Why speak of CPU and RAM when the discussion is regarding build quality?
I have yet to use an ASUS machine that is as well-built as a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.
Rather than blindly assume that Apple's build-quality is marketing varopour-ware, as you are doing, or blindly assume that Apple's build-quality is worth the extra expense, as you accuse jcr of doing, why not actually compare the two products first hand and make a choice based on that?
A larger screen is not bad, but it is different. I look at an ultrabook as a portable machine. If I can have one inch less of screen diagonal for 33% less volume and 30% less weight, that's a win for me. My point was that when comparing two ultrabooks, size and weight are a pretty large part of their purpose. One also does not compare a Fiat 500 with a VW Golf. While they are both hatchbacks, one is huge compared to the other.
I can't speak for most people. I'm merely pointing out that comparing two ultrabooks, which exist to be ultra-portable, where one is a third larger and heavier, seems a strained comparison.
The problem is it weighs 32% more (2.6 lbs vs 2 lbs) and is 33% bigger (324mm x 226mm vs. 280mm x 196mm). It also does not have USB-C. It is slimmer though, at 12.1 mm!
So, it depends on what one means by similar specs. Over 30% heavier and bulkier in two dimensions is not similar for my needs.
Yes, you need more ports, but they don't need to be on the computer itself. That's what hubs are for. Besides which, hubs are much more convenient, since you only need to plug in the hubs themselves, rather than needing to plug in every peripheral.
I'm honestly eager for the day when we can finally ditch cables coming out of our computers and can instead wirelessly link to hubs that will manage legacy cabled connections for us...ones which we can hide out of sight and mind in drawers of desks or other places where they don't need to be making things untidy. We're nowhere close yet, but we're getting there.
I think we're pretty close today, but not all the way. I have on my desk an iMac with it's two cables (power and Ethernet) routed down a cable-management system, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse. The only cable one would see is a MagSafe charging cable which is holstered on the left side and only really visible when charging the laptop. I have stowed for when I use it a wired gaming mouse (which does do Bluetooth but I prefer the cable).
It only sounds that way if you misread it as "all other passenger airlines". Malaysian Airlines was not the odd one out, and I don't think it sounded that way. It only sounded like there were at least one other airline which had refused to carry lithium-ion batteries.
Microsoft should know this from their own past. It's not necessarily who is the best, but who starts early and gets the market share.
Case and point: MS-DOS
By any yardstick, DOS was a pretty mediocre operating system, even accounting for the time. But when everybody started writing software, games, drivers and hardware for it, the rest did not matter. And they carried that success through Windows 3.1 and 95. Not even OS/2 could compete.
Not sure that's always true. Microsoft had Windows Mobile phones seven long years before Apple had iOS phones.
The more "PC" like my mobile devices get, the happier I am. A Surface Pro is far more in-line with the wants and needs of the average user than is a Kindle Fire or an iPad. I would hope that this would extend in mobile phones as well. They're one of the few companies with an offering that could make me give up my BlackBerry.
The computer in my pocket should be a computer. Android, while popular here, can't even handle simple task-switching.
Speak for yourself. The average user wants a device that "just works". Something one can pull out of a pocket or back, press a button and have it do what they need done (looking something up on the internet, read the message from their grandmother, see their next meeting, what have you. A technical user might want to have the power of installing Adobe Flash or tweaking their registry to allow focus-follows-mouse or three versions of Firefox or an ssh client or vim or what have you.
If I want the power of a PC, I use a laptop or desktop. I want my phone to just work and not require constant maintenance.
The problem here is that you are judging an entire class of products by one exemplar, and a very poor specimen at that. I assume you would not propose that because one book was uninteresting to you that you should never read again?
You are missing something: knowledge of how performed his self-mummification. The cure for this ignorance is the article, which described how they believe the whole process went down. I'll save you the trouble though: we don't know who removed the organs or when, but we do have a theory for how he became mummified.
We are all clueless about some things. I, for one, care about clueless computer users because I can help them. I hope to foster a helpful culture so that others can enlighten me about things *I* am clueless about. Or, in other words, technologists should elevate technology for everyone.
the "more privacy" option is still as private as google.
LOOOOL. The only reason google enters into any business is if there is consumer information it can collect and do whatever it wants with it, not just advertising.
Yes, that's true. What's also true is that AT&T is asking to do even more than that unless you pay them $30 more per month.
Valve has changed their terms of service for Steam with the following question: do you accept these changes? If you answer yes, you have new rules governing the use of your games. If you answer no, you lose every purchase you have ever made with them. That's in the realm of zero trustworthiness in my book.
The relevant part of the TOS, bolding mine:
Valve may amend this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use) at any time in its sole discretion. If Valve amends the Agreement, such amendment shall be effective thirty (30) days after Valve provides you with notice of the amended Agreement, either via e-mail or as a notification within the Software. You can view the Agreement at any time at http://www.steampowered.com/. Your failure to cancel your Account, or cease use of the Subscription(s) affected by the amendment, within thirty (30) days after receiving notification of the amendment, will constitute your acceptance of the amended terms. If you don’t agree to the amendments or to any of the terms in this Agreement, your only remedy is to cancel your Account or to cease use of the affected Subscription(s). Valve shall not have any obligation to refund any fees that may have accrued to your Account before cancellation of your Account or cessation of use of any Subscription, nor shall Valve have any obligation to prorate any fees in such circumstances.
