That's exactly how my parents felt about their respective time growing up in rural locations. They each left home at 18 and my father once remarked that a visit to his home-town would convey to me first-hand the circumstances that spurred him on to flee far away - in a journey that would make for a tremendous travelogue.
Most taxis refused to travel to my mother's home-town for fear that the road would destroy their vehicles. The bus service ran twice a day: 5am and 5pm. I made the best of it and never complained but I understood very quickly why she "got the hell out of Dodge" and has never contemplated returning to live there on a permanent basis.
For probably different reasons (but same conclusion), that mirrors my getting as far away from where I was raised as humanly possible. In the decades since, dextral, social-political shifts there further validate how my leaving in the mid ’90s was a make or break between life and death. Not that what came immediately after was great, but in degrees — rings of hell — what came later was a couple of rings less deep (and still hell).
It’s possible I may have seen glimpses of this during the visit I paid to the UK some years back: I travelled far afield of major cities to do my own walking through some decimated towns/hinterlands, mostly where old coal mines and shipbuilding employed past generations and fed households. I could only describe these areas (especially the lonely, forlorn streets and council houses which sort of dead-ended into a disused field), as stuck, defeated, demoralized, frozen-in-time places with no signs of substantive, economic, or social demography change on horizon. It hurt to see.
@B S Magnet While I appreciate the information you provided in the end it doesn't change what I said: The only reason mom-and-pop stores went under was the result of consumers choosing not to patronize their businesses after a "big box" store came to town. Had they opted to continue doing business with the mom-and-pop stores they'd likely be around today (assuming some other factor didn't come into play).
BOT: the power lead on my 2009 Mac Mini PSU is about six inches long, a nuisance. While any clover-leaf will fit, I of course, want the correct-coloured Apple version. Which has entailed buying a whole new poeer supply. A low-ball offer snagged it, so in it comes. Magic Mouse 2 suddenly got hot and died, so need to replace battery in that. But might just get a MM1, as I have loads of decent rechargeable AAs. Third 2011 15inch MBP also incoming.
@B S Magnet While I appreciate the information you provided in the end it doesn't change what I said: The only reason mom-and-pop stores went under was the result of consumers choosing not to patronize their businesses after a "big box" store came to town. Had they opted to continue doing business with the mom-and-pop stores they'd likely be around today (assuming some other factor didn't come into play).
In not giving examination over underhanded and, arguably, illegal business practices of chains — big box and not — wiping out local commerce of what you’re describing as “mother and father shops”, the argument you made is reductive and beside the point. It’s an apologia for defending shady business conduct by those chains (and their manifold, negative impacts on labour, cities, and communities).
Saying “welp, consumers made their choice” is not absolution.
Consumers were sold on a false promise, one which, long-term, hurt themselves as they unwittingly said, “Hush up and take my money.”
Consumers bought into that false promise. Consumers were, long-term, impoverished by having the terms of that false promise withheld: both communities and society have paid dearly for that false promise from virtually every angle one is able to review with data.
Case in point: trying, as a music retailer — whether older, smaller chain operating legally or an independent, what you’d call a “mother and father, aw shucks" store — to compete against a Best Buy, whose top titles on new and bestselling releases were being sold, consistently and consciously, at prices below cost.
(Best Buy made up for that loss with higher-dollar electronics, sometimes offering national exclusives of electronics models at only their stores.)
Sure, a consumer might have thought it was great to get their Toni Braxton or Sublime CD for $9, but the false promise of that “deal” was withheld from consumer disclosure. That was by design.
Even Blockbuster, as Blockbuster Music, tried getting in on Best Buy’s anti-competitive game and couldn’t, because only one of these were operating legally. (The problem, of course, was legal enforcement instruments and officers then by, say, a robust commerce department, were basically non-existent — like having bandits run an old west town without “a sheriff in town”.)
It was that reason — not the file sharing which followed — to see the number of independent and smaller chain music stores to fall from a cliff during the 1990s, as file sharing didn’t really enter the chat before about early 1999. [Disclosure: I worked for an independent music retailer during the mid 1990s and witnessed, first hand, all of this.]
