Excellent article as usual.
For myself, technology is good as long as it is useful to me. Any vehicle I buy I buy a workshop manual for and go looking under the bonnet. Totally agree about the old cars. Here in Portugal cars are way over priced, even the older ones, but I was shocked when I started looking to buy an old one just how well they keep here. rarely will you see rust underneath. I assume, even by the sea with the salt air, the climate is good for cars.
This old laptop will last until it explodes. It has no battery and no hard drive. I run a full Ubuntu linux system on a 64gb SD card. It's a little slow, but still does what I need it to do. Linux of course was the main improvement. not too hard to learn but is more secure and much faster than windows could ever be. Linux has come a long way and is much more user friendly even for the novice.
My one rule of any technology is "Do I control it, or does it control me?"
I cannot be ruled by a piece of equipment nor have my life dictated by the needs of a computer. It works on my timescale or it goes.
Yes indeed, we all jump in somewhere we can afford on the technology chain, but as you said above, research, research, research and buy what you need not what looks pretty on the ads.
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Hey Centaur !
l have been wondering about Linux : l have an old Thinkpad laptop which is built like a tank. It has been sittingn a drawer for a while, since it had a problem charging : I'd like to get it fixed and give Ubuntu a go to see if it works as a writing / browsing tool. As hardware it's great, built like a tank and has touchscreen and stylus input. Would be a shame to junk it...
For that I would recommend Lubuntu. A light version of Ubuntu. I have put that on a little old laptop of ours too. Libre office is a free office suite like the microsoft one and of course browsers such as chrome and firefox all work fine.
Cheers for that will give it a go. Regarding overpriced, we just came back from the junkyard, excuse me second hand car lot and indeed prices here in Spain are much higher than for similar cars in Belgium. Say a 2003 Mondeo 200k Km goes here for 3000€ in Belgium you get them @ 2004 vintage with 150k km for 1500€ !
And for that 3000€ they are all in terrible shape.
So I guess we will be buying a car in Belgium or Germany, much more paperwork, but to get more car for way less money it probably is worth it. Actually looking at it closely, you can double your money buying in Germany driving around for a year and selling here in Spain hehe. Free transport + bonus pocket money.
3000 € German 2007 Ford Mondeo is worth at least 6000 € here in Spain.
Geo Arbitrage, gotta love it! Need to write a post on that.
Agree about buying in Germany. Had a few cars there. Paperwork all seemed simple enough and you know if the car is tested it's done properly.
Problem here in Portugal is the matriculation of foreign plates to Portuguese. Can cost more than the car is worth and the Portuguese police go looking for foreign plates that have been here longer than six months.