The PC World Is A Cluster Duck

[Stellanatus]

Half a rant quack and half a question...

Have you ever walked into a store like Best Buy (home electronic store) or Verizon (Phone service store), see a bunch of random assortment of brands, and wonder what to get? I know I have spent quite a while glancing at devices that have 2-5 brands stapled all over it and wonder who these guys are and if they are any good. Then you go online because of a problem showed up with their product. You find out something they took out to save money on that you actually needed or that they didn't test to see if everything worked generally. 

This community is beautiful. Never have I seen such communication between the team and its supporters. There is total transparency and even polls on what should be the next step. I know that when I buy something from here I am not being scammed and feel like a part of a whole. 

So where is this in the PC world? Razer claims to be... I don't see it hen I search their site. What about Alienware? Nope. And you can forget about Dell, Asus, Acer, etc etc... I need a home that looks for my interests that I can be proud of and supportive of. I don't want to contribute to these monster companies that are nothing more than cold cooperates looking for the most optimal way to squeeze another $1 out of your expense behind your back.

A good example of this would be "Soylent". Soylent is a community driven scientific approach at providing what the body needs for an affordable price. They built their product with the help of the community. With their product I don't have to worry about going to the store and being surrounded with over priced food products that lie about what they are.

 

[Wally]

No because i'll just buy Apple Products or build a PC straight up thus only seeing what I want up front.

 

[DaMummy]

lol@not being scammed in this community. such an innocent young whippersnapper

 

[j0e]

Most electronics nowadays are built to break after a short while so you go out and buy the next model and make them more money. The Pandora, on the other hand, is built to last. Sure it costs more but I bet you end up spending less money in total from not having to buy a new one every two years.

 

[bzar]

Build your PCs. Discrete components are much easier to compare with measurable specs and benchmarks. I tried looking at prebuilt ensembles a few days ago and unless you went to the absolute top of the line they all had some crap components to compensate for the flashy ones they were marketed with. For example one with a good GPU had a crap motherboard or too little memory or a cheap CPU. Getting a well balanced computer prebuilt is rare.

 

[comradekingu]

So I see one point you made about something being mostly inversely-soylent. But with all things being of equal naïvety, you have applied it to a field where you may not get knowingly bucked in the duck, but still inadvertently so.


Conventional food, if I may call it that, has worked for millions of years, and we have adapted to it alongside. Note how rapid and widespread introduction of chemicals, foreign bodies, and whatever else you can mix together diverts from what we have been running through our digestion.


Ok, you are avoiding something known to have adverse effects that we also have little data on, and little history on or with. You avoid one pitfall, a whole heap of others, and replace it with a gigantic hole to leap into.


I don't see how risking life and limb on not known to fail is a good bet.


A community, (to a for profit product?) however benevolently philantropic, isn't by necessity a community of researchers and scientists, and even then we don't really know how food works to begin with. But we know we are doing it wrong.


It may be that modern food has adverse ingredients, it is also the case that it has less of things we need. Mangan for example. When you go for the non-organic processed mixture, you are playing a dangerous game. Not saying something _will_ happen, but it might.


Another possibility is the cocktail effect. No single thing is the cause, but the combination proves damaging. We aren't testing for that. Which scares atleast me from running the odds on it.


Our metabolism is still to be figured out. Meanwhile you are banking on having all those answers pan out in your favour, blindly.


If you want to save money, at-least eat some cabbage, tomato beans etc alongside it.


If i understand the product correctly, the common denominator is how openness keeps things honest. Over time you get best of breed, and very few guarantees along the way.


Keep this in mind.

 

[Stellanatus]

So I see one point you made about something being mostly inversely-soylent. But with all things being of equal naïvety, you have applied it to a field where you may not get knowingly bucked in the duck, but still inadvertently so.


Conventional food, if I may call it that, has worked for millions of years, and we have adapted to it alongside. Note how rapid and widespread introduction of chemicals, foreign bodies, and whatever else you can mix together diverts from what we have been running through our digestion.


Ok, you are avoiding something known to have adverse effects that we also have little data on, and little history on or with. You avoid one pitfall, a whole heap of others, and replace it with a gigantic hole to leap into.


I don't see how risking life and limb on not known to fail is a good bet.


A community, (to a for profit product?) however benevolently philantropic, isn't by necessity a community of researchers and scientists, and even then we don't really know how food works to begin with. But we know we are doing it wrong.


