Sunday, February 15, 2015

Into the Valley of Apple Rode the Brave Three Hundred Reefers

Three hundred ex-reefer dollars were added to the campaign as an offline contribution.  Payday came so anything that would have gone for reefer went into the Help the Jammer campaign.  (Before you get too shocked:  a bag of reefer would go a couple of months.  Despite appearance, I don't smoke anything like I once did as, regrettably, I am developing a profound allergy to smoking it.)

Cigarette dollars will go into the pot as well but they can't until they are won and that remains combat.  I've known personally heroin addicts who kicked the smack but could not quit cigarettes.  Nicotine is satanic.

There is not yet a hard decision on whether to stick with getting a new one or go for a used one based on a near match in compute power but significantly more memory and for less dollars.  Presumably but not verified is no sales tax as they have no physical store in Texas.  However, there would be a big bump for shipping.  From Apple, the reverse is true.  The tax is about $200 but shipping is free.  I suspect the difference is not much important.

Big RAM in a computer is a huge performance consideration and many times as much as the processor as high-speed processor does you no good if it has no room to work.  Adding RAM to a new machine is an expensive option as it is, I believe, about $200 for each additional 4 GB.  Therefore, getting 12 GB on a new one would push it near $3000.  However, I have seen roughly that spec on a used one for a little more than $2000 plus shipping.

The tip on PowerMax from the Mystery Lady is an excellent one and is still highly live.

The last most significant performance consideration after the RAM and the processor is the video card.  If you want to know more about this, ask any gamer ... but ... be prepared to be told all about video cards and you don't want to know.

For external performance, you need USB 3 or Thunderbolt, preferably the latter due to radical speed gained by pushing data in both directions simultaneously.

It's frustrating as all hell to go slowly but a fail is neither acceptable nor survivable as a musical video entity and Lotho is right that's my legacy.  What difference does it make what I think about politics but the video of Dreams of the Mystery Lady will spin for a long time.  It's extremely difficult to recover Donika's dance solo but it can be done and it's important to me that it will be.  It's something her kid can visit after she's gone.  I see no morbidity in this but rather I see the things about which some of the regulars and I can be rightfully proud and that stuff is what will remain.

This stuff undoubtedly looks hugely self-indulgent but check it out with anyone serious about video; you can't get it done with anything less and the dream system would be $8K - $12K (e.g. Mac Pro with Dual Thunderbolt RAID drives, dual monitors for simultaneous edit / preview, dual video cards, at least 16 GB RAM, etc).

Tomorrow I'm not going to even get into it that much.  Tomorrow I need video of Tobey the Dog and hopefully the cats.  I believe I have the angle on the cats as maybe they would come out for me ... but maybe not.  Therefore, I'll do some Washington on them.

(Ed:  bribe them?)

Right you are.  That will bring them out for sure.  Plus it will only be Yevette's cats as they are the backyard cats and the front yard cats don't come back here.  I guess Yevette's cats must be fairly bad-ass as I see no signs of wounds and they've definitely established their ground.  They're the only ones who eat in the back.

(Ed:  you seriously watch this stuff?)

Yep, I seriously do.  Consider the alternative of telling Yevette her cats croaked and the dog ran away.  Bad juju, very bad juju.

Cat's dog ran away on a bus.  I am seriously not making this up and you would have to know Cat personally for how this could happen.  She does some funny stuff but where she kills you is telling the story.  You will die.

2 comments:

Kannafoot said...

Here's a question on those used Macs... You said that there are a bunch of them available that have busted video cards, but that Apple will repair the video cards for nothing. This begs the question, what is the value of the busted Mac versus the repaired Mac? In other words, do you have the potential to fund your campaign by scooping up busted Macs, having them fixed, and then reselling them at a profit? I've never researched the value of used computer gear, and have no interest in doing so, but when you mentioned that Apple would fix them free of charge, well, it sounded like there was a potential gain there.

Unknown said...

They aren't busted yet as the video card is known bugged but it may not manifest. To me, that's bugged. To others, not so much.

The physical aspect of lugging computers about would be extreme as five knee bends and I'm gassed. Got to do them or I go down to four.

(Insert a paragraph or six on the bizarre madness of US drug law. The one that did the most damage is the only one that's legal. Now that's nuts.)