An $89 remanufactured Ubuntu workstation • Hacker News Board

Re: An $89 remanufactured Ubuntu workstation

#141

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 2:59 PM UTC

vacri wrote: post #134

Karunamon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

End of life according to who? That's not how it works, one company doesn't just declare something EOL and everyone else stops using it out of obligation. VGA will stop being used when it stops fitting most use cases out there, and not before. The connector standard is capable of 2048x1536 at 85hz, which, making an educated guess here, is probably a higher resolution than the monitor you're using right now. Most monit…

VGA is terrible. The specs you just rattled off don't account for the innate fuzziness of the analog signal. I've reduced a lot of eyestrain from various people by confiscating their VGA cables and telling them they're forbidden from using 'the cable with the blue ends'. Yes, VGA still has to be used for devices that only accept VGA (like a lot of projectors, very few of which can handle those specs), but apart from…

Those sound like bad cables to me. I'm typing this on a 1920x1080 display, connected via VGA, and next to that is an identical monitor connected over DVI.

The displays are identically sharp and colorful. Nobody would be able to tell you which is connected over which interface.

Re: An $89 remanufactured Ubuntu workstation

#142

Post by e12e » Tue, Mar 03, 2015, 4:51 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #115

e12e wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, the market isn't going to solve this on it's own. Other peoples children are going to be cheaper than robots for the foreseeable future. In fact, poisoning the local population could be considered a minor issue compared to contaminating the water tables. Sick people die, but a contaminated water table keeps killing people for generations. I think strong local regulations, as well as an emphasis of recycling lo…

We may have sufficient regulations that the market can push it over the top. After all if you can create a facility that converts ewaste into resalable raw materials you can both sell the service to municipalities who are required by law to dispose of their ewaste safely, and the raw materials to manufacturers as a recycled product. That combination might get you into an internal rate of return to make it worth while…

The real challenge is the globalization (and accompanying fragmentation of regulation) of electronics production. One might recycle heavy metals locally, but you'd have to get it back into the production pipe-line -- which generally means shipping it to China. And being able to compete on price with heavy metals from various more-or less horribly run mines around the world. One obvious alternative is to produce electronic components locally (again). But realistically, doing that cheaply enough (and well enough) is going to be a challenge.

In this sense I think Tesla is a very interesting company (even if I don't think much of the cars themselves, from an eco-perspective -- cars is a horrible means of transportation, even electric ones).

Re: An $89 remanufactured Ubuntu workstation

#143

Post by GhotiFish » Wed, Mar 04, 2015, 11:39 PM UTC

listic wrote: post #113

gtk40 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly use a netbook with 1GB of RAM (Dell Mini 9). It's on #! (I know, I might need to look for an alternative), which uses Openbox, but I have no problems with web surfing as long as I max at about 5 tabs. I also don't use a lot of web apps. With HTML5 video, videos work well enough. I can even run Eclipse if nothing else is open without too many problems, although for development work on it I'm usually using…

Well, they don't use #!

It's unfortunate we teach young designers like this, I agree.

Re: An $89 remanufactured Ubuntu workstation

#144

Post by gtk40 » Fri, Mar 06, 2015, 2:19 PM UTC

listic wrote: post #113

gtk40 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly use a netbook with 1GB of RAM (Dell Mini 9). It's on #! (I know, I might need to look for an alternative), which uses Openbox, but I have no problems with web surfing as long as I max at about 5 tabs. I also don't use a lot of web apps. With HTML5 video, videos work well enough. I can even run Eclipse if nothing else is open without too many problems, although for development work on it I'm usually using…

Well, they don't use #!

I guess that's true, although in theory it would be quite easy to install a lighter WM and/or DE. I don't know why they picked Ubuntu default and Unity.