Hyperbole aside, the point is still that people like them because they may a better product cheaper. The 2.6Ghz Celeron doesn't compare to a P4 at 2.6Ghz which wouldn't compare to an AMD Barton at a real 2.6Ghz (Even if it ran stable at that speed!).
Saying that the products should be $40 is meaningless until you look at real costs. CPU prices have come down significantly since AMD and Intel started competing for marketshare. I, personally, have no idea how much development and marketing costs run for these chips. $80 may be a rip off, or it may be a very reasonable price. Certainly it's close enough to a reasonable price that the barrier to entry for additional competitors has been sufficient to keep them both as the only real alternatives for the desktop market, at least for now.
Seriously, people root for AMD because people LIKE getting the same speed and power cheaper. With ATI and nvidia, there are certainly fans on either side, and there are definitely people who have sworn off one company over the other, but they both make pretty decent products. For AMD and Intel, AMD is just cheaper and either better or just as good. I don't know that anyone really cares deeply about AMD the company, so much as AMD's impact on the price of BOTH company's lines of chips.
Your computer, under max load, still most likely hits the two to three lightbulb mark. 2x60W bulbs is probably average for "idle" and 3x70W is a reasonable guess for high load for most people.
This particular estimator guesses high, because they are trying to sell you PSU. Even with that in mind you have to be running a 2700+ AMD with a mid-high to high graphics card in 3D mode while copying a CD from one drive and burning it to another while using your network card with two sticks of ram before you hit 4 70W lightbulbs. That's a pretty solid max load.
As for the other ecology concerns, the computer industry in general needs to be far better about that, but giving people a quality built computer that meets their needs for a couple years is a step in the right direction. More Dells end up in the landfill than custom built quality jobs, I'd bet.
Slight complaint though, your average off the shell probably does NOT have three to seven fans, unless you are including the PSU fans themselves. Average case probably has one CPU fan and one exhaust fan. Every Dell I've owned takes advantage of ducting though, which is kinda cool of them.
Yes, and giving one sweet and sour sauce instead of two saves McDonald's millions. We aren't talking about that though, are we? He's saying the average user who doesn't know what they need should care deeply about the wattage, and I think that's bunk. Now the eco-friendly guy below you has a point sorta.
Not even just Gentoo, but all linux distros are optimized to slurp up as much RAM as they can to try and prevent disk IO.
Bumping up the RAM for a disk intensive operations in Linux can be very nice.
I had a interesting experience when my mother recently informed me her computer was "broken". It kept restarting on her, so she came to the conclusion that it needed a new power supply. Now I built that sucker from scratch, so I was pretty doubtful it needed a new anything after only a year. So asked her to tell me exactly what was wrong. Turns out if she runs AOL for a while then plays games through AOL, her computer will occasionally reboot on her. It doesn't happen if she doesn't use AOL. She said, and this is as direct of a quote as I can remember, that it had to be the hardware because AOL's check up said her computer was fine. She was ready to replace hardware because she was convinced by AOL that her software was fine. Incidentally, Ad-aware came back with 380 hits. When I sat down to uninstall kruft, it kept coming and coming. Now her computer runs fine, and I didn't even need to reinstall WinXP.
My point is, people buy cheap computers and get cheap computers. Her computer, without monitor, cost me about 500 to build. However, it's going to last her a lot longer than a Dell would, because it's got quality parts inside. People replace Dells and Gateways because Dell and Gateway make disposable computers. They don't run as fast because they use the lowest clockspeeds possible and meet the barest minimum requirements. If you build it yourself it doesn't cost a ton more, but you can make it last much longer. Her computer has roughly the same specs as his, except it's faster (2600+) and it's got twice the memory. And, I'm willing to bet, it's using parts with a much longer statistical life expectancy.
I hope your friend figured into the cost of his Dell a RAM upgrade, because Dell just sold him a computer that won't work as advertised. 256 is just flat out not enough for XP + almost anything else. XP itself can swallow almost that much.
