Most people who don't know will ask someone who does, and in today's world, things like adding memory or a hard disk to computers isn't exactly rocket science. If you can't do it, there's always a 14-year-old who can.
Same thing applies to HDMI cables, etc. When HDTV first came out, so many people didn't have a clue that everyone was easy prey for the salesman pushing the Monster Cables at Monster Prices.
Nowadays, everyone knows someone who knows not only which cables are good enough, but also where to buy them at a really good discount.
Kind of hard to "slap a lock" on the bottom access panel of a laptop (which is what the majority of computer sales are).
And as I've pointed out elsewhere, both of my daughters have upgraded their computers with ram I gave them. One had a friend do it (desktop), the other did it herself (laptop) - and she had NEVER worked on a computer in her life.
Laptops are designed so that they can be quickly customized for ram and hd size. It's literally a one-minute job and a couple of screws to swap ram, less than 2 minutes for a hard drive (because you're often supposed to install it in a HD caddy - but you don't actually have to if you don't have a spare one and it's the second drive).
Most people who don't know, will ask someone else. Also, the vast majority of people don't buy Dell. They buy from a big-box retailer when it's on sale so that they have someone to complain to.
The article wasn't discussing iPods or other devices - it was referring to computers. Most people won't be buying a Macbook Air, so I think my advice stands.
Changing ram in a laptop doesn't require any great skills - just a small phillips screwdriver (to remove the memory cover) and a nail file or small slot-head screwdriver (to pop out the old ram).
I gave my daughter my original 2 gigs when I bought 4 gigs, and she managed to install it with the following instructions:
1. Remove the cover on the bottom of the laptop.
2. Use a nail file to pop open the clips holding the old ram in place
3. Slip the new ram in place.
4. Put the cover back on.
She had never worked on a computer before, to the best of my knowledge. It really is that simple, and a lot easier than trying to monkey around inside a desktop machine.
Even if you have to get a friend to do it instead, it's better to buy the fastest cpu you can, and worry about "more ram" or "more storage" later on. The latter two are easier to upgrade, and you can always find someone who would appreciate your old parts.
I can teach anyone how to change the ram in my hp laptop in under 2 minutes. It's just 2 screws to remove the cover, and a nail file to pop out the sticks and the new ones snap into place. It's really SO much easier than a desktop.
As for price, I bought 4 gigs at the local big-box when they were on sale, for less than the 2-gig-to-4-gig would have cost when the laptop was new. I then gave the original 2 gigs to one of my daughters, who installed it in her laptop without any instructions from me on how to do it - it really IS that easy.
Cables - it's written right on the package. HDMI 1.4. So if you see one set for $100, and another for $14, and they're both HDMI 1.4, it's easy to figure out.
Car repairs: Even the "comfort, not economy" car is also going to need repairs - you didn't factor that into your analysis. Also, for the money you'll save on gas, you can almost buy a second one as a spare.
For example - "Pay for RAM, not speed. The speed of the computer chip does not matter; the attention-span or RAM memory does matter."
Totally wrong. You can always throw in more ram at a later date, and it will probably cost less to replace all of it than the cost of the "upgrade" today. Upgrading ram on a laptop is even easier than on a desktop, while a cpu upgrade... forget it. And you'll always find takers for your old ram.
Or "Pay for components, not cables. Buy the best components, and the cheapest cables". While you don't have to pay a monster price for "Monster Cables", some HDMI cables don't meet the latest specs. The difference between those that do and the cheapest may only be a few bucks, and it can't hurt.
Or "Pay for speed, not channels. For cable internet, with enough speed you can watch TV channels on the internet for free." Pay for bandwidth. Speed means nothing if you have a low bandwidth cap. And buying a pair of bunny-ears for your HDTV can give a better picture over the air than either the net OR cable.
