I'll second the recommendation for Dell Precision Mobile Workstations. I run Linux daily on my now-ancient M6400. I've been wanting to upgrade but the current screens are major downgrades (my M6400 is 1920x1200 with RGB-LED backlight array... the new model maxes out at 1080P and is lit with white LEDs). The RGB-LED screen was one of the major selling points of the M6400, as it exceeded the Adobe color gamut performing better for color purity than CRTs.
I've kept this notebook serviced and upgraded... upgraded the processor to a Core 2 Quad Extreme, maxed out the RAM, have hybrid hard drives (thinking about SSDs now)... open it up to clean out the heatsinks and fans regularly... I haven't had to replace anything from failure until it got struck by lightning last year. I replaced the motherboard and it's been chugging along strong.:-) The only other problem I've had was a fan connector worked its way loose so I had to open it up and reconnect it (I may have gotten distracted by roommates while replacing the motherboard and not seated the connector fully). I do need to replace the thermal pads on the GPU heatsink - gaming sessions cause it to overhead because the thermal pads have finally dried out. I'll keep it going though - it has paid for itself hundreds of times over, and since Dell has yet to release a real upgrade (screen estate is important to me as I often have 6 or more terminal windows open so I consider the current model a downgrade) I'll keep it going as long as it takes.
Why do I like it so much? It's got a mix of desktop and mobile chips in it... the screen is amazing, and the thing is built like a tank. It was once knocked off a 4' high ledge onto an asphalt-tiled concrete floor, and it just kept running, and you cannot tell at all that it was ever dropped. Gaming is not happening on the notebook now - the video card is just too outdated for gaming but for Linux administration, diagnosing industrial equipment, light coding tasks, image processing on the go and stuff like that, it still runs like champ.
I occasionally pester Dell about the screen offering and they invariably come back with a canned email or if I call them a scripted response thanking me for my feedback, blah blah blah... and I occasionally check out their Alienware line as well but they are equally abysmal when it comes to 17" screens. I also look into Xeon notebooks from time to time (more cores and >32G RAM would be fantastic for running VMs!!) from Eurocom but the screen resolution on Eurocom's 17" models is equally pathetic. I also check out lines from the actual manufacturers (Clevo, MSI, Compal, etc.) but their web sites are user-hostile.
Why didn't they just include the DEF injection system and offer an "economy"/low-power mode to drive without DEF, but with increased performance with the DEF reservoir filled? It's a whole lot better than having a diesel vehicle which refuses to start when you're out of DEF and the local filling station doesn't have any in stock.
Actually I stated that very point in the post to which you responded with your basis ad hominem attack. Let me copy & paste for your convenience:
"Then, as the manufacturer (assuming they manage to achieve manufacturing of >51% parts in the rebuild) they would be able to legally produce and install their own parts for maintenance. It would require more expertise and finder environmental controls than your typical machine shop could provide."
> Again someone with no idea of the complex manufacturing processes required to manufacture turbine blades
I understand that - refer to another post I made in this thread where I stated that very few machine shops have the expertise or equipment on hand to produce such parts.:-p
> When Air France and British Airways mothballed the Concorde, they claimed that one justification was that there was essentially no way to get parts to maintain them. How will this group get around that? You can't exactly get those parts pressed at your local machine shop if you need replacements.
Well, they may be able to if they completely dismantle the aircraft, then rebuild it as an experimental. Then, as the manufacturer (assuming they manage to achieve manufacturing of >51% parts in the rebuild) they would be able to legally produce and install their own parts for maintenance. It would require more expertise and finder environmental controls than your typical machine shop could provide.
They can probably just register them as experimental aircraft, just as any joe with enough money can do with an F-5, T-38, Harrier, various SAAB and MiG warbirds and other non-certified aircraft... but then they will be limited in flying for hire. They can work around it through legal gymnastics, such as maybe creating a small museum with a very hefty admission price, but which includes a "free" flight on the airworthy Concorde.
> Sorry to break it to you, but it's government that drives the consolidation. If you want to see a bunch of independent media outlets again, then fight for massive rollbacks in regulations.
> Bush says he hasn't seen any indication the bulk collection of phone metadata violated anyone's civil liberties.
That is true of a sensible and benevolent government.
However, your associations, even with casual friends, may land you on no-fly and watch lists with little to no recourse. Why are you on that no-fly list? How can you get off it? I can't help but wonder if casual aquaintances of the Tsarnaevs are on such lists just because they may have been study or workout partners, or casual friends, even though they never knew of their intentions. And yet, those evildoers were not on such lists despite urgent warnings coming from our frenemy Russia, who gave us names and dates.
