Yep, this has always been my opinion of Apple prices - good value _if_ you want exactly what they're making, and I pretty much want a Mac Mini - just disappointed that nothing in the PC market is competing in any serious way.
I liked the eeeBox line, but Atom is fairly seriously underpowered, even just for browsing and office stuff. What I really want is something 20W so I can leave it on all the time, decent file server, small, reliable.... not too concerned with which OS, if there was a Linux based Mac Mini for a 15% discount, I'd probably go that way.
I don't know why the US can't accept "on license" and "off license" variants of things like restaurants, medicine, etc.? As a customer of an off-license product, you're basically saying: The regulatory agency hasn't approved this and I don't care. If M.D.s want to put their malpractice insurance to the test and use off license apps, let them.
I end up doing the opposite, running Linux in the VM, mostly because my work PC was supplied by IT as a windows box (with windows drivers for all its hardware). It can boot to Kubuntu (and _most_ hardware works acceptably), but 98% of the time, I access Linux through a Sun VM.
Thanks, and I've looked at these, can't articulate it at the moment but my conclusion was that they were a bit lacking, especially at their price point.
Linux, in all its flavors, is good for what it does. It will not run about 1/3 of the apps I need for work, and that's the main deal breaker for me - I'm not going to reboot 3x a day just to use Linux part-time on a machine, and I'm not going to have two PCs on my desk and go through the syncing mess that creates.
In the case of the XP machines at home, I have a couple that I bought for $200-$300 as appliances, and I value my time enough to not bother with the hours and hours that would be required to convert them over to Linux (no, 5 minute snippets of time "wasted" posting to/. cannot be collected and redeemed for 3 hour Linux setup blocks, life just isn't like that). Similar story for the old MBP, it's a sunk cost, limited utility, not going to waste a bunch of time on it, though it's most recent trick is to stop copying files to the XP server mid-stream... been doing this reliably for 5+ years and now it won't anymore - significantly impacts it's remaining utility.
I'm about to pull the trigger on a Mac Mini - there's not currently anything like it on the Windows market (3rd gen i5, small form factor) that isn't a cobbled together in a garage spec sheet that will be built on request - if I'm wrong, please post links here.
I'd rather have a mini ITX i5 machine with upgrade-able this and that, but I'm not willing to pay un-subsidized Windows OS prices to get it, and the major players don't seem too interested in providing it.
Anecdote time, my 2006 MBP didn't have a "batteries known to blow up spontaneously" serial number, so I didn't get a free replacement battery (though, multiple friends of mine did get one.) In 2009 the battery did stop working, so I bought a replacement and that replacement - sold by Apple Inc. with essentially no warranty - did blow up like a balloon after less than a year. If it was not removable, it would have destroyed the laptop.
I've got a 2006 MacBook Pro - for reasons all my own, I've never upgraded the OS, but neither have I downgraded it... bit by bit, piece by piece, the things I still do with that computer are stopping working, typically with each software patch pushed via the web.
Similar story for the XP machines we have, though one of those finally fried a power supply and put itself out of our misery.
This works out great for Firefighters, they're "on call" for 48 straight or something crazy like that - a lot of "work" for them consists of sleeping, cooking, washing the truck, etc.
On the other hand... if you apply for a job at my company (mentally taxing work) and tell me you want to work MWF 13 14 13 hours, I'll offer you 60% of the pay I'm offering a 5 day a week employee - that schedule might fly for a security guard, but unless you're a very rare individual, you're not going to be equally productive on that schedule - you're not available for consult 2 days a week, your coworkers aren't available to you over 60% of the time, and odds are that your concentration level, attention to detail, etc. is at a very low baseline level if it doesn't suffer after a day that starts at 7AM and ends at 11PM (you don't expect to be paid for lunch and dinner time, do you?)
Depends on how far you're going.... Atlanta to Jacksonville, the 5 hour drive is quicker, Atlanta to Miami (10ish hours drive) the plane starts to win.
In the "good old days," especially with 55mph speed limits (effective 70mph average) and no 2 hour pre-flight check-in requirements, commercial air travel would win over most 3-4 hour drives. Regulation also meant that the smaller regional airports still had decent service schedules, even if the planes couldn't be packed like sardine cans.
I'd be happy to pay twice the coach fare if I could have the legroom from the seat in front on mine (ie half the rows at twice the price).
That option is available for you today, buy two seats and reserve the one in front.