And "Pay for reliability, not mileage. On a car, you'll spend more of repairs and maintaince over its lifetime than you will on a difference in gas." needs to re-think that when faced with $6-$8 a gallon gas prices. At $6 a gallon, 20mpg is going to cost you $30,000.00 in gas over 100,000 miles. At 40mpg you save $15,000.00
And for those who don't think gas prices will go that high, they already are in many parts of the world (and you can bet that cash-strapped state and federal governments are going to need to raise more taxes).
Think of how many people bought their cars when gas prices were half what they were today. When buying a car today, you have to keep in mind that history tends to repeat itself.
This is untrue. The Copyright Board of Canada has advised that the levy DOES protect copying and P2P downloading.
I believe you are incorrect. The section of the revised Copyright Act only grants a limited right to making a private copy.
While subsection 1 of section 80 does indeed grant a limited right to make a private copy, it has restrictions, as noted in subsection 2:
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):
(a) selling or renting out, or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or rental;
(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;
(c) communicating to the public by telecommunication; or
(d) performing, or causing to be performed, in public.
You can certainly make a copy of your own CD. You can't use a P2P program to share (and because even leachers need to at least take part in sharing the data as to what parts they need of the.torrent, it can be argued that they are also taking part in (c) above, and not exempt).
First they came for the recordable CDs, but I didn't speak out because I didn't use recordable CDs.
Next they came for the SD cards, but I didn't speak out because I didn't use SD cards.
I am not sure what they are going for next, I didn't even read RTFA, but I am sure it will be even more ludicrous.
Slashdotters are safe for now - the RTFA TAX ACT, (also known as the Murdoch-News Corp Entitlement Fund) only affects those who actually read the "fine" articles.
so once you have paid the copy tax you are free to copy as much music as you like?
No - there position is that this is to compensate for undetected copying - if they catch you, I'm sure they'll be willing to deduct the $3 from the $BAZZILLON_BUX_FOR_COCAINE_AND_HOOKERS that they'll try to get from you - and you can be sure that the artist will still end up getting the sharp end of the stick when it comes to apportioning that money.
Obviously nobody actually read the article. It was stuff that is offensive to muslim beliefs. Here's the top 12 videos:
1. "Miss Piggy does Dallas"
2. "Makin' Bacon"
3. "2 Pigs in a Blanket"
4. "Porky Pig Got Fingered"
5. "Ham and Cheezy"
6. "Doing the 'Flying Pig'"
7. "3 Little Pigs, One Cup"
8. "Hogzilla Attacks"
9. "Pearls Before Swine"
10. "Squeal Like a Pig!"
11. "The Adventures of Peter Porker, Spider-Ham"
12. "Swine Flew Epidemic - Attack of the Killer Hogs"
Remember how Patents and Copyrights were established to encourage innovation? Ha!
I would argue that they have encouraged innovation. Look at all the innovative ways they've managed to turn the U.S. legal system into a huge MUD with lots of gold pharmers, or how many different ways they've found to transform lawyers into bedbugs and cockroaches without infringing bio-tech patents..
How many idioms in English have matched delimiters? None modulo common usage, n'est pas?
Let's see, that would take what, a minute? (matched commas)
Maybe - just maybe - I will find a few. (hyphens) ... then again... (ellipses) (plenty of them in Meg Ryan's fake orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally")
Sally: Ooo....Oh...Ooo... (Ooo...)
Harry: Are you OK?
Sally: Oh.Oh god Oh Oh (Oh Oh) God...Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh God (God)
Oh yeah right there Oh (Oh)
Oh!.Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes...Oh! (Oh!)
Oh Yes Yes Yes....Oh (Oh)
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (self-referential same-type delimiters) ...Oh...Oh... Oh... (ellipses)
Oh God Oh (Oh) .. Oh... Huh... (ellipses)
Dessert? The tiramisu is... well, you saw the movie...
Note: The above ignores the obvious - that a space is also a same-type delimiter.
