I finally Dumped Club TWiT

[transmaster]

I started watching Leo Laporte back on MSNBC, back when it really was MicroSoft-NBC on The Site when he was the virtual character Dev Null. Than on Screen Savers, etc. When Tech TV folded in 2005 Leo started This Week in Tech TV, TWiT, and moved his shows to a streaming format on YouTube. At one time I never missed MacBreak Weekly (at first it was a 30 min daily show), There was the 30 min daily show about iPhones and iPads that became iOS Today. Padre's Corner, Steve Gibson on Security Now! etc. I am not really sure what happened but the atmosphere on MacBreak Weekly changed, no longer informative but irritating, My interest in iOS today wained when Leo left the show, and with Security Now! hearing about the latest security breach no longer interested me. I can still watch the shows on YouTube I am just going to allocate the money to a more valuable content provider on Patreon. I knew it was time when I didn't miss watching the show at all. When I finally went macOS with the Mac Studio I at last became active on MacRumors, I registered an account in 2010. The answers I was looking for are here and no longer to be found on TWiT.

 

[EightBitJoe]

Leo's a known piece of sexist garbage doing tech radio stuck in the 1990's like Komando, Crossman, and Graveline.

 

[jaw04005]

I still occasionally enjoy Macbreak Weekly, but the other TWiT shows have really gone downhill especially Windows Weekly.

Most of it is because Microsoft doesn't really make consumer products anymore and Thurrott spends all his time having to talk about enterprise stuff that no-one cares about (especially Leo). Whereas the show used to be about leaked Windows or Office betas, XBOX, Windows Phone, etc.

TWiG isn't about Google anymore either. I haven't listened to the main TWiT show in over a decade.

It's a struggle to find good long-form Apple podcast content.

I got into Relay's Upgrade for a while, but since the EU thing and now the AI scraping thing—Mike just complains about big bad corporate Apple disappointing him.

Adam Christianson shut down his long running podcast, MacCast.

Gruber's podcast is a drone-a-thon. The AppleInsider guy on YouTube is my current favorite quick-hit Apple content.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Gruber's podcast is a drone-a-thon.

Yeah -- it's not the Talk Show, it's the meandering, get to the point already, pillar to post, blab Show

I don't know how people enjoy it

 

[jaw04005]

Stephen Robles. I'll give his new podcast, Primary Tech, a shout out too. It's listenable and he stays on topic.

 

[MacGizmo]

MacBreak Weekly is so bad it's literally painful for me to listen to.

It was bad enough hearing Leo's uneducated opinions, but listening to Andy Ihnatko stuttering and bloviating about random nonsensical garbage, and the constant arguing with Alex Lindsay completely turned me off. Ihnatko in particular is nothing short of torture.

 

[rhett7660]

MacBreak Weekly is so bad it's literally painful for me to listen to.

It was bad enough hearing Leo's uneducated opinions, but listening to Andy Ihnatko stuttering and bloviating about random nonsensical garbage, and the constant arguing with Alex Lindsay completely turned me off. Ihnatko in particular is nothing short of torture.

While I still listen to MBW every week, he is the only part that kills me... I have found myself hitting the 10 second skip button on my player.

 

[transmaster]

MacBreak Weekly is so bad it's literally painful for me to listen to.

It was bad enough hearing Leo's uneducated opinions, but listening to Andy Ihnatko stuttering and bloviating about random nonsensical garbage, and the constant arguing with Alex Lindsay completely turned me off. Ihnatko in particular is nothing short of torture.

It was mostly Andy Ihnatko and his snarky comments about Apple company in general is a big reason why stopped watching/listening. When Andy was laid off from the Boston Globe stopped getting Apple pre-release goodies and moved to NPR his take on Apple has changed. It is so painful to listen to 'lamb chops" arguing with Alex Lindsay who really knows what he is talking about. Plus the Discord chat room is useless.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I really like listening to Jason Snell, but yeah that Andy guy has some weird takes.

 

[jaw04005]

The last few weeks have been better. Maybe they got some feedback about teaming up against Alex a few weeks ago. It was a complete turn off.

If they would have let him finish, he had a point about all the tvOS apps requiring separate sign-ins. Instead they jumped him.

I really like listening to Jason Snell, but yeah that Andy guy has some weird takes.

He's definitely a pro and stays up on the news. I subscribed to his Six Colors podcast for several years, but finally decided $10/month just wasn't worth it for a short weekly podcast and a monthly QA session.

I'm subscriptioned out.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I really like listening to Jason Snell, but yeah that Andy guy has some weird takes.

Ehh

Jason’s takes are a bit too deferential to Apple for me

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Ehh

Jason’s takes are a bit too deferential to Apple for me

Well, yeah, I mean that’s like saying Paul Thurott’s takes are deferential to Microsoft. 😏

 

[romanof]

Leo's a known piece of sexist garbage doing tech radio stuck in the 1990's like Komando, Crossman, and Graveline.

