Ironically, shortly before the 68KMLA launched the IKMLA forums, I ended up retiring my stalwart Mac mini late 2012 due to the UK heatwave at the end of June!
This Mac had been my primary Mac for most of 2014 to mid-2018. I'd upgraded it to 16GB; a 512GB SSD and it was happily running Catalina. Even after I'd bought my (much more powerful) i5 MacBook Pro (mid-2018), the mini was used most often; primarily because it needed less setting up: I just clicked the mouse and it'd be there. It was powered all the time (except for a few times the power got tripped). Even when I'd bought my MacBook Air M2 in early 2023 I used it most of the time, though in the past year or so, the MBA M2 was being used more often.
So, how did the UK heatwave (which reached a solid 37.7ºC, in Lincolnshire with high humidity) retire that Mac? It's actually quite simple. The Mac mini is in the office upstairs, which is south-facing. Like most Brits we don't have aircon, but we've been using passive techniques for cooling the house; like taking care over which windows or blinds get shut (or open) during the day and even covering the south-facing windows with white sheets and/or reflective silver sheets.
But it was still pretty unbearable for much of the day except in the living room. So, mid-way I just decided to power down the Mac mini, because I wasn't really able to spend much time there and even in sleep mode it would have been adding to the heat of the room a bit. So, I left it off for a day, then two and after a few days found I didn't really have a need to power it up and the MBA M2 took over. When things cooled down, I plonked my 4K monitor on the Mac mini, and that on a couple of books which means that I can see it easily on the M2's screen. So, it's now the main Mac. Given that we're now nearly 6 years into the transition, there's not much of a need for Intel apps.
So, that's it really. A few pangs of nostalgia for the event, and how, as I understand it, contentiousTermInSomePartsOfTheWorld can trigger sudden changes; in this case, the end of an era.
Well, nearly! It's now easier for me to get my 2008 MacBook C2D out and play with that than reconnect a display to the mini. And so in the spirit of the IKMLA forum's white MacBook challenge, I'm typing this post on mine!
And in case someone's thinking .oO(But 37.7ºC is fine in my home state), it's the combination of health, heat and humidity (the Wet Bulb temperature) that affects tolerability (and we have a few health problems, e.g. my diabetes type 2/gout issues). Check out the Wet Bulb Calculator:
www.omnicalculator.com
Which is based on this formula (it's based around ºC, sorry @MrFahrenheit ;-) ).
We're heading for another heatwave in Blighty, so typing this post at a mere sticky 27ºC is distinctly unpleasant and I'll be popping downstairs to a cool 25.5ºC once I've posted!
This Mac had been my primary Mac for most of 2014 to mid-2018. I'd upgraded it to 16GB; a 512GB SSD and it was happily running Catalina. Even after I'd bought my (much more powerful) i5 MacBook Pro (mid-2018), the mini was used most often; primarily because it needed less setting up: I just clicked the mouse and it'd be there. It was powered all the time (except for a few times the power got tripped). Even when I'd bought my MacBook Air M2 in early 2023 I used it most of the time, though in the past year or so, the MBA M2 was being used more often.
So, how did the UK heatwave (which reached a solid 37.7ºC, in Lincolnshire with high humidity) retire that Mac? It's actually quite simple. The Mac mini is in the office upstairs, which is south-facing. Like most Brits we don't have aircon, but we've been using passive techniques for cooling the house; like taking care over which windows or blinds get shut (or open) during the day and even covering the south-facing windows with white sheets and/or reflective silver sheets.
But it was still pretty unbearable for much of the day except in the living room. So, mid-way I just decided to power down the Mac mini, because I wasn't really able to spend much time there and even in sleep mode it would have been adding to the heat of the room a bit. So, I left it off for a day, then two and after a few days found I didn't really have a need to power it up and the MBA M2 took over. When things cooled down, I plonked my 4K monitor on the Mac mini, and that on a couple of books which means that I can see it easily on the M2's screen. So, it's now the main Mac. Given that we're now nearly 6 years into the transition, there's not much of a need for Intel apps.
So, that's it really. A few pangs of nostalgia for the event, and how, as I understand it, contentiousTermInSomePartsOfTheWorld can trigger sudden changes; in this case, the end of an era.
Well, nearly! It's now easier for me to get my 2008 MacBook C2D out and play with that than reconnect a display to the mini. And so in the spirit of the IKMLA forum's white MacBook challenge, I'm typing this post on mine!
And in case someone's thinking .oO(But 37.7ºC is fine in my home state), it's the combination of health, heat and humidity (the Wet Bulb temperature) that affects tolerability (and we have a few health problems, e.g. my diabetes type 2/gout issues). Check out the Wet Bulb Calculator:
Wet Bulb Calculator
With humidity and temperature you can find out the value of the wet-bulb temperature, and if it's any different from the normal air temperature.
www.omnicalculator.com
Which is based on this formula (it's based around ºC, sorry @MrFahrenheit ;-) ).
We're heading for another heatwave in Blighty, so typing this post at a mere sticky 27ºC is distinctly unpleasant and I'll be popping downstairs to a cool 25.5ºC once I've posted!
