My motherboard has been on its last legs for a while now and yesterday it finally gave up the ghost. Bit the bullet and ordered a bunch of new PC parts to deal with the problem like a grownup rather than bitch and moan for weeks as I try to fruitlessly fix my aging gaming rig for cheap. Apparently I go into convulsions in my sleep periodically now. Woke my significant other up the other night because I was shaking the whole bed. Nobody has a clue why and my family doc is terrified to send me for any kind of evaluation cuz 'Rona. I think I'm going to try and work in my woodshed today.
AMD and Pro Tools do not work, have never worked, will never work. Lather, rinse, repeat for every single audio and video authoring application. AMD does something asynchronous with audio and video at a chip level that makes audio and video authoring applications either crash reliably or not run at all. There's an entire community out there of pikers who never have to do anything hard or anything for money and they'll go "I can get my Ryzen and Reaper to work just fine, I had it open for half an hour playing presets with my thumb therefore all the complaints about Ryzen are bullshit" and then you get deeper into the world of People Who Make Money With Media and the mantra is never ever AMD ever.
In the beginning, there was the Motorola 68x and the IBM x86. the 68x was a RISC chip; it was designed for synchronous processing by multiple different areas on the chip which meant it loaned itself well to stacking. The x86 was designed for memory segmentation to allow better use of limited resources. One is expensive. The other is cheap. One is refined for flexibility. The other is refined for speed. Apple used a 68x processor. This allowed it to handle digital audio natively and successfully. At a time when memory was $40/mb, Apple's x86 chips could successfully stream stereo CD-quality audio at 10.4MB/minute. PC clones used the x86 and no attempts were made at authoring shit. At some point in the late '80s, however, the PC universe decided that maybe games shouldn't sound like 8-bit shit so things like the Gravis Ultrasound and the Creative Soundblaster viable. These specialized sound cards siphoned the bistream off at an interrupt; there were sixteen available on the chip and a soundcard could use one. It allowed for synchronous audio control on an asynchronous chip. This is about the time Pro Tools was released as Sound Tools and about the time serious consumer video editing software was available. Pro Tools and Video Toaster were synchronous protocols that ran on 68x; video rendering was done on SGI and Sun systems that ran other RISC architecture. Eventually the PC universe recognized that there was a possibility to capture some of that money and assorted platforms rose up that sort of kind of allowed real-time recording and manipulation of audio and video but they only worked if they were slow and janky enough for the buffer to do the job. Eventually x86 architecture became fast enough that you could deal with the asynchronous nature of the x86 instruction set but also, eventually Intel realized that they could eat Sun and DEC's lunch if they came out with synchronous x86 chips for the server market. Now you could do audio and video on a PC. Meanwhile Apple limped RISC architecture along until it was an obvious dead end at which point they switched to Intel but the hot shit macs? They've always used server chips on the Intel side. So here we are now. If your asynchronous chips are fast enough, they will deal with synchronous data and the slop won't matter. This allows you to stream several channels of audio without things borking but I'm running 100 channels of I/O on a regular basis. Account for plugins and such and I've probably got a few thousand synchronous streams of data. And when things don't all arrive at the same time, software breaks. AMD never served the pro market and never will. Gamers are a much more valuable demographic anyway simply because there's hella more of them.
Every time I look at the pricing on higher end Apple kit I think someone really needs to try being SGI again. Gamers aren't going to be subsidizing wintel forever, between phones and games targeting every platform so there's not much of an advantage in a gaming PC over a console since the games are built around console limitations. Build a nice RISC architecture with good video and audio built in, port linux or FreeBSD to it and pay cad/audio/video vendors and Wolfram to port their applications, make sure it speaks Vulkan, and have a relatively cheap nerd toy offering to ensure the free software ecosystem will get ported to it. You'd own the big data space too because no one who still has to care about their CPU architecture likes x86.
