Be happy with your Macbook and the ample supplies of specialty cables and dongles that it requires.
Maybe buy an SD card to expand your storage. Oh wait, you can't. Well, maybe you can plug in your old headphones and listen to some music. Oh wait, you can't. Perhaps just plug any old USB gadget you have laying around. Oh wait, you can't. Okay, then pop off the bottom of your Macbook and plug in some more memory. Oh wait, you can't.
As sucky as Windows is, on most PC laptops none of those things are an issue.
I find just the opposite for 99% of the stuff I look at- it's almost always a few bucks more on ebay than on Amazon.
Part of this is due to the man-in-the-middle scheme, where someone lists something on ebay for a few bucks more than on Amazon, and when they get an order they just buy it from Amazon and have it sent directly to the seller. They make a couple of bucks for doing nothing except transferring the order from ebay to Amazon.
Well yes, anecdotal evidence but that doesn't refute any of the other premises I described.
Yes, except that there are far more Windows laptops in the wild than Macbooks. If you want herd immunity or the benefits that come from swimming in the most popular lane, then you'd probably want to choose a Windows laptop.
Again, aside from the somewhat abstracted benefits of following popularity or prevalence in the computing ecosystem, it doesn't really confer any local advantage whether you go with a Windows laptop or a Macbook.
If 90% of the crowd in the airport or on campus has the same OS as you, that's nice, but that doesn't mean it confers any actual benefit to you in a tangible, personal way. They still won't loan you their charger or HDMI cable.
I'm unsure why you think I was implying that, feel free to point out why you think that though. What I'm saying is they're everywhere, if you need a laptop beyond simple web-based apps (for which a Chromebook should suffice) and you don't have any specific or demanding compute requirements then most people seem to just buy a MacBook.
As I go through airports (frequently) and visit college campuses (occasionally), I do not see that most people have Macbooks...I see a mix of Chromebooks, Macbooks, and an overwhelming preponderance of Windows laptops.
So you want to compare a $500 Acer to a $3000 Mac. That's how your going to claim it's a better panel?
What part of "looks pretty much the same" was unclear? I didn't say it was "better", I said it looked about the same as the much more expensive Macbook.
To recap: the $500 Dell sitting next to a $2500 Macbook looks damn near the same to me. If we masked off the screens I doubt most people would reliably be able to tell which was which.
...you get them because it's what everybody else has so it's the safe bet. They're everywhere across airport lounges to university campuses
Other than motivation for developers to write software, how does the fact that other people have a Mac (or PC, or whatever) make it a "safe bet"? What does that mean? That is, what is everyone betting on?
Most software we use these days (speaking very generally) is web based and works with any browser. What does it matter which platform the people around you use?
And I'm also unsure why having them in airports and campuses is some sort of benefit to anyone. No one is going to loan you their Mac just because you, a fellow Mac user, also have one and yours is broken or missing or whatever. If they were just scattered about and anyone could just pick one up and use it then that might be a benefit, but I don't see any significant benefit on a local level of just having other people owning the same item.
Maybe if you needed to borrow a cable that was Mac-specific, but that's a box that Apple has deliberately placed themselves in.
So why is owning a Mac a "safe bet"? What are we betting on, exactly?
I'm not impressed by the Mac displays....they used to be very good but now they're just on par with offerings by every other manufacturer. I use a Mac at work and sitting next to a $500 laptop from Acer or Dell or anyone else it looks pretty much the same.
You paid $2500 for a device that was built for maybe $300. I don't understand why people continue to pay such prices for mainstream technology.
For once, I totally agree. Macs are insanely overpriced by any measure. And the days of "it just works" are far, far behind us. That may have been true at some point but not now.
I have no idea why people buy Macs in general- the hardware is crazy expensive, fixing them is crazy expensive, performance is okay but nothing to brag about, and the Mac ecosystem is a jumbled hodgepodge of half-baked shit. iTunes is the best example of a shit UI and functionality all rolled into a bloated mass of crap that's basically just a fucking file sync system (when it works).
But then I also don't understand why people buy pre-ripped jeans. They pay triple for an artificially ruined piece of clothing ("artfully distresssed" in fashion lingo) and then brag about it. WTF?