Sexist? I have been watching a long time and have missed something obviously.

I usually like MBW, although this last episode had nothing about Macs and almost nothing about anything. Andy Ihnatko I do not like or his continual insistence that Apple should instantly change to meet his opinions. I often just fast forward over him.

I watch Windows Weakly on occasion but I still have never understood why someone would sit there and catalog all of Microsoft's failures and STILL use Windows. Especially after posting an article that the MBA-15 is the greatest laptop ever and that I love it, I use it, but I do my daily work on my plasticy, high-speed fan, Redmond slab.

Security Now is good, if you like lots of details. Most of the time it is far away from anything that threatens me, but it is interesting and he is an oldtimer that still writes in assembler. Wow. I left 8086 assember for C long ago as soon as I could pirate a copy of the compiler.

This Week in Tech can have interesting guests, but is not a regular listen for me.

The other stuff. Whatever.

But, it appears that Twit is slowly fading into the darkness. Ads are apparently disappearing and with them the revenue. Sad, since it is a usually a good listen to make the miles pass.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Windows Weakly

This made me genuinely laugh.

 

[romanof]

This made me genuinely laugh.

Actually the funny part is that I didn't write it on purpose. Didn't even notice the mispelling until your post.

 

[MacGizmo]

Andy Ihnatko I do not like... I often just fast forward over him.

How do you do that when he never shuts his stupid mouth?

 

[romanof]

Fortunately, my iPad viewer has a 30 second forward button, but I admit that sometimes it takes several presses to get past him. When he is on one of his frequent rants that the iPhone needs to be more like Android, I usually shout "Why not just buy yourself an Android!!!", but the iPad never manages to pass the verbal message along.

 

[Minghold]

I still occasionally enjoy Macbreak Weekly, but the other TWiT shows have really gone downhill especially Windows Weekly. Most of it is because Microsoft doesn't really make consumer products anymore and....

The real problem, aside from the rampant enshattification of the entire sector, is that "tech", broadly speaking, has jumped the shark. Aside from bleeding-edge graphics far beyond the capacity of the human eyeball to tell any difference, new computers don't do anything that ones of ten years ago were incapable of, and many do less (read DVDs, have HDMI and other useful ports, permit easy external booting, etc).

Apple is desperately attempting keep the price of its stuff up in the "jewelry" range while i9 laptops can be had for well under 1k now.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

The real problem, aside from the rampant enshattification of the entire sector, is that "tech", broadly speaking, has jumped the shark. Aside from bleeding-edge graphics far beyond the capacity of the human eyeball to tell any difference, new computers don't don't do anything that ones of ten years ago were incapable of.

Apple is desperately attempting keep the price of its stuff up in the "jewelry" range while i9 laptops can be had for well under 1k now.

Yes and no. I think the "jumping the shark" happened for different OSes at different times.

Linux it hasn't even caught on yet, so (except as servers where it rules).
Same with Solaris, FreeBSD, and literally any other UNIX (again except as servers where they rule).
Windows. Kind of happened with anything after Windows 7. Once they decided to fire their entire testing division, it was more-or-less going to go downhill.
Mac. It is just now "jumping the shark". M1 was a transformational chip. But everything after? Meh.

And with AI it has definitely all jumped the shark. Talk about useless.

 

[romanof]

The real problem, aside from the rampant enshattification of the entire sector, is that "tech", broadly speaking, has jumped the shark. Aside from bleeding-edge graphics far beyond the capacity of the human eyeball to tell any difference, new computers don't don't do anything that ones of ten years ago were incapable of.

Apple is desperately attempting keep the price of its stuff up in the "jewelry" range while i9 laptops can be had for well under 1k now.

I think the proper description is "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on."

From the founder of IBM saying "The world will never need more than 6 or 7 computers (probably apocryphal) to the CEO of DEC wondering, "Why would anyone want a computer in their house?" (really said that, although taken out of context somewhat) ,old tech fades into the background as just another item of use without thought.

Now, AI may be the new fad/replacement/wave of the future, although all the facts are not in yet. If not something else will be.

I have to disagree on the old/new computer capabilities. I use the LLM JAN daily now and am really waiting for the technology to start zooming. But, while it cruises really well on my Studio, it runs like a broke-leg dog on a once powerful Intel iMac and like a pig on a 12 core Xeon Linux box. (Ok, for the average non-techie user, I would agree that little has changed over that span of time.)

