Saturday, August 9, 2025

MacBook screen cracked, but was it my fault?

A MacBook Air shouldn’t have failed at just 4½ years. Mine has a cracked screen, not visibly shattered but cracked inside. It’s inoperable but fixable, according to a repair shop, which wanted $330 to replace the screen. Although I hate to throw away repairable items, the same model was on sale for just $599 at Walmart, so I sprang for a new one.


Before the blank dark screen appeared, while the laptop had thin horizontal lines across its lower half but was still usable, I searched for ways to fix it. None worked, but I learned that MacBook Airs with Apple’s M1 chip are prone to mysterious screen cracks. Thousands of people have reported on Reddit and Apple Communities that their M1 MacBook screens have cracked for no apparent reason. Like them, I hadn’t dropped the laptop or banged down the lid. 


Thursday, July 31, 2025

To get deep cleaning done, I hired out

When a housecleaner I recently hired took six hours to clean just the kitchen and the bathroom, I was surprised that two small rooms required so much time. Also chagrined about how much dirt I must not have noticed.


My condo had not looked so messy to me. I clean weekly — dusting, vacuuming, mopping, and wiping appliances, fixtures, and countertops. 


What’s done weekly, however, is so-called regular cleaning. What Jenni, the housecleaner, did was deep cleaning from a list I made. She washed cabinet doors, wiped the refrigerator shelves, and painstakingly scrubbed the stovetop grates, bathtub, tile, grout, and bathroom and kitchen floors. 


Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Shopping for humanely farmed dairy products and eggs

“That is an issue for another day,” I ended my July 7 post about giving up fish. When I looked into the issue — the treatment of dairy cows and laying hens — I was horrified.