271–280 of 390 posts
Off topic - The type looks so bad on this site using Chrome Beta on Ubuntu 13.10. Is there anything I can do to help render fonts better?
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Almost everything I would want to insure as far as appliances and electronics go are already covered by my renters policy, if you do not have a renters policy go get one, right now, mine is only $10/mo with state farm (including an additional addendum to cover up to $10K in personal electronics). Of course, there's a $500 deductible on that, but the things I expect to happen that would cause me to file a claim on my…
Do you expect the insurance company to lose money on your account? Do you expect to beat out the professionals at their game?
Insurance is there to protect against the unexpected, hopefully I'll never have another laptop stolen again, but it's cheaper to cover the loss with an insurance policy in case it happens again.
EDIT: In addition, insurance is designed to spread the risk. If 200 people pay $10/mo to insure their $2000 laptops, and one is stolen every other month, the insurance company still comes out on top.
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You can't guarantee 100% expense coverage during random events. Not everybody has thousands of dollars laying around in emergency fund for 12+ months. Committing to an insurance policy is simply a semi-guaranteed safety net. Have tons of cash? You should still probably look at a cheaper plan with a super high deductible.
I'd buy a cheaper computer before one so expensive it would be a fiscal catastrophe if I lost it. Buying a computer on credit is just as bad, might as well just set fire to money. In fact, my laptop is a $500 one I bought 2 years ago for travel use and didn't want to be too upset if it was lost/broken/stolen. My previous one was 10 years old and was a bit heavy :-)
Not everybody on the planet needs something svelte and sexy, but for those of us who work on their machines a $500 POS doesn't cut it.
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I'd buy a cheaper computer before one so expensive it would be a fiscal catastrophe if I lost it. Buying a computer on credit is just as bad, might as well just set fire to money. In fact, my laptop is a $500 one I bought 2 years ago for travel use and didn't want to be too upset if it was lost/broken/stolen. My previous one was 10 years old and was a bit heavy :-)
A $500 laptop is garbage and hardly adequate for the use of most of the people that frequent HN. I mean, what does $500 buy you? A shitty TN panel with a subpar resolution, color reproduction and viewing angle, often shoddy build quality, tons of bulk and probably a spinning drive (I wouldn't buy a laptop without a SSD today). Not everybody on the planet needs something svelte and sexy, but for those of us who work o…
I use a desktop for dev built with about $600 in parts from newegg, excluding the display. I do get a bit spendy on the display, as that is the most bang for the buck value to me. None of the high end laptops have a display large enough for dev for me. Portability and dev are at odds.
But this thread is about insurance to protect against the loss of a high end laptop. I presume that someone doing serious computer work is making enough money that they don't actually need insurance to cover the loss of even a high end laptop, and the premiums hence won't be worth it.
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Even if it won't ruin you, unexpectedly having to shell out over a thousand dollars for a new laptop might be so much of a hassle that it's worth "wasting" a few bucks each month to not have to worry about it.
Put those few bucks each month into some interest bearing account and then it can be used for many purposes instead of just a new laptop?
By this logic, nobody should buy life insurance because the insurance companies have calculated their premiums so that they come out ahead. At least on average.
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That laptop is twice as thick as a rMBP and puts out less than half as much heat. Even if Apple put vents in those places, it wouldn't cool adequately; the vent area would be half that of the Dell. To get the same temperatures, airflow would have to be 4x faster than in the Dell. And as I said before, vents on the bottom increase the risk of overheating when used on a bed or carpet. Critics hold Apple to a higher sta…
"In general, Apple makes quality hardware. If it were otherwise, they wouldn't be able to charge so much." My experience of Apple hardware, from owning it myself and from seeing how it fares for those around me who also use it, is that it's pretty, but poorly designed, lacking in features, and very unreliable. They are able to charge so much because they market it well. Also, OSX is a decent OS in comparison to Windo…
In term of hardware, I've had a few lemons and I've complained loudly but under Applecare, Apple replaced the mbp retina I had that failed 3 times with a new model (which runs perfectly fin) so I can't really complain.
I've also had very long lived devices from Apple, my first ibook lasted 4-5 years until my parents sat on it, my wife's old powerbook lasted 6 years until it was stolen, my first generation iphone still works perfectly fine...
One thing I did learn though is never to buy a first generation model from Apple, they tend to be unreliable (at least in my anecdotical experience)
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I'd buy a cheaper computer before one so expensive it would be a fiscal catastrophe if I lost it. Buying a computer on credit is just as bad, might as well just set fire to money. In fact, my laptop is a $500 one I bought 2 years ago for travel use and didn't want to be too upset if it was lost/broken/stolen. My previous one was 10 years old and was a bit heavy :-)
A $500 laptop is garbage and hardly adequate for the use of most of the people that frequent HN. I mean, what does $500 buy you? A shitty TN panel with a subpar resolution, color reproduction and viewing angle, often shoddy build quality, tons of bulk and probably a spinning drive (I wouldn't buy a laptop without a SSD today). Not everybody on the planet needs something svelte and sexy, but for those of us who work o…
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Why do you doubt the temperature did not reflow the board? When I solder electronics, I'm usually somewhere between 500F to 650F, but that's so things get hot enough quickly enough to not burn. I don't doubt a slow bake at 340F would do the same thing... some online googling shows people doing reflows with toaster ovens in the same temperature range (340F-450F). It's likely the solder joints were not completely disco…
Right. And the reason why it keeps breaking? Well, the solder on the board might not have any flux left, so it might have trouble flowing properly. There could be a cold joint, etc. If it fails again, one possible next step would be to grab a multimeter and test the resistance across each component on the board. If the resistance is infinite, that might be your problem component.
Also, the problem might as well be one of the numerous chips in BGA packages whose connection points you can't even see, let alone- probe.
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Why do you doubt the temperature did not reflow the board? When I solder electronics, I'm usually somewhere between 500F to 650F, but that's so things get hot enough quickly enough to not burn. I don't doubt a slow bake at 340F would do the same thing... some online googling shows people doing reflows with toaster ovens in the same temperature range (340F-450F). It's likely the solder joints were not completely disco…
physics, 340F will NOT melt solder