Quote:
Originally posted by F1098
I only work with STEP and IGIS files. Catia and AUTOCAD and lots and lots of CFD work. I don't know if that qualifies me as a serious computer user but perhaps you can reconsider.
Nope, still light user. Unless you're doing live renderings or simulations. CAD is not CPU intensive enough to qualify. Anything that can be capable run on a $200 piece of hardware isn't serious.
Quote:
Originally posted by F1098
Ya, chiclets aren't like a full keyboard but agile fingers on an airplane can produce good work for completion in my luxe office environment.
Doesn't refute my statement that it isn't a full keyboard. Your particular environment is irrelevant to your keyboard. There is nothing stopping you from buying a real keyboard that offers infinitely better lifespan, durability, tactile response, or actuation. Just don't state that chiclet keyboard is a full keyboard.
Quote:
Originally posted by F1098
Don't quite understand EL's comment on repair when shit breaks. What breaks?
Motherboards, GPUs, hard-drives, screens, keyboards, practically everything. But with a laptop, you don't have options.
Mosfet and voltage regulation failed? Have to replace the entire motherboard (volt+cpu+gpu+io).
CPU die? Have to replace the entire motherboard (volt+cpu+gpu+io).
GPU die? Have to replace the entire motherboard (volt+cpu+gpu+io).
I/O Panel die? Have to replace the entire motherboard (volt+cpu+gpu+io).
Where is the modularity?
On a desktop?
CPU die? Replace the CPU.
GPU die? Replace the GPU.
Motherboard die? Replace the mobo.
Cheaper, better, and faster.
I can think of a few WBWers who have had serious hardware failures with their laptops. I know my GPU desoldered itself from my old Apple 2002 iBook, which cost me $1800 for my freshman year at MTU. Ramsann has a busted keyboard. Dros has a dead screen, now dead mobo. Bangles had problems with his MBP. Hell I think even SP had a hardware failure recently.
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Originally posted by F1098
Everybody uses SSD these days, no ?
It would be nice, but no, not everyone uses SSDs. Also not sure what it has do with this particular conversation.
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Originally posted by F1098
And why do I only hear about hardware failure from gamers and the military.
Selection bias and empirical data at best.
Laptops are statistically known to break more often than actual desktops. Why? Because less cooling capacity, cramped components, and virtually everything being soldered to the board. SquareTrade did a review of a three year cycle in terms of repair and hardware failure. They found that in the course of three years, 31% of laptops have hardware failure. If you don't believe that, go to your local computer repair shop and ask them what comes in for more repairs.
Laptops are the domain of the casual and light user. Only the heavy duty, ~$2K machines are on the level of mid-grade desktops. Even still, no one in their right mind would try to edit and encode movies regularly, or run simulations, compile large codebases, run servers, run databases, massive dataset crunching on a regular basis.
And gamers really don't do laptops because of how ineffective they are. They are slower, less overclockable, less durable, hardware limited, and outrageously priced for the performance. All the serious game and competitive players use actual desktops. Yeah some companies make "gaming laptops", but they are a niche market for niche market for naive pre-teens with rich parents. Go to a tournament like StarCraft, Defense of the Ancients, Quake-Con, Evo 2KX, all of them use desktops.
Quote:
Originally posted by F1098
Something in common going on there ?
PC gamers only have a common failing in hardware if they do an unstable overclock. Professional overclockers and serious gaming fanatics have high grade cooling and equipment, check out the LN2 cooling stuff they do for competitions. Military stuff fails because no hardware will survive actual live combat.
Quote:
Originally posted by F1098
I' m a serious user. But not a geek, no ?
No, light user. Nothing hardware intensive, nothing advanced.
Have you ever written a shell script to automate a workflow?
Do you use the command-line regularly?
Have you ever modified binaries to run?
Have you ever compiled your own software?
Have you ever cloned and then compiled someone else's source code from github, subversion, etc?
Have you ever reverse engineered software?
Have you ever written your own kernel?
Have you ever built your own rig?
Have you ever upgraded your own rig?
Do you know how it functions on a system level?
Have you ever tinkered or modified your system?
Have you ever overclocked your cpu or your gpu?
Have you ever sat down and spent hours tweaking your motherboard's multipliers and voltages?
Do you actively follow tech news?
Does your machine run actively twenty-four hours a day for weeks if not months at a time?
Have you ever used a real variant of Linux or BSD?
Have you ever hacked in functionality to other people's platforms or software?
Have you ever maintained an complete online backup, encrypted to remote server hosting?
Have you ever sat down and customized your terminal and created custom shells?
Have you ever went through and locked down an entire network creating specific rulesets in an alternative router firmware?
Do you regularly max out your CPU, have all threads running various tasks like encoding files, decrypting material, archiving, etc.?
I mean I could go on.
There is a vast gulf in terms of a serious computer user and a casual computer user. Surfing the web, popping out emails, watching videos, editing some photos, and popping open a small handful of niche software to accomplish a very small scoped task. You shouldn't be offended, 99% of the people here fit into the casual category. It isn't about the time spent using a computer it is about the depth and mechanics of it. I have shelves crammed full of dead tree media devoted to nothing but technology, computers, subsystems, information technology. Enthusiasts always get irritated when someone comes in and tries to claim like they are at the same tier of devotion, knowledge, or expertise. My previous post about Mantle API and drawcalls wasn't even a scratch in the surface of serious computer use. Hell, if I wanted to get into some low-level stuff, Dizzy would have to write in a PRE formatter just so I could get the stuff posted correctly. Just like you would be irritated if I claimed that I was at the same level of expertise as you in your particular field.
And "geek" isn't the correct term, that is marketing bullshit companies use to sell inane vacuous shit.
No hard feelings meant about the whole thing.
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@ SP: Send me a copy, I'll run it through some compressors. I can't promise miracles though.
