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New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

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Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#341

Post by ActorNightly »

EagnaIonat wrote: post #302
ActorNightly wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno why Apple fans do this thing where they pretend that their specific workflow is the standard for how things work, and because they can do it so well on their Macs, that means Macs are the best. To be specific, 5 models at 57 gb means you are using crap quantized models, which suck for any real agentic work. I mean, sure they give you some inference, but compared to the full parameter models like Qwen3.8 and G…

> I dunno why Apple fans You mean someone who uses a Mac? I find the term "Apple fan" is used as a way to attack the person. > that can run full agentic loops, you may as well just use cloud inference for the price. You can run full agentic loops fine with quantised models. In fact that is likely what you are doing with a 32GB PC Graphics card. Or what model are you using? You use the right model for the right job. F…

Running agentic loops doesnt mean just being able to execute them. When your llm is so slow that you are faster writing the code yourself with free gemini that comes with google account, local llm is no longer worth it. Tok/sec is everything.

And 3090 is $1500 used, and 24gb gb of ram. 3x is $4500 for 72gb of ram.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#342

Post by chokolad »

vehemenz wrote: post #334
manquer wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly maybe 20 years ago $17K was price of a car. Median car price these days is close to $50K and there are hardly any new cars less than 20

The median price is high because Americans tend to buy more car than they can afford and/or need. If we look at what you can realistically buy OTD (out the door) prices, the picture changes. New Odyssey/Sienna are coming in the low to mid $40k, and these are at the upper end of quality and features. Your typical compact SUVs is in the upper $20k range.

> Your typical compact SUVs is in the upper $20k range.

Your typical base model compact SUVs start in upper $20K range. Your typical compact SUV usually lands somewhere in the 30s.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#343

Post by II2II »

pjmlp wrote: post #297
EvanAnderson wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's an accident that the market is on a trajectory toward personal computer (and particularly storage) rental being the only economically viable game. There are significant players who will profit directly. Indirectly it helps companies for whom end users owning general purpose computers and storage threaten their business models. The industry has little incentive to fix this problem and as the market…

Indeed, also to note something that younger folks keep missing, the PC revolution only happened due IBM's mistake, everyone else was vertically integrated, even with something like CP/M.

Was it a mistake?

It is easy to say that IBM had monopolistic tendencies, because they did. On the other hand, the 5100 sounds like a vertically integrated design and it ended up being extremely expensive. The Datamaster strayed away from IBM components, but was still based upon IBM software. One can blame it's failure on the IBM PC being released a month later, but in a way that would prove the point. The Datamaster had such a big head start that the IBM PC borrowed elements of it's design, while the proprietary software of the Datamaster held back its release date.

Undoubtedly, IBM wanted more control over the PC. Avoiding a completely proprietary design was probably a calculated bet, an intentional course of action rather than a mistake. It just happens to be a bet they lost.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#344

Post by jr3592 »

NateEag wrote: post #256
jr3592 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the problems here is that things like this only count as "increased productivity" in the economic sense if it results in more income at the end of the funnel. Are you actually making more product faster in all your new-found free time? This strikes me as a problem with how we define productivity in this context. If I can do my job in 1 hour, when it took me 8 before, am I not more productive in a rate-based…

Wealth created is still the same, and that's what an economist means by "productive" - you produced X amount of wealth (usually measured in dollar amounts). It's like "work" meaning one thing to a normal person, but something very specific and counterintuitive in Newtonian physics (if you carry a fifty-pound weight in a circle and stop at your starting point, you've done no work).

I suppose I can understand that perspective, but disagree with it? We should measure time returned to individuals as wealth, maybe even the highest form of wealth.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#345

Post by jr3592 »

adastra22 wrote: post #317
jr3592 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the problems here is that things like this only count as "increased productivity" in the economic sense if it results in more income at the end of the funnel. Are you actually making more product faster in all your new-found free time? This strikes me as a problem with how we define productivity in this context. If I can do my job in 1 hour, when it took me 8 before, am I not more productive in a rate-based…

The economics definition is the real definition that real people use in the real world.

Everything is ultimately a chosen definition, nothing is "real". I'd argue the definition is antiquated. In the modern world, free time being returned to individuals is perhaps one of the greatest examples of wealth.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#346

Post by jr3592 »

simiones wrote: post #312
jr3592 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the problems here is that things like this only count as "increased productivity" in the economic sense if it results in more income at the end of the funnel. Are you actually making more product faster in all your new-found free time? This strikes me as a problem with how we define productivity in this context. If I can do my job in 1 hour, when it took me 8 before, am I not more productive in a rate-based…

In the sense measured in economics, only if the product at the end of the day is sold for the same nominal amount of dollars as before. It doesn't matter how many features or lines of code or bugs or anything like this you produced - it matters how much revenue your work produced. So, if the product isn't selling any more expensive even though you're adding ~8 times more features, or if you're still getting paid for…

Yup, I understand. And through a very narrow definition of economics it makes sense. I just don't see the utility in viewing it this way.

You've returned one of the most valuable resources (time) back to a human. In my mind there's simply nothing more valuable, and no sign of of efficiency more poignant than that.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#347

Post by fpoling »

poincareball wrote: post #281
fpoling wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memory orders for the whole 2027 were already reserved. There is little indication that in 2028 situation will be any better unless something drastic happens like AI crash. And then the opposite can happen like an unknown drone with 100 kg warhead striking memory production facility.

Yeah… “unknown”. As if we don’t know any countries seeking to end democracy in Taiwan…

It can be Russia to limit availability of AI heavy drones for Ukraine. Or it can be a small private organization using the strike as a mean to manipulate market.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#348

Post by vehemenz »

chokolad wrote: post #342
vehemenz wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median price is high because Americans tend to buy more car than they can afford and/or need. If we look at what you can realistically buy OTD (out the door) prices, the picture changes. New Odyssey/Sienna are coming in the low to mid $40k, and these are at the upper end of quality and features. Your typical compact SUVs is in the upper $20k range.

> Your typical compact SUVs is in the upper $20k range. Your typical base model compact SUVs start in upper $20K range. Your typical compact SUV usually lands somewhere in the 30s.

You're right. My prices were a few years off. Still, nowhere near the $50k mark.

Re: New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

#349

Post by o_m »

kennywinker wrote: post #283
o_m wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $5 VPS is easy to block. It's way harder to block a stock mac mini from a residential IP address

Tailscale the vps into your home network, and have it use that as an exit node.

The bot blocking services are more advanced than that. They will do stuff like checking how your fonts are rendered in a canvas element to determine your browser and OS. A stock mac circumvent all that by hiding in plain sight.
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