4 ms·

My guess is not that they are talking about just any 2013 Dell laptop, but that she is referring to something that is not of "ultrabook" standards of appearance

My guess is not that they are talking about just any 2013 Dell laptop, but that she is referring to something that is not of "ultrabook" standards of appearance and (probably) battery life optimization. My impression of government hardware purchasing is that even while newer consumer models of laptops have managed to be lighter weight, have better battery life, and so on, they haven't met the litany of requirements needed for the government. She probably has a semi-custom Dell Latitude, which while a workhorse, is big and clunky and has less than desirable battery life. Oh and the screen resolution is probably 1366x768. Compare that to any ultrabook one could acquire today with a greater than HD quality display. My guess is that her son is confused because before then she probably did most of her work with a Macbook Air, an ultrabook (perhaps even a Dell XPS), or even a Chromebook Pixel. These are all thinner, lighter, and with greater battery life. And they probably don't check the boxes the government wanted.

danjayh 12y ago
That's a good guess ... but I still think there's a bit of hyperbole going on. I'd think a gigantor-laptop would be similar enough to an ultrabook that the kid would figure it out. If I recast the question of 'what it was' to 'what is that hunk-of-junk looking laptop?', then I guess I could believe it. On that topic ... many of the chunky plastic boxes are actually great machines. We have a choice from a few machines at work ... and almost no engineers choose an ultrabook. While ultrabooks are good for some things (watching videos, basic productivity like word, small excel workbooks, etc.), I wouldn't want to compile an operating system on one. I have a gigantic brick of a 'laptop' at work (I think it's a Precision M6700), and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's nice to be able to slap it on and off a dock, to be able to connect it to four monitors without any janky USB video cards, and to be able to install tons of RAM.
- pyre 12y ago
  > I wouldn't want to compile an operating system on one The number of laptop users that actually "compile an operating system" are relatively small. This seems like a poor choice for an example.
  - bitwize 12y ago
    I compile operating systems on a 2010 ThinkPad. It's not fantastic for today's standards, but it's not terrible either.
    - dekhn 12y ago
      I compiled operating systems (linux) on my clunky 486/100 MHz laptop 19 years ago. Ditto.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Even the number of developers who compile an operating system on any regular basis is extremely small. For me, developing software is much less resource intensive than a light web browsing session.
- mc32 12y ago
  Not only that but it implies that a young person was an expert on what was derigueur technology and not. It's a pretty shallow assertion and hard to take the article seriously after that.
  - gaius 12y ago
    Relevant: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-sad-world-of-adults-pretending-to-be-kids-for-retweets http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-sad-world-of-adults-prete...
rayiner 12y ago
To be fair, most business laptops in the $500-$700 range are pretty shit, with 1366x768 screens.
Someone 12y ago
I agree. There is a good chance that we are talking about a 2013 laptop with a floppy disk drive of a product line dating back to 2010 or earlier that Dell kept alive only because it is government approved, and that Dell sells with a nice high markup (keeping those floppy disks and the 100GB disk drives of those machines on the shelf for years costs money, you know) Also, but that is complete speculation, it might not even have USB for security reasons. I can see that kids seeing something that you cannot plug your mouse into wouldn't think it to be a laptop.
- walshemj 12y ago
  one of my mates worked for QinetiQ (something on the weapons side) and he showed us his new works lap top a few years back with the USB ports filled up with solder.

danjayh 12y ago

That's a good guess ... but I still think there's a bit of hyperbole going on. I'd think a gigantor-laptop would be similar enough to an ultrabook that the kid would figure it out. If I recast the question of 'what it was' to 'what is that hunk-of-junk looking laptop?', then I guess I could believe it. On that topic ... many of the chunky plastic boxes are actually great machines. We have a choice from a few machines at work ... and almost no engineers choose an ultrabook. While ultrabooks are good for some things (watching videos, basic productivity like word, small excel workbooks, etc.), I wouldn't want to compile an operating system on one. I have a gigantic brick of a 'laptop' at work (I think it's a Precision M6700), and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's nice to be able to slap it on and off a dock, to be able to connect it to four monitors without any janky USB video cards, and to be able to install tons of RAM.

pyre 12y ago
> I wouldn't want to compile an operating system on one The number of laptop users that actually "compile an operating system" are relatively small. This seems like a poor choice for an example.
- bitwize 12y ago
  I compile operating systems on a 2010 ThinkPad. It's not fantastic for today's standards, but it's not terrible either.
  - dekhn 12y ago
    I compiled operating systems (linux) on my clunky 486/100 MHz laptop 19 years ago. Ditto.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Even the number of developers who compile an operating system on any regular basis is extremely small. For me, developing software is much less resource intensive than a light web browsing session.
mc32 12y ago
Not only that but it implies that a young person was an expert on what was derigueur technology and not. It's a pretty shallow assertion and hard to take the article seriously after that.
- gaius 12y ago
  Relevant: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-sad-world-of-adults-pretending-to-be-kids-for-retweets http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-sad-world-of-adults-prete...

rayiner 12y ago

To be fair, most business laptops in the $500-$700 range are pretty shit, with 1366x768 screens.

Someone 12y ago

I agree. There is a good chance that we are talking about a 2013 laptop with a floppy disk drive of a product line dating back to 2010 or earlier that Dell kept alive only because it is government approved, and that Dell sells with a nice high markup (keeping those floppy disks and the 100GB disk drives of those machines on the shelf for years costs money, you know) Also, but that is complete speculation, it might not even have USB for security reasons. I can see that kids seeing something that you cannot plug your mouse into wouldn't think it to be a laptop.

walshemj 12y ago
one of my mates worked for QinetiQ (something on the weapons side) and he showed us his new works lap top a few years back with the USB ports filled up with solder.