h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Night all.

I find my iPad extremely useful and satisfying - it's perfect for the 'sofa-surfing' you describe. I have access to my iMac, however, so not sure if it would satisfy for all tasks and a laptop is certainly more versatile and flexible. Neither would be much good for tackling those trees though... : )

I looked seriously into getting an iPad2 when they came out. And as anyone that knows me knows, that's unusual because I'm not a big fan of Apple products. I tend to find them seriously over priced and under functioned.

But the iPad2 was strangely enough good value for money. The problem way, it didn't do anything that my netbook didn't. So I didn't bother.

Eats - anything you can do to nurture the links between yourself and the family is worth spending money on.
If you can manage to go home on Friday and back south on Monday morning, that should work; it gives you three nights at home which is worth the early Monday start.
And the accumulated airmiles from all those trips north and south? Spend them on taking Mrs Eats away for weekends

Mr T and I did the Glasgow/London thing for a few years so I am One Who Knows.

Sound advice from Teuchter there

You'd need to sharpen the aluminium edges of the iPad for it to be any use in chopping trees down. Much easier and cheaper to buy an axe.

{nicki}

[Bagpuss]

I've not got a laptop, chainsaw or smartphone.
I do have a v/_\3 to make with, though.

<BB<

I have a laptop and a smartphone. But Mrs. D won't let me buy a chainsaw.

BB

I've got two laptops, a netbook, two smartphones and a desktop. Spot the

I almost bought a chainsaw a couple of weeks ago but just couldn't quite justify it

There is no such thing as a superfluous chain-saw, though a few techy toys might be seen as sheer extravagance

Obvious gap in the app market for a chain saw, I'd have thought.

(Smart-phone, netbook and kindle for me, but seriously covetting an iPad2)

[GDZ]

{mags} playing The Cursed Crusade (because I've got rid of some these rentals before I embark again on Skyrim)

*sips *

sub- here. I have an aging desktop that I use mainly for rendering (making 3D images), the laptop I'm sitting at now that does everything and a netbook which is highly useful for shopping in bed... but the slower processor aggravates me. Or is it Windows 7?

And, as everybody knows by now, I live in a deep narrow valley with no bars, so why have a cellphone at all, let alone a smart one?

The only thing I can think of to do with a chainsaw from a wheelchair is to utterly terrify bystanders.

Could be the processor, the memory, the os, the rendering software, the graphics hardware...

I once a long time ago, in a land far away over a big sea, did some work with a chainsaw. It does make life easier and sometimes quicker. I also have before, during and afterwards done stuff like that with manual saws, axes and wedges. Using the right manual tool for the job helps (even if it is a 6' long two man saw) get it done quicker if you're going down that route.

I never thought of rendering on the netbook! I have Bryce on a network drive, so I'll try it. The more machines I can farm out the work to, the better.

Ah Bryce, not sure which version you're running but it might be able to go a bit more quickly on your desktop if you've better graphics hardware (bigger chip and more memory). A quick look at the current versions requirements gives openGL compatible card as one of the things and like main processors, things have come a long way over the past few years in what the graphics subsystem in a pc can do.
We've a few (and soon to be more) small high performance machines that use what are in effect high end graphics cards to do more general mathematical computation. It's all the rage these days in trying to cut the costs and power requirements of supercomputing facilities.