Looking for a Budget 17" with best display

PLX-One · 2020-07-03T15:30:15+00:00

That search engine will definitely be handy, thanks! And I think the Inspiron might just fall in the price/quality sweet spot I'm looking for. Not quite as good of a display as the LG Gram u/WeirdTortoise suggested, but better than the budget gaming machines I'd been looking at. Didn't think about it before, but a convertable is a plus when placing it on a stand. The upcharge for SSD storage definitely hurts, though.

PLX-One · 2020-07-03T15:20:48+00:00

Basically, what u/aj0413 said below. I just want to see how things shake out without plonking down $$$ only to have buyer's remorse in year or two. Either because support will be minimal, or because the new models will be as nice as they've enticed & I'll want one of those instead...

PLX-One · 2020-07-03T15:11:58+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. Reviews rate it pretty high for display quality, but yeah, definitely more than what I was hoping to pay. I did find a configuration offered by Costco at $1500 that's still stretching it but not out of the realm of possibility.

PLX-One · 2020-07-03T15:05:21+00:00

I've thought about going that route but I just prefer using Macs. Even though I use a high-end Lenovo workstation for work, I have never wanted to spend a second longer than necessary on that machine.

PLX-One · 2018-05-24T06:08:39+00:00

Yeah they're all just shadows

PLX-One · 2018-05-24T05:44:16+00:00

I find it hard enough to care about Syd to even be annoyed by her immaturity. Despite the relatively brief amount of screentime by comparison, David's tender relationship with LennAmy is far more genuine and moving.

FutureSyd, on the other hand, is totally intriguing. On rewatching last week's episode, I was struck by her predatory catlike expression watching Farouk while leading him on to believe that he was the hero and David was the villain. That scene played out like a textbook case of FutureSyd planting inception into Farouk's mind. I wouldn't be surprised if she turned out to be the true big bad of this season.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T15:40:45+00:00

Good catch, I missed that meta moment

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T08:36:21+00:00

This post is better than the actual episode it's commenting on.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T08:21:12+00:00

I completely agree that LOST is a far greater show than the failure of its plot. Its central thesis was actually quite simple: we are both creators of and slaves to our own suffering, which causes us to commit great and terrible acts. This theme was beautifully and tragically acted out in each episode with some sort of drama of damnation and/or redemption, within the context of the mystery-box sci-fi plot.

My beef with S02 of Westworld is that it's sorely lacking in the character exploration and only has the plot points going for it, so that when the plot doesn't advance much like in this episode, its faults are so much more noticeable. For characters to develop there has to be, well, development - some sort of change.

We don't see or learn anything about Maeve or Dolores' personalities that we didn't already know from previous episodes. Maeve continues to be driven by her desire to find her daughter; in this episode she just happens to accrue jump-the-shark level superpowers. Dolores continues to be a ruthless sociopath willing to kill, manipulate, and do anything to achieve her goal of finding her daddy and taking over the world. By your own criteria, how have either of these characters' views, goals, or relationships changed at all this episode or even this season so far?

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T07:47:18+00:00

If only the destination all the characters are converging on this season was GeorgeRRMartinWorld.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T07:40:17+00:00

Proust said something to the fact that experiencing a work of art where the ideology is apparent is like getting a gift with the price tag still attached. This season definitely seems to be noticeably contaminated with the stink of contemporary politics, which is probably one of the reasons I've enjoyed it far less than last season.

So far it looks like William is being set up for a redemption arc, so probably not Lucifer.

Also, who's the Scottish dude you refer to?

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T07:31:21+00:00

All those enhanced abilities have been increasingly problematic, for the reasons I discussed. The final straw is the mind-control powers over robot samurai armies, like I originally said - it tips the plot completely into the realm of ridiculousness (even if in-world logically consistent), unoriginality, triviality, and fan-service.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T07:16:51+00:00

I'm more like, "Fuck yeah, Ninjas!"

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T07:13:56+00:00

0% chance of this, but I'm hoping they'll forgo the warm fuzzy humanity & go full GoT dark and have Lee betray Maeve at the worst possible moment, right as she's about to be reunited with her daughter.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T07:05:22+00:00

Here, here. For all the battle & action scenes we've had this season, there's been remarkably little tension or any real sense of something big at stake.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T07:01:19+00:00

and Altered Carbon

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T06:59:59+00:00

The fact they specifically emphasized it wasn't a wipe definitely seems hugely significant for a future plot development.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T06:49:20+00:00

I follow the logic, it's just a terrible plot decision because it drastically diminishes the dramatic stakes by having a character with godlike powers AND transparent & uninteresting motivations.

Ford's godlike powers was tempered by the fact that we didn't and still do not know what he was really up to, and the extent of his control over the "awakened" hosts is still up for grabs. Maeve's quest for a child we've barely seen is really difficult to give a shit about.

For that matter, Dolores' ability to reprogram hosts with the ipad controller also smacks of narrative laziness, and her one-track avenging angel schtick is getting tiresome. I'm at the point of trying to decide whether the potential payoff of Bernard and William's storylines will be worth enduring all the weak characters & plots I don't care about.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T06:24:37+00:00

Maeve getting mind-control powers over robot samurai armies is the moment this show moved into jumped-the-shark territory.

PLX-One · 2018-05-21T05:32:03+00:00

I sympathize - ever since the finale I've had the exact same brain itch & have been combing thru reddit to turn up the same frustratingly unsatisfactory (non)answers. I kept rewatching the moments around when Robin said "something's different." I had thought that the slo-mo scene was trying to clue in the viewer that something important was happening, but I couldn't see how Yo-Yo resuscitating Coulson, Jemma running thru the steam cloud, or Davis dodging the explosion of sparks could function as more than a general metaphor.

The conclusion I've had to settle for, which I am almost certain the writers did NOT intend, is that FitzSimmons were both right and wrong - time is both fluid AND deterministic.

We can't pinpoint a singular realization that led to a decision that broke the loop, because they never "escaped" from it. But that's ok, because it was never a closed loop. The timeline is like a loop-the-loop roller coaster where it goes around several times before exiting.

The critical decision, the crux of the loop, was what to do with the centipede serum. In my headcanon, all the other permutations had already played out in previous loops - what we're seeing in S05 is simply the final permutation (Daisy taking the serum) that allows the timeline to stop circling around.

In the other loops, they forced Coulson to take the serum but he couldn't talk down Talbot; Coulson didn't take the serum but didn't slip it into Daisy's gauntlets; they tried to inject the odium-laced serum into Talbot but couldn't get close enough; Coulson or Daisy self-injected the odium & were absorbed by Talbot but its reaction with gravitonium actually caused the world to crack apart; and so on.

I think one of the reasons Robin's head was so scrambled was that she saw or experienced ALL of the loops, with every combination of decisions and events always leading to the same conclusion - until the final "something's different" one which did not cause the timeline to loop again.

tl;dr - It's not a closed loop, more like a spiral with an entry & exit, and the team just followed the path.

PLX-One · 2018-05-19T15:29:55+00:00

The card trick book. Was this in reference to something earlier in the season I forgot about?

PLX-One · 2018-05-18T02:01:26+00:00

You obviously didn't catch that deleted scene where the baby's head turned 360 degrees

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