busybee fluffy rambles

So, today Apple unveiled the new M4 Mac mini, which seems like a perfect upgrade for me! Except… they did something really asinine:

They put the power button underneath.

This means that you have to physically pick up the machine to turn it on, or to force-reboot it. Those are rare occurrences, but they’re enough of one that this becomes a problem.

Why’s this a problem? Well, part of it is that the mini’s maximum storage configuration is pretty small, and upgrading the storage is stupid expensive, so pretty much everyone who’s using these for doing, say, audio and video work is going to need an external drive enclosure. And external drive enclosures tend to have very short, fixed Thunderbolt cables, and managing those cables can become very tricky even when you don’t need to move your device around.

This will also be a big problem for people who want to rackmount or monitor-mount their devices; as far as I can tell from various photos, there isn’t really much of a gap/lip under which you can place a finger. Maybe people will start making custom button-pressing tools or something, I dunno. I guess that wouldn’t be too hard.

But still, it’s annoying that Apple would make this change.

(Hopefully they at least put it under the front corner, which would at least be livable! None of the photos I’m finding show which corner it’s under though.)

Another annoying thing is that while there are now five USB-C ports (three of which are Thunderbolt), there are no longer USB-A ports, so at least for my setup I’d need to run everything through a Thunderbolt dock, and finding one of those that’s both reliable and provides the ports I need is troublesome at best. Also, in my experience, you really want a dedicated port (rather than a docking station) for an external monitor, a storage enclosure, and an audio interface… and that’s all three Thunderbolt ports right there. So then my keyboard and mouse would have to plug into one of the USB-C ports in front, and that gets really messy really fast.

So anyway, power-wise the M4 mini would be a huge upgrade for me, but for the physical and connectivity requirements of my recording studio, it doesn’t seem like a good fit.

Maybe I’ll get an M4 mini for my home office and then move my M1 Max Mac studio into the recording studio. Or maybe I’m fine with the hardware I have already.

When I was a kid I was really into Infocom text adventures, and the game Beyond Zork had some very strong tabletop RPG elements, much moreso than other Infocom games. One of the things about it is that when you started the game you had to roll a character, and you could choose the gender of the player character.

The gender of the player character had literally no effect on the gameplay.

I always chose “female” for some reason.

But there were no signs.

I also used to be really into fighting games (Street Fighter et al), until I had to stop due to RSI issues.

I always chose the female fighters for some reason.

But there were no signs.

When I was 7 I was really into The Last Unicorn.

My parents thought I identified with Schmendrick the magician.

I identified with the unicorn.

But there were no signs.

When I was 10 and Super Mario Bros 2 came out I was infatuated with the game. Especially because the manual described Birdo as “thinking he was a girl.”

I wanted to hug her so bad, and say, “me too.”

But there were no signs.

Every time I wrote a story that had a self-insert character, it always just felt natural for that character to be a girl.

But there were no signs.

Okay it turns out that while the mobile version of PlexAmp works exactly how I want it to, the desktop version kind of sucks? Like, if you’re doing “album radio” (which is the shuffle-by-album thing I love so much) it is super easy to get out of the actual player view, and as far as I can tell there’s no way to get back into it except by restarting “album radio,” which then interrupts whatever it is you’re listening to.

Update: Turns out all you have to do is click on the mini-player, oops. Dunno why I didn’t try that before, it seems so obvious in retrospect.

Also its AirTunes “support” is just that it doesn’t prevent you from setting your system audio to AirTunes. That is… not useful.

So, okay, I think I’m sticking with iTunes on desktop, and still using my album shuffle playlist hack (which also lets me curate my upcoming listening and also, y'know, pause and resume).

But on mobile, PlexAmp seems to be the way to go.

No idea if they’ll even respond to this. They probably won’t. But it’s more paper trail for me and the credit card company, at least.

Hi, I am still waiting for contact information for your attorney. I cannot find any public records that indicates that he works with your firm and I would greatly appreciate any evidence to the contrary. The public records indicate that he works with Skyworks Solutions, a semiconductor manufacturer in Irvine, California.

Additionally, in the USPTO filing it appears that a registration was only performed for class 41, when I was told that it would also be registered on additional classes (namely 9 and 35), which would justify the amount I was charged. Could I please get an itemized bill of what the $999 went to?

I also still am concerned about the need for this registration having been done in the first place. Looking at the USPTO database, the only recent/pending registrations I’ve found for “Sockpuppet” or “sock puppet” are for the baseball team as previously mentioned (and they are indeed in class 41), and also there is still the issue of common law trademark regarding band names; for example:

• Gerben Law: An Overview of Common Law Trademark Rights
• LegalZoom: How to Establish a Common Law Trademark
• Stan Soocher: Big Legal Battles Over Rights in Bands' Names

• Secure Your Trademark: Trademarking a band name

  The legal advice is in; the mega pop star can’t force you to drop your band name because, technically, you arrived on the music scene several years before she did. But from now on, when you mention the name of your band, people are probably going to start humming “All About That Bass.” Here, the degree of trademark protection you missed out on becomes evident.

  […]

  Key Takeaway: When two or more non-trademarked bands share the same or a similar name, the one with the highest seniority usually wins and ends up with trademark protection.

• USPTO: I Received a Letter/Email…, particularly this excerpt:

  Federal registration is not required to establish trademark rights. Even if a trademark registration expires or is cancelled, the trademark owner may continue to have “common law” rights in the mark. Common law rights arise from actual use of a mark for particular goods or services and may allow the common law user to successfully challenge another party’s use in court.

Furthermore, my records show that I requested a cancellation of this process early on Friday, and I was told that I would receive a call “as soon as possible.” I never received that call, and then on Monday I was told that it was too late for a refund as the paperwork had already been submitted.

In addition, both California and Washington are two-party consent states, and I’d like to note that I was only informed that the initial call was being recorded quite a ways into it (when I asked for more information about the competing mark), and was never asked for my consent to be recorded. However, the existence of the recording was later used to threaten me when I mentioned the possibility of issuing a chargeback.

Given that the paperwork does seem to have been filed as promised, I am willing to only take a partial refund based on the services actually rendered, but I am still not exactly thrilled with how this entire process has been handled, nor with the timbre of your communications to me.

I am sure that any disputes along these lines can be cleared up with a simple conversation with your attorney, so I would greatly appreciate being able to have such a converation.

Thank you.

Hey y'all, it is Bandcamp Friday, a good time to buy independent music while Bandcamp opts to release their share of the purchase price.

As always, I have my latest released album, and the share also applies to preorders of Transitions. Or you might consider checking out some of my other many albums that you might not already be familiar with, such as:

• Alt-rock songs about cats and feelings and mental health
• Electropop songs about feelings and cats and mental health
• EDM songs about feelings and mental health (no cats on this one sorry)
• A variety show in which Radiohead takes turns with comedy showtunes
• Chill lo-fi music inspired by various coffee grinders
• An audio diary from the month when I almost died of a pulmonary embolism

But also this isn’t just me shamelessly self-promoting. I’m shamelessly other-promoting, too! Here’s a list of some of the albums I’ll be buying myself:

• Beatober ‘23, You Know, and Preserves '23 - Vol I by err:rawr
• A New Beat by Ulysses Owens Jr.
• Demo by Comfort Object
• City Slicker by Ginger Root
• Constellation of Souls and Turning the Tables by lowercase t
• … on reflection and September 23 by William Basinski

And, on the last one I preordered when air collapsed within by our dear friend, the medic, which was also released very recently.

Anyway. Support independent musicians by buying their music! It’s good for you, and even better for them.