Do you actually budget your computer in that way? Dear god man, turn off that computer! It's using the same electricity as TWO LIGHTBULBS! We could light the whole BATHROOM with those two 60w bulbs you're wasting!
Now we can't get Martha's medicine because of you whippersnappers and your 120W computers!
I don't think it's unfair to expect anyone spending hundreds of dollars on a machine to have some idea what they are getting. People know more about their dishwashers than their computers.
It's a stupid idea, because it will encourage people to be even stupider in their buying decisions, so they can put more of their money into something that may STILL not fit their needs because they are willing to blindly trust the idiot from Best Buy who tells them, and this is a direct overheard quote, "You want to get the one with 801.11g because g is like several letters passed b so it's better security". They are just going to get screwed and screwed again as hardware mass-retailers sell them crap designed as Level X and pander to the lowest common denominator. Here in particular I'm thinking of all the people buying Celeron (and soon to be Semperon) chips and saying their computer should be powerful enough. They are going to get slaughtered in this system because now they have TWO imaginary numbers to look at to justify why they have to spend more money to get a "better" computer now instead of just buying quality in the first place.
This system is brain dead stupid until it comes up with a REAL way to qualify and benchmark performance, which, in case you haven't noticed, no one has come up with a great way yet because (and this may be shocking to you) those "few ignorant souls" don't run the same programs in the same configurations in the same way as everyone else. One size does not fit all, and X never, ever marks the spot.
You and I both know, I'm sure, dozens of people who would NEVER be dumb enough to believe that Ford or GM just magically knows how they want to drive their car, and would never blindly take the advice of a used car salesmen, yet these same people who would go and get a knowledgable friend to go with them to the showroom will walk into a Gateway store and expect the "trained" salestaff to divine what's best for them, and not just whatever happens to fit into their budget. Anyone who doesn't want to know doesn't have to care, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't ask the advice of someone who does know and can help them avoid making stupid mistakes.
1. I can give you this, but as others have pointed out, it's the nature of the beast. You aren't going to get a solution that everyone likes. Personally, the Mac way drives me nuts.
2. This is FUD. It gives you more than one place because more than one program has been written to configure the same thing. Use whichever you'd like. Windows XP lets you get to the printer configuration at least four ways I can think of. Control Panel, Start->Printers, File->Print->Properties, System Tray->Printer Icon->{Various}, as well as having different printer setup systems for each printer manufacturer, HP and Lexmark provide their own configuration menus.
3. FUD. Most of what's on the shelf is going to work. It may not be highly optimized or pretty or whatever, but it'll most likely at least give you basic black and white printing. Windows has only just recently gotten their defaults to this point. Typically with Windows if you don't have the driver it refuses to talk at all, at least linux will try basic default drivers, like flat postscript.
What percentage, do you think, of 911 calls involve children too paniced to tell their phone numbers, people too injured to tell their numbers, people hitting a panic button during a struggle, people hitting a panic button during a heart attack, people hitting dialing 911 while the room burns down around them... etc, etc, etc. Sometimes when you really need 911 it's for more than just reporting a robber, and sometimes you don't have time to talk at all, you just have to pray they can find you.
I pulled up a couple pictures of hemp and marijuana on google just now, and while I'm not an expert, I'm going to say I can easily tell the difference between corn and hemp from the air. I'm not so sure I could tell the difference between marijuana and hemp.
Yeah, but even if it collapses, they LOSE absolutely nothing. They may gain some spam, but all that comes crashing down is their hope for something free.
Slashdot Mirror
Hyperbole aside, the point is still that people like them because they may a better product cheaper. The 2.6Ghz Celeron doesn't compare to a P4 at 2.6Ghz which wouldn't compare to an AMD Barton at a real 2.6Ghz (Even if it ran stable at that speed!).
Saying that the products should be $40 is meaningless until you look at real costs. CPU prices have come down significantly since AMD and Intel started competing for marketshare. I, personally, have no idea how much development and marketing costs run for these chips. $80 may be a rip off, or it may be a very reasonable price. Certainly it's close enough to a reasonable price that the barrier to entry for additional competitors has been sufficient to keep them both as the only real alternatives for the desktop market, at least for now.