Time after time I read or hear about those who are on no-fly lists - including infants, and have been unable to learn how and why they came to be on those lists, and how to clear their names, and there is NO due process or accountability, which is REQUIRED by the Constitution, citing "national security concerns" even though the greatest threat to our national security is tyranny within our own government.
And then, we have the "secret courts" which gag you; even if you do manage to clear your name and resolve the issue you cannot go to the media about your experience out of fear of reprisal.
So yes, Jeb (nice white trash name by the way), there are indeed civil liberties volations. Our government is supposed to be transparent and accountable to The People, but it actually in practice is not. Congress makes laws from which they often exclude themselves, treating themselves as royalty.
Are we really supposed to believe you, that our government is benevolent, when all the evidence as shared by Manning, Snowden, and Assange proves otherwise? Why on earth should we believe ANYTHING that you say when you believe the Patriot Act does not infringe upon our inalienable rights?
> Now Samsung has come up with the incredible idea that rather than sell to people who wanted something a little bit different, they are going to try to sell to people who already are iphone fans and who will probably never switch from apple even if Jobs rises from the dead and flings poo at them.
You, sir, win at internet today with that comment!!!
> I hover between rage and indifference in regards to the SD slot. Yes, I am used to having one, yes it's useful for storage. Is it a make or break feature? It was when I decided on the S4, it's not now as I haven't filled the phone enough to require any additional space and it's only 16 gb to begin with. That feature I could willingly lose and be fine.
It is a deal breaker for me. I have two offline GPS apps with full maps installed and a third with regional maps. It takes a significant amount of space. Add movies I've purchased and downloaded, my CD collection (which I'd like to re-rip when I can get a large enough capacity phone), and so forth... 64GB total storage doesn't count it, let alone 32. My phone has 96GB worth of storage (32GB phone + 64GB microSD card).
I want an SD slot. Fanbois invariably come back with "buy the larger capacity phone." Um, yeah. I live in NH - so there are two carriers worth a damn: Verizon and AT&T. Verizon won't give me unlimited data, so I'm stuck with AT&T. AT&T never seems to offer the largest-capacity devices - and besides from what I've gathered, the Note 5 maxes out at 64GB, which is less storage than I have NOW.
With the lack of a user-replaceable battery (spare me the you can replace it nonsense; the phones are glued rather than screwed together and I'd rather not bother with that) and lack of storage expansion, what reason do I have not to go back to the iPhone? My 3GS and 4 were great - aside from the battery and lack of storage expansion.
Oh, and I just learned that they dropped Consumer IR, so no more using Samsung phones as a universal remote control.
Samsung, why are you insisting on copying the iPhone's worst defects? Why are you taking functionality AWAY with these alleged "upgrades?"
Although most instances of obesity is inability to control one's shoveling food into one's mouth (like my fatty of an ex) there are instances where obesity is caused by hormonal or glandular (thyroid, pituitary, adrenal) problems, so that isn't fair. What IS fair is charging someone for two seats if they're oozing into the next seat.
> My first recommendation: The icon for Italics should be a capital letter I, not, as it is now, a lower-case italic A. (An I with a top and bottom line.)
So... still a human factors issue. If I want an I in italics, I need to click the i button? Why can I not continue to use the keyboard to type an i?
Okay, that's a silly example that wouldn't actually happen (I hope), but I just wanted to show you that human factors isn't perfect nor will it be. There will always be people who find stuff confusing. I think using the same character with all the style keys is intuitive IF you use the SAME TYPEFACE... but you are right though, for many people using the first letter of the name of the style would be better. And yet, it still manages to work. If the clusterfuck that is the Microsoft Office Ribbon can work, so can any variety of messed up UI designs. LibreOffice is less messed up than the MS Office UI, IMHO. You don't need to go hunting in LibreOffice to find a style feature - if you can't find it in the toolbar you will easily find it in the menu. Not possible in MS Office any more since the menu is gone, so nothing to make up for a shitty UI.
Yesterday Kim Jong Un was awarded a peace prize for "peace, justice and humanity." Today Microsoft gets a design award for releasing a UI ever slightly less crappy than Windows 8s, and nowhere near as good as Windows 7.
We somehow ended up on htraE (aka Bizarro World) this week.