It may be that modern food has adverse ingredients, it is also the case that it has less of things we need. Mangan for example. When you go for the non-organic processed mixture, you are playing a dangerous game. Not saying something _will_ happen, but it might.


Another possibility is the cocktail effect. No single thing is the cause, but the combination proves damaging. We aren't testing for that. Which scares atleast me from running the odds on it.


Our metabolism is still to be figured out. Meanwhile you are banking on having all those answers pan out in your favour, blindly.


If you want to save money, at-least eat some cabbage, tomato beans etc alongside it.


If i understand the product correctly, the common denominator is how openness keeps things honest. Over time you get best of breed, and very few guarantees along the way.


Keep this in mind.

Well heres the Soylent from my images I made. https://goo.gl/photos/NzLUj1yeihEa8y8d8

The ingredients can be found on its page https://www.soylent.com/product/powder/

Brown rice protein, Oat flour, Sunflower oil, & Vitamins & minerals. Even though they are constantly evolving (like this is their 12th version) at getting the perfect combination they still say to try other foods with it just incase because we cannot fully understand the human body yet. However on the flip side there are community members that have gone for months without feeling hungry or tired off of just that. 

I plan to combine it with my current plan which is this: https://goo.gl/photos/fcuSLNWdCpXwG4baA

----------------

The point was that I want to find a company which I can feel like I have a connection with for dedicated PC's. Soylent has a very active Reddit with feedback going back and forth and the Pyra has an awesome Forums. Both with hands on videos, Polls, and no one is too small to not be heard.

 

[ekianjo]

A good example of this would be "Soylent". Soylent is a community driven scientific approach

LOL, mixing "scientific" and "Soylent" in the same sentence always makes for a good joke. The Soylent guys (and the community behind it) know SHIT about Science, and keep claiming stuff they cannot support with unbiased, hard data.

 

[Neelix]

I find it hard to fathom why anyone would actually want to start a food company and call it Soylent...


Just remember to avoid any "green"  product they may release. ;-)


-Neelix

 

[iprice]

I guess Soylent is for the people, by the people and made of and by the people!

 

[Timstertoo]

I find it hard to fathom why anyone would actually want to start a food company and call it Soylent...


Just remember to avoid any "green"  product they may release. ;-)


-Neelix

It's a prodcut I'd love to believe in because it would indeed solve a huge daily problem for me and make my life somewhat easier. At the same time I'm always very skeptic when something seems too good to be true so I'm closely monitoring some friends of mine that have taken the plunge. Free human Guinea pigs!  

 

[rygD]

The ingredients can be found on its page https://www.soylent.com/product/powder/

Brown rice protein, Oat flour, Sunflower oil, & Vitamins & minerals. 

Needs more people.


As for the computers, what exactly are you looking for (regarding hardware/software/social stuff)?  You may not be able to go into Best Buy and find what you are looking for.  This is a good thing in many ways in my opinion.

 

[FBnil]

With all that tupperware in your pics, you do not seem to be avoiding plastics. All soft plastics have something that makes goo of the long carbon strings.... transforming brittle plastic into soft bendable plastic. It also does that to cells.


Stop eating tuna. It is a top predator, hence, a collector of heavy metals and other bad things. Eat fish lower up the foodchain. But don't eat panga. Its an omnivore from the polluted mekong delta. Locals do not eat it, that is why it is exported. In the future, jellyfish will be the norm to eat.  It tastes horrible now, just like soy products did a few years ago.


I do not see superfruits in your diet. Add them. They come from exotic places where trace minerals are still in the soil. You need those (albeit in very low quantities, they are essential), and those are, sadly, not in regular food anymore.


Where are the nuts? Eat nuts too.


Do some tests also. Get some cornflakes that have "extra iron": mix them with water to a pulp in a mixer. put it back in the plastic bag. Hold a magnet to it... can you see the iron filing it has?


Know that food producers do not say, for example, "Ascorbic acid", instead, they say: "Vitamin C". Which is not the same. (non-organic).


As for cocktails having different effects. Take lentils. They contain iron (good for your red bloodcells). If you eat them, your body will absorb no iron. You need to mix it with rice, because rice contains something that lets your intestines absorb the iron. So use traditional cookbooks instead because uhm.... just eat this root


ps: Here in the Netherlands we have electrical cars. To charge those cars, we build polluting coal-generators.


