@japchap Too stupid to follow simple onscreen instructions. Every participant had an 80-page handout PDF emailed to them but weren't able to find it. Had to get another within the Zoom meeting. There were specific aspects that the presenter reiterated needed Apple Silicon Macs and these thick idiots wanted to know why it didn't work on their Intel machines.
Attended a Zoom meeting overnight, hosted by the Naples Mac-friends User Group in Florida. It was the first of their famous professionally run 2025 classes and the subject was Sequoia. The whole show went for 2 hours and 28 minutes including a 15 minute break and ended 2 minutes before it’s scheduled finish time.
I can conclude from that experience that probably 20% of the 120+ attendees are too thick and stupid to get out of bed in the morning and should turn in any future rights to an oxygen supply.
@japchap The “old” 27-inch Retina iMac screens are gorgeous things. I use an Apple Studio Display purchased with an inheritance connected to a mid-spec M4 Mac mini. The Studio display is almost the sane as the Intel 27-inchers, but is 20% brighter at its highest setting.
Been hot the last two days, Saturday hit 36°C and today was 38°. Now at 8:20pm it’s still 30° outside but the temperature is dropping steadily. It’s expected to drop to 25° by midnight, then after that steadily fall to 13° about 24 hours later with significant rainfall tomorrow.
About 18 months ago I could readily buy lithium AA cells but now the supply has all but dried up with only Eveready still selling the things. A couple of days ago I bought four rechargeable lithium AAs on Amazon. These come in a plastic case with a USB-A to 4 x USB-C adapter arrangement. Each cell has a USB-C port in the top and the fout-way tail cable allows all four to be charged at the same time from a single USB-A power supply.
They are rated at 1.5v and 2800 mAh, competing quite well with the 2750 mAh rating of 1.2v NiMh cells. I intend using them with the venerable 20+ year old Olympus digital camera that still works fine.
Today I checked out a theory that a late 2020 Intel 5k 27-inch iMac could be used by an Apple Silicon Mac as an extra monitor with nothing more sophisticated that a settings fiddle and a double-ended USB-C cable. This process works as long as the Mac being used as a monitor has the T2 chip, which was a feature of the last of the Intel 5k iMacs.
Go to System Settings/General/AirDrop & Handoff then turn AirPlay Receiver on. Next, use the USB-C cable to connect Thunderbolt ports on both Macs.
Now in the Displays settings of the host Mac (the one that's using the first Mac as a monitor) and select the destination Mac as the display. This creates a prompt on the destination Mac to either accept or reject the connection request. Once accepted there's no discernible lag or delay in the video interconnection.
Disconnecting the cable drops the shared video connection.
I will not be defeated by technological incompatibility. I have an iPod Nano 7 with Bluetooth 4.0 and a 3.5mm headphone jack. I have a Soundcore Boom 2 Plus portable high-power stereo speaker with Bluetooth 5.3 and 3.5mm audio input jack.
I want to play music from the iPod to the speaker but the two Bluetooth versions aren't communicating properly. I can pair the iPod and the speaker but the volume level remains at zero regardless of how I fiddle both devices' volume controls.
Next I tried running a 3.5mm stereo cable between the iPod and the speaker but the iPod's jack is set up in such a way that I can't get the plug on the cable all the way into the iPod, so anything that does play is in mono.
However, there's another item in my collection that saves the day, a 12South AirFly Pro Bluetooth audio transmitter/receiver that has a 3.5mm stereo plug at one end. I set that into Receive mode and pair it with the iPod. Then plug the AirFly device into the aux in jack on the speaker.
This works perfectly well, now I have a viable wireless audio connection between the speaker and the iPod.
But while the speaker has a battery life of 20 hours continuous use at 50% volume with bass boost off, the AirFly has only 16 hours. But the speaker has a two-way USB-C power connection. It can be used to charge the speaker's battery or to charge other devices like iPods or iPhons or even AirFly Pro thingies.
Stuffed Camel
1 whole camel, medium size; 1 whole lamb, large size; 20 whole chickens, large size; 60 eggs; 2 kilos pine nuts; 2 kilos almonds; 1 kilo pistachio nuts; 420 litres water; 5 tbsps black pepper; 12 kilos rice. Salt to taste.
Skin, trim, and clean the camel and lamb then pluck chickens, and boil until tender. (Be sure the pot is large enough.) Cook rice until fluffed. Fry nuts until brown, and mix with rice. Hard-boil the eggs and peel them. Stuff the chickens with eggs and rice. Stuff the lamb with five of the chickens and some rice. Stuff the camel with the lamb and more rice. Broil in large oven until brown. Spread the remaining mixed rice on a large tray and place the camel on top. Place the remaining stuffed chickens around the camel. Decorate rice with boiled eggs and nuts. And don't worry if there are more guests than expected--the recipe serves 80 to 100.
Al Stewart’s classic Year Of The Cat song starts with a left-channel piano intro before full stereo kicks in after a while.
My current bedroom has a single original HomePod. When played through that speaker, it initially has left-channel bias. When the right channel kicks in, the audio becomes fuller and more balanced. Impressive performance for a single speaker. I haven’t tried the effect from another part of the room because it’s too cold to get out of bed.