As for Blockbuster, it serves them, appropriately, how they’d treat customers like cash machines and to fail deliver on even that false promise (by, in their case, surreptitiously offering custom-edited versions of movies, refusing to do special orders, etc.), to have sent them out of business. That is: the whole sky was their target practice bullseye, but then they shot themselves in the foot whilst they were standing. 🙃
That also said:
The few instigating, totalizing retailer brands from that period of the 1980s and 1990s, to still dominate today, tend to have limited or no brick-and-mortar, A:A competition locally, especially outside the shopping scope of a major city. Their customers don’t spend money there out of any kind of brand loyalty. Rather, there is — functionally — nowhere else one can go any longer for other service or selection, much less pricing (the latter’s ship having sailed decades ago with aforementioned shady practices like loss leaders, dumping conduct, door crashers, etc.).
It’s kind of hard to do any of that when all local capital was funnelled out decades ago from a local commonwealth, gutting them to shells of their former selves, by shunting profits to shareholders who didn’t even know (or cared) those communities ever existed.
Whatever “choice” such entities present to customers: it was always an unsustainable model for localities.
In not giving examination over underhanded and, arguably, illegal business practices of chains — big box and not — wiping out local commerce of what you’re describing as “mother and father shops”, the argument you made is reductive and beside the point. It’s an apologia for defending shady business conduct by those chains (and their manifold, negative impacts on labour, cities, and communities).
Saying “welp, consumers made their choice” is not absolution.
I'm not asking for their absolution nor am I defending their business practices. The point being that, for whatever their reason(s), the consumer willingly chose to do business with these big box stores over the mom-and-pop stores. The very consumers who mourn the loss mom-and-pop businesses.
Example: A co-worker of mine lives in a small, mountain town. Walmart had plans to open a store on the outskirts of the town. What happened? The community, including my co-worker, argued and petitioned against the Walmart. As tends to happen Walmart moved in. A few years later when we were working late he said he had to get going because he wanted to stop by...Walmart...and pick up a few things. I looked at him and he said "Yeah, I know...it's just so convenient". Despite having fought to keep them out he realized the value (at least to him) Walmart offered and decided to patronize them over the local mom-and-pop businesses he fought for.
I'm not asking for their absolution nor am I defending their business practices. The point being that, for whatever their reason(s), the consumer willingly chose to do business with these big box stores over the mom-and-pop stores. The very consumers who mourn the loss mom-and-pop businesses.
And what I wrote — and what I am saying — is when consumers are deprived of relevant information when making a purchase, placing that onus principally, if not solely on consumers (and not the parties — i.e., publicly traded companies like a Wal-Mart — which withheld that information) is absolving the latter’s conduct.
What I was (and am) saying is your argument — one espoused by a number of folks choosing not to account for a whole-systems picture — enables a continuation of abusive, unsustainable behaviour by publicly-traded entities which, wilfully, withhold and obfuscate their responsibility in the demise of not only locally-owned businesses, but also the fabric of entire districts, towns, and small cities.
In notable moments, particularly in recent years, when that responsibility, in remediation, gets pushed back by communities, whether municipal/regional or via labour organizing, the entity may either, respectively, close up shop and leave (with a secondary intent of malice: that their leaving will hurt these communities), or they will sack the entire, newly-organized labour force at a unionized location and return it to a labour force of non-union, under-compensated workers.
Their abdication of responsibility is also an admission of the hard they have been doing (to both local competition and to localities) for a long time.
There is a remedy: a requirement for such entities to be compelled, via regulation, to provide otherwise-withheld long-term financial impacts on a locality as they propose their development within that locality. We‘re not there yet, but an idea along these lines is, slowly, beginning to take hold as a better way to hold such entities to account, up-front.
Also, you keep bringing up the equivalent of trees (“it’s the customer’s doing, totally”). I’ve been discussing the complex interplay of forest ecosystems. There can be a place where these ideas overlap and co-ordinate, but so long as the counterpoint is “the customers decided”, without filling in the remainder of the equation, this discussion is basically over.
Example: A co-worker of mine lives in a small, mountain town. Walmart had plans to open a store on the outskirts of the town. What happened? The community, including my co-worker, argued and petitioned against the Walmart. As tends to happen Walmart moved in. A few years later when we were working late he said he had to get going because he wanted to stop by...Walmart...and pick up a few things. I looked at him and he said "Yeah, I know...it's just so convenient".