They can make it "closed source" in the sense that they do not redistribute any changes they make for use within their environment, providing they do not deliver the compiled product to external parties. The GPL only kicks in when you want to redistribute derivatives of the project - not when you want to make changes for external use.
Easy - instead of setting the thermostat to 65, set it to a more reasonable 72 to 75, and balance out the HVAC registers so that you don't get cold spots and vents blowing 43 air directly at people.
> Fact is most users would easily be just as comfortable on a gnu/linux or Mac machine.
OS/X, sure. For me, Mac hardware, not so much. Generally when a new Mac comes out it's already behind the curve... and then the go and cripple them by making them non-upgradable. Hell, aren't they even GLUING the Macbooks together now making them unserviceable? Between that, the chicklet keyboard, and the one-button touchpad (ugh! Don't suggest multitouch as a workaround), and you've completely lost me.
Linux - I work with it all day long, but on my own time it's Windows. Why? Photoshop and Lightroom CC, Adobe CS2 (I still use Illustrator CS2 - haven't had the need to upgrade to Illustrator 2015/CC), my embroidery machine, games, and 3D Vision. What, Steam is on Linux, you say? Well that's just great... how does 3D Vision work on Linux? Yeah I know there are a few different 3D Vision projects going on but I really don't want to spend more time fiddling with and tweaking my PC instead of actually using and enjoying it.
> To extend this discussion - I rarely use my backups. Let's get rid of those!
I did better than that - to save time and also the hassle of cycling through and keeping track of tapes; I just back up to/dev/null now... and you'd be amazed at how quickly the backup job runs!
> The numeric keypad tends to be pretty highly valued by typists that are 10key proficient and type a lot of numbers. It's actually more common than you probably believe
That's because a LOT of us spent days keying in program listings from Compute! Magazine in the '80s
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, if you want to clog the urea injectors with crystals go for it.
It's usually more expensive to be cheap. :)
I'll second the recommendation for Dell Precision Mobile Workstations. I run Linux daily on my now-ancient M6400. I've been wanting to upgrade but the current screens are major downgrades (my M6400 is 1920x1200 with RGB-LED backlight array... the new model maxes out at 1080P and is lit with white LEDs). The RGB-LED screen was one of the major selling points of the M6400, as it exceeded the Adobe color gamut performing better for color purity than CRTs.
I've kept this notebook serviced and upgraded... upgraded the processor to a Core 2 Quad Extreme, maxed out the RAM, have hybrid hard drives (thinking about SSDs now)... open it up to clean out the heatsinks and fans regularly... I haven't had to replace anything from failure until it got struck by lightning last year. I replaced the motherboard and it's been chugging along strong. :-) The only other problem I've had was a fan connector worked its way loose so I had to open it up and reconnect it (I may have gotten distracted by roommates while replacing the motherboard and not seated the connector fully). I do need to replace the thermal pads on the GPU heatsink - gaming sessions cause it to overhead because the thermal pads have finally dried out. I'll keep it going though - it has paid for itself hundreds of times over, and since Dell has yet to release a real upgrade (screen estate is important to me as I often have 6 or more terminal windows open so I consider the current model a downgrade) I'll keep it going as long as it takes.
Why do I like it so much? It's got a mix of desktop and mobile chips in it... the screen is amazing, and the thing is built like a tank. It was once knocked off a 4' high ledge onto an asphalt-tiled concrete floor, and it just kept running, and you cannot tell at all that it was ever dropped. Gaming is not happening on the notebook now - the video card is just too outdated for gaming but for Linux administration, diagnosing industrial equipment, light coding tasks, image processing on the go and stuff like that, it still runs like champ.
I occasionally pester Dell about the screen offering and they invariably come back with a canned email or if I call them a scripted response thanking me for my feedback, blah blah blah... and I occasionally check out their Alienware line as well but they are equally abysmal when it comes to 17" screens. I also look into Xeon notebooks from time to time (more cores and >32G RAM would be fantastic for running VMs!!) from Eurocom but the screen resolution on Eurocom's 17" models is equally pathetic. I also check out lines from the actual manufacturers (Clevo, MSI, Compal, etc.) but their web sites are user-hostile.
Why didn't they just include the DEF injection system and offer an "economy"/low-power mode to drive without DEF, but with increased performance with the DEF reservoir filled? It's a whole lot better than having a diesel vehicle which refuses to start when you're out of DEF and the local filling station doesn't have any in stock.