I have two responses: 1) "From your lips to god's ears" 2) "I don't know how you can look at higher end Apple kit and conclude anything other than that they're trying to be SGI. You can buy twenty five thousand dollars worth of MEMORY for a Mac Pro." Mac Pros now cost more than SGI Octanes did.
They were the only game in town. You also have to keep in mind that the whole world came out with "USB audio interfaces" when USB itself is an asynchronous protocol. So it wouldn't reliably do 96k, it wouldn't lock up to word clock, and you'd get all sorts of nasty smear. Of course if you were listening on bullshit monitors or bullshit headphones and compressing the ever loving bejeesus out of things, you maybe didn't notice and if you were running pirated Radium warez that you got from a buddy at the club on a burned CD it really didn't matter. But as soon as things got real things got synchronous. The reason Apple held onto Firewire until the absolute bloody end is it's synchronous. As a part of the protocol it ships 8 pairs of digital audio. Period. You can spit audio down a firewire cable without even needing to translate. Just as important: if shit's broken, and I've got a Pro Tools sound card and Pro Tools software on a Mac, Pro Tools has to qualify that mac. If i call up Digidesign/Avid and say "shit's broke" they can say "okay what's the error" and they'll get something. They've got a handful of macs, they've got a handful of hardware devices, they're done. You call up on the Windows side and it becomes "what motherboard" "what CPU" "what GPU" "what memory" "what audio device" "what other audio device" "what other strange peripherals" "what else is on the USB bus" because windows gives no fucks it just sprays its data all over creation. This is why Avid officially supports eight Windows computers, all of them HP workstations. Pro Tools not working on Windows? Not running an HP workstation? Tough shit. Right now? Right now Pro Tools won't work if you have a Realtek chip on your motherboard. Why? Because Realtek rewrote their drivers to remove a bunch of functionality and Windows auto-propagates all your drivers and that functionality was necessary for Pro Tools to say "don't even think about considering this bullshit chip an audio device". That's an official bug report. It took me four hours to work around and I'm in the damn credits of the software. Traditionally this wasn't a problem on the Mac side but I'm also dealing with the fact that two of my Native Instruments synths are borked because Apple decided to update Logic without telling anyone ahead of time, which crashes about five programs that belong to Native Instruments, so their fix makes things work again on the Mac side while completely breaking the Windows side. SO long story short, yeah tradition because everyone sucks now.
I came out to some of my extended family and found out that another one of my uncles is gay and my parents had just kept that a secret for 20 years. And that my parents have been spreading some shitty rumors about me. All in all not really regretting not talking to them right now. University is looking at perhaps a 25% budget cut which is going to be a mess. The chancellor wants to spend money on the landscaping though because that's what attracts new students. At least right now my funding comes from the DOE, but it's evaporated overnight before so who knows what happens in the fall. I don't see this whole situation ending well for universities and it just increases my resolve to get out of academia when I'm done. Putting slides together for a conference presentation that I'm excited about as it finally reveals some stuff I did in undergrad! Breadski, please rate my challah: 
It's gotten to the point where not a day goes by that I don't thank my lucky stars for being a straight white male. It's also gotten to the point where not a day goes by that I don't inwardly shudder at the level of contempt a stunning amount of straight white male-dom feels for all outgroups, and the lengths to which they will go to act as if this prejudice and bias are something other than prejudice and bias. I forget that the "pulling together" instinct is something we do within our tribe, which means the sociopaths among us do their level best to make the tribe as small as possible. Good luck with your continued employment. One of my friends just survived a 40% layoff (shale oil) and another just survived a 50% layoff (cruise industry) so with my anecdata of two I seem to associate with winners. I sincerely hope you are three.
Fuck everything about last week. A Pyrrhic victory over my task manager, redlining leading to unhappiness leading to more redlining. But I managed to unwind this weekend. Took a deep breath, said hard no's to some people, and let go of the high expectations I had of myself. This week's been going great and my long weekend starts with a national holiday tomorrow. Time to play with the NI M32 I got myself, to keep up with the new daily piano practice the GF and I are doing, keep running (7th week in a row of 3x per week!). And, best of all, start working on the next version of my academic paper, which has not been rejected but has received 3 thorough peer reviews. I have until the end of June to fix their comments and am one big step closer to being able to call myself Scientist.