Both GPL and Creative Commons were created with the idea that the copyright law is unjust
Fact: Both the GPL and Creative Commons were created to leverage copyright law, and are dependent on copyright to give authors some control over their works for a certain time, same as any other copyright license.
Just because the "currency" in some cases is public attribution doesn't mean that it's entirely "free" - money isn't everything, and "free" in "free software" is about much more than money.
Both the FSF and Creative Commons seem to agree that people sharing materials for non-commercial purposes shouldn't be a target for the law
Fact: Whether it's commercial or not doesn't enter into it. You can't take a CC or GPL licensed work, file off the copyrights, and claim YOU wrote it, and distribute it as your work, even if such distribution is free. You can't even do that with stuff under the BSD licenses.
Reporting copyright violations, especially those that BSA deals with, goes against the ideas which created the FSF, GNU and the GPL
Fact: The FSF has no problem with people reporting copyright violators of GNU/GPL software. Are you suggesting they would be hypocrites to recommend people look the other way when it comes to others' rights?
Report stuff to the BSA - it's one way to show that non-free software has a high cost. Using their own lobbying group against them is just good judo.
full cooperation with the BSA would mean that open source is piracy. Since they've tried to claim that shit before, mostly because anything that is competition to them is worded as illegal or bad.
Young children will love this.
Parents will hate this.
So now you know what to get for your evil twin sisters kids for Christmas. This has the potential to be even worse than giving them a chemistry, carpentry, or woodburning kit.
I want to spread free software and encourage its use as much as anyone else, but doing something I find morally sickening such as reporting software "piracy" is not the right way to go about it. Free software is about your ability to share the software, if you attack people for doing exactly that - sharing the software, you're doing free software no good service.
Reporting license violators (whether they are in violation of proprietary licenses or the GPL or some other license) is not immoral when the end user has alternatives.
Or are you going to argue that people can infringe the GPL or a Creative Commons license because "Free software is about your ability to share the software"?
The various "free" licenses are about much more than just sharing - they may include requiring to acknowledge the original creator, making public any improvements or modifications (either on subsequent distribution, or on end-user demand), and just as importantly, not "filing off the copyrights".
How many people "just can't be bothered" to switch their word processor, their operating system, their image editor, because it's easier to just use a cracked copy? That's not about sharing... that's about laziness.
The same applies to games, movies, and music - if you like it, but don't like the author's terms, that doesn't give you the right to "share" it. All you've succeeded in doing is decreasing the market for potential competitors who might have offered something with a better price or features. After all, why bother even checking out LibreOffice when you can just pirate MS-Word?
Even Bill Gates acknowledged that software piracy helped get Word into a near-monopoly.
Think of the boost for free/libre software if just everyone who was laid off in the last week reported copyright infringers to the BSA or CAAST.
Actually, it could be argued that FULL cooperation with the BSA would generate the most local jobs, as companies would then be forced to shift to open source to avoid the expense and hassle of complying with proprietary licensing.
Let's be honest - if it became impossible to run pirated versions of MS-Windows and MS-Office tomorrow, this would be the year of the linux desktop, and any money that would have been spent on licensing could be spent locally instead, on deploying open solutions, training, and customizing.
So, if you really want to support open source and your local economy, report software piracy today!
1. 100 mb / month will disappear really quicky with online videos.
2. what part of "So, for less than 1 year's payment for the google welfarebook, you can have a real functioning netbook" did you fail to understand?
3. Your prices are off. When you say "Around $350-500 is the price range for Windows-based 11.6"/12.1", HDD-based netbooks.", the 10.1" netbooks are $199 on special, $229 every day. That's with 250 gig of storage, unlike the google welfarebook, and it will also work w/o a network connection.
4. $499 gets you a full-sized laptop with 500 - 640 gigs of storage, 3 to 4 gigs of ram, a 1600x900 screen, and W7 premium.
