Well, your comrade just posted one at that price point that has half the memory and storage, so maybe a bit. Everyone still isn't getting the memo though. You don't buy a dongle for portablility and you don't buy a tablet to hook it up to a TV. They're two different devices with different use cases.

Oops, should have looked at all the pictures before commenting. I see the mini HDMI port on there so that's nice. Still half the RAM and storage though. And I've never heard of this company before so rather than taking a chance on some unknown, I would recommend you get an HP Stream 7" tablet:

http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/us/en/pdp/tablets/hp-stream-7-tablet---5701#!

I have one of these and it does what it says on the tin and it has 32 GB of storage. No HDMI out though.

So for $110 it comes with a microhdmi cable that also leaves a USB port free, or do you need to also buy a hub and hope that doesn't cause interference with the video signal out? And what does that do for OTG function or are you just entirely SOL on that with the display plugged in? And of course how does one mount that neatly and out of sight to their TV/retail display for free? Duct tape or something a little more elegant?

It's also worth mentioning that this tablet has half the storage and half the memory of the Intel stick. So it's not really apples-to-apples spec wise other than the processor.

I think one of the main markets for this are store displays, trade shows or similar where it does indeed make sense to plug it into a large display, fire up a local media file and let it loop or run a simple interactive terminal for entering addresses and the like. For those kinds of tasks a Chromecast or Apple TV won't work and a NUC or Brix is both overkill and you also now have a little box that needs mounting whereas this thing just slots into an HDMI port and it's done.

These HDMI sticks are meant for a certain thing, and replacing a tablet isn't one of them. But try taking any one of those cheap tablets and connect it neatly to your TV and let me know how that's working for you. I am betting none of them have HDMI out capability at that price point.

The point of these sticks are to be a media device, or a low power workstation/presentation device and to be relatively simple to integrate into a large display for both uses, which it is.

Read Flash Boys. There is an absolute metric fuckton of orders that are generated each day that are not intended to be fulfulled and are purely there to manipulate pricing.

Ah Europe! Many places here (North America) now do equal time off for overtime. Some places here would maybe do 150% time in compensation, but paying money for overtime hours at all, let alone at 150% rate? That's the day hell freezes over.

This is one of the most bizzare conversations I've ever been in. I worked hard, *and was compensated for it.*

Found the source of your confusion. The tech companies we're talking about are the ones who like to pay people for 40 hours of work and want 60-70 hours of work once you get in the door. Which is unfortunately way too many of them.

One place I worked at when I was younger had a 3 month death march to launch a new version of the packaged product and when it was all over I did the math on the hours we all worked I realized we would have made more working at McDonalds because at least McDonalds would have been forced to pay time and a half for all the overtime.

No, I think the problem is software patents. Almost every software patent isn't for something novel and unique, most of it is extrapolation of current practices and new ways of using the same, which is seen in the fact that almost all of these patent suits are not going after people who "stole" someone else's idea, but rather came up with the same thing all on their own and didn't even know these people existed until they got sued by them. Aside from a few interesting compression algorithms, I'm struggling to think of any software patent that's been awarded that is actually something novel, unique and worth protecting.

Hell, during the Oracle Java trial their lawyers were going on and on about how amazing these functions that Google "stole" were, until it was revealed that the judge in the case had learned Java himself and realized that many of these functions were necessary for any good programmer to do work with Java and on top of that, the work involved to create them was minutes, not weeks or months like Oracle's lawyers were claiming.

You know, when I was in my 20s and even 30s I thought the same way you did. Looking back on it I realize there were a lot of tech companies that got a lot of free work that was left on the table from me and my peers because of those attitudes. Sure, staying late a couple of nights to finish something or booking time on the weekend is fine *as long as your company is also fine with giving you that time back somewhere else*. Most companies aren't, treating it as a one way street, especially in software/tech and that's not right.

Companies love attitudes like yours because it helps weed out the people who won't be taken advantage of.

On the one hand that sounds unlikely as autopilots on planes are already quite capable of landing a plane if the need arose in anything but the most adverse weather and if the ground connection were jammed or otherwise cut off the planes would have alternative instructions like diverting to another airport or if it was on final approach and the autopilot assessed the landing as do-able then it would just land by itself. On the other hand, a "Die Hard 2" weather situation would be the kind of scenario where what you describe would be possible. Forcing the plane into a situation where the autopilot might not be able to easily manage severely adverse weather but is also cut off from external control would be about the only time I would foresee that as an issue with just jamming.

>Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.

Yes. That's one problem with any sort of mission critical wireless. It can be jammed by people with ill intent.

I'm not talking about computer equipment, I'm talking about TVs, receivers, home theater equipment, headphones and the like. That's where they're losing most of the business to showrooming. And it's not just Amazon, there's a ton of other online sites to buy from after you go to Future Shop and see what you like.

What part is doubtful? That people showroom? I've done it and so has everyone else I know.

Yes, "stealing business". It's called showrooming, and there's even apps for that. You go down to the local Future Shop or Best Buy and kick the tires of whatever thing you were thinking of buying online but can't see before delivery and then when you find one you like you check its price on Amazon or wherever else and if it's cheaper online after shipping you make your purchase. Frequently you buy online and the retailer has now lost a sale to an online company despite being the one that showed you the product in person and allowed you to make your final decision on its merits. Online retailers don't need to pay for retail space which is why they're almost always able to undercut the retail shops.

I do wonder what the future will look like when many retailers have gone under and everyone orders things online.