The pool in my back yard is clean, maintained and covered. Nobody uses it as a toilet.
Maybe that's true, but I'd be willing to wager that many home pools would rank near the worst pee ridden pools. Kids playing in them all summer, and they're much smaller. Outdoor pools also have increased evaporation versus indoor pool (I'm not sure what evaporates fastest, but I'm willing to bet there is stuff in pee that sticks around longer than water), and the vast majority of personal pools are outside.
I suspect the ranking is something like: Home pool used only by you and your significant other, and both of you are disgusted by peeing in pools = cleanest. Private olympic pool used solely for swimming laps and/or diving = low levels of pee Private/club pool used for mix of training and recreation = medium level of pee Rarely used hotel pool... somewhere in here Public pool / waterpark = lots of pee Well used hotel pool = lots of pee Hotel jacuzi = golden shower Home pool used by kids = OMGPee
I'm sure they all vary case-by-case, but if no one is peeing in your pool, I doubt anyone is using it either.
Complaining about something is useless, futile, and annoying when you absolutely refuse to make any change to alleviate your problem.
I thought it was fairly obvious I'm not running Windows, and I disagree anyway. Having complaints ignored, or barely recognized, again and again and again... sure, then it's time to move on to someone else that does listen, but complaining can be very useful.
Even if that was much lower, 3 days is not enough. I shouldn't have to actively "snooze" it. I should be able to schedule a check for updates to only happen once a month, or any period of time I like, including never. Who's computer is it?
YAY. One title (Halo 5) that is currently going for $19 new on amazon, and a bunch of garbage. And you'd have to pay the $10/month for pass, and another $10 for xbox live so you can play online, just to get temporary access to it. Oh, but you can also play Soul Calibur II, if you want to reminisce on the old PlayStation 2 and Gamecube days. How the hell is this a title they are leading with?
- It was certainly more expensive (when the special charger is included) than just using an external battery
Not true. I was a bit late to the party, so maybe the off brand charger+battery I got was cheap because it wasn't just released yesterday, but it was cheaper than getting an external USB battery thing at that time.
Rebooting is the only valid issue I see. I wonder if one could plug the phone in during battery hot-swap? Regardless, this is a little annoying.
External batteries are significantly less efficient. Some of the most efficient USB chargers approach 80% efficiency**, but the average is around 70%. That's just the efficiency of the AC plug. I looked up several efficiency reports for external USB batteries, and they have similar efficiency's (mostly due to their internal batteries putting out between 3 - 4.3v, but needing to produce exactly 5v out of their USB plugs). They are also less efficient the more amps they're pulling (ie. the faster you charge, the worse it is). The charging circuit in the phone also incurs losses that are roughly the same.
Even if you ignore most of that, you still have to carry around a bigger battery to get the same amount of power to your phone that a removable battery would provide, and an extra cable too.
Neither of those methods are my favorite though. My favorite is (when possible) using a phone that can take an alternate back plate and a much larger battery. This lets the user pick between a thin phone with normal battery life, or a slightly thicker phone with days worth of battery life. There's no extra cord needed, no external battery charger needed, no need to lug around a battery or usb battery. If that's not enough, you can still get a extra battery or use a usb battery. I don't believe there is ANY downside to offering that (the minimal space savings really don't matter at this point, and I'd even argue they are too thin; there were already water resistant phones with removable batteries, so that argument would be useless too).
People defending the lack of user replaceable batteries suck. Allowing that feature won't take away anything from you, but will provide a feature lots and lots of other people want. As such, any time you do that, you're just being a dick for dicks sake.
Thank you! The z620 doesn't look too bad at all. It's going for a bit more money than I expected for a refurb, but it's not very old either (released 3 years ago?). I love the prospect of getting 96gb RAM on a desktop, but I do wish it had more than 3 internal 3.5" drive bays.
I've been considering something like those for my next desktop. I don't care about graphics performance or the latest PCIe SSd's, but I'm a bit hesitant as I'm unsure of the power usage, heat, and noise.
Any chance you can comment on those (especially the noise)? I ask because every (rack mount) server I've ever dealt with was noisy, and I haven't touched any non-rack-mount xeons.
Are people really less knowledgeable about computers now than they were in the 80's?
If you mean on average, I think the answer is probably yes.
If you mean on average out of the total number of computer users or programmers, then yes (they are less knowledgable), because that pool has increased by lots and lots.