After 5 weeks of daily troubleshooting, in which I have updated every firmware bit, every driver, and the BIOS, in which I have spent four hours on the phone, in which I have purchased USB hubs, I have been told that I am now allowed to send my M32 back, at which point they will sit on it for five weeks, and if they can't find anything wrong, they will send it back because fuck you, that's why. Meanwhile it appears that the only way to access the ADAT outs on my presonus interface is through their janky software which turns everything mono. So I can hit it with Youtube (in mono) but not with Pro Tools. Depending on its mood I get a mono signal at "DAW 4" or "DAW 7" or "DAW 2" or "DAW 5" but when you actually fire up a DAW, Presonus has no idea what it is or why. I was told by Mike Bombich at CCC yesterday that the reason I have one failure out of two of two identical tasks of two near-identical partitions on one macbook to two identical Sandisk thumb drives is because, well, Sandisk is bullshit and sometimes shit's broke. On the plus side Izotope took pity on me for the fact that I had three accounts with scattered licenses and gave me such a phat discount on everything that I now own literally every plugin Izotope makes. I really wish I could get shit to work. I've even got 40 faders of EuCon talking to a laptop. I've got frickin' 16 outputs of Maschine onto 16 stereo tracks. I could actually be doing something.
Non. Stop. Calls. All day. All night. We have investors on the west coast, Singapore, China and Hong Kong. Which means I’m getting sideways looks from my kids and wife. While they’re sitting outside having dinner in the sun, I’m on fucking Zoom calls. When I’m off the calls I’m sending follow up emails. This is no way to live. Luckily, my wife and I have a series to watch after the kids go to bed. mk introduced us to Poldark. So far, so good. Also, I have taken to late night music making. I’m gonna record a full length #covidalbum But damn. These are crazy days. I’m talking with a 5x NBA allstar tomorrow and soon to be introduced to one of the winningest MMA guys. All investors. Such a strange journey we are on. Family is healthy. Family is happy. Tomorrow night I have no calls after 5pm. I’m making myself a drink. A paper plane. I realized today that I have all the ingredients. So I’ve got that to look forward to. Onward!
something in the water folks... lots of hardware issues in the pub this week. For me it was the "Fusion Drive" on my late 2013 iMac. Fusion Drive means big 3TB traditional hard drive and a little 128GB SSD blade pretending to be one big 3TB drive inside your pretty aluminum and glass shell. So when that hard drive goes out... you have your choice. Replace the big drive with another one and try to make another fusion drive (which will probably have problems) or join the rest of the 21st century and buy an SSD drive. But wait - there's more choices! You can also upgrade the SSD blade (with a proprietary connector thank$$). I decided to go full Frankenstein. To get to the blade SSD, you're basically removing everything but some cables. Mid-teardown: Full teardown: I swapped the 128GB blade SSD with a 512GB SSD out of a macbook air I salvaged a while ago (hiding on the back of the logic board): In the end, I was successful: But oh man... a couple hairy moments. I now have a 512GB OS Drive and a 2TB SATA SSD data drive. It's rippin fast. I'm glad I got to do it. It's not quite as scary as several people online want to make it sound. I wish you all similar successes with your hardware woes.
Dude mad props. I have avoided "fusion" drives like the goddamn plague for all the reasons you list. I also got spinny platters in my Mac Mini because if it shelled you can always just replace it right? WERRRRONGGGGGGGGG 'cuz Apple uses a proprietary bios now because fuck you, that's why, so now I have a mac Mini whose soul lives on a USB 3 drive. Because apple, last I checked, wanted $550 for a 1TB spinny platter fujitsu with their proprietary bullshit BIOS on it.
