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The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

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Re: The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

#101

Post by jessaustin »

machello13 wrote: post #94
ecshafer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is honestly an absurd proposition. A 13 inch screen Ipad pro with a keyboard and 2TB of memory is $2500. Video editing is something you want power, and a lot of screen real estate, and a good form factor. Even with the GPU shortage, you can buy an extremely powerful, capable, video editing desktop with two large 27" monitors for $1k. Even before you consider limitations in sandboxing, multi-application usage, an…

> A 13 inch screen Ipad pro with a keyboard and 2TB of memory is $2500. The 2TB memory is accounting for like half the cost there. You can get a model with less built-in memory and just use an external drive and the price drops down to like $1400.

Lots of tasks don't benefit from ridiculous amounts of memory, but editing video does.

Re: The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

#102

Post by vlunkr »

alliao wrote: post #64
egypturnash wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those musician's workstations have the actual computer hidden somewhere out of sight. There's a monitor or two, a computer keyboard lying around(all wireless, it looks like?), but all those desks are dominated by musical keyboards, mixer boards, and speakers. Sometimes there's a laptop sitting on it. All the cables are hidden, out of the way. Take away the monitors and the computer keyboard, substitute a coupl…

I'm a gamer and my rig is a mini itx tucked away. I like it quiet and performant. Yes the market slaps RGB lighting on anything and everything gamer but it's up to gamers to buy them.

Although sometimes it's a chore to find something without the RGB.

Re: The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

#103

Post by robotnikman »

mywittyname wrote: post #84
ohazi wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers who do mechanical CAD work using a specialized input device like a SpaceMouse [1] or similar. [1] https://3dconnexion.com/uk/spacemouse/

SpaceMouse works just fine on laptops, it's just kind of pointless when your software is pushing 15fps because of the shitty graphics card. You can't get Quattro cards on laptops, as far as I know. So anyone using CAD software regularly is stuck using desktops.

I think Lenovo offers Quattro cards on laptops, but IIRC they much more expensive than a desktop workstation

Re: The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

#104

Post by MarcScott »

mishu2 wrote: post #75
duxup wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heck in addition to my keyboard I've been thinking of building a board with a bunch of buttons just for firing off random things. API requests when testing and so forth ... for whatever reason a separate set of physical keys makes more sense in my head.

Something like this? https://xkeys.com/xk24black.html I saw it recommended here a while ago, haven't tried it myself.

Or the cheaper, cooler and probably more hackable Keybow 2040

https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/keybow-2040?variant=32399...

Re: The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

#107

Post by asciimov »

A friends family doesn't have a single desktop/laptop/tablet/printer in their house. They all have decently highend cell phones. If the children need to type up a book report one of the adults brings home their work laptop.

Meanwhile, I've moved back to desktops. If I ever need a laptop again it will be the lightest weight one I can get, and will use it to remote access my main machine.

Re: The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

#108

Post by eludwig »

samatman wrote: post #68
rossdavidh wrote: post #50

My 15-year old daughter just recently got her first desktop. Why? Well, because instead of just consuming (which she does on her phone) or doing homework (chromebook), she wanted to do video editing, and also drawing using a Wacom tablet. She found that the non-desktop options were just not that great. Had it been a passing fancy, no doubt she would have done without the desktop, but it wasn't, so she got a tricked o…

A tangent, but I've found the iPad Pro to be fabulous for video editing. I haven't hooked it up to a keyboard/mouse combo, or plugged it into a monitor, but it's quite capable of both of those things. I can tell you it's simply superior to a Wacom tablet for drawing, there I have a direct comparison. A PC/desktop will certainly exceed an iPad at some level: but now that the Pro model has an M1, it's unclear at what l…

>> I can tell you it's simply superior to a Wacom tablet for drawing

IMO, yes & no. For certain types of work, an iPad Pro is amazing. For direct sketching, drawing, for sure. It's easily my favorite drawing table for these.

For certain other types of work, for example: colorists work of filling large areas precisely within black lines (like comicbook coloring) or maneuvering around a huge document, a commercial grade Intuos tablet (or the like) is a better match.

One of the biggest reasons is that the Intuos has physical, raised "quick action" buttons which can be programmed to switch between tools, so you can zoom, rotate, brush, erase without ever looking at a keyboard or even looking away from the screen. This is crucial in certain workflows. Edit: also, the fact that your hand is never in the way on an Intuos is really key.

Admittedly, this is a very specific use case, but I figured I'd mention it for completeness sake.

Re: The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

#109

Post by foobarian »

vlunkr wrote: post #99
rossdavidh wrote: post #50

My 15-year old daughter just recently got her first desktop. Why? Well, because instead of just consuming (which she does on her phone) or doing homework (chromebook), she wanted to do video editing, and also drawing using a Wacom tablet. She found that the non-desktop options were just not that great. Had it been a passing fancy, no doubt she would have done without the desktop, but it wasn't, so she got a tricked o…

> tricked out desktop (intended for gamers, I think) Generally this is just a marketing/SEO thing. A huge percentage of desktop hardware and accessories get the word "Gaming" slapped on the front even though they have nothing to do with gaming. Keyboards, mice, mousepads, headsets, speakers, monitors, cables, etc.

Unfortunately these days it seems to be the only way to get a Nvidia 30x0 GPU. (By getting a pre-built computer).

Re: The home computer as a cultural object is physically vanishing (2007)

#110

Post by echelon »

ergot_vacation wrote: post #28
echelon wrote: post #13

The home computer has been replaced with the iPhone. What boggles my mind is that the industry accepts Apple's restrictions on what kind of computing can happen, how their software can be distributed, and how their gross/margins are taxed. These devices have done a perverse thing to our field. Consumers love them, but fuck are they awful for freedom, business, and small time success. We used to build platforms in the…

Turns out the PC was an accident of history. Not an endpoint like some of us saw it, but simply an unfortunate stepping stone to the ultimate goal of making a really smart toaster. The end goal was never really to empower people, it was just to create a new market for rent-seeking via lock-in on a shiny new black box. No repairs allowed. No modding allowed. And you can go fuck yourself if you want the source code for…

You could have a million downvotes, but you're eternally correct. Thank you.
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