Because ATI drivers suck.
Seriously, people root for AMD because people LIKE getting the same speed and power cheaper. With ATI and nvidia, there are certainly fans on either side, and there are definitely people who have sworn off one company over the other, but they both make pretty decent products. For AMD and Intel, AMD is just cheaper and either better or just as good. I don't know that anyone really cares deeply about AMD the company, so much as AMD's impact on the price of BOTH company's lines of chips.
Newegg.com: P4 2.6Ghz - $109, AMD Barton 2600+ - $88
Your computer, under max load, still most likely hits the two to three lightbulb mark. 2x60W bulbs is probably average for "idle" and 3x70W is a reasonable guess for high load for most people.
Try this out: Power Supply Wattage Calculator
This particular estimator guesses high, because they are trying to sell you PSU. Even with that in mind you have to be running a 2700+ AMD with a mid-high to high graphics card in 3D mode while copying a CD from one drive and burning it to another while using your network card with two sticks of ram before you hit 4 70W lightbulbs. That's a pretty solid max load.
As for the other ecology concerns, the computer industry in general needs to be far better about that, but giving people a quality built computer that meets their needs for a couple years is a step in the right direction. More Dells end up in the landfill than custom built quality jobs, I'd bet.
Slight complaint though, your average off the shell probably does NOT have three to seven fans, unless you are including the PSU fans themselves. Average case probably has one CPU fan and one exhaust fan. Every Dell I've owned takes advantage of ducting though, which is kinda cool of them.
Yes, and giving one sweet and sour sauce instead of two saves McDonald's millions. We aren't talking about that though, are we? He's saying the average user who doesn't know what they need should care deeply about the wattage, and I think that's bunk. Now the eco-friendly guy below you has a point sorta.
echo "127.0.0.1 slashdot.org" >> /etc/hosts
Not even just Gentoo, but all linux distros are optimized to slurp up as much RAM as they can to try and prevent disk IO. Bumping up the RAM for a disk intensive operations in Linux can be very nice.
I had a interesting experience when my mother recently informed me her computer was "broken". It kept restarting on her, so she came to the conclusion that it needed a new power supply. Now I built that sucker from scratch, so I was pretty doubtful it needed a new anything after only a year. So asked her to tell me exactly what was wrong. Turns out if she runs AOL for a while then plays games through AOL, her computer will occasionally reboot on her. It doesn't happen if she doesn't use AOL. She said, and this is as direct of a quote as I can remember, that it had to be the hardware because AOL's check up said her computer was fine. She was ready to replace hardware because she was convinced by AOL that her software was fine. Incidentally, Ad-aware came back with 380 hits. When I sat down to uninstall kruft, it kept coming and coming. Now her computer runs fine, and I didn't even need to reinstall WinXP.
My point is, people buy cheap computers and get cheap computers. Her computer, without monitor, cost me about 500 to build. However, it's going to last her a lot longer than a Dell would, because it's got quality parts inside. People replace Dells and Gateways because Dell and Gateway make disposable computers. They don't run as fast because they use the lowest clockspeeds possible and meet the barest minimum requirements. If you build it yourself it doesn't cost a ton more, but you can make it last much longer. Her computer has roughly the same specs as his, except it's faster (2600+) and it's got twice the memory. And, I'm willing to bet, it's using parts with a much longer statistical life expectancy.
I hope your friend figured into the cost of his Dell a RAM upgrade, because Dell just sold him a computer that won't work as advertised. 256 is just flat out not enough for XP + almost anything else. XP itself can swallow almost that much.
Do you actually budget your computer in that way? Dear god man, turn off that computer! It's using the same electricity as TWO LIGHTBULBS! We could light the whole BATHROOM with those two 60w bulbs you're wasting!
Now we can't get Martha's medicine because of you whippersnappers and your 120W computers!
I don't think it's unfair to expect anyone spending hundreds of dollars on a machine to have some idea what they are getting. People know more about their dishwashers than their computers.