If you mean on average out of all people, then no. I suspect there are far more people that know what ECC does now than did in the 80's, and the total population count hasn't gone up as much as that number, so there are more people on average, and in total, that know about the inner workings of computers.
I think there are just far more people touching stuff they know very little about, and we assume they must know *something*, but they don't. Compare it to early cars, where every operator had to know a bunch of stuff about it just to keep it running, but it was simple enough that the average operator could learn that stuff. Now, most cars make maintenance very difficult, and many drivers would be hard pressed to do simple things like changing the oil, flushing the radiator, replacing a brake light, replacing the battery, changing a tire, jump starting, etc. That said, there are WAAAAY more people that know WAAY more about cars now than there were in 1930. It's just shifted more to professional/hobbyist knowledge than something that every operator is required to know.
More people know how to operate them now, but then, operating them has become orders of magnitude simpler.
Another obvious countermeasure is to use ECC memory...
The problem is not that there is nothing that manufacturers can do, but that consumers aren't willing to pay the extra cost. Would you be willing to pay an extra $100 for your phone...
ECC memory is not that much more expensive. It's been a few years since I built the desktop I'm using, but I included 16gb of ECC memory (4x 4gb DDR3 ECC KVR1333D3E9SK2/8G). At the time, I think it was around $60. The equivalent normal memory was only a couple bucks cheaper. If Samsung started using ECC memory in all their phones, the cost would be nearly the same with the volume they would be ordering/making.
FWIW, I did try to do the same comparison just now on newegg and, while it's a bit of a mess, the situation is nearly the same today: $34 : Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 Server Memory Model KVR13LE9S8/4 $52 : Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Memory Model KVR16N11S8K2/8
More expensive? Yes. $100 more? Nowhere near that much.
There's no driver, and the hardware is identical. Software changes will only do so much, and I doubt it'll be interesting in the least.
If they allowed any vehicle, maybe with some parameters to make sure that wasn't abused (must have between 3-6 wheels, must weight between X and Y, may not use any fuel but electric batteries, etc), it'd allow for some really interesting variations. Cars *can* crash, so maybe one of them is designed to crash others and survive? Maybe some team up to achieve more complex goals (very effective boxing out of others)?
Only allowing the software to be changed will result in something just as boring as computer games that rely on users programming their bots. It may be slightly interesting at first, but the best ones will quickly rise to the top, and no new ones will be capable of competing without introducing some more variables (allowing hardware mods, or interactive programming/driving). The Formula E series was already very boring; removing the driver isn't going to help.
It's not just USPS that's gone downhill, either. California Overnight used to be super fantabulous. Now Amazon is using them and it's nothing but complaints....
At one of my previous apartments, my local UPS guy was awful (I'd be home, and see him walk over with a filled out slip saying I wasn't there, stick it on my door, and leave... without ever touching my package or knocking on my door). However, my local USPS guy was awesome.
At my current apartment, the situation is reversed. My USPS mail person routinely delivers all mail for the building to one of the 3 mail boxes, shoving it all in there. It often includes mail for neighbors, and even some completely random addresses that look nothing like this address. I'm frequently hand delivering boxes, and I rarely get my own deliveries, even though work from home and am always here when they walk by with my package, not even leaving a notice. I get notified by the seller that it was delivered, check USPS site, and find out it's now held at the post office. Requesting re-delivery has never worked. If I wanted to walk a mile and to stand in line and pick up my stuff, I would have gone to a store.
Between those, I had a HUGE issue with FedEx. That particular person just couldn't figure out and remember where my door was (it was a ground floor unit that opened to the sidewalk, while the rest of the building had a separate entrance). I was never able to get a successful delivery from them.
IE. while there may be some general issues or benefits to the various delivery outfits (UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc), the last mile has held most of my complaints, and the carrier doesn't seem to matter.
Finally getting to my point... back in the day, I used to be able to specify which delivery method and service I wanted to use when I ordered a package online. Every vendor allowed that choice. That allowed me to vote with my wallet, so to speak, and get the one that was working. I can't find that option anywhere now. IMO, that should almost be a crime. Even when I can specify UPS, UPS will often use USPS for the local delivery to save a few cents.
Bring back carrier choice when ordering items, and I think most of these issues would go away (that said, USPS would probably be 1/10th the size it is now).
Thank you for the clarification. You are absolutely correct, as was the original AC poster, who I misunderstood.
