I picked up a 15" Macbook Air (M3) for $849 — clearance @costco early 2025.
This model only has 8gb of RAM — which is fine for streaming videos/typing — it absolutely could not be my daily driver, but makes for good casual usage.
Machines probably should ship with more than that (or a lighter operating system?), particularly when the RAM isn't upgradeable. I'll recon Apple supports at least two more macOS on these 8GB configurations.
My favorite machine only has 4GB of RAM (Core2Duo Max, Win7Pro) and works good, albeit nothing modern.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
They're specifically referring to the dead comments from new users in this thread, so it's not insinuation. They're pointing out a higher-than-normal quantity of shill bots flocked to this thread.
The fact that the comments are dead means the system is working as intended, but it's not unreasonable to point out the nature of the comments.
I took a few pit mixes out of the local humane society last summer for "Doggy Day Out", basically an opportunity for dogs who need new homes to get exposure to the community and get away from the kennel for a few hours, and they were universally friendly, sweet dogs.
There's some selection bias, obviously, but their reputation is definitely overblown.
I was at a friend's place with some others from school, we were about 14-15 years old, his family had this seemingly sweet pitbull, always wanting to be pet, super playful but kind. That day it attacked one of our classmates, out of the blue, we were sitting on the backyard, the dog playing with some rope toys, brought it to us sitting, this guy picked up the toy to throw it and before he could even started the motion this pitbull jumped on his face and started attacking.
It was so jarring, unexpected, and brutal that I got traumatised for life from pitbulls, I don't like to be close to them, don't like when I'm biking and there's one without a muzzle being walked around, and I don't want to pet one as much as it can look super friendly and calm. Seeing how fast it could turn into a murder machine even when growing up in a loving family that never trained it to be a guard/attack dog, and probably never treated the dog badly, made me very anti-pitbulls.
Most dog attacks in the country I grew up in are from pitbulls, including a few kids killed every year, the statistics don't lie. The breed requires people who aren't assholes so it doesn't become dangerous, I don't trust owners to do that, even more when it's a breed for "macho" guys to show off at the same time.
I got bit by a dog a while ago and the thing that really woke me up was how unexpected it was. I generally think that I'm fairly observant and empathetic with animals. All B.S. aside I genuinely think I can tell when a dog is scared. The dog that bit me though, totally out of the blue. I saw it. No body language, no nothing - and I walked by it and next thing I knew it jumped out and bit my hand.
Since then if I see a strange dog and the option is there I keep plenty of distance between it and me no matter what I take to be it's state.
If we are to be pedantic I should have defined it as "most dog attacks causing serious enough harm to be reported" but I don't think it was needed to communicate the same thing.
They are banned in Ontario, Canada for a good reason and banned in UK for the same reasons.
The only time my dog was ever randomly attacked was a pitbull and you quickly learn talking to other dog owners how common this is. Nothing clears out a dog park like a pit bull showing up.
The ban isn't meaningfully enforced in much of the province [1], I see them a lot. I used to live in Ottawa, and their official site directly states "The City of Ottawa does not enforce the provincial ban on pit bulls" [2]. For those (legitimately) interested in a Canadian perspective on breed-specific legislation, there's a documentary by CBC's Fifth Estate on the subject [3].
Yep, that's why my dog still got attacked by one in Toronto. It's poorly enforced. The dog sprinted across an entire field without making a sound and pinned my dog hard by the throat.
Ontario also tried to remove the pitbull ban, after the usual "it's owners the owners" protests, but a bunch of attacks happened again so they reinstated it.
I suspect the reasons are (generously) keeping them out of the hands of people who would treat them poorly and perpetuate the stereotypes, or (less generously) ignorance and fear.
There are plenty of statistical studies out there that pit bulls specifically cause both a significant plurality of dog bites and significantly worse injuries than other dog breeds.
The word "pit" in "pit bull" refers specifically to a dog fighting arena where dogs are supposed to aggressively fight each other in a duel, possibly until one of them dies.
"pit bull" refers to a dog breed that was optimized for its performance (=more aggressive and dangerous) in the "pit".
How they're raised makes a big difference, but natural instinct is natural instinct. It's just like how chihuahuas were bred to be small, but pit bulls were bred to fight other dogs.
Nothing in any of the links seems to support the assertion that “Even still today mothers in Baghdad lose half of their babies to deformities caused by the US' criminal use of depleted uranium”
I have no doubt that what happened, and is still happening, is tragic. I do doubt that statement.
Right, 15 years ago in a recently heavily bombarded city 50% of children were born with defects, according to one study. Terrible even if off by an order of magnitude.
Nothing in that document, or anything else I've found, supports the claim that today in Baghdad half of all children are dying from birth defects.
Things were bad. Are still bad. But throwing around inaccurate numbers does not help matters.
>Right, 15 years ago in a recently heavily bombarded city 50% of children
In a lot of the bombarded cities, not just Fallujah. Wherever US forces went they left a heinous legacy which is still paid for by the mothers of Iraq.
>Baghdad
There’s another study for Baghdad out there, I’ll link it if I can find it.
>inaccurate numbers
Straw man argument. The numbers are inaccurate because the studies are obfuscated by US-led institutions such as NIH, which have a vested interest in avoiding the truth. Like was done with Agent Orange as a precedent, of course.
50% of children dying at (or before) birth in a major city should be global news. I want it to be not true, but if it is true, I want someone to be talking about it.
I don't know what's so hard to understand about "this is a remarkable claim and requires some evidence". No one in this thread has supplied ANY evidence that it is true.
Not the person to whom you're responding, but for me, some of the heavy hitters:
- Real-time weather alerts (I spend a lot of time in a naked Jeep in the summer, it's helpful to know when rain is imminent)
- Work-related authentication
- Audiobooks
- High quality, always available camera with quick editing and instant sharing capabilities
- GPS tracking when I'm exploring
- Find restaurants, museums, hotels when I'm traveling
- Pay for nearly anything (credit cards are useful but more time-consuming, and pulling them out frequently is a minor friction point that I'm grateful to leave behind)
> What you need is the ability for consumers to replace the firmware.
> That solves the problem in three ways.
That alleviates the problem, but definitely doesn't solve it. Updates are still required, and most people will never update devices they don't directly interact with.
Which introduces new security risks, but more importantly, the consumer has to configure the device to use open source firmware, and set up auto updates, unless the device is being auto updated by the device manufacturer and forces all of their customers to switch to the new firmware, which seems very unlikely.
How? The device phones home to the manufacturer's servers to get new updates. Manufacturer goes out of business, servers get shut down. How does it know where to get updates now?
> Manufacturer goes out of business, servers get shut down.
Continue your chain of reasoning: DNS name becomes unmaintained, gets grabbed by open source / foundation / gov agency, pushes open source firmware update.
That's still ten years of collaboration that could have built greater trust, led to a new agreement, or worst case provided enough evidence to take a more precise military action instead of bombing girls schools.
Build greater trust? The Iranian regime's identity is based on anti-American rhetoric. They fund Hamas and Hezbollah because Israel is an American ally. They say this in their marches and their speeches and their rallies.
You are suggesting that these people change their entire identity to suit your notion that the world should be peaceful. Would you suggest that a metalhead not wear leather because you don't like loud music? Would you suggest that a gay man "be normal" because "God doesn't like gays"? Identity is not something you change in other people. Unless you're some colonial conquerer forcing your culture on others.
And Apple is effectively committing to supporting 8GB computers with their OS upgrades for years to come.
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