Inside The Fight Over Elon Musk's

Trillion Dollar Pay Package

Sometimes I don't dig deep into the news stories and I read headlines and listen to news soundbites and I thought that Elon was using the term "corporate terrorist" because maybe the Tesla Board was trying to oust him just like Steve Jobs was ousted back in the 1980s.  One progressive thinking EV commentator, who has his own Youtube Channel, was hoping that the Tesla board would oust Elon because of his work for Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency.  So, if Elon had a PR problem that could effect his job security, he seems to have thrown everyone off balance by fighting for an enormous pay package instead of just fighting to be kept on at Tesla.  I'm not promoting this big pay increase but, I do think Elon needs to always be at the helm of Tesla.  I liked Elon's work with the Department of Government Efficiency because he was one of the few political figures that was talking about finding $2 trillion in cuts in the Federal budget to keep the federal deficit from going into default because of the government loosing it's ability to make the interest payments.   I live in the Greater Cincinnati area and the EV market that I live in does NOT find Elon Musk to be a liability for Tesla sales.  There is a large population of German Heritage people in the Greater Cincinnati area and Tesla sales have gone way up locally because the local consumers liked hearing Elon talk about balancing the Federal Government's budget and finding the necessary budget cuts to give our Government and our economy a secure future.  Of course, Elon was not successful in getting the necessary cuts applied to Trump's spending package that was called “The Big Beautiful Bill.”  It seems that politics, in a democratic system, is unable to deliver balanced budgets and reduced deficits.

 Is Alsoft working on a version 6 of DiskWarrior that can rebuild SSDs with Apple’s APFS?

Yes, Alsoft has stated that the next major release of DiskWarrior, version 6.0, will include the ability to rebuild APFS disks. 

Apple released a majority of the APFS format documentation in June 2020, and Alsoft's developers are using this documentation to update DiskWarrior to safely rebuild APFS disks. 

It's important to note that DiskWarrior 5.3 and earlier versions do not support rebuilding APFS disks. The startup disk of Macs running macOS 10.13 High Sierra and later versions with SSDs automatically use APFS and therefore cannot be rebuilt by current versions of DiskWarrior. However, DiskWarrior can still rebuild external drives formatted with Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus). You can also join the Alsoft Mailing List to be notified of progress regarding APFS support and updates to DiskWarrior. 

I Asked Grok This Mac Hardware-Specific Question

I asked Grok, on X.com, this Mac hardware-specific question:

"On the late 2013 mac pro, are some of the thunderbolt ports more video display specific, like the last two ports that are on Thunderbolt Bus 0?"

…and this is the AI response that I received:

"On the Late 2013 Mac Pro, the Thunderbolt ports are not inherently "more video display specific" based solely on their position or the Thunderbolt bus they’re assigned to. However, their configuration and the way they share bandwidth can influence how they’re best used for video displays or other high-bandwidth tasks.

The Late 2013 Mac Pro has six Thunderbolt 2 ports, organized across three separate Thunderbolt buses:

• Thunderbolt Bus 0: Controls the bottom two Thunderbolt ports (ports 5 and 6) and the HDMI port.

• Thunderbolt Bus 1: Controls the top-left and middle-left Thunderbolt ports (ports 1 and 3).

• Thunderbolt Bus 2: Controls the top-right and middle-right Thunderbolt ports (ports 2 and 4).

Each bus has its own dedicated bandwidth (up to 20 Gbps with Thunderbolt 2), meaning the ports on a given bus share that bandwidth, but the buses don’t compete with each other. The key detail for video displays is that the HDMI port shares Thunderbolt Bus 0 with the bottom two Thunderbolt ports (ports 5 and 6). Since video output—whether through Thunderbolt or HDMI—relies on the Mac Pro’s GPU, and the HDMI port is tied to Bus 0, this bus can become a bottleneck if you’re using an HDMI display alongside Thunderbolt devices on ports 5 or 6.

For example, if you connect a high-resolution display (like a 4K monitor) via HDMI, it will consume a significant portion of Bus 0’s bandwidth. Adding a Thunderbolt display or another high-bandwidth device (like a storage array) to ports 5 or 6 could lead to reduced performance for either the display or the device, as they’d be sharing that 20 Gbps limit. In contrast, the ports on Bus 1 (ports 1 and 3) and Bus 2 (ports 2 and 4) are free from this HDMI-related contention, making them potentially better suited for additional displays or devices if you’re already using HDMI.

That said, all six Thunderbolt ports are fully capable of driving Thunderbolt displays or other video outputs (via adapters like Thunderbolt to DisplayPort or HDMI), as the GPU routes display signals to any of these ports. Apple’s design supports up to six Thunderbolt displays across these ports, with a maximum of two displays per bus recommended to avoid bandwidth saturation. The distinction with Bus 0 arises only because of the HDMI port’s presence, not because ports 5 and 6 are inherently more "video display specific."

So, to your question: the last two ports (ports 5 and 6 on Thunderbolt Bus 0) aren’t more video-specific by design, but their shared bus with the HDMI port means they’re more likely to be affected by video-related bandwidth demands if you’re using HDMI output. If you’re prioritizing video displays and using HDMI, you might prefer to connect Thunderbolt displays to ports on Bus 1 or Bus 2 to avoid overloading Bus 0. Conversely, if you’re not using HDMI, ports 5 and 6 are just as capable for video as any other port. It’s more about managing bandwidth across the buses than any port being specialized for video."

I Like Seeing Graphic Designers Design With Just Type or Mostly Type

I borrowed this graphic from a post by Lorinda Frankenberry. (I borrowed this graphic from a post by Lorinda Frankenberry.)