the machine? it's ok. It was pipe hittin' 7 years ago... and still no slouch by today's standards - I mean it's got a quad core i7, and a decent 4GB graphics card. The new SSDs gave it a rebirth (even if it was forced). It's no gaming rig - but it runs final cut for me, logic for the kid, and.... basic computing stuff for the other 97 people in the house.
it's the third iMac I've opened... but definitely the most invasive of repairs. they REALLY don't want the lay people inside of this thing. I mean... the screen is GLUED ON. at least the previous versions used magnets and/or screws. This thing is just weird. But once I got my mind wrapped around the adhesives, the rest is all just screws and ribbon cables (about a billion each) edit: if any of your repair averse apple friends want to send me their gear instead of trashing it... I'm always open for donations
Overall I am doing good. People around me seem to be dealing with this situation in two ways. Either going completely bonkers by diving into conspiracy theories or having their most intense version of winter depression, yet. Or, in full bloom. And I think I caught the latter part of the lottery. I am working out 2-3 times a week and going hiking on the weekend. Trying to get my right leg back in shape after my ACL surgery last August. The rest of the time I am working, mostly from home, with some exceptions where I go to do experiments in the lab in the shortest time possible and then leave. I am liking it. I have been playing a lot of puppy hammer/oxbow meteor lately (a recent vid of a guy who is pretty good at it) and took the plunge to get myself the fire version after playing it for the first time at Borderlands in Denmark last year. Can't wait! Had to upgrade my MacBook's hard drive lately. I am lucky that I still own one that can be upgraded, even though it was quite expensive to go from a 128Gb SSD to the 1Tb version. But it was worth it. If I even get a MacBook (which I probably won't unless I have unlimited funds) I will make sure to max that shit out! My plant projects are going well. I have a dimly-lit room so I needed to chose some plants that work well with that. But I am quite happy with it. Trying to grow a jungle. My thesis is sitting in the back of my mind asking for attention. But somehow, I am able to deal with it. I wonder how long it will take for it to sneakily take over and send me into panic attacks. Will update.
I planted 2 pomegranate shrubs in late winter. They should handle heat and drought better than the peaches plums and pears many people grow here. They're way too small to carry fruit this year but the flowers are pretty: Random wildflowers because I don't mow very often: Cherry tomatoes I planted the weekend before Texas started the stay-at-home:
Arguing at work over the fact that we have multiple lean/continuous improvement teams working on reviewing the same work but aren't actually all talking to each other at the same time. So, now, work that my department did has one VP saying "let's get this out to the company Friday" and another group saying "we need more data validation" and me saying "hey guys why isn't everyone talking to each other and why am I not on all the calls if it impacts my work" to which the CI people say "we already have someone from your site (different team) on the call" to which I say "go fuck yourself". I'm so frustrated over a lot of things right now. I was up until 1:00am dealing with an extremely anxious partner the other night which involved three-fucking-hours on the phone because she's a totally different human being when she's having anxiety attacks and it fry's me for two days whenever this happens. She's amazing except when this happens.
Man I feel that. My recent ex is the most low-maintenance person in the world 99.99% of the time, but whenever she got extremely emotional it could take hours to resolve. Worth it, for sure, but definitely taxing.
Weather is amazing, and we're allowed to hang out in parks as long as we keep the 2m distance :) Unbelievably happy to see some friends soon! I want to be outside more this summer. Looking into getting a bike for some low key touring around the province? Never been on a bike trip but it's been on my list for a while. My garden is... struggling. I think i need to find some metal mesh to protect from cats and squirrels a bit. Might go to the market buy some plants, since starting from seeds has not been super successful so far - i think i don't have enough light and get some weak ass seedlings. If everything goes the way it's been going, i'll be on the board of 2 nonprofits by the start of next month. Not something I expected at the start of the year, but 2020 has been full of surprises.
Half my cohort is flailing (myself included) on locking down hours for the internship portion of our program amidst this COVID confusion miasma. The proctor for the course has been fairly hardline - unlike the signaling from others from his department. Been caught up tying myself back down to a schedule closer to what normal was in hopes of catching the requirements I need to graduate on time.