Also, in a society that considers government to represent and be "of and for the people", perhaps if some large enough percentage do something or see nothing wrong with other people doing something - it de-facto isn't wrong, and ought to be legal?
Well, maybe if you have a mac you have iTunes, but I won't touch that with a ten foot pole on Windows. I used to buy from Amazon, but last time they required some special software - which I WON'T USE when WinAmp works fine for mp3s. Just give me an mp3 download link... I don't trust third party downloaders from companies - too many CNETs et al...
I had to have Amazon refund me my money and buy and wait for the CD because tech support a) couldn't tell me why the downloads seemed to do nothing b) how to download it at all - i.e. they failed to tell me I needed to install an app - I only found this out when I was ranting to a coworker about it. c) basically totally failed to get me what I paid for.
If I'm paying money, I want an option to be as easy as piracy, not harder...
What I'd like to know is compared to CFL bulbs though. Around 2000 I switched primarily to CFLs due to the availability of ones for ~$2ea plus the energy savings and long life - I get between 5-7 years in most applications - far longer than even the "long life" incandescents...
The issue I have is I have a bunch of spare CFLs, and I'm currently using a bunch that I expect to last for at least 3 more years. I'm not sure it makes any sense to scrap all of these, at FAR higher initial purchase price to switch to LEDs. I suppose I have plenty of time to wait for the LEDs to get down to $2ea like the CFLs are.
The other issue is the only benefit I see is that the LEDs might be a little brighter (75w equiv vs 60w equiv, but really, what's the Lumens?) but aren't saving any wattage draw, or if they are, it's around 3w per bulb rather than 50w per bulb from Incandescents to CFL. Just not that enticing - and I maintain that even if I was full Incandescents right now, I still would go CFL vs LED just because of the up front cost savings.
Oddly enough, I believe the free market *has* solved this problem through several methods. 1) Some items just come with a longer warranty (and are usually expensive) 2) Extended Warranties from manufacturers for a fee. Each purchaser can determine if they want a longer guarantee at checkout. 3) Insurance policies by third parties (Most stores extended warranties, SquareTrade, Credit Card warranty extension programs)...
If you care enough, you use one of the above methods. I got a credit card that offers the insurance on anything I buy with that card, so most everything has a 2 year coverage. Sometimes I buy Squaretrade for 3-4 year coverage...
Sometimes I buy the manufacturer repair plan like Lenovos because I don't want reimbursement but repair...
I wonder if the prices in the US + the 2 year coverage from one of the above roughly correspond to the price in the EU or if we're getting gouged?
That exact argument was had over the bill of rights. If you read the histories and such, it seems clear to me that the Constitution was supposed to be a whitelist of government powers, rather than the Bill of Rights being a blacklist of powers...
The problem is that no document is going to stop people who want to ignore it.
The fact that the courts could find that growing food for your own consumption would affect interstate commerce (cite: http://www.naturalnews.com/030799_food_freedom_Wickard_vs_Filburn.html) shows that good lawyers can go and twist anything written down so they don't even look like they're ignoring the text.
That all said, at least with the written "blacklist" regular people do seem to notice if they are egregiously enough infringed to get worked up... Would there be anything even thought about if people had to realize "all is permissible that isn't prohibited"? Because apparently people have serious issues with that sort of thought.
This is one of so many reasons I don't use facebook. I understand that Google Ciricles deal with this in a better way, but I don't use social media at all - too insecure - to easy to leak data, and pretty much useless for me to keep people I care about informed about my life.
Of course, I do lose track of people who don't care enough to drop the occasional e-mail or phone call or letter or stop by or meet up - but hey, if the most effort a "friend" can offer is a facebook wall posting to keep me involved in their life - how much of a friend are they and will I *or* they miss not talking anymore?
I like the PS3 better than the XBox. The newish Sony Walkman MP3 player was reasonable to use (standard drag and drop flash) with better display and easier for my Mom to use than Sansa, and much more palatable than a 3x the price iPod... Of course, it's likely to be replaced by the new car stereo that takes flash drives.