Actually I stated that very point in the post to which you responded with your basis ad hominem attack. Let me copy & paste for your convenience:
"Then, as the manufacturer (assuming they manage to achieve manufacturing of >51% parts in the rebuild) they would be able to legally produce and install their own parts for maintenance. It would require more expertise and finder environmental controls than your typical machine shop could provide."
> Again someone with no idea of the complex manufacturing processes required to manufacture turbine blades
I understand that - refer to another post I made in this thread where I stated that very few machine shops have the expertise or equipment on hand to produce such parts. :-p
> When Air France and British Airways mothballed the Concorde, they claimed that one justification was that there was essentially no way to get parts to maintain them. How will this group get around that? You can't exactly get those parts pressed at your local machine shop if you need replacements.
Well, they may be able to if they completely dismantle the aircraft, then rebuild it as an experimental. Then, as the manufacturer (assuming they manage to achieve manufacturing of >51% parts in the rebuild) they would be able to legally produce and install their own parts for maintenance. It would require more expertise and finder environmental controls than your typical machine shop could provide.
They can probably just register them as experimental aircraft, just as any joe with enough money can do with an F-5, T-38, Harrier, various SAAB and MiG warbirds and other non-certified aircraft... but then they will be limited in flying for hire. They can work around it through legal gymnastics, such as maybe creating a small museum with a very hefty admission price, but which includes a "free" flight on the airworthy Concorde.
> Sorry to break it to you, but it's government that drives the consolidation. If you want to see a bunch of independent media outlets again, then fight for massive rollbacks in regulations.
Uhh... it's due to deregulation actually.
> Since the 'TSA Approved' luggage locks came out, I always assumed they had had backdoor access of some sort
What clued you in after the key cylinder and the instructions and diagrams which explain the "lock has been opened" indicator failed to? ;)
> The laws were written to give property owners control over the right-of-way on their property.
Doesn't that negate the very purpose of a right-of-way?
> No; you're basically paying for the right to use the public roads with that particular vehicle which in turn is used to maintain those public roads,
I see you have not driven in Taxachusetts. They do not maintain the roads.
> Bush says he hasn't seen any indication the bulk collection of phone metadata violated anyone's civil liberties.
That is true of a sensible and benevolent government.
However, your associations, even with casual friends, may land you on no-fly and watch lists with little to no recourse. Why are you on that no-fly list? How can you get off it? I can't help but wonder if casual aquaintances of the Tsarnaevs are on such lists just because they may have been study or workout partners, or casual friends, even though they never knew of their intentions. And yet, those evildoers were not on such lists despite urgent warnings coming from our frenemy Russia, who gave us names and dates.
Time after time I read or hear about those who are on no-fly lists - including infants, and have been unable to learn how and why they came to be on those lists, and how to clear their names, and there is NO due process or accountability, which is REQUIRED by the Constitution, citing "national security concerns" even though the greatest threat to our national security is tyranny within our own government.
And then, we have the "secret courts" which gag you; even if you do manage to clear your name and resolve the issue you cannot go to the media about your experience out of fear of reprisal.
So yes, Jeb (nice white trash name by the way), there are indeed civil liberties volations. Our government is supposed to be transparent and accountable to The People, but it actually in practice is not. Congress makes laws from which they often exclude themselves, treating themselves as royalty.
Are we really supposed to believe you, that our government is benevolent, when all the evidence as shared by Manning, Snowden, and Assange proves otherwise? Why on earth should we believe ANYTHING that you say when you believe the Patriot Act does not infringe upon our inalienable rights?
> Now Samsung has come up with the incredible idea that rather than sell to people who wanted something a little bit different, they are going to try to sell to people who already are iphone fans and who will probably never switch from apple even if Jobs rises from the dead and flings poo at them.
You, sir, win at internet today with that comment!!!
> I hover between rage and indifference in regards to the SD slot. Yes, I am used to having one, yes it's useful for storage. Is it a make or break feature? It was when I decided on the S4, it's not now as I haven't filled the phone enough to require any additional space and it's only 16 gb to begin with. That feature I could willingly lose and be fine.
It is a deal breaker for me. I have two offline GPS apps with full maps installed and a third with regional maps. It takes a significant amount of space.
Add movies I've purchased and downloaded, my CD collection (which I'd like to re-rip when I can get a large enough capacity phone), and so forth... 64GB total storage doesn't count it, let alone 32. My phone has 96GB worth of storage (32GB phone + 64GB microSD card).
