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The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

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Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#251
post #167
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also resolution stopped at 1080p for a decade. Now that 4k is happening, there is an easy path to performance for gpu manufacturers.

Resolution dropped High-end for 4:3 was 2048x1536 (3 megapixels) High-end for 16:10 was 1920x1200 (2.2 megapixels) High-end for 16:9 was until very recently 1920x1080 (2 megapixels)

Just to clarify, high end for last two ratios are 2560x1600 and 2560x1440. Both were available at least two years ago when I built my current machine, although after some quick research the 16:9 format had some available as early as 2007.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#252
post #202
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen full size ATX cases from Silverstone with passive cooling, where the entire case is machine out of aluminum and acts like an enormous heat sync. Have yet to find a good fanless power supply. The new Mac Pro supposed to be only 12DB. It's hard to beat that, most rooms have ambient noise of at least 18db.

> The new Mac Pro supposed to be only 12DB. Until the dust hits it...

Solution: clean it once in a while :)

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#253
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We would be better off steering into the skid. History has plenty of examples of people who've tried to hang onto the old ways 'because that's how I learned it'. The way forward isn't to try and keep cheap PCs viable for creativity's sake, but to ensure that creative desires are being met on the newer devices. Would I have learned memory management and dual booting if I'd had a tablet instead of a 386? Probably not.…

As a kid, my parents were really anti-videogames (except for a few educational ones), anti-TV (we had one, but it was in its own room and rarely used), and would only let me use the home computer for homework. As a result, I spent all of my childhood and teenage years reading (mostly fantasy and sci-fi; several books a week, at my peak) and programming. I taught myself programming in 7th grade because I really wanted…

This is why I love my Kindle Paperwhite so much. I could read on my Ipad, but it's so easy to jump into something else with that. The Kindle's limitations let me get on with reading without being tempted by other things.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#254

If everyone adopted the attitude of the author of this blog, all innovation everywhere in the world would cease instantly because, for most of us in the developed world, everything is good enough already. There are many points throughout computing history at which existing hardware was overkill for the things that we were asking our computers to do. Had we stopped innovating because of that, the world wouldn't be any…

No innovation would hardly die but hopefully focus on something important. We will hardly run out of need for innovation any time soon. We rather have a problem of innovative people focusing on the wrong things, because incentives.

The computer was a great invention. The Internet also is a big enabler. But the latest computers and phones are hardly innovative: Compared to what you got 5 years ago, they might be smaller and have better power efficiency. But on the grand scale, how does that matter?

If you see the latest Macbooks being introduced, you probably want to get one. It's very shiny and the Retina screen will allow you to experience computing in a great way. People try to become happy by spending money for experiences. Tourism, iPhones, hipster coffee shops. They don't do it because it's the universal recipe for happiness and living your life, but because it's what capitalist societies expect you to do. Most "innovation" and "disruption" only leads to zero-sum money shifts inside this system. If you think that a retina screen is innovative, i think you need to get some perspective.

The same goes for cars. The Germans (where I come from) think that they're innovative because we have a few luxury car makers here. Cars in general are great, they provide mobility and that's useful. But how are the new cars better than what was available 30 years ago? They're not even more fuel efficient.

Bill Gates seems to have got it when he stopped working full-time at Microsoft. All over the world people are using their software, but if we were using OS/2 and Lotus instead of Windows and Office nothing would change. It went very well for him and his company, but nothing they ever did was as important for humankind as what Bill Gates is doing now: giving life to millions by completely eliminating malaria and polio from the planet and supporting AIDS and TB research with huge sums.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#256

I've felt this way since I built my last desktop in 2008. I was sort-of waiting for the "gee its time to upgrade" mark to roll around in 3 or 4 years, but it hasn't happened yet. Any games I want to play it still runs very well, and it still feels very fast to me even compared to modern off-the-shelf systems. When my friends ask for laptop-buying advice I tell them if they like the keyboard and screen, then its just…

