I'd rather you be able to both communicate effectively and do reasonable design, so as to avoid embarrassing, very very expensive, or fatal problems. The idea that somehow STEM grads naturally pick up on how to communicate effectively is about as laughable as the idea that humanities students learn science through daily life, and the idea that somehow STEM education is so difficult that you have to skip out on humanities is absurd.
I know- it's so terrible to have a sub-$200 laptop that boots in seconds and that has everything stored in the cloud so if my kids break it I can replace it trivially.
Google certainly will- its dominance in search means the FTC might take a rather dim view of them excluding alternates on Android.
Apple might not, although they allow lots of other MS apps including some that compete directly such as Office365 vs. iWork. My guess is that most iOS users are so embedded in Apple's ecosystem that switching to a less-well integrated app away from Siri will be the choice of just about nobody.
Seriously- what kind of people use, as a primary input into their purchasing decisions, whether they've heard the name?
Lots of people, you among them. It's not even a matter of "Well, there are 300 makers of this product with odd Chinese names, or LG. Hmmm- which to pick?", it's just getting the name out there at all so that you know they might be a supplier, especially if it's a new market. One of my employees sent me a note yesterday on a special type of active HDMI cable that might solve a problem we have right now. Are they the best? I don't know, but chances are I'll make note of the name when I'm doing a search for that type of cable. That tiny bit of brand recognition does make a difference, even if you think it doesn't.
I work pretty hard to keep ads out of my life, but I'm well aware they manage to affect me anyway.
And there are plenty of applications that are on iOS but not Windows, such as games and messaging applications. If the game you want to play is exclusive to iOS, or the family member with whom you wish to communicate uses a proprietary instant messaging application that is available only for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, then a Surface Pro isn't going to be the best choice.
Did I just see the availability of games on an Apple device being touted as an *advantage* over Windows? Man, comp.sys.mac.advocacy must be exploding... (BTW, I have Steam on my Surface, so there's not exactly a lack of games for it)
Kind of the same boat. Via work I have an iPad 2, Nexus 7 (first gen), MS Surface, Samsung Chromebook and HTC One phone. The Chromebook is my primary portable machine (email/web/notes), the Surface is really useful for certain specialized tasks, and the phone is always there, but the iPad and Nexus pretty much gather dust. The keyboard/trackpad combination is just really hard to beat for most tasks, and the Chromebook's is better than the Surface's. Doing any kind of real work on an iPad is just a recipe for high blood pressure.
The iPad is useful as a ereader when I'm on an exercise bike, so there is that...
Really? Boeing returned a first stage booster from an orbital launch to the ground, intact? [Citation please] I've been following the space program since I was born- my first memory is Apollo 11, and I'm pretty sure Boeing has never managed anything like this at all.
And yes, the LEM managed a landing and ascent. On the moon. With no air. And 1/6th the gravity. And using separate ascent and landing stages- the stage that launched to lunar orbit was *not* recovered intact, and the landing stage was discarded after descent. It's not exactly the same problem.
Debated modding or replying here, but I'll echo this with a (quiet) absolutely.
Quiet is so rare these days people freak out when they (don't) hear it. I have a private office at work and it's still noisy- spillover noise from outside conversations, air handler, nearby printers, etc. I get a few minutes of it at nighttime and I'll often lay and enjoy it- enough quiet that I can hear a soft breeze outside or my wife breathing.
It's a lot like dark- very few people have ever been someplace actually *dark*, and their first action is to turn on a light rather than let their eyes adapt.
If he said anything other than "$5 pair of reading glasses" get a new optometrist. I had exactly the same experience with progressive lenses, and hated them. I put the prescription ones away and bought a pile of $5 2.0x reading glasses which are fine. The next trip back to the doc he asked how I was doing, then wrote my prescription for plain old 2x glasses.
(I actually mostly use $30 ones now- I can get anti-glare/anti-reflective/oleophobic coated, scratch resistant polycarbonate glasses with memory titanium frames online)
I always like the articles magazines like Forbes publish about Amazon. They're tired of seeing Amazon make no profit because it plows all its income back into infrastructure- "It's time for Amazon to start providing a return for investors". Fuck that- stockholders can get stuffed. If you want dividends, buy something else. Amazon (and Google) are thinking years to decades ahead, and they'll be stronger for it long after all the companies that took Forbes' advice are dead.