Actually, if you're a seat reservation ninja, you know which rows don't recline (and thus, you want to be behind), and also other rows like first behind the bulkhead and on the exit doors are usually deeper than normal coach. These don't cost extra money, but you do have to reserve your seats early.
The european national carriers resisted deregulation for a couple of decades... they're basically going to tatters now without massive governmental support.
I'm not saying government support of air travel is a bad thing, God knows we support road travel with our taxes, and not just gasoline tax. But, just try to sell a Billion dollar airline industry bailout at election time.
Energy isn't free, but it costs some fraction of 1% compared to the pre-oil days.
Re:You can still fly this way if you want to
on
When Flying Was a Thrill
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It's dropping from middle class to working poor. You've got to be really dirt poor to benefit (economically) from taking a bus across country compared to flying.
4 days lost productivity is more than airfare, even at minimum wage.
Not entirely, yes, the service is nice, the executive lounges are much nicer than the general airport, but you still have to get through the crowds of unhappy people to get to business or first class.
Back in the day, the whole airport was a happy place.
I think what most people miss about productivity is that there is a lot of variety in the world, some people are more productive when you leave them the hell alone, others need social interaction 2, 5, 37 times a day depending on the individual.
The 4.5 peak hour number sounds correct as an average to me, but it depends on what you are doing... picking up trash from the side of the road, call center desk jockey, cashier, etc., probably doesn't have much of a peak and is more of a physical endurance thing. The "new economy" is moving more toward jobs that require "advanced" mental activity, and for some people 4.5 hours a day might be a stretch - others might grind for 6 and actually accomplish more than they do in 4.5.
Depends on what you are doing... grinding out code for 16 hours straight, that might be productive once or twice a week, try doing it for 28 days straight and I don't think anybody is getting anything useful out of that.
Some "jobs" involve calling people up, schmoozing, doing lunch or dinner, etc. Those could be done 16 hours a day indefinitely, if you don't have a life outside work - and, if you don't have a life outside work, then why should the company pay you anything beyond your work related expenses? That's starting to sound like 18th century manual farm labor in the U.S. South...
If anybody has ever done endurance cycling (think: Tour de France, for normal human beings), there's a physical capacity of your body that runs longer than the 24 hour period. You might do a 100 mile ride in a day, but you won't likely do 5 100 mile rides in 5 consecutive days. I think that most technical/design brain work follows a similar capacity, better to do 5 consecutive 30 mile days than try for 2 100s in a row and crash.
East Texas is hot and humid, central is hot and arid, West is hot and desert. A central Texas summer weather forecast is typically "very hot with chance of scattered wild fires". I personally like Austin, but know many who have moved here and are disappointed. Know before you go.
Depends on your definition of decent... I consider shoveling snow and Phoenix's multi year droughts to be indecent. West Texas doesn't really count, if you go per-capita it's a very small part of the state.
I lived in Miami from age 15-35, by comparison, pretty much everywhere East of Vegas and South of the Mason Dixon line is filled with bible thumping retards who refuse to fund public education - Miami schools weren't great, though the neighborhood we lived in did pass a special taxing district to help fund the neighborhood schools.
Clear Lake Texas, and other isolated pockets, are the exception - taxes are higher in those locales, but it is actually possible to run a decent public school system when you're willing to spend 5-10% more than you are absolutely required to by Federal Law.
Based on my colleagues (in Houston) with M.S. Engineering degrees and 10 years work experience, there was basically instant employment in the $60-$110K salary range. People who were laid off from the company with zero warning were finding better paying jobs closer to their homes within less than 3 weeks.
Cost of living: I'm going based on home ownership - $160K bought us 2800sf on a 1 acre lot in very close-in suburban Clear Lake... taxes are high ($5K on that house), but manageable. We were leaving Miami where we sold 1800sf on 1/4 acre in a similar neighborhood (with similar $5K/yr taxes) for $350K (2003). I'm sure there are cheaper places, but not so many with the good job market.
So, if you're an average American, read the average stats and ignore/.
If you're a highly educated tech worker, maybe what we pull out of various body orifices around here is actually of more value than the standard government statistics that any idiot with too much time on their hands can Google up on demand.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm... and your presence on /. at 1:30 on a Wednesday?
I got a Pi with that in mind... but it feels really sluggish - streams 1080p like a champ, but lots and lots of lag when browsing file directories.