Did you ask him the basic question, “Is that all there is since their move-in?”
Did you also pause to consider asking him, ”Have you connected the Wal-Mart dots with un-welcomed changes with other things in your locality — from traffic to closed public schools to the demise of the corner grocery/hardware store to higher unemployment and higher prevalence of addiction in the community?”
Did you let him know how, “The money you spend there doesn’t stay in town. It’s going to places where they don’t even know the name or your town, nor do they care."
If not, then due diligence in contextualizing that ‘convenience’ was not followed, nor was it made into a meaningful conversation point between you and him. (Since you brought up the anecdatal point, that is.).
These are the important conversations which friends, neighbours, and community need to be asking and talking about regularly. On this part, it is an exercise of individualized responsibility in absence of compelling big-box entities to disclose the negative and several impacts of their, well, “corporate colonizing” of a local community.
Despite having fought to keep them out he realized the value (at least to him) Walmart offered and decided to patronize them over the local mom-and-pop businesses he fought for.
The Wal-Mart or whatever, in absence of transparent, complete, public disclosure around where local money is actually being sent, at time of proposing development in a community (which didn’t have an entity of that scale and lack of local ties already present), can and do withhold information from the consumer which have mid- and long-term negative outcomes for that consumer’s locality.
Visit your friend in a few more years and check in on how his neighbours and community are faring, relative to when Wal-Mart hadn’t yet rolled into town. Or, get an economist and a sociologist to do that work.
I transferred my Debian 12 SSD from my Blackbook 4,1 to my 2010 Macbook Pro and reinstalled grub to get it up and running on that machine. I discovered that if you have a drive caddy with another drive installed instead of the optical drive, the grub install goes wonky for some reason. I had to detach the caddy from the secondary drive (which is used as an ext4 file-holding drive), then reinstall grub to get it to take properly. Until I discovered that, I had to use the rEFInd USB image to boot the Debian install. I then installed Snow Leopard on the Blackbook, which is where it will stay.
Not an early Intel Mac, but I got my 2017 12" Macbook retina in the mail after six weeks of being stuck in Honolulu. Paid $100 for it, and it works fine with the exception of a dead battery. It has some sticker scars and some of the screen adhesive had melted and spread on the edge of the display assembly (it was kept in a garage... in Hawaii), but other than that and a couple of pressure marks on the screen, it's a decent machine that I wanted back when they were new. I cleaned it up and will leave it at Ventura. Other than a 2019 Mac Pro, I now have every Mac I ever wanted in my collection, which is why I mentioned this one.
EDIT: I changed the battery in the 2017 today. I don't recommend it. Ugh. Now I have to do my 2013 Retina. Maybe next week...
I essentially have no issues with what you wrote. However, what you wrote attempts to explain why consumers may make their choices which, IMO, is irrelevant to the point.
I essentially have no issues with what you wrote. However, what you wrote attempts to explain why consumers may make their choices which, IMO, is irrelevant to the point.
It appears you are ignoring these are the same people who were protesting against the big box stores coming to town because they "run small businesses out of business".
No disagreement here. Yes, these people tend to ignore things at their own peril (sadly that is the way of today's society). Had they not they would have continued to patronize the mom-and-pop stores. But in the end it was their behaior.
No disagreement here. Yes, these people tend to ignore things at their own peril (sadly that is the way of today's society). Had they not they would have continued to patronize the mom-and-pop stores. But in the end it was their behaior.
When presented with residents who get deprived of a transparent picture and true prospectus of the negative impacts and externalities of a major chain which stiff-arms their way into a catchment, no amount of “it was the local consumer’s behaviour” overrides or supersedes an abrogation of corporate responsibility or accountability. It is, after all, never the consumer to instigate economic trouble locally in this lopsided dynamic.
Food for thought: corporate senpai will never notice rationalizing legwork which folks, quick to “blame the consumer for corporate conduct”, are doing for the corporation.
When presented with residents who get deprived of a transparent picture and true prospectus of the negative impacts and externalities of a major chain which stiff-arms their way into a catchment, no amount of “it was the local consumer’s behaviour” overrides or supersedes an abrogation of corporate responsibility or accountability. It is, after all, never the consumer to instigate economic trouble locally in this lopsided dynamic.