Fact of the matter is, there aren't any "professional" journalists anymore that do their jobs so well they deserve to be paid to read their crap
You are wrong. There are a number of journalists who are worth paying to read what they write. There are far fewer of them today than there were ten years ago, but that's because many of them did not offer much beyond what became available from other sources.
Streaming would be useful if it had some breadth. If I wanted to listen to what's popular, I have four good local radio stations to choose from. Most of my music listening happens from records purchased at the shop, radio and live concerts.
We vote, we count votes, and the person who gets the most votes takes office (with rare exceptions like Gore in 2000 when Gore got more votes in Florida). That's democracy.
That's direct democracy, which we do not have except in limited instances. Your example of the presidency is an excellent example of this, actually. Are you aware of this thing called "the electoral college"? When was the last time you voted for members of the electoral college? Okay, so the POTUS election isn't an actual "one man, one vote" type deal in the direct democratic sense. Plus, it's winner-take-all for each state and thus not even a true representation of how the various electoral college members actually voted. So, not directly democratic either even in the limited arena of the electoral college.
Okay, so how about the supreme court justices? Who did you vote for during the last election? Or hugely influential people in the various cabinets such as Secretary of State. Who did you vote for?
Huh. Okay, so while the US has some parts of government directly democratic ("one man, one vote"), there were deliberately set in place those checks and balances (a constitution and republican structure of other parts of government) to thoughtfully and precisely limit direct democracy, as the Founders felt that direct democracy would be too damaging ("tyranny of the majority" for example) and unwieldy to boot.
The example CauseBy gave, which you say is direct democracy, is not direct democracy. In a direct democracy the electorate vote on policy initiatives. In CauseBy's example, the electorate elect representatives.
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Why speak of CPU and RAM when the discussion is regarding build quality?
I have yet to use an ASUS machine that is as well-built as a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air.
Rather than blindly assume that Apple's build-quality is marketing varopour-ware, as you are doing, or blindly assume that Apple's build-quality is worth the extra expense, as you accuse jcr of doing, why not actually compare the two products first hand and make a choice based on that?
By that logic, why did we start using USB? At one point, no one else had used it either.
A larger screen is not bad, but it is different. I look at an ultrabook as a portable machine. If I can have one inch less of screen diagonal for 33% less volume and 30% less weight, that's a win for me. My point was that when comparing two ultrabooks, size and weight are a pretty large part of their purpose. One also does not compare a Fiat 500 with a VW Golf. While they are both hatchbacks, one is huge compared to the other.
I can't speak for most people. I'm merely pointing out that comparing two ultrabooks, which exist to be ultra-portable, where one is a third larger and heavier, seems a strained comparison.
The problem is it weighs 32% more (2.6 lbs vs 2 lbs) and is 33% bigger (324mm x 226mm vs. 280mm x 196mm). It also does not have USB-C. It is slimmer though, at 12.1 mm!
So, it depends on what one means by similar specs. Over 30% heavier and bulkier in two dimensions is not similar for my needs.
The kind of timepieces that can be reliably passed down through generations rarely cost $600.
Yes, you need more ports, but they don't need to be on the computer itself. That's what hubs are for. Besides which, hubs are much more convenient, since you only need to plug in the hubs themselves, rather than needing to plug in every peripheral.
I'm honestly eager for the day when we can finally ditch cables coming out of our computers and can instead wirelessly link to hubs that will manage legacy cabled connections for us...ones which we can hide out of sight and mind in drawers of desks or other places where they don't need to be making things untidy. We're nowhere close yet, but we're getting there.
I think we're pretty close today, but not all the way. I have on my desk an iMac with it's two cables (power and Ethernet) routed down a cable-management system, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse. The only cable one would see is a MagSafe charging cable which is holstered on the left side and only really visible when charging the laptop. I have stowed for when I use it a wired gaming mouse (which does do Bluetooth but I prefer the cable).
So all in all, one cable, usually not visible.
It only sounds that way if you misread it as "all other passenger airlines". Malaysian Airlines was not the odd one out, and I don't think it sounded that way. It only sounded like there were at least one other airline which had refused to carry lithium-ion batteries.
There are examples of people pressing "1" only to find a line item on their phone bill the next month.
Can you cite such an example of an incoming call placing a charge on the bill of a recipient that pressed '1'?
Not all devices are incapable of switching between tasks; some do "just work".
Microsoft should know this from their own past. It's not necessarily who is the best, but who starts early and gets the market share.
Case and point: MS-DOS
By any yardstick, DOS was a pretty mediocre operating system, even accounting for the time. But when everybody started writing software, games, drivers and hardware for it, the rest did not matter. And they carried that success through Windows 3.1 and 95. Not even OS/2 could compete.
Not sure that's always true. Microsoft had Windows Mobile phones seven long years before Apple had iOS phones.