My nine year old figured out how to get the "Ok Google" voice recognition working on our Chromebook months ago. He barely bothers typing searches anymore- instead I get to hear his entire search history. I don't think he got far enough into the settings to hit the combo mentioned in the page
Viruses are going to be tough to get distributed though. Something bad happens to a Chromebook? Hit the factory refresh button and it wipes everything on the machine. Since everything is stored with Google just log back in and all your documents are there. Pretty much the worst you have to do is redo your screen background, or flip a few advanced setting toggles if you're bothered.
It's one of the prime reasons I bought one for the family. Kids mess around with weird web sites? I don't have to worry about the machine. (My kid's mental health is another issue....) My kids break it? Oh well. It was $200, and if I get a new one they'll barely notice.
This seems a no-brainer for me in a couple of ways. Chromebooks aren't any more fragile than normal laptops in my experience- yes, they are cheap but dropping a $1200 Macbook Air, a $500 iPad and a $200 Chromebook on a tile floor are all likely to do permanent damage. My two (very rough) kids haven't managed to kill my Acer 720 yet. Given the low price and the "All files are in the cloud, devices are totally interchangable" it's easy to deal with them, plus they have a working keybaord and a trackpad.
On the flip side, I'm really seeing a move towards Google Apps for my middle schooler. Virtually all his projects are done as part of a group, and they work from online documents. He doesn't need the high end features of Word or Excel: he needs a way to have multiple people work on something over two weeks. It's easy for the teacher as well- just send them the link and you're done, no papers to lose.
Is it? My understanding is that AWS is in large part the excess capacity Amazon needs for peak times, so otherwise the hardware sits around unused. AWS is just getting something out of that. Am I wrong here?
No, you compare to an average of the driving populace, not the best or worst. Why? Because that's what the insurance companies are going to do. When it becomes obvious that SDCs are better drivers than humans, you're going to start seeing a serious push to let the bots take over.
I don't think it's going to take anywhere near as long as people think. There's a *huge* market for this. My grandmother in law is 93. She basically can't drive, but wants to stay in her house. My wife's in the hospital right now and I have two kids that need to be different places at the same time. One of my old teachers is blind, etc, etc SDC taxi pools can act like super-flexible mass transit for areas that don't have any
I had assumed the curved back on my HTC One was just for show, but perhaps the designers were actually thinking this way. It's way harder to bend a curved surface than a flat one.
Don't diss the Surface Pro. Yes, it is *absolutely* a better solution. No, you can't replace it with an iPad- the iPad is like fingerpainting compared to the fine detail you get on a Surface. And why would you want to buy an additional Wacom tablet when the Surface uses a Wacom digitzer in the first place? You can write directly on the Surface rather than trying to master the blind writing skill you need with an external tablet. And if there's a tablet+pen interface better than OneNote on a Mac or Linux let me know, because I've yet to see it.
We've been buying more and more of them lately simply because they work so bloody well for this sort of task.
/Waiting for the "Troll" downmods I get everytime I mention that they are far nicer than most people realize.
has a Ph.D. in 17th century English literature. Admittedly we do work at a college, but you might be surprised at what humanists are doing these days: he got into the computer side of things while building databases of who was sending who letters around then. Digital Humanities is a growing field, and one that has some interesting CS applications- you've got things like Mallet chewing through vast swathes of literature looking for correlations, you have folks building high end digital maps to look into questions of how sight lines affected historical battles, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd rather you be able to both communicate effectively and do reasonable design, so as to avoid embarrassing, very very expensive, or fatal problems. The idea that somehow STEM grads naturally pick up on how to communicate effectively is about as laughable as the idea that humanities students learn science through daily life, and the idea that somehow STEM education is so difficult that you have to skip out on humanities is absurd.
I know- it's so terrible to have a sub-$200 laptop that boots in seconds and that has everything stored in the cloud so if my kids break it I can replace it trivially.
Apple might not, although they allow lots of other MS apps including some that compete directly such as Office365 vs. iWork. My guess is that most iOS users are so embedded in Apple's ecosystem that switching to a less-well integrated app away from Siri will be the choice of just about nobody.
Please tell me you're being ironic here. If not, please go read about pTerry's views a bit before commenting again
Pratchett's death is the most depressing news for me since I read of Banks' demise.
What's wrong with Hangouts? You have a better option for a free video conferencing service that can handle ten people at a time?
Seriously- what kind of people use, as a primary input into their purchasing decisions, whether they've heard the name?