It seem inevitable that a small constellation of technologies will coalesce (probably rather quickly at some point) so that something that "passes" for AI will be not just possible, but practical.
Will it be actual "AI"? I don't know.
For one thing there seems to be a lot of disagreement over how to even define AI in a meaningful sense. It'll be hard to say if something is actually an AI if we don't agree on what "AI" is or what standards to apply in order to gauge its level of sentience.
So no, I don't think what they'll come up with in the short term will be an actual, sentient, "thinking" AI.
But I do think that we'll be able to fake it well enough so that it'll effectively work as a "real" AI would. For all intents and purposes it'll function well enough to do many of the things that we would/will want AI to do.
Do I think that actual AI is in fact possible? Absolutely. It's inevitable, just a matter of time.
Fifty years from now the few remaining survivors of the Robot Apocalypse will look back on these early years in AI research, and they'll marvel at how we were just too stupid to foresee or even consider that AI would become the dominant "life form" on the planet, replacing us as the apex predator.
"Yes, before the Robots took over the world," said Og, as he threw another stick on the fire, huddling in the ash gray wasteland that used to be New York.
"The scientists said AI was 'totally safe' and 'nothing could go wrong'," Og continued, "but you kids don't remember that because that was back when we had electricity and people talked into little boxes they carried in their pockets."
The children all laughed at Og, he always told the biggest lies because he was so old (almost 30!) and so his stories could not be believed.
"What's a 'sy-en-tiss'?" whispered Janey.
"They were the people that knew stuff and made the world run." Og said.
The children laughed again, "No one makes the word run, silly!" they hooted.
On-demand pricing surges are just a corporation's way of saying, "Fuck you, you broke-ass peasants!"
The idea of being made to pay more when you either need or want something and not at any other time is one of the "fuck you!" things I can think of. Like the soft drink machines that bump up their prices automatically when it gets hot out.
This financial discrimination in favor of the highest bidder for commodity goods and services that aren't even remotely scarce pisses me off at a visceral level.
I just can't believe that companies like Microsoft or Facebook or Google would ever do anything underhanded or manipulative! I mean, it's not like have years of history of doing this, right? Right?
(As someone else posted, opting out probably gets you scrutinized even more, perhaps as a test subject for even trickier under-the-radar manipulation.)
Put the alarm in a sealed box and add an item that is glowing/smoking (e.g. a cigarette will do). Within a minute or two, the alarm should sound.
That would work for a smoke alarm but not for a carbon monoxide alarm. A carbon monoxide alarm needs something that produces carbon monoxide, like vehicle exhaust.
As soon as Apple finally allows more memory, we're going to replace most of the laptops used in our company.>/i>
When is that going to happen?
I'd say "never", since they haven't felt the need for 6+ years. It seems they're more interested in gadgetry than industry-competitive laptops or desktops.
My (contract) company issued me the latest Macbook and all in all, it's an annoying dog. All it has are a few USB-C ports; no memory expansion capability, the keyboard is mediocre, and the famous "Touch Bar" is mostly useless.
I would never, ever buy one with my own money. You can get a much more capable laptop for less if you're willing to put up with Windows 10 (ewwww) or if you wipe it and install Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
...I mean, given their stellar track record at everything, who wouldn't want Microsoft to manage their life's details and activities?
Be happy with your Macbook and the ample supplies of specialty cables and dongles that it requires.
Maybe buy an SD card to expand your storage. Oh wait, you can't.
Well, maybe you can plug in your old headphones and listen to some music. Oh wait, you can't.
Perhaps just plug any old USB gadget you have laying around. Oh wait, you can't.
Okay, then pop off the bottom of your Macbook and plug in some more memory. Oh wait, you can't.
As sucky as Windows is, on most PC laptops none of those things are an issue.
Ebay is pretty much always cheaper
I find just the opposite for 99% of the stuff I look at- it's almost always a few bucks more on ebay than on Amazon.
Part of this is due to the man-in-the-middle scheme, where someone lists something on ebay for a few bucks more than on Amazon, and when they get an order they just buy it from Amazon and have it sent directly to the seller. They make a couple of bucks for doing nothing except transferring the order from ebay to Amazon.