For anyone affected by the cogent block, they're unlikely to be running tor already, so they'll need to heed those warnings if/when they do start using it. IE: * access TPB and other web sites over Tor (this will anonymize your access to that site, and bypass the IP filters) * do NOT run bittorrent over Tor (it will still work fine, and using it on tor is problematic)
This is the most clear explanation I've seen! It should probably be in the summary, though that'd probably mean 90% of us wouldn't have read the thread. Mods should mod you way up!
Using bittorrent over the tor network isn't a great idea. * It's very slow over tor. The tor network can't handle that sort of load. https://blog.torproject.org/bl... * bittorrent leaks identifying information (your IP address is included in the bittorrent headers, and most clients pick a random port to listen on, which is can be found on the tracker and every peer; combined, they can clearly ID you) * Due to aforementioned point, if you're using bittorrent over tor, and you're ALSO browsing the web over tor at the same time, an attacking exit relay can break the anonymity of some of your web traffic. https://blog.torproject.org/bl...
What is disappointing is this Trump-ish trend of ending a less-than-140-char phrase with one or two perfunctory words, as if something as nondescript as "sad" could possibly be an appropriate response to anything. It's tempting to do it, even in jest, because it's so damn easy, but it's no longer funny.
I have over 99 tabs open in chrome on my phone, and they've been open for ages. I know it's stupid and careless, but I can still open new tabs and visit new sites and I have no problem doing so. Whatever it's doing to manage memory is working.
On the desktop, I don't know how the codebases differ, or by how much. I know chrome on my desktop gobbles up every bit of memory I have (granted, I have an obscene number of windows+tabs open), so I'm going to assume it's not being as aggressive in caching them out to disk. On the phone, I think it only has to keep one tab in memory at a time, cause that's all you can see.
In any case, 1gb of memory is more than enough to browse normally on popular sites. Maybe the desktop browser could use some tweaks to cache out pages more aggressively, but it's not only possible, but it's already being done on mobile.
While I mostly agree, there are plenty of tables and phones that do fine with 1gb (or even 512mb) ram. The current line of kindle tablets, including their 10" $230 one, all come with 1gb ram, and they manage to render web pages just fine. The desktop browsers aren't doing much more than phone ones. I suspect they just assume there will be more memory and optimize for that situation (or, more likely, they're forced to optimize the mobile browsers to work with less ram).
All those figures you noted, while they do point to sloppy and bloated web sites, they're all less than 10mb elements (largest you noted was a fictional 4k pixel banner image, decoding to 5.3MB). Sure, they all add up, but not to 1024MB. That should really be plenty.
As a side note, I was surprised the 11" screen had a 1080p option. Most laptops and tablets lack that option. That's pretty great for such a cheap device.
Cadence meters are expensive as hell compared to speedometers.
I guess that is a relative judgement, they seem reasonably priced to me. A couple examples: * $40 Wahoo Cadence Sensor, which talks to your phone or other bike computers - https://www.amazon.com/Wahoo-C... * $32 Cateye Strada speed + cadence, a traditional wired bike computer - https://www.amazon.com/CatEye-...
It's about the same price (or more) for similar quality items (ex. from same company even). I'm pretty sure the cadence ones are more expensive only because they include both speed and cadence (there are very few dedicated cadence meters - in most cases, you either get speed, or speed+cadence). But it's not *that* much more expensive.
I'd argue that is one of the only valuable items it adds. Reach and stay in a target heartrate and you can be fairly confident you're having an effective workout. The rest is just bells and whistles. In a similar way, the more important bike computer to have for training is the cadence (as opposed to speedometer). Just push as much as you can at a target cadence and adjust gears as needed to get up hills/etc and you'll keep improving.
The only problem with both of those techniques is that it's really boring to try to keep one number at the same value (heartrate or cadence), so we're back to all the fitness games.
Slashdot Mirror
The pool in my back yard is clean, maintained and covered. Nobody uses it as a toilet.
Maybe that's true, but I'd be willing to wager that many home pools would rank near the worst pee ridden pools. Kids playing in them all summer, and they're much smaller. Outdoor pools also have increased evaporation versus indoor pool (I'm not sure what evaporates fastest, but I'm willing to bet there is stuff in pee that sticks around longer than water), and the vast majority of personal pools are outside.
I suspect the ranking is something like: ... somewhere in here
Home pool used only by you and your significant other, and both of you are disgusted by peeing in pools = cleanest.
