The Joys of Being a Late Tech Adopter
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
- Wait for movie hype to end to avoid crap movies with great marketing. I usually wait to borrow them from the library.
- I buy all my computers used from Craig's List. I'm typing on one I paid $500 for that would have been $2,000 new.
- Latest news about "superfoods" or nutrition. I heard about someone who waited 5 years to act on food trends. None lasted that long before more latest nutrition news superseded it.
- Reading daily news. Doesn't improve my life nor make me better informed.
I still check my email too much.
Superfood is also marketing hype. But I’d say there is an underlying truth: fresh, whole foods are more nutritious than spliced up or fried options and a diet lacking nutritious food can easily be deficient. Herbs are pretty crazy packed with (sometimes unique) beneficial compounds though.
edit-possibly it’s that plants pack nutritional compounds into their fruits, leaves, and bodies and the smaller the whole component of a plant is the more densely packed it will be.
haha no way. I was lent a octoccore server from ~2009 recently, and I'd describe it as a hairdryer with a modicum of compute tacked on.
My personal dev machine is ~4 years old is a boatload faster core for core, and matched the octocore overall performance (DB benchmark on real world task, not disk-bound).
The loop feeds itself unless one of the parties ceases being shocked. I've found it easier to cease being shocked on my end, than waiting for the universe to change to suit my fancy.
The Atkins diet bore all the sociological hallmarks of every other diet fad when it became popular in the first decade of the millennium, however, its basic advice (reducing carb intake) seems to have been valid from today's perspective.
Old laptops are fully usable in exactly the same way as a modern machine. They might be slightly slower.
Well, I mean, it's getting more difficult to deal with 32bit hardware, but that's about 10-15 years old now.
My 32bit atom netbook is still usable; still gets security patches; runs the latest everything (it's just very slow, and e.g. some distros dropped 32bit support).
I think that the phone manufacturers, Google, etc, should address the fact that they are creating mountains of e-waste for no good reason. The last new phone I bought was partly because old software stopped running on my version of Android. That's really a shame.
I'm keeping an eye on the progress of the Librem but that's a tiny niche market for nerds like me and doesn't address the wider problem.
this might be naive, but I do suspect we are getting close to an inflection point with the two year phone lifetime. up until the last few years, phone hardware was advancing rapidly and major features were being added to the mobile OSes every year. no one who could afford to wanted to keep a phone more than two or three years. now that mobile tech is more mature, they will start having to cater to people who want to buy a quality device and keep it for longer. arguably apple is already doing this; iOS 13 will still support a phone from 2015.
It's not a matter of the hardware manufacturers "supporting an OS". It's about the lack of standardization, hardware drivers, fragmentation etc.
Samsung don't support my 15 year old laptop, but it works and works fine, because it's a PC.
If the kernel drivers for my phone were mainlined that would be a huge step.
going back in time, we have ibm (yes !) to thank for that :o) i don't know, if it would be possible for current duopoly to replaced anytime soon...
I ended up upgrading from T60 to somewhat newer, less-well-designed other ThinkPad series, mainly for a larger display, so that I wasn't tied to my desk as much. And I still transplant original T60 keyboards into the somewhat newer models, since, after the T60, Lenovo started making the keyboard flex.
The last 5 years we reached 'good' for all flagship models, and so you bought one to get that but could then just keep it until it broke.
Now, and going forwards, I think we're in the phase where non flagships are reaching 'good' too, so it's really compelling to just get something that's cheaper and more of a commodity device.
As the article points out, it'll be fantastic when we reach the point of having good phones that are perfectly nice to use day to day, but if we occasionally lose or break them the reaction is 'ah well, I'll just go buy another one tomorrow' because they cost $50 brand new.
But I'm a late adopter too, so I'll wait until that tech is robust enough.
This will obviously vary from person to person, but I felt we already reached this point 4-5 years ago. After getting an unlocked Moto G2 in 2014 for roughly $200 new, I no longer felt like I was sacrificing so terribly much at that price point.
On the other hand I am quite happy driving a 15 year old car and would not spend money on a brand new fancy car even though I can afford it. No Tesla or BMW or Merc for me.
It's different strokes for different people.
I'm waiting for the day when I can pick up a cheap Tesla that "only" goes 200 miles and "doesn't even drive itself". I'm already seeing Craigslist ads for Teslas where they have to state no autopilot. No car ad five years ago that would have to say that.
I just sold my first-generation 2016 Model X to a dealer at 80% of its original cost 3 years ago, which to me indicates a profound level of delusion in the marketplace about the long-term reliability of Tesla vehicles. Going through my own personal experiences and following stories of what Tesla owners have had to go through when they needed repairs, I've finally accepted what my friend said long ago about Tesla cars being repair-hostile:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11233898
Speaking as someone who has gone through 3 years of repairs with a brand new Tesla (fortunately all being under warranty), if your objective is to buy a car that will be reasonably reliable and easily and cheaply repaired as its aging parts break, an old used Tesla would be the absolute last car I'd ever consider.
Front strut for a 2016 Ford Fusion, $92 [1].
Front strut for 2016 Mercedes S550, $1,406 [2].
So I'm hoping the Model 3 will be different since it's a high production vehicle.
