Not all of these would classify as "new challenges", but overall they will expand your perspective and expose you to interesting new ideas.
- Taking long walks (5km +) in your neighbourhood can give you a new perspective on your surroundings
- Snow Skiing or Diving - expensive, but both worth it if you haven't tried them
- Volunteering at a local organisation
- A part-time job that's way out of your normal focus. I've worked part time as a real-estate agent, photographer, IT technician, and learnt a lot about life doing so.
- Do some online / self study in a literature, psychology, philosophy or politics.
Assuming you have the Early 2011 Macbook Pro, the change will be as follows:
CPU - Quad Core 45w to Dual Core low voltage (big change for CPU intense work, but for 90% of what people do you won't notice the difference)
GPU - The Dell only has integrated Graphics - so any gaming will be worse than on the Macbook.
Screen - Increase in resolution from either 1440x900 or 1680x1050 to 1920x1080, and gaining the IPS panel. Going from 16x10 to 16x9 (this really annoys some people)
HDD - change from traditional drive to SSD (assuming you didn't put an SSD into your Macbook). If you already had an original Apple SSD in the Macbook, then it will just be faster.
Memory - lose the potential for 16gb, limited to 8gb.
Optical bay - lose the optical drive, lose the potential for dual drives.
Battery life - can't give you a good answer on this, without a review in Linux. In Windows, the Dell can loop video for 325 minutes, which is similar to the Macbook Pro. Under heavier load, the Dell would last longer but do less processing work during that time. Once you add Linux to the mix, I'd guess a 30% decrease in battery life.
Build quality - the Dell is good, but not great. I would give a slight advantage to the Macbook.
"While touchscreens provide a versatile user experience, they provide no tactile experience for consumers. Vibration haptics and similar solutions try to simulate a sensation of touch, but all are "feedback" technologies, vibrating only after touching the screen (even if they are touched in the wrong place or by mistake). In contrast, Tactus' technology creates real, physical buttons, where users can rest their fingers on the buttons, as on a mechanical keyboard, and input data by pressing down on the keys. Tactus is the only solution to both "orientation" and "confirmation" problems that are inherent in touch screens."
"Dediu refers to the giant gap between the cash Apple hauls in and what it pays its retail staff as Apple Store workers' "productivity." We'd guess there's probably another word for it, somewhere outside of the economist's lexicon."
Does the author of this article realise that different products have different markups? That Apple actually has to make these computers also? That a fair way to compare employee renumeration is directly, rather than through some random metric?
As an employee, I would rather earn $9 at store A selling $1000 worth of products than $5 at store B selling $6 dollars worth of products!
Do professional sports people feel taken advantage of? Cause you know, they get quite a small percentage of the total take of TV advertising that leverages off of their work.
/Rant Over. Wow, I wish more people studied Econ 101
"That Apple actually has to make these computers also?"
Indeed. Why would a salesperson at an Apple store be entitled to more than the going rate for retail work? Merely because an Apple /engineer/ did an outstanding job? That's nonsense.
Can Apple store employees show outstanding performance relative to other distribution channels? Relative to other stores, or to online sales? If so then the retail employee is producing value and there are grounds to demand higher compensation.
But if the cash haul is universal across distribution channels, which it is according to the article, then the folks entitled to a bonus are working back at 1 Infinite Loop.
> Merely because an Apple /engineer/ did an outstanding job? That's nonsense.
Furthermore, from what I've heard, Apple engineers don't get more than the going rate either for doing an outstanding job of executing the outstanding /designer/ vision. And neither do most of the people who work at design in apple.
But the outstanding /executives/ do actually get more than the going rate. That includes the heads of design, engineering and sales.
Yes, professional sports people do feel taken advantage of. Did you not just see the NBA lock-out? Players genuinely feel like management is taking advantage of them. See this excellent Bill Simmons analysis over at Grantland: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7250994/business-vs-pers...
Very good point! My argument is that feeling taken advantage of does not necessarily mean that you are being taken advantage of, at least in an economic sense.
Very interesting. I agree with a lot of what the author says, and I think that aspects of Apple's case against Samsung are spurious, to say the least. However, I also see one major flaw in his argument.
If this design is obvious, why then do all tablets made trior to the iPad look nothing like the iPad? (Windows Tablets, Apple Newton, Specialist Medical Tablets, Grid Tablet, etc etc)
Microsoft did some terrible things, and abused their market power. But overall, I would say the world is a significantly better place than it would have been without MS. Looking at it from an economics point of view, every person who bought MS software made a logical transaction where the benefits outweighed the costs, therefore making their life better in some way.
Short answer? Go see a Psychologist. I know a lot of people are naturally averse to this (I was, at one point) but I've realised that a good psychologist is really just a good hacker - someone who's read a lot on the subject at hand (personality and the psyche), is motivated to help you, enjoys it, and has found a way to make money doing so.
In one hour with a good psychologist, they will generally be able to give you very good guidance on what you are feeling. It's not magic, it's just the power of having an informed, objective observer in a situation that encourages you to be open.
Otherwise, ask the people closest to you - your spouse, GF/BF, etc.
- Taking long walks (5km +) in your neighbourhood can give you a new perspective on your surroundings
- Snow Skiing or Diving - expensive, but both worth it if you haven't tried them
- Volunteering at a local organisation
- A part-time job that's way out of your normal focus. I've worked part time as a real-estate agent, photographer, IT technician, and learnt a lot about life doing so.
- Do some online / self study in a literature, psychology, philosophy or politics.