My biggest problem with Android is that Multitasking seems really hit or miss for me. I like Opera as the web browser on Android. If I go between it and another app, it seems hit or miss when I come back to Opera if it will still have my tabs open - heck, it generally seems to either re-load from scratch (why???) or just lose that I had tabs open at all.
How often do you see OSS that ever ran on an OS not run on a newer version of that OS? It's not common, though I may choose OSS that has a community around it vs drop and runs on Sourceforge...
Often times if there's a community at all, someone can at least try a re-compile for you at no cost.
I know a lot of people who do like Laptops over PCs, but I know as many people who like PCs over Laptops due to larger monitors, better keyboards, better mouse movements, and lower price potential.
I haven't seen tablets take off yet though because most people either don't know they exist (who aren't geeks or hipsters) or don't see what the heck they'd do with them. Tablets may have a better chance than netbooks with Apple backing them, but I think it's still a bit soon to tell.
One thing I think many posters like this forget is that there is a segment (I don't know how large, but anecdotally it's 50% of the people I know) of the population who use a computer like many other tools such as a table saw / sewing machine / TV etc.
I.e., there's a place they go to do computing stuff like checking e-mail. They don't want to do computing stuff everywhere, nor do they want to carry something else with them everywhere to do this. For those users, a "clunky" PC makes as much sense as anything else, and past the first one is generally cheaper as an upgrade as they can use the same monitor over multiple computers in many cases.
And no one I know has. I mean, for reading e-books, watching video while out and about and the like the tablets are pretty good. Though For video or e-mail when out and about I actually prefer my phone as the tablet (7" android 2.3 one that I have) is still too big to carry around most of the time.
For doing work? I know people with iPads too, and they still use their desktops (PC or Mac depending on the person) for most work. Keyboards are key. I have seen one person replace a laptop or pad of paper in meetings with an iPad, but it's used for e-mail or entertainment when the meeting is dull.
Heck, I've tried to get my mother interested in tablets as she basically does e-mail, face book (for scrabble) and random shopping on the web and viewing digital photos she takes. But even she doesn't see a reason to spend any money when her computer still works fine. Of course I keep it virus/spyware free so it doesn't bog down.
I think tablets have the hipster market and maybe some educational market. I just don't see them penetrating the clueless consumer space as they don't really know they exist, and most of the "clueless consumers" I know want the $250 whitebox PC from Tigerdirect or on special at Best Buy, not the $350-$700 tablet... i.e. they basically only care about it being as cheap as possible while letting them do e-mail. You just don't see tablets as cheap as off brand desktops (assuming they already have a monitor) until you're in the Chinese Knock off category, and those aren't really consumer ready IMO.
I'm sorry, but what the hell do you do to your laptops? The only time I've seen anyone wear out a Lenovo laptop was by dropping it repeatably from 4 feet + up on the corner. And this actually only broke a bit of plastic off the back corner and killed the HD. Warranty replaced the HD and palm rest / touch-pad and it was working again.
I mean, we did have the person who spilled acetone on the keyboard and melted it - also replaced. Have you called them for replacement parts / mail in service?
We have numerous (100+ laptops) used for scientists and technicians who work them hard and have found the people who break the Thinkpads also break the Macbooks and about as fast.
I guess your mileage did vary, but hell - are you trying to break it with hammers or something?
I wish. It's gotten better recently, but I've also stopped buying Dells. I recall I would call, and be asked for a multi digit number rather than the service tag. The web site wouldn't spit out the number from the service tag. I mean, everyone else uses the serial number, but not Dell. So some number I couldn't get and wasn't on the computer got be bounced around for 45 minutes and 7 different countries / call centers where no one could help me till I finally got Canada enterprise support. Then it takes them 30 minutes of on hold to fill out the paperwork to send me a new video card. I could have bought a new video card cheaper.
Then on the servers, their tech support couldn't tell me what CPUs were supported for upgrades on their poweredge servers. Had to call back twice, and bought one set of non working CPUs to get the right ones that the servers would boot with.