Private olympic pool used solely for swimming laps and/or diving = low levels of pee
Private/club pool used for mix of training and recreation = medium level of pee
Rarely used hotel pool
Public pool / waterpark = lots of pee
Well used hotel pool = lots of pee
Hotel jacuzi = golden shower
Home pool used by kids = OMGPee
I'm sure they all vary case-by-case, but if no one is peeing in your pool, I doubt anyone is using it either.
Complaining about something is useless, futile, and annoying when you absolutely refuse to make any change to alleviate your problem.
I thought it was fairly obvious I'm not running Windows, and I disagree anyway. Having complaints ignored, or barely recognized, again and again and again... sure, then it's time to move on to someone else that does listen, but complaining can be very useful.
Exactly...
$ uptime
16:51:37 up 107 days, 5:01, 50 users, load average: 1.06, 1.25, 1.29
Even if that was much lower, 3 days is not enough. I shouldn't have to actively "snooze" it. I should be able to schedule a check for updates to only happen once a month, or any period of time I like, including never. Who's computer is it?
Nah. They just released the news 1 month early. APRIL FOOLS!
YAY. One title (Halo 5) that is currently going for $19 new on amazon, and a bunch of garbage. And you'd have to pay the $10/month for pass, and another $10 for xbox live so you can play online, just to get temporary access to it.
Oh, but you can also play Soul Calibur II, if you want to reminisce on the old PlayStation 2 and Gamecube days. How the hell is this a title they are leading with?
- It was certainly more expensive (when the special charger is included) than just using an external battery
Not true. I was a bit late to the party, so maybe the off brand charger+battery I got was cheap because it wasn't just released yesterday, but it was cheaper than getting an external USB battery thing at that time.
Rebooting is the only valid issue I see. I wonder if one could plug the phone in during battery hot-swap? Regardless, this is a little annoying.
External batteries are significantly less efficient. Some of the most efficient USB chargers approach 80% efficiency**, but the average is around 70%. That's just the efficiency of the AC plug. I looked up several efficiency reports for external USB batteries, and they have similar efficiency's (mostly due to their internal batteries putting out between 3 - 4.3v, but needing to produce exactly 5v out of their USB plugs). They are also less efficient the more amps they're pulling (ie. the faster you charge, the worse it is). The charging circuit in the phone also incurs losses that are roughly the same.
Even if you ignore most of that, you still have to carry around a bigger battery to get the same amount of power to your phone that a removable battery would provide, and an extra cable too.
Neither of those methods are my favorite though. My favorite is (when possible) using a phone that can take an alternate back plate and a much larger battery. This lets the user pick between a thin phone with normal battery life, or a slightly thicker phone with days worth of battery life. There's no extra cord needed, no external battery charger needed, no need to lug around a battery or usb battery. If that's not enough, you can still get a extra battery or use a usb battery. I don't believe there is ANY downside to offering that (the minimal space savings really don't matter at this point, and I'd even argue they are too thin; there were already water resistant phones with removable batteries, so that argument would be useless too).
People defending the lack of user replaceable batteries suck. Allowing that feature won't take away anything from you, but will provide a feature lots and lots of other people want. As such, any time you do that, you're just being a dick for dicks sake.
** http://www.righto.com/2012/10/...
Thank you! The z620 doesn't look too bad at all. It's going for a bit more money than I expected for a refurb, but it's not very old either (released 3 years ago?). I love the prospect of getting 96gb RAM on a desktop, but I do wish it had more than 3 internal 3.5" drive bays.
I've been considering something like those for my next desktop. I don't care about graphics performance or the latest PCIe SSd's, but I'm a bit hesitant as I'm unsure of the power usage, heat, and noise.
Any chance you can comment on those (especially the noise)? I ask because every (rack mount) server I've ever dealt with was noisy, and I haven't touched any non-rack-mount xeons.
Thank you! This part of your post justifies their existence IMO:
they are good for industrial applications because ... can't be stolen. In the past people stole SIMs out of our industrial hardware for use in phones.
It also uses cpu, several tabs all constantly polling the mouse.
Mouse polling doesn't work like that. Only your active window will be polling. That still sucks, but it's not every tab.
Are people really less knowledgeable about computers now than they were in the 80's?
If you mean on average, I think the answer is probably yes.
If you mean on average out of the total number of computer users or programmers, then yes (they are less knowledgable), because that pool has increased by lots and lots.
