So now you're telling me that I don't know what my own preferences are? The fact is that you decided to ignore what I was looking for - because for some reason you decided it wasn't as important as what you thought I should be looking for.
First off, I would like to apologize for my earlier comment. I didn't appreciate the "fapping" or fanboi commentary, and my reply was quite bitchy. I usually try to be polite in my discourse, but failed quite spectacularly this time around.
You're right. I did not appropriately address your concerns, and when you pointed that out, I merely made the situation worse by responding in the fashion that I did.
I was not suggesting you purchase a Macintosh. I mentioned the Magsafe because the technology involved seemed to be along the lines of what you were looking for. Clearly that was not the case. I think a person should choose the technology that best serves their needs. Fortunately, there are a wide assortment of technological solutions available, to serve a wide variety of needs.
Hopefully, we can move beyond the disaster that this conversation has been so far, and start anew.
For the record, I have several mini-itx machines. Many lack for power (particularly the VIA ones) although you can get decent power in shuttle which is fairly luggable. Those are great for if you need to drag a small machine from place to place, provided that the keyboard, mouse, LCD, etc are all available. Certainly it's not convenient to lug all of those with you.
True. Wouldn't it be remarkable if such a setup was available in public places? You could bring your mini-itx (or smaller) computer with you, sync it up with available peripherals, and get on with your business. Perhaps in conjunction with something like this.
It would be a great setup for meetings. Ditch the projector and handouts, and collaborate face to face using editable, digital handouts, and a presentation that would be manipulable by both the presenter and audience. By providing your own mini-computer, you have access to all of your content in a highly portable form, along with any programs needed to run it.
For example, if you were having a product design meeting, instead of just gathering suggestions for changes to the current model, your team could open the drawing in Autocad, and then edit the design right there. When you were finished, you could unplug your computer and get on with your day. Such a setup would really improve productivity, and the minicomputer would be much easier to lug around than a laptop.
Or rather a tiny battery that only gives me 3 minutes of backup. (In other words a built in ups) I use my laptop as a portable workstation, but am almost never in a location without electricity. If I needed more than three minutes of battery, I would be glad to bring a larger external battery pack along. The only time I don't plug my laptop in is when i'm in an environment where it's likely that the power plug will be yanked from the laptop for some reason.
...
I feel that a magsafe adapter, coupled with a 3 minute backup battery would be more than sufficient for a lot of people.
Now that I can understand. Such a solution would be quite useful, and the space savings from the smaller battery would enable the device to be highly portable. If such a solution was available, I would definitely be interested. Electricity in my area isn't the most reliable so an integrated UPS would be a great help. My laptop essentially provides that function through its battery, but as I rarely take it off the adapter, a smaller battery would do the trick.
The point was to remove the battery, thus no internal power backup, thus pulling the plug would mean that it's lights-out. In other words, I don't want something that pulls out more easily, I want it to be more difficult, and for safely add some traction-pads on the bottom.
So despite the "fapping" comment made by the subsequent poster, I definitely do not want something that's easier to disconnect, so really that response was pretty much mac fanboism by somebody who hadn't really read my post anyways.
I read your post. You specifically said:
Perhaps something that clicks into place but isn't a pain to remove
That is exactly what the Magsafe does. Why would mentioning that a product that fulfills part of your request (but just so happens to be from Apple) make my post fanboism? If I had mentioned the Dell Magsafe would you have replied in the same fashion?
I was aware that it did not fulfill all of your requirements. That is because your requirements were nonsensical. Who wants a laptop without a battery? You had mentioned that the extra space could be used for extra cooling capacity, but the battery is far more useful. Have you ever been working on something important and the power goes out? No problem if you have a laptop. Big problem if you don't.
If you want a laptop without a battery so that you can have a compact desktop, buy a desktop. They're getting remarkably compact now themselves.
At the same time, I've seen various different models of power bricks, but I much prefer the ones that attach to the laptop snugly rather than the standard rounded barrel-connector. Perhaps something that clicks into place but isn't a pain to remove (because without batteries, it would suck to accidentally knock out that easily-disconnected power jack).
It sounds like you're describing Apple's Magsafe connector. Some people feel that the Magsafe disconnects too easily, but I haven't had any problems with that.
...with the new generation. My son and all his friends will absolutely not leave a message no matter what. At home, when my son's friends call and I ignore them because he is not home, they will not leave a message. They simply call back every so often until someone answers. if it is of an urgent nature, they call more frequently. My son once called me five times in the space of four minutes when I was in a meeting and couldn't answer. He never once left a message, which I could have listened to during the meeting to determine if it was actually important. You can try explaining this stuff to the new generation, but they don't get it.
