10.14.6 Sup Update 2

9/26/2019

The supplemental update didn't fix the VLC problem.  Oh well.  I am sure it fixed other problems that probably didn't affect me or affected me without me even aware of it.

Brightburn (2019)

Brightburn tells a story that is all too familiar to parents: one day our sweet little buddy has grown to become a complete stranger much to our dismay and disappointment.  Except it is much worse in the case as depicted in Brightburn.  Brendon Breyer is a foundling, just like Clark Kent aka Superman, who is literally an illegal alien or in modern parlance an undocumented immigrant, from outer space.  Both have loving American parents and possess preternatural powers.  However, the similarities end there.  Clark Kent has successfully assimilated to be a full blown American hero while Brendan Breyer, when hit by puberty, his deep seated alien traits manifest themselves as behaviors that are at odds with anybody or anything that is moral, legal or simply wholesome.  He has no qualms lying, hurting and killing people.  On-screen pint-sized hero or villain is not new but still very much a novelty and mildly disturbing and potentially entertaining, especially in R rated features saturated with gruesome violence.  Brendon Breyer, played by Jackson Dunn, has a physiognomy that is as American as white bread or in other words he could just be any other young male shooters in rural America.  His psychosis oscillates between quietly apathetic and aggressively belligerent.  The young Dunn pretty very much nailed the character as an alienated youngster who are fast becoming and has indeed become a mass murderer.  I enjoy this movie for its everted Superman mythology and the restrained storytelling and its rather limited and yet effective gory scenes.

iPhone SE

iPhone SE is the little iPhone that still can.  It just refuses to go obsolete.  I just got it upgraded to the latest iOS 13.  Meanwhile the iPhone 6 is forever left behind in iOS 12.4.1.  When shooting the iPhone SE, I am able to shoot 4K while the iPhone 6 is stuck at 1080p, both running Filmic Pro.  I myself got the impression that the 6 is a newer and better phone I guess I am mistaken; I am mistaken as I don't go to double check with Google and Apple for their specifications.

My everyday phone is the iPhone8 Plus, I love its size but loathed its weight.  With failing eyesight a bigger screen definitely helps, but the weight hurts my wrist and neck.  the 8 Plus is like 10 times and 100 times heavier than the 6 and SE respectively.

The iPhone development has slowed down.  The latest iPhone 11 is a fine machine I am sure.  A souped up version of it is $1,449.

macOS 10.14.6 macpro3,1 internal speaker disappears

After the second supplemental updates, I found out the internal speaker is missing.  That's it no longer shows on the Sound.  I don't know if it's just a coincident or not.

I tried to reset the whatever RAM by pressing the Alt Command P R keys when restarting, and you know how that is:  I can never be sure if I indeed hitting the keys at the right time given the fact that I am using the wireless Bluetooth keyboard and a non supported GPU.

Anyway, no luck with any of the resets I performed.  The machine connects with the Samsung Bluetooth speaker OK, just like before.  (One of the very odd things from day 1 is say I turned on the speaker and the machine connects for a second then it would immediately drops the connection and the video would get congested so much so Youtube thought there is a internet connection issue, well there is indeed a connection issue.  At that point I have to manually connect the BT speaker.  But this is just an aside.)

Hopefully money can work around this problem.  I ordered a CR2032 3V battery.  Maybe the existing one lost its power but even so I don't think it affects the presence or absence of the internal speaker.  But I just like to buy stuff.  Another prong of attack to this problem is I bought a USB mic and headphone jack adapter.  The latter solution hopefully can work around the problem.

UPDATE:
Apparently, or not so apparently, after the Supplemental updates, I need to manually do the patch updates because my whole macpro3,1 is a hack in order to upgrade to 10.14.6.  In the past, the dosdude patch would do a prompt automagically but not this time.  So after scratching my head for some hours I finally remember ahhh maybe I need to do that manually.  Unfortunately I placed the order to get some hardwares and hopefully the cancellation can go through.  After re-installing all the patches, the headphone port, internal speakers all work as they should be.  Magic.

VLC on MacOS 10.14.6

After 2 Supplemental Updates from Apple, VLC still acts weird.  The menu graphics are torn when the VLC player is active on screen.  VLC has become very usable until the 10.14.6 as it plays mkv files and can scale or crop video into my LG 2560x1080 screen.  Too bad VLC is screwed up now.  A search on Google says this is not an individual isolated experience, it does affect a certain user base who uses NVIDIA graphics.  VLC believes it's the implementation of the macOS that wreaks havoc on the screen.

UPDATE 1/9/2020
VLC hasn't had an update to address this issue as I think it's considered a problem with Apple's OS.  In the indefinite wisdom of the internet, somebody in November updated the thread regarding this issue and gave us the work around, just uncheck the whatever Display transparency in the System Pref, and viola, the issue goes away.  No matter torn screen graphics.