Yep, this has always been my opinion of Apple prices - good value _if_ you want exactly what they're making, and I pretty much want a Mac Mini - just disappointed that nothing in the PC market is competing in any serious way.
I liked the eeeBox line, but Atom is fairly seriously underpowered, even just for browsing and office stuff. What I really want is something 20W so I can leave it on all the time, decent file server, small, reliable.... not too concerned with which OS, if there was a Linux based Mac Mini for a 15% discount, I'd probably go that way.
I don't know why the US can't accept "on license" and "off license" variants of things like restaurants, medicine, etc.? As a customer of an off-license product, you're basically saying: The regulatory agency hasn't approved this and I don't care. If M.D.s want to put their malpractice insurance to the test and use off license apps, let them.
My heart is kind of set on Ivy Bridge (yes, even the integrated graphics - for power saving reasons).
I end up doing the opposite, running Linux in the VM, mostly because my work PC was supplied by IT as a windows box (with windows drivers for all its hardware). It can boot to Kubuntu (and _most_ hardware works acceptably), but 98% of the time, I access Linux through a Sun VM.
ASUS EEEBox B202 and B2004
Thanks, and I've looked at these, can't articulate it at the moment but my conclusion was that they were a bit lacking, especially at their price point.
Linux, in all its flavors, is good for what it does. It will not run about 1/3 of the apps I need for work, and that's the main deal breaker for me - I'm not going to reboot 3x a day just to use Linux part-time on a machine, and I'm not going to have two PCs on my desk and go through the syncing mess that creates.
In the case of the XP machines at home, I have a couple that I bought for $200-$300 as appliances, and I value my time enough to not bother with the hours and hours that would be required to convert them over to Linux (no, 5 minute snippets of time "wasted" posting to /. cannot be collected and redeemed for 3 hour Linux setup blocks, life just isn't like that). Similar story for the old MBP, it's a sunk cost, limited utility, not going to waste a bunch of time on it, though it's most recent trick is to stop copying files to the XP server mid-stream... been doing this reliably for 5+ years and now it won't anymore - significantly impacts it's remaining utility.
You're telling me that $99 is a fair price for Windows?
I'm about to pull the trigger on a Mac Mini - there's not currently anything like it on the Windows market (3rd gen i5, small form factor) that isn't a cobbled together in a garage spec sheet that will be built on request - if I'm wrong, please post links here.
I'd rather have a mini ITX i5 machine with upgrade-able this and that, but I'm not willing to pay un-subsidized Windows OS prices to get it, and the major players don't seem too interested in providing it.
Anecdote time, my 2006 MBP didn't have a "batteries known to blow up spontaneously" serial number, so I didn't get a free replacement battery (though, multiple friends of mine did get one.) In 2009 the battery did stop working, so I bought a replacement and that replacement - sold by Apple Inc. with essentially no warranty - did blow up like a balloon after less than a year. If it was not removable, it would have destroyed the laptop.
I've got a 2006 MacBook Pro - for reasons all my own, I've never upgraded the OS, but neither have I downgraded it... bit by bit, piece by piece, the things I still do with that computer are stopping working, typically with each software patch pushed via the web.
Similar story for the XP machines we have, though one of those finally fried a power supply and put itself out of our misery.
This works out great for Firefighters, they're "on call" for 48 straight or something crazy like that - a lot of "work" for them consists of sleeping, cooking, washing the truck, etc.
On the other hand... if you apply for a job at my company (mentally taxing work) and tell me you want to work MWF 13 14 13 hours, I'll offer you 60% of the pay I'm offering a 5 day a week employee - that schedule might fly for a security guard, but unless you're a very rare individual, you're not going to be equally productive on that schedule - you're not available for consult 2 days a week, your coworkers aren't available to you over 60% of the time, and odds are that your concentration level, attention to detail, etc. is at a very low baseline level if it doesn't suffer after a day that starts at 7AM and ends at 11PM (you don't expect to be paid for lunch and dinner time, do you?)
Depends on how far you're going.... Atlanta to Jacksonville, the 5 hour drive is quicker, Atlanta to Miami (10ish hours drive) the plane starts to win.
In the "good old days," especially with 55mph speed limits (effective 70mph average) and no 2 hour pre-flight check-in requirements, commercial air travel would win over most 3-4 hour drives. Regulation also meant that the smaller regional airports still had decent service schedules, even if the planes couldn't be packed like sardine cans.