5. A year later, you can sell the laptop and buy another - you're only renting the welfarebook.
... then compare that to a human which is capable of tens of thousands>
I'm not so sure about (most) humans being able to keep track of tens of thousands of words. Look at all the references to rouge nations instead of rogue nations, or mixing up
they're | their | there,
rain | reign | rein
lose | loose
ask | ax
effect | affect
principal | principle
presence | presents
root | route
spade | spayed
to | too | two
vain | vein | vane
which | witch
weather | whether
Point taken. I meant netbook (nettops are dead, netbooks are "just" dying)
I'm looking at an ad right now - $229, 10.1" screen, 1 gig ram, 250 gig hd, Win7 Crippleware Edition... on special they were $199.00.
Why would anyone pay $240 a year when you can get a better machine for less (and the 100 mb/month data plan for the google offering will get eaten up pretty quickly with youtube, so your $20 is quickly going to go to $40, so just stick with a normal netbook or laptop + wifi).
This is marketed at the same consumer who rents HD TVs and couches - because they don't have the cash to buy outright, so they "rent to own" and pay twice as much in the end. Hence the label "welfarebooks".
Even if it included a data plan, it's still a lousy offer.
Net-tops are $200 nowadays, and don't require you to be connected to the net to work. Not being constantly connected means better battery life.
For students, being connected to the local wifi access point st to transfer files is all they need, and that's free.
So, for less than 1 year's payment for the google "welfarebook", you can have a real functioning netbook (or if you want to spend around $350, a real laptop), and use real software, not just "OMG web 2.0" stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people who don't know will ask someone who does, and in today's world, things like adding memory or a hard disk to computers isn't exactly rocket science. If you can't do it, there's always a 14-year-old who can.
Same thing applies to HDMI cables, etc. When HDTV first came out, so many people didn't have a clue that everyone was easy prey for the salesman pushing the Monster Cables at Monster Prices.
Nowadays, everyone knows someone who knows not only which cables are good enough, but also where to buy them at a really good discount.
Kind of hard to "slap a lock" on the bottom access panel of a laptop (which is what the majority of computer sales are).
And as I've pointed out elsewhere, both of my daughters have upgraded their computers with ram I gave them. One had a friend do it (desktop), the other did it herself (laptop) - and she had NEVER worked on a computer in her life.
Laptops are designed so that they can be quickly customized for ram and hd size. It's literally a one-minute job and a couple of screws to swap ram, less than 2 minutes for a hard drive (because you're often supposed to install it in a HD caddy - but you don't actually have to if you don't have a spare one and it's the second drive).
Most people who don't know, will ask someone else. Also, the vast majority of people don't buy Dell. They buy from a big-box retailer when it's on sale so that they have someone to complain to.
The article wasn't discussing iPods or other devices - it was referring to computers. Most people won't be buying a Macbook Air, so I think my advice stands.
Changing ram in a laptop doesn't require any great skills - just a small phillips screwdriver (to remove the memory cover) and a nail file or small slot-head screwdriver (to pop out the old ram).
I gave my daughter my original 2 gigs when I bought 4 gigs, and she managed to install it with the following instructions:
1. Remove the cover on the bottom of the laptop.
2. Use a nail file to pop open the clips holding the old ram in place
3. Slip the new ram in place.
4. Put the cover back on.
She had never worked on a computer before, to the best of my knowledge. It really is that simple, and a lot easier than trying to monkey around inside a desktop machine.
Even if you have to get a friend to do it instead, it's better to buy the fastest cpu you can, and worry about "more ram" or "more storage" later on. The latter two are easier to upgrade, and you can always find someone who would appreciate your old parts.
I can teach anyone how to change the ram in my hp laptop in under 2 minutes. It's just 2 screws to remove the cover, and a nail file to pop out the sticks and the new ones snap into place. It's really SO much easier than a desktop.
