121–130 of 256 posts
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Cook is a logistics genius. Jobs put Cook in charge to keep Apple afloat until the next "idea guy" comes along.
Might as well give the money back to the share holders.
I think it's hilarious how little the HN community knows about Chromebooks. Every time it pops up, there's a wave of people saying "I don't know a single person who has one!" and "They seem useless without an internet connection!" and "I wonder how they compare to mac books." People forget that most of the world doesn't write code, and doesn't need native applications. They write email, take selfies, and write extrem…
it is actually an educational problem - specially in the US. Educated people will favor the more flexible operating systems to create things (don't think just programming, think video, pictures, whatever), dumb people will care about "selfies" and "email". That said the reality is that the majority of people are the ones that do not want to learn, and thus to be successful it is necessary to cater to them. It makes s…
It seems like a pretty biased view. Apart from the fact that even in HN-like circles for many people most part of their job is just answering e-mails, there's tons of people who don't need anything more than web. I wouldn't consider somebody who mostly does research, reading a lot of stuff and being satisfied with a simple editor "dumb". (there are even quite fine online latex editors too)
I wrote at more length about it in yesterday's ChromeOS post[0]. I don't think it's the year of the linux desktop anymore than Android is the year of the linux phone. Sure, there's a kernel somewhere deep, but the userspace is locked-down, weak and anti-consumer.
I find the book itself more interesting. Netbooks were crap for a long time, but things have gotten cheaper and I enjoy the form factor. Writing this from an Acer C720 running GalliumOS as we speak, but I'm in the super minority of Chromebook users. Read the Amazon reviews once of a Chromebook and you'll see what they find irritating or glorious. Hint: It's not the lack of a good IDE or inability to install gvim. Also, anyone that says Chromebook sales are great because their such an 'open hardware ecosystem' is fooling themselves [1].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11735326 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11735762
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Same here. Anybody who repeats the "Chromebooks are for kids who don't do anything sophisticated with their computers" schtick is just showing off their ignorance. A decent Chromebook (e.g. a Pixel or soon one of the HP/Acer models) plus Crouton is a more real development machine than anything Apple ever made, because it's more like the server where you'll eventually deploy. Then, unlike any of the other dozen Linux…
> Crouton is a more real development machine than anything Apple ever made, because it's more like the server where you'll eventually deploy Well, this assumes one particular type of development! I would not choose a Chromebook to develop, say, Chrome! I tried Crouton a few years ago, wanting to run xbmc. Audio didn't work, because it required a newer version of the Linux kernel. It turns out you can't just install a…
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I love my Chromebook, with Crouton you can run Debian on it and for the most part don't have to worry about wonky drivers and the like. I currently work as a Sysadmin and I don't want to carry $800+ dollars of hardware with me while I'm up in ceilings running cable. It allows me to spend my downtime writing code so I can get into development one day. I get over a full day on a single charge. Great little machine. I'd…
Yeah well you are a "unique" case, I would be surprised if even 10% of Chromebook owners knows what Crouton or chroot is :) HN users don't see Chromebooks because HN users are a very special subset - highly educated and well paid which works in development and IT at large. If you look at children and low wage blue collar workers you'll see many more of them those are the people that buy what one would not even consid…
I mean really, 99% of the time all you need is a web browser and a connection to remote into the machine that's doing the real lifting for you.
My favourite part is the disposability. If it gets trashed or stolen, all I have to do is sign in to a new chromebook and generate new keys to be back up and running.
As I've written earlier, ChromeOS doesn't interest me. It's a tightly locked down linux-y distro as a vector to peddle Google services. It's not complicated, it's very cheap and almost impossible to mess something up because it's so easy to wipe and all your data is on the cloud. That's the appeal and why they're booming in schools, but I find it dangerous for multiple reasons. I wrote at more length about it in yest…
Perhaps Stallman has a point when asking people to talk about Linux as GNU/Linux.
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This current Mac laptop user bought a toy 'macbook' for portable development. It's replacing an aging MacBook Pro 17. I am running IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate and Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise (in a Windows 10 Fusion VM) without any issues. The lightweight portability and 12" retina screen are amazing.
Is this one of the new macbooks? I'm strongly considering doing exactly this but figure at this point I might as well see what they have in store for MBP, or even MBA if they don't can the product line.
I think it's hilarious how little the HN community knows about Chromebooks. Every time it pops up, there's a wave of people saying "I don't know a single person who has one!" and "They seem useless without an internet connection!" and "I wonder how they compare to mac books." People forget that most of the world doesn't write code, and doesn't need native applications. They write email, take selfies, and write extrem…
Obviously, the browser has matured. JavaScript has matured. We now have more protocols to work with than just HTTP (SDP for which WebRTC, perfect example. WebSockets). But in my mind the Chromebook is the first step in what is going to become all of personal computing.
After listening to her describe the conditions and her needs, I suggested a few changes: transition to lower wattage mobile equipment, integrate redundant, portable power, and more effective use of solar. This boiled down to Chromebooks, portable APs, and certain smartphones, marine and other LA batteries, and lots of lithium USB power packs.
In return, she shipped me her old Mac hardware, which I opened up and emptied of all dust, sand, and scorpions before diagnosing most as damaged from overheating. It was awful how poorly those glossy screens held up to environmental abrasion, and the one unit that survived, the smell still hasn't left completely.
The Chromebooks (K1 based), which held charge on testing for 8-10 hours under heavy use, are light yet durable, have no moving internal (or servicable) parts, are or can be sealed against the environment, and are passively cooled. They also run the full Docs suite offline, take excellent dictation for transcription, can remote into her other computers, and they look nice. The model was just under $300 and had a 1080 screen, better than decent speakers, and most importantly, it plays x264 video so she can catch up on her shows.
My only concerns were for the lack of non-removable batteries and the very narrow cylindrical DC plugs the chargers use, but battery diagnostics have been great, and since they never all have to be charged at the same time, about half of the chargers can break (though none have, yet) and not cause any issue.
I don't know how most people on HN live, if they have good electricity, air conditioning or potable running water, whether they own vehicles that they can drive to pick up and haul perishable groceries around in, or if they can cheaply or quickly replace equipment that dies sooner than it should, warranty or no, within their countries. But for anyone who doesn't have all of those things, I'd say Chromebooks would be an exceedingly appropriate choice.
I also fear that between this and iOS, we are starting to see a divide between production and consumption devices more than ever. I don't consider that a good trend.