Lots of people, you among them. It's not even a matter of "Well, there are 300 makers of this product with odd Chinese names, or LG. Hmmm- which to pick?", it's just getting the name out there at all so that you know they might be a supplier, especially if it's a new market. One of my employees sent me a note yesterday on a special type of active HDMI cable that might solve a problem we have right now. Are they the best? I don't know, but chances are I'll make note of the name when I'm doing a search for that type of cable. That tiny bit of brand recognition does make a difference, even if you think it doesn't.
I work pretty hard to keep ads out of my life, but I'm well aware they manage to affect me anyway.
And there are plenty of applications that are on iOS but not Windows, such as games and messaging applications. If the game you want to play is exclusive to iOS, or the family member with whom you wish to communicate uses a proprietary instant messaging application that is available only for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, then a Surface Pro isn't going to be the best choice.
Did I just see the availability of games on an Apple device being touted as an *advantage* over Windows? Man, comp.sys.mac.advocacy must be exploding... (BTW, I have Steam on my Surface, so there's not exactly a lack of games for it)
The iPad is useful as a ereader when I'm on an exercise bike, so there is that...
And yes, the LEM managed a landing and ascent. On the moon. With no air. And 1/6th the gravity. And using separate ascent and landing stages- the stage that launched to lunar orbit was *not* recovered intact, and the landing stage was discarded after descent. It's not exactly the same problem.
*stands*
Quiet is so rare these days people freak out when they (don't) hear it. I have a private office at work and it's still noisy- spillover noise from outside conversations, air handler, nearby printers, etc. I get a few minutes of it at nighttime and I'll often lay and enjoy it- enough quiet that I can hear a soft breeze outside or my wife breathing.
It's a lot like dark- very few people have ever been someplace actually *dark*, and their first action is to turn on a light rather than let their eyes adapt.
Obligatory
(I actually mostly use $30 ones now- I can get anti-glare/anti-reflective/oleophobic coated, scratch resistant polycarbonate glasses with memory titanium frames online)
I always like the articles magazines like Forbes publish about Amazon. They're tired of seeing Amazon make no profit because it plows all its income back into infrastructure- "It's time for Amazon to start providing a return for investors". Fuck that- stockholders can get stuffed. If you want dividends, buy something else. Amazon (and Google) are thinking years to decades ahead, and they'll be stronger for it long after all the companies that took Forbes' advice are dead.
My nine year old figured out how to get the "Ok Google" voice recognition working on our Chromebook months ago. He barely bothers typing searches anymore- instead I get to hear his entire search history. I don't think he got far enough into the settings to hit the combo mentioned in the page
It's one of the prime reasons I bought one for the family. Kids mess around with weird web sites? I don't have to worry about the machine. (My kid's mental health is another issue....) My kids break it? Oh well. It was $200, and if I get a new one they'll barely notice.
On the flip side, I'm really seeing a move towards Google Apps for my middle schooler. Virtually all his projects are done as part of a group, and they work from online documents. He doesn't need the high end features of Word or Excel: he needs a way to have multiple people work on something over two weeks. It's easy for the teacher as well- just send them the link and you're done, no papers to lose.
Is it? My understanding is that AWS is in large part the excess capacity Amazon needs for peak times, so otherwise the hardware sits around unused. AWS is just getting something out of that. Am I wrong here?
I don't think it's going to take anywhere near as long as people think. There's a *huge* market for this. My grandmother in law is 93. She basically can't drive, but wants to stay in her house. My wife's in the hospital right now and I have two kids that need to be different places at the same time. One of my old teachers is blind, etc, etc SDC taxi pools can act like super-flexible mass transit for areas that don't have any
You're assuming they could use search and replace. Given my experience with HR (and lots of other people) that's a serious stretch.
They also have curved backs. I had thought it was just for show, but perhaps not. I haven't managed to bend my M7 yet, and I'm not sure I could.
I had assumed the curved back on my HTC One was just for show, but perhaps the designers were actually thinking this way. It's way harder to bend a curved surface than a flat one.
We've been buying more and more of them lately simply because they work so bloody well for this sort of task.
/Waiting for the "Troll" downmods I get everytime I mention that they are far nicer than most people realize.
has a Ph.D. in 17th century English literature. Admittedly we do work at a college, but you might be surprised at what humanists are doing these days: he got into the computer side of things while building databases of who was sending who letters around then. Digital Humanities is a growing field, and one that has some interesting CS applications- you've got things like Mallet chewing through vast swathes of literature looking for correlations, you have folks building high end digital maps to look into questions of how sight lines affected historical battles, etc.