I love the astonishing, random facts and commentary one will come across in books. Since the UCLA Southland Conference in early June, I’ve continued to do research on academic novels (among many, many other tasks), which includes reading The Academic Novel: New and Classic Essays—a collection edited by Merritt Moseley that’s so esoteric Amazon doesn’t list it. In the introduction, Moseley says that famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote a novel (and one, he adds, with “almost no literary merit”). Alas, I’ve found many a meritless academic novel, perhaps in part because, as Moseley says, “There is no end to the surprises, when one first beings to discover all the writers who have published an academic novel.”
Monthly Archives: July 2009
Computer post follow-up: The relative reliability of laptops versus desktops
In a post on the merits of laptops versus desktops, I wrote that “the inflated notebook total [regarding units sold] is probably in part due to the disposable nature and limited longevity of notebooks.” Two e-mailers took issue with this assertion because I didn’t have any direct evidence backing it up aside from the obvious engineering constraints that impair notebooks.
Evidence isn’t easy to find. The best I’ve seen comes from a recent issue of Consumer Reports, which says:
Cons: Laptops cost more than comparably equipped desktops. Our reliability surveys show laptops are more repair-prone than desktops. Components are more expensive to repair.
Isn’t that obvious? The miniaturization necessary to cram components into a laptop case combined with inferior heat dissipation and the wear of constantly opening, closing, and moving a computer would reduce the reliability of comparable laptops versus desktops. People who need the mobility should obviously make that trade-off, but to me the benefits of a laptop are overrated, especially given the price premium most already command. This holds true across brands.
One issue bigger than price is hassle: the longer I can keep a computer without the hard drive, logic board, or other components breaking, the better off I am because I don’t have to undertake the tedious process of fixing the computer. By that standard, a long-lived desktop is a beautiful thing indeed—especially when one doesn’t need the portability.
A recent NPD survey on netbooks found that “60 percent of buyers said they never even took their netbooks out of the house.” If your laptop never travels, why bother having one?
Still, my desktop preference may eventually change. AnandTech’s review of the new MacBook Pro batteries highlights the astonishingly long charge they hold and waxes euphorically in a way most unlike the normally staid tech site:
Ever since I first looked at the power consumption specs of Nehalem I thought it didn’t make any sense to buy a new, expensive notebook before Arrandale’s launch in Q4 2009/Q1 2010. While performance will definitely increase considerably with Arrandale, Apple just threw a huge wrench in my recommendation. The new MacBook Pro is near perfect today. If you need a new laptop now, thanks to its incredible battery life, I have no qualms recommending the new MBP.
But the power/performance of desktops today still beats laptops for those who don’t need the mobility. A MacBook Pro, 24″ monitor, and Intel X-25 SSD run well north of $2,000, compared to $1,500 for an iMac, which, according to Consumer Reports, should have greater longevity.
AnandTech has one other piece that sways me towards desktops, as this 2007 article shows: “Without even running any objective tests, most people could pretty easily tell you that the latest and greatest desktop LCDs are far superior to any of the laptop LCDs currently available.”
Gizmodo has also run a polemic announcing the justified end of the desktop. I’m not buying it.
EDIT: It’s 2016 and I’m using a Retina iMac. Laptops have, however, made impressive strides in screen quality.
White covers on nonfiction books
What gives with the numerous pop science nonfiction books with white covers? Both Gladwell books I own have them, as do a variety of others, as pictured here:
Is this some bizarre trend? Does white convey authority of some kind? Is my sample size biased? These all seem like possibilities, but, judging from the shelves I’ve seen in airports too, the white cover on nonfiction seems quite popular. Only a few novels I own have white covers: Richard Russo’s Straight Man, a hardcover British edition of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep and perhaps one or two others. As for nonfiction, I have all the ones pictures as well as Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness, Freakonomics, and others.
EDIT: The Los Angeles Times’ Carolyn Kellogg discusses book jackets on the blog Jacket Copy, which discusses more than just this subject.
EDIT 2: I e-mailed Tyler Cowen on the issue, noting that his first book, Discover Your Inner Economist, is white, while his forthcoming Create Your Own Economy is red. He replied: “White looks better on-line and in thumbnail form, red looks better on a table full of books…
We’ll see which one does better!”
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