I'd be happy to pay twice the coach fare if I could have the legroom from the seat in front on mine (ie half the rows at twice the price).
That option is available for you today, buy two seats and reserve the one in front.
Actually, if you're a seat reservation ninja, you know which rows don't recline (and thus, you want to be behind), and also other rows like first behind the bulkhead and on the exit doors are usually deeper than normal coach. These don't cost extra money, but you do have to reserve your seats early.
The european national carriers resisted deregulation for a couple of decades... they're basically going to tatters now without massive governmental support.
I'm not saying government support of air travel is a bad thing, God knows we support road travel with our taxes, and not just gasoline tax. But, just try to sell a Billion dollar airline industry bailout at election time.
Energy isn't free, but it costs some fraction of 1% compared to the pre-oil days.
It's dropping from middle class to working poor. You've got to be really dirt poor to benefit (economically) from taking a bus across country compared to flying.
4 days lost productivity is more than airfare, even at minimum wage.
Just buy a ticket for business class.
Not entirely, yes, the service is nice, the executive lounges are much nicer than the general airport, but you still have to get through the crowds of unhappy people to get to business or first class.
Back in the day, the whole airport was a happy place.
I think what most people miss about productivity is that there is a lot of variety in the world, some people are more productive when you leave them the hell alone, others need social interaction 2, 5, 37 times a day depending on the individual.
The 4.5 peak hour number sounds correct as an average to me, but it depends on what you are doing... picking up trash from the side of the road, call center desk jockey, cashier, etc., probably doesn't have much of a peak and is more of a physical endurance thing. The "new economy" is moving more toward jobs that require "advanced" mental activity, and for some people 4.5 hours a day might be a stretch - others might grind for 6 and actually accomplish more than they do in 4.5.
Depends on what you are doing... grinding out code for 16 hours straight, that might be productive once or twice a week, try doing it for 28 days straight and I don't think anybody is getting anything useful out of that.
Some "jobs" involve calling people up, schmoozing, doing lunch or dinner, etc. Those could be done 16 hours a day indefinitely, if you don't have a life outside work - and, if you don't have a life outside work, then why should the company pay you anything beyond your work related expenses? That's starting to sound like 18th century manual farm labor in the U.S. South...
If anybody has ever done endurance cycling (think: Tour de France, for normal human beings), there's a physical capacity of your body that runs longer than the 24 hour period. You might do a 100 mile ride in a day, but you won't likely do 5 100 mile rides in 5 consecutive days. I think that most technical/design brain work follows a similar capacity, better to do 5 consecutive 30 mile days than try for 2 100s in a row and crash.
Texas has... decent climate
East Texas is hot and humid, central is hot and arid, West is hot and desert. A central Texas summer weather forecast is typically "very hot with chance of scattered wild fires". I personally like Austin, but know many who have moved here and are disappointed. Know before you go.
Depends on your definition of decent... I consider shoveling snow and Phoenix's multi year droughts to be indecent. West Texas doesn't really count, if you go per-capita it's a very small part of the state.
I lived in Miami from age 15-35, by comparison, pretty much everywhere East of Vegas and South of the Mason Dixon line is filled with bible thumping retards who refuse to fund public education - Miami schools weren't great, though the neighborhood we lived in did pass a special taxing district to help fund the neighborhood schools.
Clear Lake Texas, and other isolated pockets, are the exception - taxes are higher in those locales, but it is actually possible to run a decent public school system when you're willing to spend 5-10% more than you are absolutely required to by Federal Law.
Based on the stats, sure, Texas is average.
Based on my colleagues (in Houston) with M.S. Engineering degrees and 10 years work experience, there was basically instant employment in the $60-$110K salary range. People who were laid off from the company with zero warning were finding better paying jobs closer to their homes within less than 3 weeks.
Cost of living: I'm going based on home ownership - $160K bought us 2800sf on a 1 acre lot in very close-in suburban Clear Lake... taxes are high ($5K on that house), but manageable. We were leaving Miami where we sold 1800sf on 1/4 acre in a similar neighborhood (with similar $5K/yr taxes) for $350K (2003). I'm sure there are cheaper places, but not so many with the good job market.
So, if you're an average American, read the average stats and ignore /.
If you're a highly educated tech worker, maybe what we pull out of various body orifices around here is actually of more value than the standard government statistics that any idiot with too much time on their hands can Google up on demand.