With the advent of new technology, comes new social norms. For the kids that have grown up with the internet, instant messaging, and cell phones, instant access is the norm for them. As far as their experience shows them, they don't have to wait for anything. Everything is available to them now. The idea of leaving a message and awaiting a reply seems as antiquated as contacting you by courier pigeon.
On second thought, that would actually be quite effective. They can let you out of the meeting early, or let your courier pigeon crap all over the table.
But it doesn't explain why all the/really/ old people you see are skinny. You won't find an overweight 90-year-old.
I can find two of them. My 96 year old grandpa and my 92 year old grandma. Both of which are overweight and still very active. In fact, my grandma volunteers at the senior citizen center twice a week, taking care of skinny old people younger than she is.
Unsurprisingly, regulation hasn't helped the issue, true. However, the GP point is valid: if the new technology is too expensive then the affected group will not purchase this innovative new product.
Taking the patent system into account, less expensive alternatives would have to avoid the work of their competitors, and in doing so will have to face higher R&D costs. Since the potential applicability of this device is aimed at a niche market, competitors would be less likely to enter the market. As such, prices would remain high, and these people will continue to use the less expensive, less capable devices that they can afford, and the industry will continue to stagnate.
Due to the relatively small number of people who require wheelchairs, most companies would not find this to be a profitable venture, and profit is a strong driving force in the free market.
I still wish it did a better job of release cache memory, or at least had a GC procedure I could manually launch to free up all the ram except the currently in use parts,
I don't know what OS you're using, but I have found that iFreeMem does a great job freeing up my inactive memory.
Frankly, we would be better off if we didn't get cheap junk from China and other places. Americans are trained to think that they need way more stuff than they actually do. Our obsession with "keeping up with the Joneses" is why so many Americans are in debt. Americans buy too much stuff, and the only way to do that is to go cheap. If we only had access to more expensive, American made merchandise, we would have no choice but to buy less. Currently, our economy is based nearly solely on consumption, not on production. This isn't a sustainable system, and the sooner we get back to providing for ourselves the better off we will be.
This doesn't mean that we should ignore the rest of the world. Globalization is the way the world is headed and we would not be doing ourselves any favors by being left behind. We have, however, become too dependent on foreign produced goods, and in doing so are rendering ourselves obsolete.
At the last company I worked for, every so often they would decide that the storage area was too full, so they would get rid of a bunch of spare shelving. Inevitably, they would get rid of the good shelves, and keep the rusted, bent ones, and the next time we needed more shelving for something, they would have to order more. This didn't really come as a surprise though, because this is the same company that would replace ceiling tiles due to water damage, but not fix the holes in the roof, or buy new stalls for the restroom, but not fix the leaky, frequently overflowing toilets.
Slashdot Mirror
So now you're telling me that I don't know what my own preferences are? The fact is that you decided to ignore what I was looking for - because for some reason you decided it wasn't as important as what you thought I should be looking for.
First off, I would like to apologize for my earlier comment. I didn't appreciate the "fapping" or fanboi commentary, and my reply was quite bitchy. I usually try to be polite in my discourse, but failed quite spectacularly this time around.
You're right. I did not appropriately address your concerns, and when you pointed that out, I merely made the situation worse by responding in the fashion that I did.
I was not suggesting you purchase a Macintosh. I mentioned the Magsafe because the technology involved seemed to be along the lines of what you were looking for. Clearly that was not the case. I think a person should choose the technology that best serves their needs. Fortunately, there are a wide assortment of technological solutions available, to serve a wide variety of needs.
Hopefully, we can move beyond the disaster that this conversation has been so far, and start anew.
For the record, I have several mini-itx machines. Many lack for power (particularly the VIA ones) although you can get decent power in shuttle which is fairly luggable. Those are great for if you need to drag a small machine from place to place, provided that the keyboard, mouse, LCD, etc are all available. Certainly it's not convenient to lug all of those with you.
True. Wouldn't it be remarkable if such a setup was available in public places? You could bring your mini-itx (or smaller) computer with you, sync it up with available peripherals, and get on with your business. Perhaps in conjunction with something like this.
It would be a great setup for meetings. Ditch the projector and handouts, and collaborate face to face using editable, digital handouts, and a presentation that would be manipulable by both the presenter and audience. By providing your own mini-computer, you have access to all of your content in a highly portable form, along with any programs needed to run it.
For example, if you were having a product design meeting, instead of just gathering suggestions for changes to the current model, your team could open the drawing in Autocad, and then edit the design right there. When you were finished, you could unplug your computer and get on with your day. Such a setup would really improve productivity, and the minicomputer would be much easier to lug around than a laptop.
Who wants a laptop without a battery?
I do.
Or rather a tiny battery that only gives me 3 minutes of backup. (In other words a built in ups) I use my laptop as a portable workstation, but am almost never in a location without electricity. If I needed more than three minutes of battery, I would be glad to bring a larger external battery pack along. The only time I don't plug my laptop in is when i'm in an environment where it's likely that the power plug will be yanked from the laptop for some reason.