I'm starting to see a trend of tablets-as-laptops where people have a case that integrates a keyboard and they type their papers or whatever else on their iPads or other types of tablets. Having a 1.5 or 2 pound laptop, with a 12 hour battery life that you can detach the keyboard from for $300 is a much better form factor than the current typical laptop. Many of these tablets also come with wacom pen digitizers or to…

Android-based IDEs already exist. I should know. I was looking for one the moment I bought my ASUS Transformer a couple years ago. I found the only thing I couldn't do with the device was write and compile programs. I would bring it to hacking sessions, but I couldn't test code on it. At the time, the only option was a text editor that could style and check code syntax.

The main downsides of these devices for programming is screen real estate, CPU speed, and support from major IDE/compiler vendors.

Example: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aide.ui

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#257
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No innovation would hardly die but hopefully focus on something important. We will hardly run out of need for innovation any time soon. We rather have a problem of innovative people focusing on the wrong things, because incentives.

The computer was a great invention. The Internet also is a big enabler. But the latest computers and phones are hardly innovative: Compared to what you got 5 years ago, they might be smaller and have better power efficiency. But on the grand scale, how does that matter? If you see the latest Macbooks being introduced, you probably want to get one. It's very shiny and the Retina screen will allow you to experience com…

If you see the latest Macbooks being introduced, you probably want to get one. It's very shiny and the Retina screen will allow you to experience computing in a great way.

I do not want to get a Macbook. They are vastly overpriced and underpowered. If I ran a movie studio, I might buy a Mac Pro. But that's about it.

Cars in general are great, they provide mobility and that's useful. But how are the new cars better than what was available 30 years ago? They're not even more fuel efficient.

Look at traffic fatality numbers over the last 30 years, and tell me that we haven't made innovations that haven't impacted lives. How many kids have parents that were able to raise them because they didn't die in a traffic accident that they would have died in before?

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people do not need $2000 Facebook and email machines I dunno, Facebook and GMail seem to get slower each month. They're unusably slow, even in Chrome on Windows, on both my and my wife's circa-2008 machines.

I still use Facebook on old iPad 2. And it goes faster as the same day I've bought it.

That's generally the solution to the problem of accessing the Web on old PCs: request the mobile version of the website. Heck, with enough trickery you can even get Opera Mini to run.

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#259

I've felt this way since I built my last desktop in 2008. I was sort-of waiting for the "gee its time to upgrade" mark to roll around in 3 or 4 years, but it hasn't happened yet. Any games I want to play it still runs very well, and it still feels very fast to me even compared to modern off-the-shelf systems. When my friends ask for laptop-buying advice I tell them if they like the keyboard and screen, then its just…

I believe there will be a major cultural shift to tablets/phones/handheld.

The social implications worry me -- mainly that the most popular handheld devices (iOS) are _locked down_, you can't actually install whatever software you want on it.

I don't know if the actual experience of using Android, for non-techies, might end up seeming similar?

The social implications of this worry me. We spend increasing amounts of time on our computers, and have decreasing power and freedom over what software they run how.

I think your concern about it being harder to create on tablets, and the social implications therein -- is also legit, but it worries me less than the loss of control over our devices. People will find a way to create, although the nature of what they create will be affected by the affordances of the device, for sure. (there will be a lot more 140 char poetry, heheh)

Re: The PC is not dead, we just don't need new ones

#260
post #251
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resolution dropped High-end for 4:3 was 2048x1536 (3 megapixels) High-end for 16:10 was 1920x1200 (2.2 megapixels) High-end for 16:9 was until very recently 1920x1080 (2 megapixels)

Just to clarify, high end for last two ratios are 2560x1600 and 2560x1440. Both were available at least two years ago when I built my current machine, although after some quick research the 16:9 format had some available as early as 2007.

My laptop bias is showing. Those were the highest resolutions available on laptops. They were also the highest commonly-available resolutions for desktop screens, though none of those was the highest that existed.
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