HP at least can get someone dispatched to do the motherboard replacements their (basic) business desktops seem to require via web chat so far less annoyance.
Lenovo is the best on the phone, one number, no transferring and they let you send in the laptop and they figure out what's wrong - and they pay shipping. 15 minutes tops on the phone, every time. And of course, the business desktops never seem to break in warranty (i.e. 3 years).
IBM on the server is the same, once you work out the config, they seem to just work forever in my environment.
Hey, YMMV, but now that I've found the vendors that just chug in the environment I have, I don't screw around anymore - I have better things to do.
What's really odd to me is at least in their Thinkstation line, you can opt to get one without an OS, and it's usually about $150 cheaper than the one with Windows on it. It's just in the configurator.
Why they don't provide the same exact GUI option and back end logic for all the computers I don't know. I expect it again comes back to people not knowing they need to buy Windows if they want it on their new PC because most vendors just bundle it.
I pretty much have always used RedHat or free derivatives of it (Scientific Linux 5 and 6 now)... What is so great about apt-get that yum / RPM doesn't do? Whenever I've tried Ubuntu, it really seemed like the difference between setup.exe and install.msi on Windows to me, i.e. you type something a *little* different, but the same stuff happens in the end...
I don't know about that. I've grown to almost hate cheap. Not that I love spending lots of money, but I do like Quality stuff. It's why I'll buy a Lenovo Thinkstation over Systemax even though the desktops are more expensive. Or a Bosch Universal Plus over a Sunbeam (or Kitchenaid). It's why I prefer a Craftsman Multitool over the Wal-Mart special.
That doesn't mean I don't shop at Wal-Mart. It's that I have two categories -> Stuff I want to last, and Stuff I want to use for a short period of time (Say 1 year or less). So for weekend shoes that I'm going to slog through mud or whatever, I'll buy the $11 Walmart ones. They'll be messed up before they wear out. Clothes, I like Haband Pants and Target Shirts... Cause I don't want to worry about them if I get them dirty at work, or dirty at home - they're cheap so I toss them if they get stained etc.
iPhones (Well, all smart phones) are inherently disposable (no replacing the battery, will obsolete in 2 years or so) so you want them cheap. That doesn't mean that there isn't a market for quality.
I've found, even in the US, the more the magazine cost, the better quality it is (surprise!). I find once you get out of the $10 / year range of Wired, they can be decent (though I've never read a European magazine so I can't compare with those). I'm thinking even as cheap as The Atlantic @ ~$25 / year is a noticeable step up from, say, Wired and Time...
I live in Upstate NY and pretty much all towns have a library. I just thought it was standard, like a gas station and town hall. I'm talking villages with populations in the hundreds...
I don't know what you are implying about quality in a library, these aren't huge establishments, but they can certainly interlibrary loan pretty much anything I've ever wanted, though since I got a job I just use Amazon...
I see a lot of people posting this on this thread, but one thing I've noticed is that: My PS3, I bought a second controller and games. For the Wii I bought games, a wii fit board, nun-chuks, driving wheels, nostalgia games from wii store, DDR + DDR Pad, classic controller, rechargeable batteries + charging station and I'm looking at the drawing controller.
I don't know if Nintendo makes money from the extra controllers, but I've found far more extra stuff for the Wii is desirable than for the PS3. That said, I'm willing to believe that Sony is breaking even on me vs Nintendo in that I've bought more games for the PS3. I've yet to buy any online PS3 points or whatever they are, I'm especially leery of that after the PSN months long crash/hack...
Slashdot Mirror
Also, in a society that considers government to represent and be "of and for the people", perhaps if some large enough percentage do something or see nothing wrong with other people doing something - it de-facto isn't wrong, and ought to be legal?
Well, maybe if you have a mac you have iTunes, but I won't touch that with a ten foot pole on Windows. I used to buy from Amazon, but last time they required some special software - which I WON'T USE when WinAmp works fine for mp3s. Just give me an mp3 download link... I don't trust third party downloaders from companies - too many CNETs et al...