[1] https://www.autopartswarehouse.com/sku/Ford/Fusion/Monroe/Sh... [2] https://www.autopartswarehouse.com/sku/Mercedes_Benz/S550/Bi...
I bought a used original Kindle for text to speech. Newer models dropped the feature. (I think only the Fire tablets still have TTS, but only as part of accessibility.) Sure they can still be had used, for now. Once all break or Amazon drops support then it'll probably never come back.
Multiplayer games suffer from a wave-like network effect. If you wait too long to try the game the community may have moved on. Only the hardcore remain, and they may not be the nicest members.
Grabbed a used 13" model with 16 GB RAM, and put in a 1 TB drive myself. Couldn't be happier upgrading from a 2010 edition
If they release new models with fixed keyboards next year, I might upgrade and shell out for the SSD and RAM upgrades.
If this is where smartphones peak - usable for two and a bit years - we need to take ourselves out to the car park for a strong conversation.
And fwiw, Windows Mobile phones had full fledged browsers and 3G long before the iPhone.
Fingers crossed for iPhone SE2 in iPhone5 shape :|
Here in "2nd world" e-waste is under control. Big portion of supermarkets have bins for disposing batteries and small electronics. We also have "electronics waste taxi" that comes to pick up large appliance for symbolic fee or even free, depending on exact location and item. Definitely better than collecting abandoned fridges and TVs from forests and roadside...
Fingers crossed 'third world" will get it under control sooner rather than later too. It requires a shift of mentality and some $$$. But it's totally doable.
In terms of cultivating better/more positive habits, it's probably better to just buy a standalone mid range digital camera.
Run the iphone until it dies/stops being supported by updates and apps that I care about.
Enough for browsing, listening to music, texting, I don't play games on my phone (if I ever do, I might consider installing chess, but the need never arose).
I've my sights set on a new Fairphone 3 once my current phone gives up. The ease of repair, stock Android, great software support, plus ethical manufacturing have me sold.
You'll adjust to your current Elo after the first few games and will have enough equally skilled players at any time.
Where I agree is with product updates. Version 1 can be significant as it was when I got my first iPod (Apple's first killer product). I got subsequent generations but not every one, mainly to increase storage, and never regretted any purchase. The difference between having an iPad or no iPad around the house is greater than having the prev gens iPad or the current.
At the end of the day, the economics of major upgrades vs. incrementals is very straightforward: major upgrades do bring significant new convenience features (e.g. once you are used to Face ID you don't want to go back) and if you want to own them today, you pay more. There's nothing smart about not benefiting from the new features today for the sake of saving a few hundred dollars.
I suppose you mean that it's obvious (i.e. doesn't require some masterstroke), not that it's a bad idea?
Sounds great to me. I don't upgrade my computing hardware until it's no longer fit for purpose for the most part, it would be stupidly wasteful to buy a new thing every 6 months regardless of whether I can afford it.
Sure there is. For every life-changing new feature, there are a dozen that end up not going anywhere. For the ones that are, their true advantages and disadvantages only become clear after they’ve been in the world for a while.
I’m thankful for all of the early adopters out there that hapily deal with the churn and find out what’s actually good so that I don’t have to— I can spend that time focusing on what’s important to me and still get most of the benefits, if only a year or two later.
"3D Touch" (IIRC?) would seem to fall in to that camp, no? I've never had a device that offered it, and the folks I know that do didn't realize they had it.
They research the market very well and optimize for maximum profit. Some people will feel left in the rain and some will think they made a steal. This is of no big concern for apple. Their overall profit is and in the last years it seemed to only go up and up.
I'm particularly salty about this because not only does this ruin a perfectly good device, but it can actually be quite dangerous.
https://www.macworld.com/article/3162109/beware-the-bulgy-ba...
For other products I usually wait 3 months or more for all of the tech reviewers to get in their 2 cents on each product.
Although, waiting for longer periods of time might be more beneficial because then you know more information about the devices long term durability.
I have started to buy used Macs due to a bad experience with buying a Macbook Pro 2017. I think I may have had some processor issues at that time. The other problem was that during repair my laptop was lost for a few weeks. I had other concerns on the long term durability so I sold it for a large loss.
I have a Desktop computer that I use as my "lab" computer. I generally use it for video games but I have also used it to do some freelance work in the past.
I try to avoid version one of any product that I could own also.
As the saying goes, a trifle makes perfection, but perfection is no trifle.
it broke and I bought a used 6s (non-plus) and it was so much more refined.
Not to mention the smaller size was way more practical. The only time I wished for a larger screen was to watch movies on flights and an iPad is way better for that anyway.
If you take a lot of photos, maybe a 2 megapixel jump is worth the upgrade. If you use your phone as a display of affluence, maybe the latest number is worth it to you. I think the point is that we should honestly evaluate the difference and honestly determine the value to ourselves, because for many people the compulsion to upgrade is basically rooted in a strange sense of obligation, rather than any measured utility delta.
Blanket advice is great for dummies. We have the internet, with every opportunity to become knowledgable. You don't even have to read! Youtube alone has a dozen excellent tech channels that'll break it all down for you, in a somewhat entertaining manner too.