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Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

expanscape.com

131–140 of 190 posts

Re: Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

#131

I can appreciate some kind of dual screen laptop, for the right kind of person and application, maybe, but this monstrosity is.. very strange. It seems to cater only to folk who have doubled down so many times on never learning ALT+TAB that they've committed to probably never getting laid for 7 lifetimes.. one for each of those insane matroska doll screens, which I can only assume are about 100dpi each. Also, one bum…

> they've committed to probably never getting laid for 7 lifetimes

> you would rightly deserve every glare and smirk received for presenting this thing

I think there's some valid criticism in your comment, and I don't think this design is very practical. That said, can we avoid this type of comment on HN? All kinds of geeks out there find things outside the norm interesting and I'm sure some community is interested in this type of hardware.

Shaming and insulting people who are interested in things you find impractical doesn't really fit with the spirit of HN, IMO.

EDIT to refer to guidelines:

"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."

Re: Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

#132
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not there are alternatives to our Aurora 7 prototype but those are too large to fit in standard backpack. They usually consist of monitors bolted on to a standard desktop chassis and don't feature integrated batteries. The Aurora 7 folds down then fits into a backpack.

Believe it or not, a 25 pound laptop you can't bring on an airplane isn't what anyone would call portable. If that's portable, then so is any number of small PCs that could fit in a backpack.

I don’t get the outrage, a small 7L PC could weigh 25 pounds and is very portable.

You might be thinking ultra-portable.

Re: Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

#133

I can appreciate some kind of dual screen laptop, for the right kind of person and application, maybe, but this monstrosity is.. very strange. It seems to cater only to folk who have doubled down so many times on never learning ALT+TAB that they've committed to probably never getting laid for 7 lifetimes.. one for each of those insane matroska doll screens, which I can only assume are about 100dpi each. Also, one bum…

> they've committed to probably never getting laid for 7 lifetimes > you would rightly deserve every glare and smirk received for presenting this thing I think there's some valid criticism in your comment, and I don't think this design is very practical. That said, can we avoid this type of comment on HN? All kinds of geeks out there find things outside the norm interesting and I'm sure some community is interested i…

It's a valid concern, but please don't interpret the comment as snark. Speaking as an engineer, in absolute terms the competence of someone (or lack thereof) is clearly signalled with a setup like this. Perhaps it may have been better phrased in these terms.

Similarly, the second comment regarding what I believe many would agree are obvious social implications arising from a device like this could also have been better phrased. Isn't it also a rule on HN to treat all comments as being made in good faith where multiple interpretations exist? In any case I apologise for the phrasing, it was rather blunt and certainly somewhat off the point, but I also believe it captured important sentiments that would have been difficult to conjure with alternative phrasing.

Re: Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

#134
I'm caught between a couple of possible use cases:

* Perhaps this is similar to a potlatch or a peacock's tail: primarily a demonstration of social or genetic superiority. "If I can publicly waste resources on this sort of scale, imagine the sheer amount of pure nerd dominance I can summon!"

* A related use: Like clothing with an excessive number of pockets and ordinary household tools inexplicably machined from heavy steel and painted black, this is intended to convey the bearer's sheer tacticalness. In certain communities (those likely to append "-ops" to everything they do) this sort of thing can be extremely effective in establishing group membership and even invite grooming behaviour from strangers.

* "Hey, we all need to do our part to support global warming ... wait ... what do you mean we're against that?"

Re: Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

#136
post #20

> "A laptop with exactly zero compromises" I mean the size, weight, awkwardness and small trackpad all seem like compromises to me. I'd suspect the battery life too. And some of the screens aren't placed in the most practical of locations. That said it's a pretty impressive prototype.

Zero compromise doesn’t mean you get what you want. Actually the opposite sometimes.

> Zero compromise doesn’t mean you get what you want

Yes, it does. If I don't get all of what I want, then, ipso facto, the product involves some compromise.

Now, if you mean “Zero compromise is almost always a marketing lie”, that's definitely true.

Re: Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

#137

I'm also not quite sure what I'm looking at, but hn_expanscape seems to be serious about this, so I'll bite. hn_expanscape, what is the actual use-case for this device? You mention day-traders, but what about tiny screens sliding out from behind larger screens swiveling out from behind yet larger screens is helpful? Why is this better than one, much larger screen (i.e. a laptop with a 24" monitor or larger)? Why is t…

Hi Thomas, Founder here. Thanks for your questions: - The use case of this is a portable multi monitor desktop with desktop class performance. - I designed this to specifically facilitate my use case (DevOps, SecOps, SIEM, SOC/NOC stuff). I got frustrated and fedup waiting on the G Screen Spacebook and Project Valerie so one day I decided to just get on with making it myself. I am expected to respond to alerts for th…

It sounds like your use-case doesn't require battery power (at least when fully-deployed). Wouldn't it be better use a consumer laptop and focus your efforts on optimizing wall-powered monitors for packability?

Re: Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only so much information that a single brain can analyze and parse. This is why decision makers employ a team of brains to parse it for them, rather than attempting to do it all themselves. Delegation has very significant performance advantages. More screens isn't the solution -- better parsing and analysis is the need.

I dunno, I think there is value in having all the information actively available sometimes, without needing to scroll. Imagine having every single monitoring dashboard for your app displayed on the wall - you can't truly see all of it in detail at the same time, but you can still glance over it and notice oddities faster than you could by scrolling/clicking through things, and it should actually lower the working-mem…

This is literally one of the primary reasons this was designed. Imagine having to monitor several instances of PRTG, Solarwinds, Vectra AI all at the same time and action multiple issues for multiple customers. All while sometimes spending all day onsite at customers or in the datacenter. Applying a SOAR strategy to SIEM can sometimes only go so far.

Re: Aurora 7 Prototype – 7 Screen Laptop

#140
post #52

Pretty fun project! I also sometimes dream of building something more unique, but I don't have the tools and materials :/ Was thinking, dual screen laptop, "dual screen" smartphone (just 2 smartphones in a special case, kind of like what LG has done), smartphone built into the palmrest, and other stuff.

Thanks for the feedback. If you have ideas get on them!
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