Well yes, anecdotal evidence but that doesn't refute any of the other premises I described.
Yes, except that there are far more Windows laptops in the wild than Macbooks. If you want herd immunity or the benefits that come from swimming in the most popular lane, then you'd probably want to choose a Windows laptop.
Again, aside from the somewhat abstracted benefits of following popularity or prevalence in the computing ecosystem, it doesn't really confer any local advantage whether you go with a Windows laptop or a Macbook.
If 90% of the crowd in the airport or on campus has the same OS as you, that's nice, but that doesn't mean it confers any actual benefit to you in a tangible, personal way. They still won't loan you their charger or HDMI cable.
I guess that could be true: my parents can't tell the difference between SDTV and HDTV, after all.
Then why should they spend more of their money on an HDTV?
People who are serious about typing don't buy MacBooks any more. Apple keyboards used to be poor but acceptable, but they are just really poor.
My current workplace gave me a Macbook to use and yes, the keyboard is shit. Shit, shit, SHIT.
I've currently got it plugged into a spare Windows keyboard because the Mac keyboard is so sucky.
I'm unsure why you think I was implying that, feel free to point out why you think that though. What I'm saying is they're everywhere, if you need a laptop beyond simple web-based apps (for which a Chromebook should suffice) and you don't have any specific or demanding compute requirements then most people seem to just buy a MacBook.
As I go through airports (frequently) and visit college campuses (occasionally), I do not see that most people have Macbooks...I see a mix of Chromebooks, Macbooks, and an overwhelming preponderance of Windows laptops.
So you want to compare a $500 Acer to a $3000 Mac. That's how your going to claim it's a better panel?
What part of "looks pretty much the same" was unclear? I didn't say it was "better", I said it looked about the same as the much more expensive Macbook.
To recap: the $500 Dell sitting next to a $2500 Macbook looks damn near the same to me. If we masked off the screens I doubt most people would reliably be able to tell which was which.
A $500 Acer doesn't have the same display as a MacBook Pro.
Thank you, that's exactly my point: it still looks every bit as good and crisp and sharp and colorful.
Like I said, I really can't see $2000 worth of difference between them.
...you get them because it's what everybody else has so it's the safe bet. They're everywhere across airport lounges to university campuses
Other than motivation for developers to write software, how does the fact that other people have a Mac (or PC, or whatever) make it a "safe bet"? What does that mean? That is, what is everyone betting on?
Most software we use these days (speaking very generally) is web based and works with any browser. What does it matter which platform the people around you use?
And I'm also unsure why having them in airports and campuses is some sort of benefit to anyone. No one is going to loan you their Mac just because you, a fellow Mac user, also have one and yours is broken or missing or whatever. If they were just scattered about and anyone could just pick one up and use it then that might be a benefit, but I don't see any significant benefit on a local level of just having other people owning the same item.
Maybe if you needed to borrow a cable that was Mac-specific, but that's a box that Apple has deliberately placed themselves in.
So why is owning a Mac a "safe bet"? What are we betting on, exactly?
I'm not impressed by the Mac displays....they used to be very good but now they're just on par with offerings by every other manufacturer. I use a Mac at work and sitting next to a $500 laptop from Acer or Dell or anyone else it looks pretty much the same.
You paid $2500 for a device that was built for maybe $300. I don't understand why people continue to pay such prices for mainstream technology.
For once, I totally agree. Macs are insanely overpriced by any measure. And the days of "it just works" are far, far behind us. That may have been true at some point but not now.
I have no idea why people buy Macs in general- the hardware is crazy expensive, fixing them is crazy expensive, performance is okay but nothing to brag about, and the Mac ecosystem is a jumbled hodgepodge of half-baked shit. iTunes is the best example of a shit UI and functionality all rolled into a bloated mass of crap that's basically just a fucking file sync system (when it works).
But then I also don't understand why people buy pre-ripped jeans. They pay triple for an artificially ruined piece of clothing ("artfully distresssed" in fashion lingo) and then brag about it. WTF?
There's no difference between "fake" AI and "real" AI, as long as they achieve the same results.
This is so wrong that I hardly know where to begin.
That's like saying, "There's no difference between real sugar and an artificial sweetener, as long as they both taste sweet."