I had to have Amazon refund me my money and buy and wait for the CD because tech support
a) couldn't tell me why the downloads seemed to do nothing
b) how to download it at all - i.e. they failed to tell me I needed to install an app - I only found this out when I was ranting to a coworker about it.
c) basically totally failed to get me what I paid for.
If I'm paying money, I want an option to be as easy as piracy, not harder...
What I'd like to know is compared to CFL bulbs though. Around 2000 I switched primarily to CFLs due to the availability of ones for ~$2ea plus the energy savings and long life - I get between 5-7 years in most applications - far longer than even the "long life" incandescents...
The issue I have is I have a bunch of spare CFLs, and I'm currently using a bunch that I expect to last for at least 3 more years. I'm not sure it makes any sense to scrap all of these, at FAR higher initial purchase price to switch to LEDs. I suppose I have plenty of time to wait for the LEDs to get down to $2ea like the CFLs are.
The other issue is the only benefit I see is that the LEDs might be a little brighter (75w equiv vs 60w equiv, but really, what's the Lumens?) but aren't saving any wattage draw, or if they are, it's around 3w per bulb rather than 50w per bulb from Incandescents to CFL. Just not that enticing - and I maintain that even if I was full Incandescents right now, I still would go CFL vs LED just because of the up front cost savings.
Oddly enough, I believe the free market *has* solved this problem through several methods.
1) Some items just come with a longer warranty (and are usually expensive)
2) Extended Warranties from manufacturers for a fee. Each purchaser can determine if they want a longer guarantee at checkout.
3) Insurance policies by third parties (Most stores extended warranties, SquareTrade, Credit Card warranty extension programs)...
If you care enough, you use one of the above methods. I got a credit card that offers the insurance on anything I buy with that card, so most everything has a 2 year coverage. Sometimes I buy Squaretrade for 3-4 year coverage...
Sometimes I buy the manufacturer repair plan like Lenovos because I don't want reimbursement but repair...
I wonder if the prices in the US + the 2 year coverage from one of the above roughly correspond to the price in the EU or if we're getting gouged?
That exact argument was had over the bill of rights. If you read the histories and such, it seems clear to me that the Constitution was supposed to be a whitelist of government powers, rather than the Bill of Rights being a blacklist of powers...
The problem is that no document is going to stop people who want to ignore it.
The fact that the courts could find that growing food for your own consumption would affect interstate commerce (cite: http://www.naturalnews.com/030799_food_freedom_Wickard_vs_Filburn.html) shows that good lawyers can go and twist anything written down so they don't even look like they're ignoring the text.
That all said, at least with the written "blacklist" regular people do seem to notice if they are egregiously enough infringed to get worked up... Would there be anything even thought about if people had to realize "all is permissible that isn't prohibited"? Because apparently people have serious issues with that sort of thought.
This is one of so many reasons I don't use facebook. I understand that Google Ciricles deal with this in a better way, but I don't use social media at all - too insecure - to easy to leak data, and pretty much useless for me to keep people I care about informed about my life.
Of course, I do lose track of people who don't care enough to drop the occasional e-mail or phone call or letter or stop by or meet up - but hey, if the most effort a "friend" can offer is a facebook wall posting to keep me involved in their life - how much of a friend are they and will I *or* they miss not talking anymore?
I'm getting my OpenPandora next week! I'm quite excited on that vs the PSVita...
I like the PS3 better than the XBox. The newish Sony Walkman MP3 player was reasonable to use (standard drag and drop flash) with better display and easier for my Mom to use than Sansa, and much more palatable than a 3x the price iPod... Of course, it's likely to be replaced by the new car stereo that takes flash drives.
My biggest problem with Android is that Multitasking seems really hit or miss for me. I like Opera as the web browser on Android. If I go between it and another app, it seems hit or miss when I come back to Opera if it will still have my tabs open - heck, it generally seems to either re-load from scratch (why???) or just lose that I had tabs open at all.
Maybe someone can port RHEL / CENTOS /Scientific Linux to this?
