300 karma · joined January 28, 2012
The size advantage of the Nexus 7 is great for mobility (honestly dislike carrying an iPad in my bag) but the majority of areas are not going to have wifi, hampering a bit of it's advantage.
Then with height, you are about average, which is a good thing. You have your pick of women who are short or average height.
I realize everyone has deal-breakers but height and to some extent race for women are almost universal. It is extremely rare that a taller women will marry a shorter guy. I've travelled around the world many times, and count the one and only time I've seen a tall woman (6 ft) go out with a short guy (< 5'8): once in New York City. And statistically, white women are the least likely to date outside of their race.
Though I don't see how choosing a person based on their income is any less 'offensive' than visual superficialities. At least the former is somewhat based on merit. The fact that I worked my tail off in university and on the side to build up my skills so that I could earn a great living should be more of an attraction than say the fact that I inherited certain genes from my parents.
I'd be interested to know your race and your height.
At the end of the day, women still have deal breakers regardless of your personality, boldness, income, skills, etc.
The reason why I think women have it easier is that they can both wait for someone to approach AND take the initiative and go up to a guy if they so choose. Whereas guys not named Ryan Gosling almost always must take the initiative.
I'm not a programmer, but I've seen startups co-founded by engineers try hiring designers in a similar fashion to I assume programmers as they test designers with a variety of unpaid projects. I've found it to be pretty annoying given that I've already shown a portfolio of work and it's not unlike spec work. I get that some people may have fabricated their history, but that's why some companies do a trial period before committing to a full-time gig.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/soiltype/map/
http://thefrontsteps.com/2010/11/22/san-francisco-neighborho...
The thing I'm annoyed with is the inability to swap out RAM sticks. The recent MacBook's usually allow for more RAM than Apple specifies. Theoretically, the MacBook Pro Retina model should handle 32 GB (16gb x 2). However, because the RAM is soldered, I won't be able to put that build together when those sticks are available in a few years. Which is kind of ridiculous when considering how much money ($3000+) is going into it.
Considering that the MBP Retina can also play Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 comfortably, I could see myself using it for at least three years, if not more if I hand it down to a family member.
In two years, the architecture will be through another full cycle (Haswell in 2013, Broadwell 2014).
On top of that, both SSD's and Retina-display will be cheaper. This is compared to recent upgrades where really the only marked difference between lines from a consumer perspective was quad-core vs dual core and the video cards.
And you can theoretically upgrade the current Ivy Bridge MBP and Sandy Bridge early-2011 MBP to 32 GB of RAM using dual 16 GB sticks (not produced now for laptops, but could be in two years time). You can't get that same versatility with the Retina MBP because of the soldered RAM. So assuming that 32 GB becomes the upper-limit and 8 to 16 becomes the standard, one won't be able to customize the Retina in a way that's more beastly or on pace with the current product that will be available in two years. Whereas you could you do aftermarket upgrades to drive up the cost of your laptop, you really can't do much with the Retina version. Cost of replacing the battery is higher than older MBP's, and so is upgrading the hard drive as OWC is I think the only aftermarket manufacturer. Keeping pace spec-wise is thus more costly.
Barring huge innovations that might drive up the cost like the Retina has to this generation, I think the 2014 MBP's would likely come down in price and by doing so drive down the value of 2nd-hand 2012 MBP Retinas. A new MBPR (512 GB, 16 GB RAM, 2.6) costs around $3000. 70% would be $2100. In two years, I figure that Apple would have a new 15-inch Retina laptop with faster processor on new architecture, better video card, 512 SSD (by default), 8GB on a fresh battery around $2300. Obviously that would increase with RAM upgrades.
My point is I'm not sure I'd spend even $2000 on a computer that's already two generations behind and doesn't have much capability to upgrade to higher capacities.
Near maxed out (16 GB, 512 GB, 2.6) would be $3000+ (taxes). Even if you dropped it into the high $2k, that's a lot to pay for a used computer, especially since next year will likely have Haswell architecture which will be a bigger difference than Ivy Bridge was to Sandy Bridge.
Four years ago, I was fine with having even just having 2 GB for a bit of Photoshop and browsing on my current white MacBook. Now, even after expanding to 6 GB (the undocumented max for this model) I still get memory swapping due to the newer Photoshop and tons of tabs in Chrome. That's of course, a limitation of this model. If I had even one of the newer MBPs, I could go up to 32GB in memory when 16GB sticks come out, as I believe that this Ivy Bridge model and the early 2011 (not the late 2011) Sandy Bridge MBP's can be upgraded to 32GB of RAM despite Apple's documentation that it only goes to 16GB.
Unfortunately, because the RAM is soldered, it means I don't really have that option. Which kind of blows because in three years, 8 GBs could be closer to the normal use case, and 16GB will probably be what some professionals need, while 32 GB could become the cushy future proofed number that 16 GB is right now.
And then with the SSD, I think the idea is that some people (including myself) would rather pay for the minimum right now, and pay for the upgrade when parts come down in price. Effectively paying $600 largely for an extra 256GB (as the processor upgrade of .3GHz is quite unnoticeable for most) isn't outrageous, but I think the onus is then to front-load the costs instead of appropriately upgrade when some costs come down. Thankfully, it is possible to upgrade the hard drive (like Air), only it's just a bit more tricky than a standard SSD because there are less options outside of OWC.
The Macbook Pro Retina is a great and beautiful computer, but it's the toughest laptop choice I've had to make in my lifetime. I've always felt burned by front-loading computers ($4k PowerMac G4 which was a beautiful machine but easily underpowered after a few years, my hand-bult built $2k desktop that was outdated six months later when PCI-Express became ubiquitous) as I rarely feel justified spending $3k on something that is left behind in a short amount of time, even though I do 100% of my work on it. So I've preferred going with a bare-bones approach with upgrading components as they get more economical.
This truly doesn't really matter. It's not as if extroverted socially amiable people always make the best decisions.
The RAM though, you're out of luck. An extra $200 on the build for 16gb is a bit of a ripoff considering that you can get 16gb laptop sticks from anywhere between $100-$150.
Though it's possible Apple figured that if they offered such option on the 'lower' model, most people wouldn't bother with the highest end because the processor bump is marginal.
Secondly, Airbnb does have plenty of shared places in Queens and Brooklyn that go for less than seventy bucks a day, and studios that would be closer to 2k.
Not to mention one can wait for the shows to be on Blu-Ray.