banky's Journal: CES can blow me

It finally occured to me that CES is a giant, masturbatory waste of time and effort. It's basically, "the A/V squad from high school have all the money now, so they make this giant thing to exclude the jocks".

It has nothing to do with reality: nothing at all. Attempts to justify it are that, justifications.

Seriously, scroll through the feed of, say, Engadget. Will *anyone* buy any of that shit? Not really. Most of it is prototype/demo stuff, rather a lot of it is 6 months out at best, and still more won't ever actually get made at all, it's fire-and-movement against competitors.

I still know people - technical people, hands-on developers and sysadmins - who haven't gotten around to putting wireless in their house yet! Everyone I know either has 1)a RAZR or version thereof or 2)the free LG piece of crap that came with the 2-year signup. I see lots of borg-ed out people and Blackberries, but it's DC, you have to have both of those or you're clearly unimportant (for the record, I have neither), but all these fucking OQO and UMPC and mega-phone-cam things, fuck no. I saw some guy with a Treo the other day. And old, Palm Treo (not Windows Mobile).

I just wish everyone would admit it's porn for gadget geeks and stop trying to pretend that 1/10th of the shit on display will ever filter down to, say, my dad. Or even me! God, who needs that shit.

wireless

[nizo]

I finally caved in to wireless when the SO started bringing her mac laptop home, and it was easier than fighting over the desktop :-) That said, Belkin wireless routers rock. The one at work has been running in a dusty hot environment for over a year without problems, and the one I bought for home has been working great.

Oh, and a note to the people who walk around with bluetooth phone headsets stuck in your ear: you look dumb. Seriously. The funniest ones are the people who look like they just stepped off t

Re:

[Captain Splendid]

The funniest ones are the people who look like they just stepped off the set of Deliverence, with ratty tshirts and grubby jeans. WTF?

God I love the south.

Re:

[KshGoddess]

because of the place i work, and the people coming in for training, i associate bluetooth headsets with hicks. yes, it's awful. but damnit, that's who i see talking on them all the time!

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[TechnoLust]

Your "as in" just caused a Tony Hawk flashback. :-)

I disagree to an extent

[Com2Kid]

Most people I know have wireless. Wireless is expanding fast, from where I sit right now, there are about 7-9 other wireless networks in range. At my house in a ghetto-ish part of Seattle, there are only 3 wireless networks available from the living room couch.

I was off fixing computers last week for a friend of a friend. There was a cow farm a few blocks down the road from where I was at. Over 5 wifi networks in the area.

The new Palm Treo rocks. Rosia's brother has one. He runs a hardwood floor compa

Re:

[banky]

Most people I know have wireless
Yeah, in the 3 years I've been in my apt, there's been about 75% turnaround in my building and basically, everyone who has come and gone in that time with 1 or 2 exceptions has been broadcasting SOME sort of SSID. It is fair to say that MOST of the people I know have it. But that's not the point: "most" != "all".

The new Palm Treo rocks.
Oh, to be sure. I never said it didn't. I challenge the usefulness of the device, overall, though; I've seen people invent use cases to justif

Re:

[Com2Kid]

But outside of silicon valley, redmond, and niches - the Capital enclave in DC, Wall Street, etc - does anything ACTUALLY trickle down?

Not really. Walmart's/Fry's $400 laptop special is what ends up being sold, and people have Yet Another Crappy User Experience, and from an economic point of view, given how much time gets wasted because a cruddy product was purchased, people would be better off buying the $1,500 laptop.

My first laptop was an el-cheapo special. I learned my lesson.

Even valuing my time at $