If you mean on average out of all people, then no. I suspect there are far more people that know what ECC does now than did in the 80's, and the total population count hasn't gone up as much as that number, so there are more people on average, and in total, that know about the inner workings of computers.
I think there are just far more people touching stuff they know very little about, and we assume they must know *something*, but they don't.
Compare it to early cars, where every operator had to know a bunch of stuff about it just to keep it running, but it was simple enough that the average operator could learn that stuff. Now, most cars make maintenance very difficult, and many drivers would be hard pressed to do simple things like changing the oil, flushing the radiator, replacing a brake light, replacing the battery, changing a tire, jump starting, etc. That said, there are WAAAAY more people that know WAAY more about cars now than there were in 1930. It's just shifted more to professional/hobbyist knowledge than something that every operator is required to know.
More people know how to operate them now, but then, operating them has become orders of magnitude simpler.
Another obvious countermeasure is to use ECC memory ...
The problem is not that there is nothing that manufacturers can do, but that consumers aren't willing to pay the extra cost. Would you be willing to pay an extra $100 for your phone ...
ECC memory is not that much more expensive. It's been a few years since I built the desktop I'm using, but I included 16gb of ECC memory (4x 4gb DDR3 ECC KVR1333D3E9SK2/8G). At the time, I think it was around $60. The equivalent normal memory was only a couple bucks cheaper. If Samsung started using ECC memory in all their phones, the cost would be nearly the same with the volume they would be ordering/making.
FWIW, I did try to do the same comparison just now on newegg and, while it's a bit of a mess, the situation is nearly the same today:
$34 : Kingston 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Unbuffered DDR3 1333 Server Memory Model KVR13LE9S8/4
$52 : Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Memory Model KVR16N11S8K2/8
More expensive? Yes.
$100 more? Nowhere near that much.
I disagree completely.
There's no driver, and the hardware is identical. Software changes will only do so much, and I doubt it'll be interesting in the least.
If they allowed any vehicle, maybe with some parameters to make sure that wasn't abused (must have between 3-6 wheels, must weight between X and Y, may not use any fuel but electric batteries, etc), it'd allow for some really interesting variations. Cars *can* crash, so maybe one of them is designed to crash others and survive? Maybe some team up to achieve more complex goals (very effective boxing out of others)?
Only allowing the software to be changed will result in something just as boring as computer games that rely on users programming their bots. It may be slightly interesting at first, but the best ones will quickly rise to the top, and no new ones will be capable of competing without introducing some more variables (allowing hardware mods, or interactive programming/driving). The Formula E series was already very boring; removing the driver isn't going to help.
It's not just USPS that's gone downhill, either. California Overnight used to be super fantabulous. Now Amazon is using them and it's nothing but complaints. ...
At one of my previous apartments, my local UPS guy was awful (I'd be home, and see him walk over with a filled out slip saying I wasn't there, stick it on my door, and leave... without ever touching my package or knocking on my door). However, my local USPS guy was awesome.
At my current apartment, the situation is reversed. My USPS mail person routinely delivers all mail for the building to one of the 3 mail boxes, shoving it all in there. It often includes mail for neighbors, and even some completely random addresses that look nothing like this address. I'm frequently hand delivering boxes, and I rarely get my own deliveries, even though work from home and am always here when they walk by with my package, not even leaving a notice. I get notified by the seller that it was delivered, check USPS site, and find out it's now held at the post office. Requesting re-delivery has never worked. If I wanted to walk a mile and to stand in line and pick up my stuff, I would have gone to a store.
Between those, I had a HUGE issue with FedEx. That particular person just couldn't figure out and remember where my door was (it was a ground floor unit that opened to the sidewalk, while the rest of the building had a separate entrance). I was never able to get a successful delivery from them.
IE. while there may be some general issues or benefits to the various delivery outfits (UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc), the last mile has held most of my complaints, and the carrier doesn't seem to matter.
Finally getting to my point... back in the day, I used to be able to specify which delivery method and service I wanted to use when I ordered a package online. Every vendor allowed that choice. That allowed me to vote with my wallet, so to speak, and get the one that was working. I can't find that option anywhere now. IMO, that should almost be a crime. Even when I can specify UPS, UPS will often use USPS for the local delivery to save a few cents.
Bring back carrier choice when ordering items, and I think most of these issues would go away (that said, USPS would probably be 1/10th the size it is now).
