[HN Gopher] PSA: Keep Time Machine disks out of your Finder sidebar
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       PSA: Keep Time Machine disks out of your Finder sidebar
        
       Author : cjv
       Score  : 55 points
       Date   : 2021-03-27 16:33 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | meibo wrote:
       | Is this the "Apple Quality Experience" I keep hearing about?
       | 
       | Seems like an intern's first task that wasn't double checked(in
       | arguably one of the most important parts of the OS).
        
       | hpoe wrote:
       | Ya so I've been anti-Mac for a while but had to use it for work
       | but now I have really developed a hatred of Mac. I had to do the
       | Big Sir 11.2.3 upgrade and it took 4 flipping hours, which okay
       | fine whatever that happens. The issue however is that it was
       | stuck on 15 minutes for 3 hours. I only was patient because a
       | coworker said that he heard the update took 4 hours.
       | 
       | I was always told that Mac "just works" but at least with Linux I
       | can see what the heck is going on and what needs to happen to fix
       | it, here I am just at the whims of whatever Apple pushes out.
       | 
       | Additionally my internet now randomly breaks on the Mac and
       | requires a restart and I've been noticing significant slow downs.
       | At the point the only reason I can imagine people would defend
       | Macs is Stockholm Syndrome.
        
         | rvz wrote:
         | > I was always told that Mac "just works" but at least with
         | Linux I can see what the heck is going on and what needs to
         | happen to fix it, here I am just at the whims of whatever Apple
         | pushes out.
         | 
         | True, but even if the fix is known, I have zero time to read
         | the dsmeg log to send a bug report, try temporary workarounds
         | that may break later, installing beta versions or editing
         | .config files in separate apps and then diving into system
         | files to replace the component my self.
         | 
         | > At the point the only reason I can imagine people would
         | defend Macs is Stockholm Syndrome.
         | 
         | I use my Macbook (Intel) to just _' get things done'_ and not
         | to end up diving into a sea of hidden config files or replacing
         | system components. Big Sur is stable enough for me on Intel.
         | 
         | I guess the ones that you mention that have this 'Stockholm
         | Syndrome' with the Mac are those who are hyping and got the M1
         | Macs which have very interesting limitations which they won't
         | tell you. I'd rather wait until the software ecosystem is
         | mature and the second or third generations of these ARM Macs
         | have been released before updating.
        
         | least wrote:
         | Or because their experiences don't match yours? I've used a lot
         | of operating systems extensively and they all have unique pain
         | points that make me want to rip my hair out. If you go in with
         | a negative prejudice and then find anything wrong you're just
         | confirming your bias without acknowledging any of the positive
         | traits. Of course you hate it. You don't even want to like it.
        
       | throw0101a wrote:
       | Great.
       | 
       | And how do I make this change? What setting do I have to check or
       | un-check? Or is it a _defaults(1)_ thing?
       | 
       | Proviso: I would like to keep my "Hard disks" and "External
       | disks" visible.
        
         | saagarjha wrote:
         | You'll have to drag the external disk for your Time Machine
         | backup out of the sidebar. Collapsing the section does not
         | work, unfortunately.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | snuxoll wrote:
       | You'd think Apple, having developed the thing, would have used
       | Core Animation for this.
        
         | pmiller2 wrote:
         | Yeah, that does seem like a rookie mistake.
         | 
         | Does the extra CPU use typically cause any visible issues to
         | the user, though? User impact is what's most important here. I
         | don't particularly care if my CPU works a little harder than it
         | needs to for a few seconds, as long as I can still do what I
         | want on the machine without issue.
        
           | saagarjha wrote:
           | The animation spins for as long as the backup runs, which for
           | me was about ten minutes an hour.
        
             | pmiller2 wrote:
             | I see. Does it disrupt your use of the computer in any way?
             | In other words, if you weren't looking at a CPU monitor,
             | would you notice?
        
               | oarsinsync wrote:
               | Using half a core for 10 mins per hour will likely have a
               | material effect on battery life. Unless someone
               | instruments exactly how much, it's hard to say, but this
               | doesn't seem like a hand-wave.
        
             | bartvk wrote:
             | Sounds quite long, actually. I've recently found that
             | external SSDs have become affordable enough for me to use
             | them for backups.
             | 
             | Good on you for digging in and finding the issue, by the
             | way.
        
         | wtallis wrote:
         | Especially since Apple re-wrote the Finder for the OS X release
         | right after the one that introduced Core Animation. Maybe they
         | were trying to be a bit conservative with the Cocoa Finder
         | rewrite and were focused on simply ditching the Carbon APIs
         | while preserving as much of the application's behavior and
         | internal structure as possible, rather than more thoroughly
         | modernizing the app. But the fact that it still hasn't been
         | modernized in this way for more than a decade sounds like
         | Apple's macOS developers a Microsoft-style fear of touching
         | core components of the OS.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Maybe there's a dependency that prevents them from using core
           | animation there.
           | 
           | In which case not animating may be the correct response.
        
       | jrmg wrote:
       | There's nothing in that thread that supports the assertion that
       | this is taking 'half a core'.
       | 
       | The Finder sample shows it taking less than 10% of the wall-clock
       | time of one (mostly idle) thread, and it doesn't seem likely that
       | WindowServer is spending another 40%+ of a core in response.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-27 23:02 UTC)