...
I feel that a magsafe adapter, coupled with a 3 minute backup battery would be more than sufficient for a lot of people.
Now that I can understand. Such a solution would be quite useful, and the space savings from the smaller battery would enable the device to be highly portable. If such a solution was available, I would definitely be interested. Electricity in my area isn't the most reliable so an integrated UPS would be a great help. My laptop essentially provides that function through its battery, but as I rarely take it off the adapter, a smaller battery would do the trick.
The point was to remove the battery, thus no internal power backup, thus pulling the plug would mean that it's lights-out. In other words, I don't want something that pulls out more easily, I want it to be more difficult, and for safely add some traction-pads on the bottom.
So despite the "fapping" comment made by the subsequent poster, I definitely do not want something that's easier to disconnect, so really that response was pretty much mac fanboism by somebody who hadn't really read my post anyways.
I read your post. You specifically said:
Perhaps something that clicks into place but isn't a pain to remove
That is exactly what the Magsafe does. Why would mentioning that a product that fulfills part of your request (but just so happens to be from Apple) make my post fanboism? If I had mentioned the Dell Magsafe would you have replied in the same fashion?
I was aware that it did not fulfill all of your requirements. That is because your requirements were nonsensical. Who wants a laptop without a battery? You had mentioned that the extra space could be used for extra cooling capacity, but the battery is far more useful. Have you ever been working on something important and the power goes out? No problem if you have a laptop. Big problem if you don't.
If you want a laptop without a battery so that you can have a compact desktop, buy a desktop. They're getting remarkably compact now themselves.
At the same time, I've seen various different models of power bricks, but I much prefer the ones that attach to the laptop snugly rather than the standard rounded barrel-connector. Perhaps something that clicks into place but isn't a pain to remove (because without batteries, it would suck to accidentally knock out that easily-disconnected power jack).
It sounds like you're describing Apple's Magsafe connector. Some people feel that the Magsafe disconnects too easily, but I haven't had any problems with that.
With the advent of new technology, comes new social norms. For the kids that have grown up with the internet, instant messaging, and cell phones, instant access is the norm for them. As far as their experience shows them, they don't have to wait for anything. Everything is available to them now. The idea of leaving a message and awaiting a reply seems as antiquated as contacting you by courier pigeon.
On second thought, that would actually be quite effective. They can let you out of the meeting early, or let your courier pigeon crap all over the table.
Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?
But it doesn't explain why all the /really/ old people you see are skinny. You won't find an overweight 90-year-old.
I can find two of them. My 96 year old grandpa and my 92 year old grandma. Both of which are overweight and still very active. In fact, my grandma volunteers at the senior citizen center twice a week, taking care of skinny old people younger than she is.
Unsurprisingly, regulation hasn't helped the issue, true. However, the GP point is valid: if the new technology is too expensive then the affected group will not purchase this innovative new product.
Taking the patent system into account, less expensive alternatives would have to avoid the work of their competitors, and in doing so will have to face higher R&D costs. Since the potential applicability of this device is aimed at a niche market, competitors would be less likely to enter the market. As such, prices would remain high, and these people will continue to use the less expensive, less capable devices that they can afford, and the industry will continue to stagnate.
Due to the relatively small number of people who require wheelchairs, most companies would not find this to be a profitable venture, and profit is a strong driving force in the free market.
I still wish it did a better job of release cache memory, or at least had a GC procedure I could manually launch to free up all the ram except the currently in use parts,
I don't know what OS you're using, but I have found that iFreeMem does a great job freeing up my inactive memory.
Frankly, we would be better off if we didn't get cheap junk from China and other places. Americans are trained to think that they need way more stuff than they actually do. Our obsession with "keeping up with the Joneses" is why so many Americans are in debt. Americans buy too much stuff, and the only way to do that is to go cheap. If we only had access to more expensive, American made merchandise, we would have no choice but to buy less. Currently, our economy is based nearly solely on consumption, not on production. This isn't a sustainable system, and the sooner we get back to providing for ourselves the better off we will be. This doesn't mean that we should ignore the rest of the world. Globalization is the way the world is headed and we would not be doing ourselves any favors by being left behind. We have, however, become too dependent on foreign produced goods, and in doing so are rendering ourselves obsolete.
At the last company I worked for, every so often they would decide that the storage area was too full, so they would get rid of a bunch of spare shelving. Inevitably, they would get rid of the good shelves, and keep the rusted, bent ones, and the next time we needed more shelving for something, they would have to order more. This didn't really come as a surprise though, because this is the same company that would replace ceiling tiles due to water damage, but not fix the holes in the roof, or buy new stalls for the restroom, but not fix the leaky, frequently overflowing toilets.