As for price, I bought 4 gigs at the local big-box when they were on sale, for less than the 2-gig-to-4-gig would have cost when the laptop was new. I then gave the original 2 gigs to one of my daughters, who installed it in her laptop without any instructions from me on how to do it - it really IS that easy.
Cables - it's written right on the package. HDMI 1.4. So if you see one set for $100, and another for $14, and they're both HDMI 1.4, it's easy to figure out.
Car repairs: Even the "comfort, not economy" car is also going to need repairs - you didn't factor that into your analysis. Also, for the money you'll save on gas, you can almost buy a second one as a spare.
For example - "Pay for RAM, not speed. The speed of the computer chip does not matter; the attention-span or RAM memory does matter."
Totally wrong. You can always throw in more ram at a later date, and it will probably cost less to replace all of it than the cost of the "upgrade" today. Upgrading ram on a laptop is even easier than on a desktop, while a cpu upgrade ... forget it. And you'll always find takers for your old ram.
Or "Pay for components, not cables. Buy the best components, and the cheapest cables". While you don't have to pay a monster price for "Monster Cables", some HDMI cables don't meet the latest specs. The difference between those that do and the cheapest may only be a few bucks, and it can't hurt.
Or "Pay for speed, not channels. For cable internet, with enough speed you can watch TV channels on the internet for free." Pay for bandwidth. Speed means nothing if you have a low bandwidth cap. And buying a pair of bunny-ears for your HDTV can give a better picture over the air than either the net OR cable.
And "Pay for reliability, not mileage. On a car, you'll spend more of repairs and maintaince over its lifetime than you will on a difference in gas." needs to re-think that when faced with $6-$8 a gallon gas prices. At $6 a gallon, 20mpg is going to cost you $30,000.00 in gas over 100,000 miles. At 40mpg you save $15,000.00
And for those who don't think gas prices will go that high, they already are in many parts of the world (and you can bet that cash-strapped state and federal governments are going to need to raise more taxes).
Think of how many people bought their cars when gas prices were half what they were today. When buying a car today, you have to keep in mind that history tends to repeat itself.
I'll remember that when I add it to ListsExchange
This is untrue. The Copyright Board of Canada has advised that the levy DOES protect copying and P2P downloading.
I believe you are incorrect. The section of the revised Copyright Act only grants a limited right to making a private copy.
While subsection 1 of section 80 does indeed grant a limited right to make a private copy, it has restrictions, as noted in subsection 2:
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if the act described in that subsection is done for the purpose of doing any of the following in relation to any of the things referred to in paragraphs (1)(a) to (c):
(a) selling or renting out, or by way of trade exposing or offering for sale or rental;
(b) distributing, whether or not for the purpose of trade;
(c) communicating to the public by telecommunication; or
(d) performing, or causing to be performed, in public.
You can certainly make a copy of your own CD. You can't use a P2P program to share (and because even leachers need to at least take part in sharing the data as to what parts they need of the .torrent, it can be argued that they are also taking part in (c) above, and not exempt).
The big print giveth, the fine print taketh away.
First they came for the recordable CDs, but I didn't speak out because I didn't use recordable CDs.
Next they came for the SD cards, but I didn't speak out because I didn't use SD cards.
I am not sure what they are going for next, I didn't even read RTFA, but I am sure it will be even more ludicrous.
Slashdotters are safe for now - the RTFA TAX ACT, (also known as the Murdoch-News Corp Entitlement Fund) only affects those who actually read the "fine" articles.
so once you have paid the copy tax you are free to copy as much music as you like?
No - there position is that this is to compensate for undetected copying - if they catch you, I'm sure they'll be willing to deduct the $3 from the $BAZZILLON_BUX_FOR_COCAINE_AND_HOOKERS that they'll try to get from you - and you can be sure that the artist will still end up getting the sharp end of the stick when it comes to apportioning that money.
There can be some justification to tax the specific device (ipod), but not a multi-purpose medium.
