The parking lot chaos continues as we head past the main entrance, though at least the security SUV was there to help... or just sit in traffic. 😉 For someone like me, trying to park somewhere this busy just sounds like torture, and I can't believe these people are all here and didn't just give up and decide to shop online! Normally it's Dick's Drive In that attracts the crowds, not Dick's Sporting Goods!
I saw Retail Retell mentioned yesterday that it was his first time posting from a new computer -- well, today is my first time on my new computer! Well, new to me -- I decided to buy a refurbished Macbook Pro from 2019 rather than waiting for the Linux laptop I had been eyeing for a couple reasons -- for one, I'm not sure my 2015 Macbook Pro would be able to last that long, and for two, I was able to get this from Back Market for under $500, and I need a bargain after splurging on my new phone a few months ago! I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep this one, but it's in very good shape apart from one scratch on the screen, and seems to have a practically-new battery (which was the issue on my old computer), so hopefully it will last for a decent length of time. If you notice any extra typos over the coming weeks, blame the computer -- I went for the 2019 16" model since it doesn't have the terrible keyboard Apple used on most of their laptops in the late 2010s, but it's still taking some getting used to. Thankfully, other than that, I'm quite happy with this new computer -- thankfully, MacOS doesn't have the type of dramatic differences between versions that Windows often does!
Hey, I see an outline of the State of Texas in the back there at the Texas de Brazil restaurant. That certainly is a bit of an unusual sight in the Seattle-Tacoma area I'm guessing!
ReplyDeleteBetween this and the West Wing post, I continue to be surprised at the cars in the parking lot at this mall (and I suppose at the Tacoma Safeway you posted earlier). I see a couple of Subarus hiding in this photo, but otherwise this looks a lot more like what you'd see in Houston aside from Houston having a lot more pickup trucks, obviously. Otherwise, as far as the cars go, it is a bit of the mix you'd see in Houston with a lot of Nissan sedans, domestic truck-based SUVs, Dodge Chargers, and so forth. You'd see more Toyota sedans and SUVs in Houston than what you see here though. Maybe Houston is more demographically closer to Tacoma than Houston, I'm not really sure. Oddly enough, I know there is a fairly well-respected car museum in Tacoma!
Hopefully the new laptop works out well for you! If nothing else, hopefully it works out better for you than what luck Retail Retell is having with his Windows 11 laptop! I'm not sure if your laptop has an Intel processor or the new Apple bespoke ones, but if it is an Intel, maybe it'll work with Linux if you ever want to experiment with that at some point. I've heard that the newer Intel Macs don't always play well with Linux, but if given enough time, maybe the Linux community will find ways to get things to work properly.
Maybe I mentioned this already, I can't remember, but I bought a new laptop from MicroCenter back in January on a fire sale price. It came with Windows 10 (I think, maybe 11, lol), but I installed a new SSD in it before I even turned it on for the first time so I never used Windows on it. I put Linux Mint on there and it is working great. There were only two tweaks I needed to do to get it to work to what I consider to be 100%. The Intel Wi-Fi 6 driver for Linux seems to run in powersaving mode by default, which reduces range, so I disabled that. That is somewhat well-documented on line, at least with older Intel Wi-Fi cards, so that wasn't a big deal and I immediately suspected that as being an issue.
The other more trickier issue is that my CPU would throttle down to 400 MHz under load. This is a bigger problem and one which is not well-documented online. After some logical deductions about what might be causing the issues, I discovered that Linux Mint (and presumably Ubuntu as well) runs a thermal protection daemon on modern Intel processors to throttle the CPU back if it thinks it is overheating. Unfortunately, the program was having trouble detecting temperatures from the laptop's temperature sensors and so it was throttling when it wasn't at all necessary...presumably to be on the safe side. I disabled the thermald program and now everything is running fine! I can see how this problem might trip people up experimenting with Linux on laptops as the issue is not documented well at all and I was only able to deduce things based on years of experience with Linux and computer hardware knowledge.
Buying a laptop specifically designed for Linux will likely be a more seamless experience, but now everything is running great for me and I don't even have mouse lag! Sorry, Retail Retell, I don't mean to poke fun at your misfortune, lol!
Completely unrelated, but check out this gallery of Randall's photos from the 2000s and early 2010s. There are some real oddball Proto-Lifestyle and early Lifestyle decor and store features in these photos like the Lifestyle Nut Hut and some odd Proto-Lifestyle ovals! Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickcoolnet/galleries/72157688767720813/
Yeah, who knows... the cars here are definitely a bit odd for the Seattle area!
DeleteHaha, stories like that are why I'm a bit hesitant to get into Linux! If I was to switch, I would definitely want to buy a computer that was designed for it in the hope of avoiding those issues.
I would have loved to get an Apple Silicon model, but they're still pretty pricey even on the used market -- even ones that aren't in full working order regularly sell for nearly $1000 on eBay. It's a base-model Intel i7 machine, so not the most powerful thing out there, but probably faster than pretty much anything you could buy for $500 new! It's hard to believe someone paid $2500 for this just two years ago (according to the serial number) and I got it for so much less than that. It isn't much more powerful than my 2015 one (which was the most powerful model at the time), but it is much faster than that one has been for the past few years with its thermal issues!
Those are some interesting stores! I'd only seen those nut displays in Canada Safeways until now -- I always thought they were another Canada-exclusive feature. Their Safeways were always a bit fancier than the ones here in Washington. I guess Randall's is higher-end too!
The issue with the Wi-Fi power saving mode is something that might well happen even with a laptop made for Linux since it is the driver default mode it seems for newer Intel cards at least. It is just one of those things that you have to be aware of if your Wi-Fi is not working as it should.
DeleteThe thermal daemon is a different story. That shouldn't happen on a laptop made for Linux, but you never know. The best thing to do, IMO, is to get a laptop that doesn't have thermal problems and just disable the thermald program since it is just a precautionary measure anyway. I know that isn't always advisable on laptops with known thermal issues, but fortunately that is not a problem for me so thermald was just an unnecessary and undocumented annoyance.
Given my needs, I actively seek lower-power laptops these days. The one I have now is passively cooled and barely gets warm on the bottom, but it is still powerful enough to do everything I need smoothly. Using Linux helps since it is so lightweight.
Thanks for the shout-out/link, and congrats on the new laptop!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome!
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