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Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

fortune.com

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Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#51

Post by boonzeet »

senko wrote: post #48
dominicrose wrote: post #38

Why would anyone except a gamer buy a desktop computer anyway. I guess some people still have their old computer and a lot of south korenas are gamers, but laptops are just better overall because of the portability. If people bring printerS pural then starbuck could "just" have a free-ish printer

> Why would anyone except a gamer buy a desktop computer anyway? Because you get a beast of a machine for the price of MacBook Air, and because you prefer looking at a big ultrawide monitor instead of alt-tabbing like crazy on a 13" screen, and you prefer a full keyboard and a proper mouse to the cramped layout they stuff in laptops because there's no room. Oh, and maybe a proper sound system. And it can also double…

> it can also double as a NAS ... and home server

Devil's advocate, but it can't if it's in Starbucks ;)

There's far cheaper workstations out there than Macbooks, especially if you're running Linux on them.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#53

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

londons_explore wrote: post #40
krogenx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they could do some R&D to see if coffee could be used as ink.

I just put coffee in my printer to see... It kinda works, but the printouts are very faint. I was expecting it to clog immediately (the jets are ~10um), but it didn't.

Sorry to bother you but I have so many questions! Like, did you actually do it or was it just a middle joke I didn't detect? If the former, wasn't you afraid the printer won't be usable after that experiment? Didn't that worry you? Do you often experiment in this way? (Just stopping there to give otherwise the list gets too long.)

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#54

Post by iainmerrick »

ljf wrote: post #14
miohtama wrote: post #9

The solution is to bring back cybercafes, or cafes which were set up up to go online. Such culture existed in the 90s but was then ended by the widespread online accessibility by home ADSL and later mobile internet. https://www.vice.com/en/article/worlds-first-ever-cyber-cafe...

The 'problem' with those for remote workers is that you pay per minute/hour in a cybercafe - in a normal coffee shop you can just nurse one coffee for hours and pay a single low cost (and get a coffee). I can't remember the name of it now but back in 2010s there was an 'OK' managed drop-in office space you could rent for £10 a day in central London - which came with free coffee and printing - I haven't looked at the…

Wow, I'd be curious about the details if you can remember.

I was working from cafes in London at that time, and I would have loved to find a place like that. I had to either use actual cafes (free besides getting a coffee and maybe a sandwich, limited privacy and security) or pay for a dedicated space, generally with too much tedious bureaucracy. Maybe I misremember, but to get prices as low as £10/day I think you had to commit to a large number of days per month. I don't recall anyone offering low prices a la carte.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#55

Post by edgineer »

senko wrote: post #48
dominicrose wrote: post #38

Why would anyone except a gamer buy a desktop computer anyway. I guess some people still have their old computer and a lot of south korenas are gamers, but laptops are just better overall because of the portability. If people bring printerS pural then starbuck could "just" have a free-ish printer

> Why would anyone except a gamer buy a desktop computer anyway? Because you get a beast of a machine for the price of MacBook Air, and because you prefer looking at a big ultrawide monitor instead of alt-tabbing like crazy on a 13" screen, and you prefer a full keyboard and a proper mouse to the cramped layout they stuff in laptops because there's no room. Oh, and maybe a proper sound system. And it can also double…

External monitor, keyboard, mouse, sound, stuck in closet and used as a NAS... I do all these with laptops just as much as with desktops.

Laptop price disadvantage can even flip when buying used due to cheaper shipping.

Laptops can't hold as many internal devices nor the fastest parts and have worse thermals/sound though.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#56

Post by iainmerrick »

okasaki wrote: post #44
dominicrose wrote: post #38

Why would anyone except a gamer buy a desktop computer anyway. I guess some people still have their old computer and a lot of south korenas are gamers, but laptops are just better overall because of the portability. If people bring printerS pural then starbuck could "just" have a free-ish printer

Laptops are terrible - - Too small - too loud - too hot - too few ports - fake performance (good luck with your 105W "5090") - OS confusion about active screen, keyboard and mouse (how many times have I experienced that only the built-in keyboard works during booting, or the OS showing the login screen on only the built-in screen), - most of them have to be open or have ports in awkward places, and take up space comp…

Everyone has different needs. A lot of us get by very nicely with a good laptop and a big monitor (or two). Very few moving parts to keep track of, and you can be productive both home and away.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#57

Post by ahartmetz »

dominicrose wrote: post #38

Why would anyone except a gamer buy a desktop computer anyway. I guess some people still have their old computer and a lot of south korenas are gamers, but laptops are just better overall because of the portability. If people bring printerS pural then starbuck could "just" have a free-ish printer

Show me that quiet, 16 core, 5 GHz, 128 GB RAM laptop that's actually pretty cheap, too.

I do need the CPU performance, that computer is used to compile C++ code. The RAM is for local LLMs - not fast enough to be practical most of the time tbh, but I like to experiment anyway.

Re: Starbucks in Korea asks customers to stop bringing in printers/desktop computers

#59

Post by londons_explore »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #53
londons_explore wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just put coffee in my printer to see... It kinda works, but the printouts are very faint. I was expecting it to clog immediately (the jets are ~10um), but it didn't.

Sorry to bother you but I have so many questions! Like, did you actually do it or was it just a middle joke I didn't detect? If the former, wasn't you afraid the printer won't be usable after that experiment? Didn't that worry you? Do you often experiment in this way? (Just stopping there to give otherwise the list gets too long.)

I have literally hundreds of HP print heads from a project, many partly blocked or burned out (they burn if you send them the wrong signals, and like 10% of the time I hit 'break' on my debugger it burns a few jets out if they're firing at the time), and had a coffee sitting right next to my desk so thought "why not".
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