4 ms·
I also stopped buying new laptops. The full biological cost is hard to fully imagine, just incredible in size. If you think about it, hundreds and thousands of
by forgotmypw17 6y ago
I also stopped buying new laptops. The full biological cost is hard to fully imagine, just incredible in size. If you think about it, hundreds and thousands of plant, bacterial, animal, mammal, bird, and other lives are laid down for each of these amazing powerful artefacts. If there are previously used alternatives available, I cannot in good conscience vote for the creation of another one. So I started with a couple of refurbs, then I started just getting hand-me-downs. People are constantly getting rid of old laptops, tablets, phones, keyboards, etc.
As a coder, working on something older also gives me perspective on performance of anything I'm working on.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agoI wish more people thought like you. I love old stuff that still works for what I need it to do. My original iPhone SE and Samsung Chromebook bought for $30 on eBay (with SDSU etched on the front) work perfectly for what I need them for.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoThank you for the appreciation and validation! I have an iPad which I bought on Craigslist and runs iOS9, and it still works great for my Web needs. I only use it for my own websites, which I keep lightweight and accessible, and a a few others like HN.
- jansc 6y agoI did the same thing. Bought a refurbished Thinkpad X250 and installed FreeBSD on it. Now it use it as my main development machine. I haven't look back since.
- glouwbug 6y agoI rocked a T43 (from 2005) until 2012, then called it quits, and got a x230 which I still use until now. I always thought I was crazy running a 2005 machine until 2012, but the x230 has been up and running for 8 years now. It's a very good machine, and it fits in my little blue shoulder lunch bag
- nuker 6y ago> As a coder, working on something older Have you seen Retina HiDPI displays? You'd never go back.
- antiterra 6y agoI have Retina/HiDPI everything, but I still sorely miss the speed of a real text mode, and, for coding, would miss nothing about high-dpi font rendering.
- hollerith 6y agoInteresting. I used text mode daily for many years on a succession of 3 PCs and did not notice any slowness when I switched to graphics mode (around 2006). I am pretty sure graphics mode is slower, and I didn't notice only because the slowdown does not bother me. Similarly, when I switched from Terminal.app to Emacs's shell mode for interacting with Bash, I didn't mind the fact that it was much slower (because "cursor control characters" and ANSI color codes are processed by Emacs byte code rather than much faster objective C code) whereas other users here on HN find Emacs shell mode unusably slow. I am usually the first person to be annoyed (e.g., by the flicker from many brands of LED bulbs) so it is refreshing to find a tech trend that annoys someone else before it annoys me because I have the luxury of sitting back and watching them lobby for reform before the trend continues far enough to annoy me :)
- forgotmypw17 6y agoYeah, I've seen them. They're nice. I'm flexible enough to use most displays, even the standard 7" raspi display in certain circumstances.
- WalterBright 6y agoI get them from the pawn shop. They'll be a year or two old, but perfectly serviceable. That and the thrift store are great places to pick up TVs, stereo equipment, guitars, tools, etc.
- pjmlp 6y agoI wish a couple of more Rust aficionados, and the Android Studio team, would do the same instead of using most likely beefy Ryzen desktops.