If you don't care about branding, you can get a reasonable tablet now for ~ $150
http://www.merimobiles.com/Ainol_NOVO_7_ELF_ICS_4_0_8GB_1GB_RAM_1_5GHz_CPU_p/meri0728.htm
For a LogMeIn Ignition tablet you might be OK with this one @ $85
http://www.merimobiles.com/MID_V8_Android_2_2_VIA_VM8650_800Mhz_8inch_800_600_p/meri0670.htm
I'm not a shill, but I have a Dropad A8 that runs Android 2.3 and is usable for logmein to a Win7 PC or web browsing...
How often do you see OSS that ever ran on an OS not run on a newer version of that OS? It's not common, though I may choose OSS that has a community around it vs drop and runs on Sourceforge...
Often times if there's a community at all, someone can at least try a re-compile for you at no cost.
There are other server vendors than HP or Dell... IBM for starters.
I know a lot of people who do like Laptops over PCs, but I know as many people who like PCs over Laptops due to larger monitors, better keyboards, better mouse movements, and lower price potential.
I haven't seen tablets take off yet though because most people either don't know they exist (who aren't geeks or hipsters) or don't see what the heck they'd do with them. Tablets may have a better chance than netbooks with Apple backing them, but I think it's still a bit soon to tell.
One thing I think many posters like this forget is that there is a segment (I don't know how large, but anecdotally it's 50% of the people I know) of the population who use a computer like many other tools such as a table saw / sewing machine / TV etc.
I.e., there's a place they go to do computing stuff like checking e-mail. They don't want to do computing stuff everywhere, nor do they want to carry something else with them everywhere to do this. For those users, a "clunky" PC makes as much sense as anything else, and past the first one is generally cheaper as an upgrade as they can use the same monitor over multiple computers in many cases.
And no one I know has. I mean, for reading e-books, watching video while out and about and the like the tablets are pretty good. Though For video or e-mail when out and about I actually prefer my phone as the tablet (7" android 2.3 one that I have) is still too big to carry around most of the time.
For doing work? I know people with iPads too, and they still use their desktops (PC or Mac depending on the person) for most work. Keyboards are key. I have seen one person replace a laptop or pad of paper in meetings with an iPad, but it's used for e-mail or entertainment when the meeting is dull.
Heck, I've tried to get my mother interested in tablets as she basically does e-mail, face book (for scrabble) and random shopping on the web and viewing digital photos she takes. But even she doesn't see a reason to spend any money when her computer still works fine. Of course I keep it virus/spyware free so it doesn't bog down.
I think tablets have the hipster market and maybe some educational market. I just don't see them penetrating the clueless consumer space as they don't really know they exist, and most of the "clueless consumers" I know want the $250 whitebox PC from Tigerdirect or on special at Best Buy, not the $350-$700 tablet... i.e. they basically only care about it being as cheap as possible while letting them do e-mail. You just don't see tablets as cheap as off brand desktops (assuming they already have a monitor) until you're in the Chinese Knock off category, and those aren't really consumer ready IMO.
I'm sorry, but what the hell do you do to your laptops? The only time I've seen anyone wear out a Lenovo laptop was by dropping it repeatably from 4 feet + up on the corner. And this actually only broke a bit of plastic off the back corner and killed the HD. Warranty replaced the HD and palm rest / touch-pad and it was working again.
I mean, we did have the person who spilled acetone on the keyboard and melted it - also replaced. Have you called them for replacement parts / mail in service?
We have numerous (100+ laptops) used for scientists and technicians who work them hard and have found the people who break the Thinkpads also break the Macbooks and about as fast.
I guess your mileage did vary, but hell - are you trying to break it with hammers or something?
I wish. It's gotten better recently, but I've also stopped buying Dells. I recall I would call, and be asked for a multi digit number rather than the service tag. The web site wouldn't spit out the number from the service tag. I mean, everyone else uses the serial number, but not Dell. So some number I couldn't get and wasn't on the computer got be bounced around for 45 minutes and 7 different countries / call centers where no one could help me till I finally got Canada enterprise support. Then it takes them 30 minutes of on hold to fill out the paperwork to send me a new video card. I could have bought a new video card cheaper.