I want an SD slot. Fanbois invariably come back with "buy the larger capacity phone." Um, yeah. I live in NH - so there are two carriers worth a damn: Verizon and AT&T. Verizon won't give me unlimited data, so I'm stuck with AT&T. AT&T never seems to offer the largest-capacity devices - and besides from what I've gathered, the Note 5 maxes out at 64GB, which is less storage than I have NOW.
With the lack of a user-replaceable battery (spare me the you can replace it nonsense; the phones are glued rather than screwed together and I'd rather not bother with that) and lack of storage expansion, what reason do I have not to go back to the iPhone? My 3GS and 4 were great - aside from the battery and lack of storage expansion.
Oh, and I just learned that they dropped Consumer IR, so no more using Samsung phones as a universal remote control.
Samsung, why are you insisting on copying the iPhone's worst defects? Why are you taking functionality AWAY with these alleged "upgrades?"
Although most instances of obesity is inability to control one's shoveling food into one's mouth (like my fatty of an ex) there are instances where obesity is caused by hormonal or glandular (thyroid, pituitary, adrenal) problems, so that isn't fair. What IS fair is charging someone for two seats if they're oozing into the next seat.
> My first recommendation: The icon for Italics should be a capital letter I, not, as it is now, a lower-case italic A. (An I with a top and bottom line.)
So... still a human factors issue. If I want an I in italics, I need to click the i button? Why can I not continue to use the keyboard to type an i?
Okay, that's a silly example that wouldn't actually happen (I hope), but I just wanted to show you that human factors isn't perfect nor will it be. There will always be people who find stuff confusing. I think using the same character with all the style keys is intuitive IF you use the SAME TYPEFACE... but you are right though, for many people using the first letter of the name of the style would be better. And yet, it still manages to work. If the clusterfuck that is the Microsoft Office Ribbon can work, so can any variety of messed up UI designs. LibreOffice is less messed up than the MS Office UI, IMHO. You don't need to go hunting in LibreOffice to find a style feature - if you can't find it in the toolbar you will easily find it in the menu. Not possible in MS Office any more since the menu is gone, so nothing to make up for a shitty UI.
Yes yes yes of course... lots of aspies on here.
I thought ", you insensitive clod!" was a good clue that I was just talking shit to be funny.
Some of have SystemD and don't have /etc/X11, you insensitive clod!
Yesterday Kim Jong Un was awarded a peace prize for "peace, justice and humanity."
Today Microsoft gets a design award for releasing a UI ever slightly less crappy than Windows 8s, and nowhere near as good as Windows 7.
We somehow ended up on htraE (aka Bizarro World) this week.
not when you want to make changes for external use
s/external/internal/
sorry about that.
They can make it "closed source" in the sense that they do not redistribute any changes they make for use within their environment, providing they do not deliver the compiled product to external parties. The GPL only kicks in when you want to redistribute derivatives of the project - not when you want to make changes for external use.
So, you're wrong.
Easy - instead of setting the thermostat to 65, set it to a more reasonable 72 to 75, and balance out the HVAC registers so that you don't get cold spots and vents blowing 43 air directly at people.
> Fact is most users would easily be just as comfortable on a gnu/linux or Mac machine.
OS/X, sure. For me, Mac hardware, not so much. Generally when a new Mac comes out it's already behind the curve... and then the go and cripple them by making them non-upgradable. Hell, aren't they even GLUING the Macbooks together now making them unserviceable? Between that, the chicklet keyboard, and the one-button touchpad (ugh! Don't suggest multitouch as a workaround), and you've completely lost me.
Linux - I work with it all day long, but on my own time it's Windows. Why? Photoshop and Lightroom CC, Adobe CS2 (I still use Illustrator CS2 - haven't had the need to upgrade to Illustrator 2015/CC), my embroidery machine, games, and 3D Vision. What, Steam is on Linux, you say? Well that's just great... how does 3D Vision work on Linux? Yeah I know there are a few different 3D Vision projects going on but I really don't want to spend more time fiddling with and tweaking my PC instead of actually using and enjoying it.
> To extend this discussion - I rarely use my backups. Let's get rid of those!
I did better than that - to save time and also the hassle of cycling through and keeping track of tapes; I just back up to /dev/null now... and you'd be amazed at how quickly the backup job runs!
> The numeric keypad tends to be pretty highly valued by typists that are 10key proficient and type a lot of numbers. It's actually more common than you probably believe
That's because a LOT of us spent days keying in program listings from Compute! Magazine in the '80s