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Touch Laptops

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Re: Touch Laptops

#31

Post by meaty »

rjd wrote: post #19
meaty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am British! I haven't used imperial for at least 15 years apart from for speed limits, which I ignore anyway.

Having growing up in a metric country and lived in Britain I must admit its very nice having 60miles per equalling 60 minutes of driving for long trips. Being able to say "I'm 45 miles away from X I'll be there in 45 minutes" without having to do recalculate each time you pass a road sign makes trips all the more pleasant.

This is quite convenient I'll agree but my satnav tells me how long it's going to take and bar traffic, it's quite accurate.

Re: Touch Laptops

#32

Post by calinet6 »

ygra wrote: post #23
statictype wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the MacBook's touch pad is significantly , significantly better than most other PC laptop touchpads. I don't need a mouse when using a MacBook. I can't use a PC laptop without a mouse. I suspect its a combination of better hardware and better software (I bet Microsoft doesn't write the touchpad interpretation code, its done by the individual hardware makers and so will be total crap).

It's all in the drivers, interestingly. And Synaptics supplies both the Macbook trackpad and other touchpads. There's nothing to prevent them in putting the same features in their Windows drivers, but maybe Apple insists that they don't.

Apple just controls for the quality/experience they want to offer.

The various PC vendors have control over the hardware and software for the trackpads; they could make them good if they wanted to, or if they knew better. They just aren't "detail oriented" on a corporate scale.

Re: Touch Laptops

#33

Post by nfg »

smiler wrote: post #18
meaty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am British! I haven't used imperial for at least 15 years apart from for speed limits, which I ignore anyway.

Except you subconsciously have. All display sizes are sold in inches. The trip computer on your car will tell you miles per gallon. Even if you ignore speed limits, your speedometer gives you your speed in MPH :). If you've ever flown on a plane, altitude has been given as feet and distance in miles. So you do use both.

> If you've ever flown on a plane, altitude has been given as feet and distance in miles.

I've been on plenty of flights where displays and cockpit announcements were in metres (altitude) and kilometres (distance + velocity) - as well as Celsius for outside temperature.

Re: Touch Laptops

#34

Post by meaty »

smiler wrote: post #18
meaty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am British! I haven't used imperial for at least 15 years apart from for speed limits, which I ignore anyway.

Except you subconsciously have. All display sizes are sold in inches. The trip computer on your car will tell you miles per gallon. Even if you ignore speed limits, your speedometer gives you your speed in MPH :). If you've ever flown on a plane, altitude has been given as feet and distance in miles. So you do use both.

True with display sizes although I'm interested more in resolution than size.

My trip computer does litres per 100km. I drive a Citroen C5 and it has kph on it as well as mph. My satnav usually reminds me if I'm driving too fast (in kmh which is handy) and that results only in me watching out for speed cameras and the fuzz :)

I don't fly - I drive if needs be. I frequently drive around Europe as it's easier than dealing with flights and a damn sight more comfortable, reliable and cheaper than flying. I can drive to Leipzig from London in about 10-12 hours.

Re: Touch Laptops

#35

Post by meaty »

lutusp wrote: post #25
rjd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having growing up in a metric country and lived in Britain I must admit its very nice having 60miles per equalling 60 minutes of driving for long trips. Being able to say "I'm 45 miles away from X I'll be there in 45 minutes" without having to do recalculate each time you pass a road sign makes trips all the more pleasant.

The solution to that problem is simple -- drive at 60 KPH (37 MPH) instead of 60 MPH. :) This would save gas too.

Actually it wouldn't in my Citroen C5. The fuel efficiency peaks precisely at 60mph/100kph. Something to do with the power transmission ratio.

I get 2.83l/100km or 83mpg in old money out of that if I don't drive like an asshat.

Re: Touch Laptops

#36

Post by sliverstorm »

bjcy wrote: post #15
mooism2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it depends. If Atwood's aiming at an international audience, then he should use both measurement systems. If he's happy with an American audience then there's no reason for him to bother. I note that the date of his blog post is the international-friendly “November 19, 2012” rather than the American numeric “11/19/2012”. But internationalising dates like this is easier than providing measurements in dual units.

Us Americans do use "Month DD, YYYY" quite frequently, so I don't think that his usage of it is done purposefully.

Indeed. MM/DD/YY is used informally and for datapoints (e.g. the Date field when you sign a form), but any time you are writing formally (e.g. a letter) you use Month DD, YYYY.

It's almost like MM/DD/YY is the abbreviation of "Month DD, YYYY"

Re: Touch Laptops

#37

Post by chroma »

stcredzero wrote: post #22

> And Intel's long neglected Atom line, thanks to years of institutional crippling to avoid cannibalizing Pentium sales, is poorly positioned to compete with ARM today. Apple was ready to have new products that cannibalized the old ones. If Intel had the same courage, they'd be in a far better position today.

Bless you, Captain Hindsight! I assume you shorted or put INTC to profit from your insight.

Seriously, this post-season quarterbacking helps nothing but your own karma. The people in charge of Intel are intelligent, incentivized, and they've given the problem a lot more thought than you have. I realize our economies are ludicrously inefficient, but a single comment on HN is not going to outsmart an Intel board member.

Re: Touch Laptops

#38

Post by sliverstorm »

stcredzero wrote: post #22

> And Intel's long neglected Atom line, thanks to years of institutional crippling to avoid cannibalizing Pentium sales, is poorly positioned to compete with ARM today. Apple was ready to have new products that cannibalized the old ones. If Intel had the same courage, they'd be in a far better position today.

Apple cannibalized old products because the successor was mostly the same, but better. The argument around Intel is that success in the Atom line would hasten a repositioning of the microprocessor market that would inherently weaken Intel's position, so they are attempting to stall that repositioning as long as possible.

Re: Touch Laptops

#39

Post by octotoad »

This got me thinking about the whole Windows ARM port and x86 compatibility. I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but, why the hell didn't Microsoft make use of .NET for cross-platform compatibility?

Have developers write applications in C# or any other language supported by the CLR and let .NET work out the x86/ARM differences.

I'm sure there are valid technical and possibly political reasons this didn't happen, but I still find it very strange that Microsoft went to the trouble of developing this entire platform/framework/ecosystem just to ignore it when the opportunity arises to actually make good use of it.

Re: Touch Laptops

#40

Post by tomflack »

josteink wrote: post #21

His complaints about widescreen tablets not being very natural in portrait mode speaks volumes about his lack of experience with Android tablets, which all comes in this form. It may feel a bit weird at first, but really, it's sorta like reading webpages of a normal A4 sheet of paper. And we should be pretty used to that. The iPad haven't been around for so long.

A4 has an aspect ratio of 2:3, not 9:16. The iPad is 3:4 which is significantly closer to A4 than a weirdly tall portrait widescreen tablet (3:5.33333)
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