...but as far as using one of these in your phone, don't hold your breath.
As opposed to using a phone in one of these, DO hold your breath.
Thank you for the clarification. You are absolutely correct, as was the original AC poster, who I misunderstood.
For anyone affected by the cogent block, they're unlikely to be running tor already, so they'll need to heed those warnings if/when they do start using it. IE:
* access TPB and other web sites over Tor (this will anonymize your access to that site, and bypass the IP filters)
* do NOT run bittorrent over Tor (it will still work fine, and using it on tor is problematic)
This is the most clear explanation I've seen! It should probably be in the summary, though that'd probably mean 90% of us wouldn't have read the thread.
Mods should mod you way up!
Doesn't the pirate bay have a tor node?
Using bittorrent over the tor network isn't a great idea.
* It's very slow over tor. The tor network can't handle that sort of load. https://blog.torproject.org/bl...
* bittorrent leaks identifying information (your IP address is included in the bittorrent headers, and most clients pick a random port to listen on, which is can be found on the tracker and every peer; combined, they can clearly ID you)
* Due to aforementioned point, if you're using bittorrent over tor, and you're ALSO browsing the web over tor at the same time, an attacking exit relay can break the anonymity of some of your web traffic. https://blog.torproject.org/bl...
What is disappointing is this Trump-ish trend of ending a less-than-140-char phrase with one or two perfunctory words, as if something as nondescript as "sad" could possibly be an appropriate response to anything. It's tempting to do it, even in jest, because it's so damn easy, but it's no longer funny.
I suspect you're referring to Larry Wall's three great virtues of a programmer: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris
http://threevirtues.com/
I have over 99 tabs open in chrome on my phone, and they've been open for ages. I know it's stupid and careless, but I can still open new tabs and visit new sites and I have no problem doing so. Whatever it's doing to manage memory is working.
On the desktop, I don't know how the codebases differ, or by how much. I know chrome on my desktop gobbles up every bit of memory I have (granted, I have an obscene number of windows+tabs open), so I'm going to assume it's not being as aggressive in caching them out to disk. On the phone, I think it only has to keep one tab in memory at a time, cause that's all you can see.
In any case, 1gb of memory is more than enough to browse normally on popular sites. Maybe the desktop browser could use some tweaks to cache out pages more aggressively, but it's not only possible, but it's already being done on mobile.
While I mostly agree, there are plenty of tables and phones that do fine with 1gb (or even 512mb) ram. The current line of kindle tablets, including their 10" $230 one, all come with 1gb ram, and they manage to render web pages just fine. The desktop browsers aren't doing much more than phone ones. I suspect they just assume there will be more memory and optimize for that situation (or, more likely, they're forced to optimize the mobile browsers to work with less ram).
All those figures you noted, while they do point to sloppy and bloated web sites, they're all less than 10mb elements (largest you noted was a fictional 4k pixel banner image, decoding to 5.3MB). Sure, they all add up, but not to 1024MB. That should really be plenty.
As a side note, I was surprised the 11" screen had a 1080p option. Most laptops and tablets lack that option. That's pretty great for such a cheap device.
Don't be an ass.
They were referring to file count, not lines of code.
The repository contains 86TBa of data, including approximately two billion lines of code in nine million unique source files.
Cadence meters are expensive as hell compared to speedometers.
I guess that is a relative judgement, they seem reasonably priced to me. A couple examples:
* $40 Wahoo Cadence Sensor, which talks to your phone or other bike computers - https://www.amazon.com/Wahoo-C...
* $32 Cateye Strada speed + cadence, a traditional wired bike computer - https://www.amazon.com/CatEye-...
It's about the same price (or more) for similar quality items (ex. from same company even).
I'm pretty sure the cadence ones are more expensive only because they include both speed and cadence (there are very few dedicated cadence meters - in most cases, you either get speed, or speed+cadence). But it's not *that* much more expensive.
As to things like heart rate, does that matter?
I'd argue that is one of the only valuable items it adds. Reach and stay in a target heartrate and you can be fairly confident you're having an effective workout. The rest is just bells and whistles.
In a similar way, the more important bike computer to have for training is the cadence (as opposed to speedometer). Just push as much as you can at a target cadence and adjust gears as needed to get up hills/etc and you'll keep improving.
The only problem with both of those techniques is that it's really boring to try to keep one number at the same value (heartrate or cadence), so we're back to all the fitness games.