a universally acknowledged truth that any communities in interest which relates to computers must…
When USB-C Nightmares Come True
I remember helping ‘tech-suspicious’ individuals who didn’t understand USBs back in 2000s. The usual responses were either awe, which I wholeheartedly agreed at the time, or disgust, thinking this will be an escape from the Matrix. It wasn’t, and it isn’t.
On the Matters of, How to Read
This is for you, folks. You guys just had to bombard me with emails. Like I had to hit reply so many times, I won’t forward the exchange which prompted the update. But I can give you a piece, covering on what happened, how it happened, and perhaps what we can learn from it. And the things I would like to share with my future readers.
How America Grades Samsung on Pass or Fail
Calling out on Galaxy Fold debacle as “graded on a curve” apparently was an understatement. It is time to face the ugly truth. Samsung already has a bad track record, and none of the reviewers had gull to question the product in their hand. These pre-launch reviews that had been published prior to the issue treated the smartphone as though it is a holy relic. Had it not been for the delay, these articles would have been nothing but praises from untrained eyes for a product that is essentially a bomb waiting to go off.
Are Foldable Smartphones the Future?
Remember the days before iOS? In 2010, Apple finally rebranded its iPhone OS to iOS, making it the first non-Mac OS Apple had released. The significance of the iPhone manufacturer’s rebranding comes not from its shoddy name, but rather its date: 2010. In 2010, smartphone phone factors started to see consolidations. Google was releasing its own share of “standard” smartphones in the name of Nexus, and so for coming 8 to 9 years, we had a bar-type full touchscreen phone as a de facto smartphone.
How PC and eGPU Communities Morphed into Bait-and-Switch Props
Originally I was planning on publishing how-to tips on accelerating internal displays using eGPU. Unfortunately that did not work out as I had hoped. And as such, I am taking this chance to address one of the issues that are lingering in the eGPU communities, and perhaps the PC communities in general.
WordPress Theme Subscription is the New Sham in the Town
We have all seen annual upgrade tactics on different applications. What makes WordPress theme extremely awkward however, is the fact that none of the features actually change and/or fixed since the release. If there is a glitch, it must be fixed regardless of “upgrade”, and if it is an entirely new feature, likely the designer will sell it as version 2.0 not as an update. This business model can only be shady as it cannot merit consumers by all means.
Beta Software is not a Press Release Copy
In light of possible obsolesce of eGPU support on TB1/2 machines, I thought it would be a good time to go back to the basics for this week. Public and/or developer beta is hardly a reliable source of information. Features will be added, dropped, and then added again in betas. And if you need an insider information just hang around by the Apple campus instead of trying to whip up a news.
State of eGPU Support on Coming High Sierras
High Sierra tuned in native support for eGPUs, but recent updates on eGPU support on older Macs are looking grim. If you own a Mac that does have a USB-C port, (or any plain MacBooks) it is very likely your computer does not support Thunderbolt 3. Any Mac with Thunderbolt 1 or 2 ports are now less likely to support eGPU even with High Sierra or higher.
Blockchain-Based Currency is Not the Money We Know
An introduction to Bitcoin makes it sound so user-friendly and a simpleton business, but elegant with modern encryption, but the actual system design is largely kept a secret like a Death Star. It doesn’t matter how a 100 km-wide space station roams around in space freely and shoot out a laser beam that will utterly destroy 12,500 km-wide planet; what mattered was that it destroys planets and can be stopped by a “one-man starship”. Considering how we even got a good prequel out of that story alone, the story behind Bitcoin also deserves some attention with its ever-increasing exchange rate.
Walt Whitman and the Culture of American Celebrity
이 문제는 휘트먼과 휘트먼의 사상을 알고 있더라면 쉽게 풀 수 있습니다. 만일 이 문제가 문학을 염두에 둔 새로운 수능의 영어 예제 문제로 나왔더라면 쌍수를 들고 환영할 겁니다. 저만 하더라도 원문이 되는 책은 몇번이나 읽어봤으니까요. 저 문단 하나로 당대의 분위기와 시인을 동시에 파악할 수 있기 때문에 대학에서 흔히 텍스트로 씁니다. 거기다 사용하는 단어도 미국에서 흔히 접할 수 있는 것들 뿐입니다.
FBI is Still Nagging Apple for Backdoor Access
Apparently books on iPhone back doors from 2015 is not officially closed for FBI. FBI Director shared the actual stats behind the requests last Sunday, around 6,900 devices. Following the Texas shooting, FBI once again shared its frustration that the bureau was unable to decrypt the shooter’s phone. Although the law enforcement did not disclose what kind of information they may be able to find on the device, it only supports the hypothesis that FBI is using reactive policing as a cover for broader proactive policing.