Is that my mum is such a fucking tidiness freak. She’s almost neurotic.
If it weren’t for her I could leave the thing out of it’s bag and the power lead trailing neatly round the sides of the floor (so it’s not in anyone’s way).
But no, every time I want to use the laptop I have to unpack it, unpack the wires, plug the wires in, use it, pack it away, pack the wires away, put the bag somewhere inconspicuous.
If I have a habit of leaving so much as a computer magazine on the table she acts as if I am a selling drugs to children!
No Lobsang, this is not the biggest downside of owning a laptop.
Some of the downsides are:
-They cost twice as much as a desktop with similar capabilities
-They depriciate really fast. I felt like an idiot when I saw that my Compaq Pressario was being sold for £500 less, just a month after I bought mine
-Not really portable. Too big, too heavy and very limited battery power
-No upgrades. You have to throw the whole thing away
Oh, yeh? And just what is Momma Lobsang’s point of view on this?
:: Our hidden camera is focussed on Momma Lobsang as she pours out her heart to what she thinks is a sympathetic neighbor, but who is really CandidGamera picking up some moonlighting moolah ::
"…And that boy just never could understand the idea of put it away when you’re done with it. Even his girlfriend says the same thing about him! Why, if I had to use a backhoe and the Jaws of Life to clean his bedroom once, I had to a hundred times. And the stench of the rotting leftovers on the plates shoved under his bed – well, bad enough that the downwind neighbors complained, but when the health inspector got taken out on a stretcher, why, I just hung my head in shame. And her respirator was ruined, too!
“Now, he’s a good boy, don’t get me wrong, but he can’t even put a square peg in a round hole, never mind in the slot it belongs in. He never could learn any definition for ‘neat’ that doesn’t involve whiskey. He can walk through a brand-new, empty garage and leave it cluttered to the rafters behind him. He thinks sweeping a room with a glance is too much effort. I tell you, that boy is just plain messy.”
naaah, not really, I have a little Averatec that was only about 900. My old desktop was about 1200+ all told (monitor and all). My new desktop was 2000, but it’s a custom build with mega features, so it’s not really comparable as far as what it does, it’s way more versatile then the laptop.
hmm, Well, my laptop is only 5 pounds or so and is no bigger than a textbook (and lighter than some.
The thing that I find the most annoying about a laptop is how hot they get, Even with the “cooler board” my little tiny one about cooks me to death when I use it.
Mine is probably a little less than 2/3 the size of a Dell, and with my aging eyesight, that’s about as small as I want to go. I’ve seen them even smaller though, my Dr.'s office uses ones about the size of a paperback. Kinda hard to read though.
The battery thing is kind of annoying, but I get around it by having a few extra batteries.
I love being able to watch TV and surf the net. Or taking it with me on trips (I have NO sense of direction and mappoint is pretty helpful.
Wireless electrical energy transfer has been invented a long time ago by Nicola Tesla.
But there is a worldwide conspir…OH NO! They found me! I have to go…
The biggest downside I have is the women who throw themselves at me on learning I’m set up to play network Quake at someone’s room. Or maybe it’s the hallucinations.
www.splashpower.com Engineers already are interested. And have built them. Admittedly not that efficiently.
Which is why many manufacturers have stopped calling them laptops and started calling them notebooks - to discourage people putting them on their laps and causing burns.
A ‘laptop’ was never really meant to be stuck upon your lap directly (especially if you are not wearing pants - as one odd story I heard), because it’s just not possible to have enough open space and air flow in them to keep them cool.
The faster the processors get, and the more transistors packed into their tiny packages, the more heat they generate even with lowering the voltages. They’re still drawing current, they’re still dissipating power, and they have a much worse heat expulsion system because large heat sinks and fans and lack of airflow will plague computers that are designed to be ‘smaller smaller smaller.’
The only things I’ve upgraded on my laptop are the CPU, the RAM, the keyboard, the hard drive, the modem, added USB capability, added FireWire capability, added a CD burner, added a Zip drive, added a port to support an additional external monitor, and added a card to digitize video. Oh, and the notebook carrying case, and an improved screen hinge, and a better/smaller AC power adapter, and various external keyboards and mice, but those things don’t really count.
I recently bought an Apple iBook and one thing (among many) that I love about it is how hot it doesn’t get. I mean, it gets warm like all notebooks do, but it doesn’t get so hot I can’t touch it like previous PC notebooks I’ve owned. I can even use it on my bed and it doesn’t get hot.