Obviously nobody actually read the article. It was stuff that is offensive to muslim beliefs. Here's the top 12 videos:
1. "Miss Piggy does Dallas"
2. "Makin' Bacon"
3. "2 Pigs in a Blanket"
4. "Porky Pig Got Fingered"
5. "Ham and Cheezy"
6. "Doing the 'Flying Pig'"
7. "3 Little Pigs, One Cup"
8. "Hogzilla Attacks"
9. "Pearls Before Swine"
10. "Squeal Like a Pig!"
11. "The Adventures of Peter Porker, Spider-Ham"
12. "Swine Flew Epidemic - Attack of the Killer Hogs"
Remember how Patents and Copyrights were established to encourage innovation? Ha!
I would argue that they have encouraged innovation. Look at all the innovative ways they've managed to turn the U.S. legal system into a huge MUD with lots of gold pharmers, or how many different ways they've found to transform lawyers into bedbugs and cockroaches without infringing bio-tech patents..
How many idioms in English have matched delimiters? None modulo common usage, n'est pas?
Let's see, that would take what, a minute? (matched commas)
... then again ... (ellipses)
...Oh...Oh... Oh... (ellipses)
.. Oh... Huh... (ellipses)
Maybe - just maybe - I will find a few. (hyphens)
(plenty of them in Meg Ryan's fake orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally")
Sally: Ooo....Oh...Ooo... (Ooo...)
Harry: Are you OK?
Sally: Oh.Oh god Oh Oh (Oh Oh)
God...Oh...Oh...Oh...Oh God (God)
Oh yeah right there Oh (Oh)
Oh!.Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes...Oh! (Oh!)
Oh Yes Yes Yes....Oh (Oh)
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (self-referential same-type delimiters)
Oh God Oh (Oh)
Dessert? The tiramisu is ... well, you saw the movie ...
Note: The above ignores the obvious - that a space is also a same-type delimiter.
Both GPL and Creative Commons were created with the idea that the copyright law is unjust
Fact: Both the GPL and Creative Commons were created to leverage copyright law, and are dependent on copyright to give authors some control over their works for a certain time, same as any other copyright license.
Just because the "currency" in some cases is public attribution doesn't mean that it's entirely "free" - money isn't everything, and "free" in "free software" is about much more than money.
Both the FSF and Creative Commons seem to agree that people sharing materials for non-commercial purposes shouldn't be a target for the law
Fact: Whether it's commercial or not doesn't enter into it. You can't take a CC or GPL licensed work, file off the copyrights, and claim YOU wrote it, and distribute it as your work, even if such distribution is free. You can't even do that with stuff under the BSD licenses.
Reporting copyright violations, especially those that BSA deals with, goes against the ideas which created the FSF, GNU and the GPL
Fact: The FSF has no problem with people reporting copyright violators of GNU/GPL software. Are you suggesting they would be hypocrites to recommend people look the other way when it comes to others' rights?
Report stuff to the BSA - it's one way to show that non-free software has a high cost. Using their own lobbying group against them is just good judo.
full cooperation with the BSA would mean that open source is piracy. Since they've tried to claim that shit before, mostly because anything that is competition to them is worded as illegal or bad.
No, it wouldn't. Stop being such a sheeple :-)
Parents will hate it? Please explain.
1. Kids will love it because it's NOISY. I guess you've never had kids play "cymbals" with the pot lids, or "drums" with the pots and wooden spoons.
2. Parents will hate it because it's NOISY, and when they turn it off, the kids will be equally noisy whining that they want to play with their game.
The only thing missing is a "pull my finger" fart-noise generator.
Young children will love this.
Parents will hate this.
So now you know what to get for your evil twin sisters kids for Christmas. This has the potential to be even worse than giving them a chemistry, carpentry, or woodburning kit.
If Windows is torturing it's users, and ...
Only about 20% of Google employees use Windows,
... then at least 20% of Google employees are masochists.
Masochist: "Hurt me, hurt me, PLEASE HURT ME!"