Then on the servers, their tech support couldn't tell me what CPUs were supported for upgrades on their poweredge servers. Had to call back twice, and bought one set of non working CPUs to get the right ones that the servers would boot with.
HP at least can get someone dispatched to do the motherboard replacements their (basic) business desktops seem to require via web chat so far less annoyance.
Lenovo is the best on the phone, one number, no transferring and they let you send in the laptop and they figure out what's wrong - and they pay shipping. 15 minutes tops on the phone, every time. And of course, the business desktops never seem to break in warranty (i.e. 3 years).
IBM on the server is the same, once you work out the config, they seem to just work forever in my environment.
Hey, YMMV, but now that I've found the vendors that just chug in the environment I have, I don't screw around anymore - I have better things to do.
So is anyone going to be creating some sort of box for these or will we be getting a bare board?
The problem with DX is that it's painfully slow to get a delivery. Oh they have lots of neat stuff, but it takes over a month for a delivery to NY...
What's really odd to me is at least in their Thinkstation line, you can opt to get one without an OS, and it's usually about $150 cheaper than the one with Windows on it. It's just in the configurator.
Why they don't provide the same exact GUI option and back end logic for all the computers I don't know. I expect it again comes back to people not knowing they need to buy Windows if they want it on their new PC because most vendors just bundle it.
I pretty much have always used RedHat or free derivatives of it (Scientific Linux 5 and 6 now)... What is so great about apt-get that yum / RPM doesn't do? Whenever I've tried Ubuntu, it really seemed like the difference between setup.exe and install.msi on Windows to me, i.e. you type something a *little* different, but the same stuff happens in the end...
I don't know about that. I've grown to almost hate cheap. Not that I love spending lots of money, but I do like Quality stuff. It's why I'll buy a Lenovo Thinkstation over Systemax even though the desktops are more expensive. Or a Bosch Universal Plus over a Sunbeam (or Kitchenaid). It's why I prefer a Craftsman Multitool over the Wal-Mart special.
That doesn't mean I don't shop at Wal-Mart. It's that I have two categories -> Stuff I want to last, and Stuff I want to use for a short period of time (Say 1 year or less). So for weekend shoes that I'm going to slog through mud or whatever, I'll buy the $11 Walmart ones. They'll be messed up before they wear out. Clothes, I like Haband Pants and Target Shirts... Cause I don't want to worry about them if I get them dirty at work, or dirty at home - they're cheap so I toss them if they get stained etc.
iPhones (Well, all smart phones) are inherently disposable (no replacing the battery, will obsolete in 2 years or so) so you want them cheap. That doesn't mean that there isn't a market for quality.
I've found, even in the US, the more the magazine cost, the better quality it is (surprise!). I find once you get out of the $10 / year range of Wired, they can be decent (though I've never read a European magazine so I can't compare with those). I'm thinking even as cheap as The Atlantic @ ~$25 / year is a noticeable step up from, say, Wired and Time...
I live in Upstate NY and pretty much all towns have a library. I just thought it was standard, like a gas station and town hall. I'm talking villages with populations in the hundreds...
I don't know what you are implying about quality in a library, these aren't huge establishments, but they can certainly interlibrary loan pretty much anything I've ever wanted, though since I got a job I just use Amazon...
I see a lot of people posting this on this thread, but one thing I've noticed is that:
My PS3, I bought a second controller and games.
For the Wii
I bought games, a wii fit board, nun-chuks, driving wheels, nostalgia games from wii store, DDR + DDR Pad, classic controller, rechargeable batteries + charging station and I'm looking at the drawing controller.
I don't know if Nintendo makes money from the extra controllers, but I've found far more extra stuff for the Wii is desirable than for the PS3. That said, I'm willing to believe that Sony is breaking even on me vs Nintendo in that I've bought more games for the PS3. I've yet to buy any online PS3 points or whatever they are, I'm especially leery of that after the PSN months long crash/hack...