Which is exactly what people don't want.
Speak for yourself.
The more "PC" like my mobile devices get, the happier I am. A Surface Pro is far more in-line with the wants and needs of the average user than is a Kindle Fire or an iPad. I would hope that this would extend in mobile phones as well. They're one of the few companies with an offering that could make me give up my BlackBerry.
The computer in my pocket should be a computer. Android, while popular here, can't even handle simple task-switching.
Speak for yourself. The average user wants a device that "just works". Something one can pull out of a pocket or back, press a button and have it do what they need done (looking something up on the internet, read the message from their grandmother, see their next meeting, what have you. A technical user might want to have the power of installing Adobe Flash or tweaking their registry to allow focus-follows-mouse or three versions of Firefox or an ssh client or vim or what have you.
If I want the power of a PC, I use a laptop or desktop. I want my phone to just work and not require constant maintenance.
minimum wage public opinion manipulators
FYI, they get paid *$8.00* per hour.
Which isn't even above minimum wage in some places.
The problem here is that you are judging an entire class of products by one exemplar, and a very poor specimen at that. I assume you would not propose that because one book was uninteresting to you that you should never read again?
You are missing something: knowledge of how performed his self-mummification. The cure for this ignorance is the article, which described how they believe the whole process went down. I'll save you the trouble though: we don't know who removed the organs or when, but we do have a theory for how he became mummified.
We are all clueless about some things. I, for one, care about clueless computer users because I can help them. I hope to foster a helpful culture so that others can enlighten me about things *I* am clueless about. Or, in other words, technologists should elevate technology for everyone.
the "more privacy" option is still as private as google.
LOOOOL. The only reason google enters into any business is if there is consumer information it can collect and do whatever it wants with it, not just advertising.
Yes, that's true. What's also true is that AT&T is asking to do even more than that unless you pay them $30 more per month.
No reputable study has ever found any benefit to prayer.
It helps to calm the superstitious
You claim there's no benefit then in the next sentence claim a benefit.
How do we know this? It's pretty hard to assert zero people had lung cancer millions of years ago.
Like so many things in life.
Individually - Meaningless
As an aggregate - Useful
Except when it comes to subjective appreciation of art, such as games. Then the aggregate is meaningless and your own opinion is paramount.
Valve has changed their terms of service for Steam with the following question: do you accept these changes? If you answer yes, you have new rules governing the use of your games. If you answer no, you lose every purchase you have ever made with them. That's in the realm of zero trustworthiness in my book.
The relevant part of the TOS, bolding mine:
Valve may amend this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use) at any time in its sole discretion. If Valve amends the Agreement, such amendment shall be effective thirty (30) days after Valve provides you with notice of the amended Agreement, either via e-mail or as a notification within the Software. You can view the Agreement at any time at http://www.steampowered.com/. Your failure to cancel your Account, or cease use of the Subscription(s) affected by the amendment, within thirty (30) days after receiving notification of the amendment, will constitute your acceptance of the amended terms. If you don’t agree to the amendments or to any of the terms in this Agreement, your only remedy is to cancel your Account or to cease use of the affected Subscription(s). Valve shall not have any obligation to refund any fees that may have accrued to your Account before cancellation of your Account or cessation of use of any Subscription, nor shall Valve have any obligation to prorate any fees in such circumstances.
The real news is, someone is still using Google Plus.
Why? What do you use? The facebook? (snicker)
It is inconceivable that the man uses nothing?
Fact of the matter is, there aren't any "professional" journalists anymore that do their jobs so well they deserve to be paid to read their crap
You are wrong. There are a number of journalists who are worth paying to read what they write. There are far fewer of them today than there were ten years ago, but that's because many of them did not offer much beyond what became available from other sources.
Streaming would be useful if it had some breadth. If I wanted to listen to what's popular, I have four good local radio stations to choose from. Most of my music listening happens from records purchased at the shop, radio and live concerts.
We vote, we count votes, and the person who gets the most votes takes office (with rare exceptions like Gore in 2000 when Gore got more votes in Florida). That's democracy.
That's direct democracy, which we do not have except in limited instances. Your example of the presidency is an excellent example of this, actually. Are you aware of this thing called "the electoral college"? When was the last time you voted for members of the electoral college? Okay, so the POTUS election isn't an actual "one man, one vote" type deal in the direct democratic sense. Plus, it's winner-take-all for each state and thus not even a true representation of how the various electoral college members actually voted. So, not directly democratic either even in the limited arena of the electoral college.
Okay, so how about the supreme court justices? Who did you vote for during the last election? Or hugely influential people in the various cabinets such as Secretary of State. Who did you vote for?
Huh. Okay, so while the US has some parts of government directly democratic ("one man, one vote"), there were deliberately set in place those checks and balances (a constitution and republican structure of other parts of government) to thoughtfully and precisely limit direct democracy, as the Founders felt that direct democracy would be too damaging ("tyranny of the majority" for example) and unwieldy to boot.
The example CauseBy gave, which you say is direct democracy, is not direct democracy. In a direct democracy the electorate vote on policy initiatives. In CauseBy's example, the electorate elect representatives.