And as to prices of computers, if the i9s were on the $1 rack at the Dollar Store I wouldn't bother to look at the package. That is not because of the hardware, but that I got fed up with Windows decades ago. Long, long before that, while being trained on Unix, I came to realize that *nix was (IS) the only OS not on a mainframe, worthy of the name. DOS, Win3x, OS/2/, BEOS, whatever, were just tinkertoy wannabees. Now, that kind of includes MacOS, even though built on top of BSD, it has been poked and prodded and squeezed into consumer goodness, to the detriment of actual security.

So, while I think that MacOS gives the best overall usage right now, I am keeping my Linux skills up so that when Apple finally succumbs to a genuine Wall Street BeanCounter in the CEO spot, "What is with all this expensive aluminum stuff? - get ACME plastics on the phone!", I will have a refuge waiting.

I hope. But even Linux has no writ from the gods to prevent it from being turned into crapware, someday.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I think the proper description is "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on."

From the founder of IBM saying "The world will never need more than 6 or 7 computers (probably apocryphal) to the CEO of DEC wondering, "Why would anyone want a computer in their house?" (really said that, although taken out of context somewhat) ,old tech fades into the background as just another item of use without thought.

Now, AI may be the new fad/replacement/wave of the future, although all the facts are not in yet. If not something else will be.

I have to disagree on the old/new computer capabilities. I use the LLM JAN daily now and am really waiting for the technology to start zooming. But, while it cruises really well on my Studio, it runs like a broke-leg dog on a once powerful Intel iMac and like a pig on a 12 core Xeon Linux box. (Ok, for the average non-techie user, I would agree that little has changed over that span of time.)

And as to prices of computers, if the i9s were on the $1 rack at the Dollar Store I wouldn't bother to look at the package. That is not because of the hardware, but that I got fed up with Windows decades ago. Long, long before that, while being trained on Unix, I came to realize that *nix was (IS) the only OS not on a mainframe, worthy of the name. DOS, Win3x, OS/2/, BEOS, whatever, were just tinkertoy wannabees. Now, that kind of includes MacOS, even though built on top of BSD, it has been poked and prodded and squeezed into consumer goodness, to the detriment of actual security.

So, while I think that MacOS gives the best overall usage right now, I am keeping my Linux skills up so that when Apple finally succumbs to a genuine Wall Street BeanCounter in the CEO spot, "What is with all this expensive aluminum stuff? - get ACME plastics on the phone!", I will have a refuge waiting.

I hope. But even Linux has no writ from the gods to prevent it from being turned into crapware, someday.

That was well said. I agree with this almost entirely. For what do you use the LLM JAN?

 

[eltoslightfoot]

The real problem, aside from the rampant enshattification of the entire sector, is that "tech", broadly speaking, has jumped the shark. Aside from bleeding-edge graphics far beyond the capacity of the human eyeball to tell any difference, new computers don't don't do anything that ones of ten years ago were incapable of.

Apple is desperately attempting keep the price of its stuff up in the "jewelry" range while i9 laptops can be had for well under 1k now.

Aren't i9s in a bit of a bad spot right now? I am glad my gaming laptop is an 13th gen i7....

Intel's cancerous CPU problems are now spreading to laptops

Following the widespread reports of instability issues with 13th and 14th Gen Intel CPUs, we now hear the same problems are occurring on laptops.

www.tweaktown.com

 

[romanof]

That was well said. I agree with this almost entirely. For what do you use the LLM JAN?

I am a programmer (strictly hobby, now. Long retired). I use C, C++, Perl and am learning Ruby, so I have fed JAN with Models about those - books, tutorials, sample code, etc. Don't really use it to write real code, but as an instructor, it (and ChatGPT) is like having a professor of that language always standing beside you. I went from "Hello World" in Ruby to accessing Sqlite databases in about two weeks - before AI, it took a year or more to tack on a new language. The difference being, instead of weeding through clickbait, ads and promoted sites on Google for hours on end to try to figure out why something is not working, you just ask, "What is wrong with the following Ruby script?" Bang, back comes the answer and a line by line explanation.

Man, if I had had that in college...
(Although probably not so useful on a 32k IBM 360.)

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I am a programmer (strictly hobby, now. Long retired). I use C, C++, Perl and am learning Ruby, so I have fed JAN with Models about those - books, tutorials, sample code, etc. Don't really use it to write real code, but as an instructor, it (and ChatGPT) is like having a professor of that language always standing beside you. I went from "Hello World" in Ruby to accessing Sqlite databases in about two weeks - before AI, it took a year or more to tack on a new language. The difference being, instead of weeding through clickbait, ads and promoted sites on Google for hours on end to try to figure out why something is not working, you just ask, "What is wrong with the following Ruby script?" Bang, back comes the answer and a line by line explanation.

Man, if I had had that in college...
(Although probably not so useful on a 32k IBM 360.)

That is really interesting! Thank you for expounding...