You're wrong on multiple levels, but thanks for weighing in.
It seem inevitable that a small constellation of technologies will coalesce (probably rather quickly at some point) so that something that "passes" for AI will be not just possible, but practical.
Will it be actual "AI"? I don't know.
For one thing there seems to be a lot of disagreement over how to even define AI in a meaningful sense. It'll be hard to say if something is actually an AI if we don't agree on what "AI" is or what standards to apply in order to gauge its level of sentience.
So no, I don't think what they'll come up with in the short term will be an actual, sentient, "thinking" AI.
But I do think that we'll be able to fake it well enough so that it'll effectively work as a "real" AI would. For all intents and purposes it'll function well enough to do many of the things that we would/will want AI to do.
Do I think that actual AI is in fact possible? Absolutely. It's inevitable, just a matter of time.
Fifty years from now the few remaining survivors of the Robot Apocalypse will look back on these early years in AI research, and they'll marvel at how we were just too stupid to foresee or even consider that AI would become the dominant "life form" on the planet, replacing us as the apex predator.
"Yes, before the Robots took over the world," said Og, as he threw another stick on the fire, huddling in the ash gray wasteland that used to be New York.
"The scientists said AI was 'totally safe' and 'nothing could go wrong'," Og continued, "but you kids don't remember that because that was back when we had electricity and people talked into little boxes they carried in their pockets."
The children all laughed at Og, he always told the biggest lies because he was so old (almost 30!) and so his stories could not be believed.
"What's a 'sy-en-tiss'?" whispered Janey.
"They were the people that knew stuff and made the world run." Og said.
The children laughed again, "No one makes the word run, silly!" they hooted.
On-demand pricing surges are just a corporation's way of saying, "Fuck you, you broke-ass peasants!"
The idea of being made to pay more when you either need or want something and not at any other time is one of the "fuck you!" things I can think of. Like the soft drink machines that bump up their prices automatically when it gets hot out.
This financial discrimination in favor of the highest bidder for commodity goods and services that aren't even remotely scarce pisses me off at a visceral level.
My new plan is not to use MoviePass. It's basically the same as the old plan, where I also didn't use MoviePass.
There have been many. What happens is they get flooded with people from 3rd world countries, willing to do the work for pennies an hour.
Republicans should LOVE this, as they're always crowing about how the "free market" is so great.
I mean, the president himself has famously said that "wages are too high". He couldn't possibly be wrong, could he?
....how is this not illegal?
It seems like a classic example of wiretapping, especially as it's done without the user's consent (EULAs notwithstanding).
Fucking marketers...they should all die in a fire.
This is reason #3,255,094,649 as to why I don't use Facebook.
I just can't believe that companies like Microsoft or Facebook or Google would ever do anything underhanded or manipulative! I mean, it's not like have years of history of doing this, right? Right?
(As someone else posted, opting out probably gets you scrutinized even more, perhaps as a test subject for even trickier under-the-radar manipulation.)
Put the alarm in a sealed box and add an item that is glowing/smoking (e.g. a cigarette will do). Within a minute or two, the alarm should sound.
That would work for a smoke alarm but not for a carbon monoxide alarm. A carbon monoxide alarm needs something that produces carbon monoxide, like vehicle exhaust.
How about "NO"?
If I wanted to use Facefuck, I'd use it.
Don't ruin Firefox any further by loading it up with more bullshit and shiny social media crap that no one wants.
As soon as Apple finally allows more memory, we're going to replace most of the laptops used in our company.>/i>
When is that going to happen?
I'd say "never", since they haven't felt the need for 6+ years. It seems they're more interested in gadgetry than industry-competitive laptops or desktops.
My (contract) company issued me the latest Macbook and all in all, it's an annoying dog. All it has are a few USB-C ports; no memory expansion capability, the keyboard is mediocre, and the famous "Touch Bar" is mostly useless.
I would never, ever buy one with my own money. You can get a much more capable laptop for less if you're willing to put up with Windows 10 (ewwww) or if you wipe it and install Linux.
Sure, I've got a million or two I can afford to throw away on this con-woman's pie-in-the-sky bullshit.
Are you talking about the project, or the operational use?
Yes.