Food for thought: corporate senpai will never notice rationalizing legwork which folks, quick to “blame the consumer for corporate conduct”, are doing for the corporation.
It seems we have a difference of opinion on whether a consumer makes a decision to patronize a business or not. I am of the mindset they do so of their own free will while you appear to be of the mindset they're manipulated into doing so.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Telegram is still runs on High Sierra - unlike WhatsApp which requires macOS 11 and Signal, whose minimum version is Catalina. It's nice to have a desktop option available to me so that I'm not forced to message people using the phone's keypad system - which I've always found to be cramped and slower than a computer keyboard. Plus, I can attach images and files directly from the Mac.
It seems we have a difference of opinion on whether a consumer makes a decision to patronize a business or not. I am of the mindset they do so of their own free will while you appear to be of the mindset they're manipulated into doing so.
I look forward to many more meaningful, thoughtful, inspiring discussions posted in good faith by the several wonderful members on this forum, unburdened by the middling tedium of one, now-prior interlocutor.
It seems we have a difference of opinion on whether a consumer makes a decision to patronize a business or not. I am of the mindset they do so of their own free will while you appear to be of the mindset they're manipulated into doing so.
Here is the thing that is missing in your opinion.
People can only make decisions and act in accordance of their understanding of the situation(especially what happens 10-30 years down the road) and to the extent of their lack of understanding of the situation they end up acting in the interests of those who knows and understands more.
In other words, in order to exercise your free will and being smart about it(I call it being conceptually powerful) you will always have to be the smartest person in the room which is impossible for most people. This has nothing to do with manipulation.
what i like about this entire 'early Intel" processor usage in my 3 macs this years is
i can ignore those pop-up notifications and annoying reminders to upgrade, join a monthly icloud service or subscribe
as has enforced this year, I'm happy not to see or listen to these useless costly and mindless schemes.
just ignoring something can be a breathe of fresh air while serving peace of mind!
Here is the thing that is missing in your opinion.
People can only make decisions and act in accordance of their understanding of the situation(especially what happens 10-30 years down the road) and to the extent of their lack of understanding of the situation they end up acting in the interests of those who knows and understands more.
In other words, in order to exercise your free will and being smart about it(I call it being conceptually powerful) you will always have to be the smartest person in the room which is impossible for most people. This has nothing to do with manipulation.
While I would really like to continue this discussion I feel it has reached a point where it is no longer constructive to do so. As such let's just agree to disagree.
The third MBP late 2011 has arrived. Pretty good cosmetically. Plus points: HiRes screen, 16GB RAM, generally good condition, although it obviously has seen good use. Charger.
Minus points: Battery works, cycle count 1045, needs replacing. Line down right side of screen. Would not install HS until I'd done the GPU power prefs setting in NVRAM, so the Radeon is likely toast. The SATA II SSD, probably original, is certainly flaky. Put in a new Crucial 500GB, did the NVRAM set, and it's running well. It's a 2.2GHz i7, not 2.5 as advertised, although I'd figured that out even before buying it.
It runs HS well with the new drive. Good for the money. I really do have too many chargers...
The third MBP late 2011 has arrived. Pretty good cosmetically. Plus points: HiRes screen, 16GB RAM, generally good condition, although it obviously has seen good use. Charger.
Minus points: Battery works, cycle count 1045, needs replacing. Line down right side of screen. Would not install HS until I'd done the GPU power prefs setting in NVRAM, so the Radeon is likely toast. The SATA II SSD, probably original, is certainly flaky. Put in a new Crucial 500GB, did the NVRAM set, and it's running well. It's a 2.2GHz i7, not 2.5 as advertised, although I'd figured that out even before buying it.
It runs HS well with the new drive. Good for the money. I really do have too many chargers...
That is a good find, too bad about the screen line.
are we replacing the thermal paste?
toady i will start my project on hopefully all 3 early Intel macs i have and use quite often.
Toshiba, a THNSNC256GBSJ. Cannot find a definitive test app for it, though, so cannot for sure say just how flaky it is. The machine just gave a flashing folder icon. A complete erase and reinstall did not complete.