It's a stupid idea, because it will encourage people to be even stupider in their buying decisions, so they can put more of their money into something that may STILL not fit their needs because they are willing to blindly trust the idiot from Best Buy who tells them, and this is a direct overheard quote, "You want to get the one with 801.11g because g is like several letters passed b so it's better security". They are just going to get screwed and screwed again as hardware mass-retailers sell them crap designed as Level X and pander to the lowest common denominator. Here in particular I'm thinking of all the people buying Celeron (and soon to be Semperon) chips and saying their computer should be powerful enough. They are going to get slaughtered in this system because now they have TWO imaginary numbers to look at to justify why they have to spend more money to get a "better" computer now instead of just buying quality in the first place.
This system is brain dead stupid until it comes up with a REAL way to qualify and benchmark performance, which, in case you haven't noticed, no one has come up with a great way yet because (and this may be shocking to you) those "few ignorant souls" don't run the same programs in the same configurations in the same way as everyone else. One size does not fit all, and X never, ever marks the spot.
You and I both know, I'm sure, dozens of people who would NEVER be dumb enough to believe that Ford or GM just magically knows how they want to drive their car, and would never blindly take the advice of a used car salesmen, yet these same people who would go and get a knowledgable friend to go with them to the showroom will walk into a Gateway store and expect the "trained" salestaff to divine what's best for them, and not just whatever happens to fit into their budget. Anyone who doesn't want to know doesn't have to care, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't ask the advice of someone who does know and can help them avoid making stupid mistakes.
Hmm this could explain why both mine and my wifes failed after a year of fairly heavy use.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
If you don't turn it off, you CAN. Now why you WOULD is a whole different issue.
I would imagine the javascript would flag it highly suspicious on that basis alone.
1. I can give you this, but as others have pointed out, it's the nature of the beast. You aren't going to get a solution that everyone likes. Personally, the Mac way drives me nuts.
2. This is FUD. It gives you more than one place because more than one program has been written to configure the same thing. Use whichever you'd like. Windows XP lets you get to the printer configuration at least four ways I can think of. Control Panel, Start->Printers, File->Print->Properties, System Tray->Printer Icon->{Various}, as well as having different printer setup systems for each printer manufacturer, HP and Lexmark provide their own configuration menus.
3. FUD. Most of what's on the shelf is going to work. It may not be highly optimized or pretty or whatever, but it'll most likely at least give you basic black and white printing. Windows has only just recently gotten their defaults to this point. Typically with Windows if you don't have the driver it refuses to talk at all, at least linux will try basic default drivers, like flat postscript.
A pop up ad is a reminder to use an up to date browser, or at least whatever kludge tool forces your browser to behave itself.
Thank god someone finally understands!
Solidarity brother, solidarity.
What percentage, do you think, of 911 calls involve children too paniced to tell their phone numbers, people too injured to tell their numbers, people hitting a panic button during a struggle, people hitting a panic button during a heart attack, people hitting dialing 911 while the room burns down around them... etc, etc, etc. Sometimes when you really need 911 it's for more than just reporting a robber, and sometimes you don't have time to talk at all, you just have to pray they can find you.
I pulled up a couple pictures of hemp and marijuana on google just now, and while I'm not an expert, I'm going to say I can easily tell the difference between corn and hemp from the air. I'm not so sure I could tell the difference between marijuana and hemp.
Ah HAH! So you admit you aren't Australian! Veeery interesting...
Erm. Never mind.
Some guy that lives in their closet.
So wait, you're trying to say they are EXACTLY THE SAME?
When someone figures out the algorithm for generating the barcodes, I'd imagine this company will be on that list too.
I sure hope there's more "proof" of ticket than just a CRC check.
On the other hand, I've never crashed my hard drive by losing it.
The offer requires a credit card? I didn't look into it that closely, I labeled the whole website as "shady but probably legal" and left it alone.
Yeah, but even if it collapses, they LOSE absolutely nothing. They may gain some spam, but all that comes crashing down is their hope for something free.