From malaise to Malaysia? Let’s hope not.
The 2009 iMac is heading for the Last Roundup.
Its fans have cranked up to 11 for no discernible reason for the final time. No more will its internal not-so-SuperDrive refuse to read a disc, its USB 2.0 ports decline to recognize the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface, or its attempts to record and play back sound through same bring back memories of trying to tune in distant FM stations at 2 a.m. while piloting a ’74 Datsun pickup along U.S. 50 in Nevada, with a sixer of tallboys between the knees and rings of marching powder around the nostrils.
This iMac ran $1,200 new, but 10 years later Apple considers it worthless for any purpose beyond recycling, and frankly, so do I. P’raps Tim Cook will make a new MacBook Air or Mini out of the auld beastie and try to sell it back to me (at top dollar, it goes without saying).
That will be a tough sell, Timmy old scout. We already own a 2012 MacBook Air and a 2010 Mini. Both remain functional yet underemployed, like me, and so I think we can struggle along for a while before deploying the Visa card in the direction of Cupertino yet again.
I just hope this goddamn thing doesn’t wind up in Malaysia, where all the rest of our old crap seems to be piling up, when it’s not being buried in landfills or mysteriously catching fire.
December 30, 2018 at 8:36 am |
I took the hard drive out of our mid-90’s I-book and took it to the range for the sake of making sure no one could ever read it again. Put a whole bunch of 9mm holes in it. Rest of the computer went into our county’s recycling center.
December 30, 2018 at 9:10 am |
Hal and I used to talk about having a Mad Dog MacShoot up in Crusty County, back when we were both rocking ill-conceived MacClones from Power Computing and Motorola, but we never got around to it.
That would’ve been big fun, ’cause we had serious firepower on hand. Everything from .357 Magnum and 7.62x39mm to black powder and bow and arrow.
December 31, 2018 at 10:19 am |
I’m still grieving that you gave away that Mini-30 to the P.D. Woulda looked nice along side my Mini-14.
December 30, 2018 at 11:42 am |
First we shipped our jobs over there, then our pollution, and now the resulting toxic waste. Then we wonder why they don’t like us and think we should pitch a few extra bucks in the carbon cleanup fund.
RIP Mr. Mac. Apple went sideways when they adopted intel processors and third party software developers. If I wanted to run windows I wouldn’t have bought a Mac.
December 31, 2018 at 8:01 am |
The Macs we have left are ticking right along, though I have doubts about their longevity. I mean, I don’t see any of these “new” ones lasting 20 years, the way the two G4’s have.
True, the auld fellas don’t much like surfing this modern Internet, even with geezer browsers like Opera or TenFourFox, though they were fine Back in the Day®.
But they both have ancient copies of Photoshop and I can use ’em to color my cartoons, if nothing else.
Even the cheapo black MacBook from 2006 still works fine, though it smells a bit like burning pencil eraser when it heats up, which it will. I maxed out the memory and swapped the original hard drive for an SSD, and since it, too, has an old copy of Photoshop it remains a more up-to-date-ish bulwark against the predations of Cupertino and San Jose.
December 30, 2018 at 5:52 pm |
25 yrs ago I had attorney friend that had a daisy wheel printer. (WTF the youngsters ask). any way this printer would print no more that 10 pages with out screwing up and it liked to start from the beginning. so one day I got some consulting work done for this guy and he asked how much do I owe you? I said I will trade you 2 hours of my time for this printer. being cheap he jumped at the deal. I pulled his window air condtioner out from the 2 story window and I taught that POS Brother to fl. it flew once and took me 20 minutes with a push broom to dispose of it in a public dumpster. ahhhhhh a pleasant memory. No recycling and no regrets. So e times termination is a option
December 30, 2018 at 8:13 pm |
I had a colleague once. Dude had to be restrained to stop him from throwing his terminal out a window after it ate his story, on deadline, three times running.
These devices are not our friends.
December 31, 2018 at 1:57 am |
Technology. Might be fun for some…but. Right now I’m cursing the stuff since I’m now locked out of all my online banking accounts. Logging in worked just fine when I tested ’em all just before we left the US of A and just a few months earlier when I used ’em all from Italy, but now for some reason they all want 2-step logins via cell phone.
Of course the phone numbers they have on file don’t work anymore and unless I can log in, I can’t give ’em a new number….as if their format is going to take our Italian phone number anyway.
So I suspect I’ll be burning up some serious phone money calling some tech wizards later this week to get it all to work again…until the next time they decide to “improve” things.
Oh, and while I type this the prof is yelling at her college-supplied Macbook-something…….
December 31, 2018 at 8:03 am |
That should be an hieroglyphic for modern life … an emoji, if you will. A person yelling at a device.
Good luck with the bankers. Jeebus. I hate getting caught in those techno-loops where one must do (a) before (b) but (a) is impossible and the bots just laugh tinnily at you — ha ha ha beep ha ha ha — when you call.
December 31, 2018 at 8:43 am |
Yep and what do I get in email today? A notice from that gawdawful phone company that they’ve billed us again!!! GRRrrrrrrrrr!
December 31, 2018 at 9:04 am |
These bozos are on a plane all their own. Back before CenturyTel and Qwest fused into one giant clusterfuck they started sending us a parade of DSL modems as part of a mandatory upgrade necessary to access higher speeds.
The Brown Truck Dude was bringing one every day there for a stretch, I shit thee not. It finally caused me to yell at various knaves, varlets and minions over the phone, which is something I rarely do, because you never really get to yell at the person who really needs yelling at.
I forget how many we got before I finally got the floodgates closed, but we still have three of the sonsabitches. They’re probably billing you for them.
• Update: It was 10 years ago that we enjoyed the Parade of Modems. Here’s a little trip down Memory Lane, circa Aug. 15, 2008, for your amusement.
December 31, 2018 at 1:05 pm |
I tried DSL from Century Link/Qwest about 12 years ago. Terrible experience across the board. Went with the cable (Cox) and haven’t looked back.
December 31, 2018 at 1:38 pm
We called it Q-Worst in Los Alamos.
December 31, 2018 at 2:15 pm
Shoulda called ’em Qwurst ’cause they were always out to slip you the sausage.
December 31, 2018 at 6:01 pm
Qwurst! Now that’s funny right there. The standup stage is calling you bro.
December 31, 2018 at 7:53 pm
O, my little act is a veritable Yugo among the Freightliners of funny.
We just watched an old Bill Hicks standup, “Relentless,” from the Just for Laughs festival in Montréal. Now there was one funny, if dark, dude.
Pancreatic cancer sent him off at 32, which I figure was at least 40, maybe 50 years too soon.