Sadist: "No. SUFFER!"
I want to spread free software and encourage its use as much as anyone else, but doing something I find morally sickening such as reporting software "piracy" is not the right way to go about it. Free software is about your ability to share the software, if you attack people for doing exactly that - sharing the software, you're doing free software no good service.
Reporting license violators (whether they are in violation of proprietary licenses or the GPL or some other license) is not immoral when the end user has alternatives.
Or are you going to argue that people can infringe the GPL or a Creative Commons license because "Free software is about your ability to share the software"?
The various "free" licenses are about much more than just sharing - they may include requiring to acknowledge the original creator, making public any improvements or modifications (either on subsequent distribution, or on end-user demand), and just as importantly, not "filing off the copyrights".
How many people "just can't be bothered" to switch their word processor, their operating system, their image editor, because it's easier to just use a cracked copy? That's not about sharing ... that's about laziness.
The same applies to games, movies, and music - if you like it, but don't like the author's terms, that doesn't give you the right to "share" it. All you've succeeded in doing is decreasing the market for potential competitors who might have offered something with a better price or features. After all, why bother even checking out LibreOffice when you can just pirate MS-Word?
Even Bill Gates acknowledged that software piracy helped get Word into a near-monopoly.
Think of the boost for free/libre software if just everyone who was laid off in the last week reported copyright infringers to the BSA or CAAST.
Actually, it could be argued that FULL cooperation with the BSA would generate the most local jobs, as companies would then be forced to shift to open source to avoid the expense and hassle of complying with proprietary licensing.
Let's be honest - if it became impossible to run pirated versions of MS-Windows and MS-Office tomorrow, this would be the year of the linux desktop, and any money that would have been spent on licensing could be spent locally instead, on deploying open solutions, training, and customizing.
So, if you really want to support open source and your local economy, report software piracy today!
2. what part of "So, for less than 1 year's payment for the google welfarebook, you can have a real functioning netbook" did you fail to understand?
3. Your prices are off. When you say "Around $350-500 is the price range for Windows-based 11.6"/12.1", HDD-based netbooks.", the 10.1" netbooks are $199 on special, $229 every day. That's with 250 gig of storage, unlike the google welfarebook, and it will also work w/o a network connection.
4. $499 gets you a full-sized laptop with 500 - 640 gigs of storage, 3 to 4 gigs of ram, a 1600x900 screen, and W7 premium.
5. A year later, you can sell the laptop and buy another - you're only renting the welfarebook.
Better off buying a tablet than one of these POS.
I'm not so sure about (most) humans being able to keep track of tens of thousands of words. Look at all the references to rouge nations instead of rogue nations, or mixing up
they're | their | there,
rain | reign | rein
lose | loose
ask | ax
effect | affect
principal | principle
presence | presents
root | route
spade | spayed
to | too | two
vain | vein | vane
which | witch
weather | whether
I'm looking at an ad right now - $229, 10.1" screen, 1 gig ram, 250 gig hd, Win7 Crippleware Edition ... on special they were $199.00.
Why would anyone pay $240 a year when you can get a better machine for less (and the 100 mb/month data plan for the google offering will get eaten up pretty quickly with youtube, so your $20 is quickly going to go to $40, so just stick with a normal netbook or laptop + wifi).
This is marketed at the same consumer who rents HD TVs and couches - because they don't have the cash to buy outright, so they "rent to own" and pay twice as much in the end. Hence the label "welfarebooks".
Even if it included a data plan, it's still a lousy offer.
Net-tops are $200 nowadays, and don't require you to be connected to the net to work. Not being constantly connected means better battery life.
For students, being connected to the local wifi access point st to transfer files is all they need, and that's free.
So, for less than 1 year's payment for the google "welfarebook", you can have a real functioning netbook (or if you want to spend around $350, a real laptop), and use real software, not just "OMG web 2.0" stuff.