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Comment by kitsune_ | Hacker News Reader

I don't agree, this is a gross over-simplification and the comparison with Coke and Pepsi doesn't work.

Drinking a soft drink gives you an immediate, hard-wired response. Tasting something is, well, relying on your taste buds for one. How does this translate to something like working with a computer? It's just a dishonest and intellectually lazy comparison.

Mac or PC, Laptop or Desktop, Battlefield 3 or browsing the web. If your grandfather with arthritis and bad sight buys a 11.6" MacBook Air with a 1366×768 resolution and a pixel density of 135 good luck evading him at future family ceremonies if you're the head geek of the family.

Also, I don't know about you guys, but I certainly don't want to be held accountable for a guy ending up with Norton Antivirus just because I went "you want a pc, uhh, it doesn't matter, just go with anything".

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A computer is a tool, like a hammer. Have you used different hammers before? There are differences between different brands, and those differences are typically subtle. Computers are similar; they're mostly identical, and the differences between them (to the "consumer") is very subtle. If you buy your near-blind grandfather a 13" macbook for reading the news, yes, things will go badly. However, you don't need to look at the specs to know that.

I don't really know what your point is re: NAV.

Except the differences aren't subtle at all. In laptops, choosing between brands can mean a major change in build quality/durability.

The difference between 4gb and 8gb of ram? Huge difference (even if you aren't running memory hog programs, the OS uses it for prefetch)

How about ssd vs rotational disk? Anyone who's had an ssd as their boot drive will tell you, it makes a radical difference.

So no, its not like a hammer at all.

Many things can be a tool. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_animals

Now, how is a soft drink a tool?

Using the glass bottle to smash someone's head in might constitute the use of a tool. The bottle could be seen as a tool, it allows you store liquid for future use.

"a computer is a tool", "a computer is a tool like a hammer" - Great. What does this actually say? These are bad analogies. Using a broad definition, an airplane is a tool. So what does this mean, because the differences of hammers are subtle to you, all airplanes are alike? Or, well, weapons are tools. So, really, what's the difference between a nuclear bomb and a grenade?

A computer is allot more complicated than a hammer, a hammer doesn't have any moving parts for one. Of course there are still vast differences between types of hammers (e.g clawhammer vs a sledgehammer).

You will also have to consider peoples use cases for a computer, for example suppose somebody wants to buy a computer for use in their home but you know that they want to be able to run the latest Call of Duty every year and also archive a massive collection of video. Or perhaps instead they are worried about their power bill or are very environmentally conscious.

In both of these cases you will need to consider things like GPU brand & Model , HDD Spin Speed and Size and PSU power consumption. You really do need to know these things in order to be able to advise.

How is '13 inch screen' not part of the specs?

Aren't hammers a counter example, yes the difference between brand is subtle, but the difference between spec-between what it's actually good for is- large and important.

You don't need to look at the specs, because you see that when you're looking at a device. Just like you don't need to know the size of the hammer -- you see it. I guess that's what the grandparent tried to say.

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