Eat more soy. The more soy you eat, the more rainforest is required to grow it.

 

[Stellanatus]

Needs more people.


As for the computers, what exactly are you looking for (regarding hardware/software/social stuff)?  You may not be able to go into Best Buy and find what you are looking for.  This is a good thing in many ways in my opinion.

Looking for custom made computers designed by a community rather than a company you can't interact with. If a problem pops up everyone would be able to re-create it. You would have better versions released over time and everyone votes on what the next model will have. Maybe the community would have custom mouses, keyboards, programs and what-nots that wok best with the system in mind. Open Source, Transparent, Not trying to over profit, and a strong active community. Thats what I am looking for. 

With the power of the internet and computers being such a big thing you think these communities would be everywhere. I can't really find any. I just find some that claim to be that only have help forms.

 

[Neelix]

It's a prodcut I'd love to believe in because it would indeed solve a huge daily problem for me and make my life somewhat easier. At the same time I'm always very skeptic when something seems too good to be true so I'm closely monitoring some friends of mine that have taken the plunge. Free human Guinea pigs!  

I'm going to hope and assume that you completely missed the reference, and aren't actually referring to cannibalism here.


-Neelix

 

[rygD]

Looking for custom made computers designed by a community rather than a company you can't interact with. If a problem pops up everyone would be able to re-create it. You would have better versions released over time and everyone votes on what the next model will have. Maybe the community would have custom mouses, keyboards, programs and what-nots that wok best with the system in mind. Open Source, Transparent, Not trying to over profit, and a strong active community. Thats what I am looking for. 

With the power of the internet and computers being such a big thing you think these communities would be everywhere. I can't really find any. I just find some that claim to be that only have help forms.

You would probably be better off going to one of the many hardware related forums and just building your own.  If you are looking for a laptop, buy used and save yourself a few pennies, plus you might help prevent a tiny bit of waste and some of the destruction required to manufacture new hardware (probably not enough to matter for either of those, tbh).  I think there might be a company or two that fit what you are looking for, but not sure how much input you will really get.  Also, don't be fooled into thinking we really get much input on the Pyra.  In the end we get whatever ED gives us, but he does a really good job of listening to us compared to the big companies.


Wait a minute.


You mean the Pyra and this community, don't you.  If not I will try to remember those laptops I was thinking of.  I may be totally wrong and they don't listen to the customers/community.

 

[gunrock]

I can't believe anyone would prefer to eat some mixed up goo purporting to be "all the body needs", because "it takes the guesswork out of grocery shopping". Jayzus! Exploring flavour and texture and how it combines together using various types of heat application (steaming, boiling water, grilling, baking, frying etc) is part of the story of man.


It's part of what defines us and stands equally along with art, music and technology. Food isn't just fuel you stuff in your gizzogg in between DOTA sessions. Except it is; but to do that denies 10,000 years of culinary experience and experimentation (and countless deaths by people eating poisonous or undercooked items!).


If working out what's healthy and what's not from packaging on products is too much, start eating things that are just one ingredient (i.e raspberries, potato, carrots - all just one thing!) and I second the recommendation to use traditional cook books. Learn how to make something from scratch.


Sorry, mini-rant over....

 

[FaeMinx]

Having to eat is irritating.


It's a corporeal consideration I wish would go away.


Can't see a way past that while strapped to this miniature ecosystem of organisms that constitute my corporeal vessel.


If I could implement a passive maintenance system, I would be on it in a flash.

 

[WizardStan]

*Having* to eat is irritating.


*Getting* to eat is the best part of my day.

 

[FaeMinx]

*Having* to eat is irritating.


*Getting* to eat is the best part of my day.

I am not seduced by the pleasure stimulus such an activity generates.


I use to be... just like sex was *the best thing ever*.


It took a momentous effort, but I retrained this puny body to not respond to sexual programming.


I am working on consumption now, but it is turning out to be a lot trickier... I have all these organisms in me that are dependent on the consumption process... and this whole collective organism is dependent on the micro-organisms...


... lot of dna to muck around in...


Makes for a miserable corporeal experience while I do my tests... but this good little human 'being' submitted to my will long ago.


Does exactly what I direct and bugger the agony.


Good little thing *pat pat*