The tablet/laptop you speak of isn't cheap, because of the OS license. Chromebooks can be cheap (like $200 cheap) because ChromiumOS/Linux is free (in both senses of the word). I have not seen other OS vendors being able to deliver a device that's even remotely price-competitive with a Chromebook.
> "strongly negative feeling toward it appearing here"
This isn't about feelings, I'm just adding a data point to HN ranking algorithm.
The reason I enjoy being on HN is because of this community's mindset of "let's disrupt the big, established, old players". Seen from that angle, this submission is irrelevant because it's not about disrupting a big player, it's about perpetuating a harmful monopoly.
All I'm saying is that I follow a subset of news that's related to tech and startup. Which means I don't have an informed opinion on:
> how smart people with excellent computing could possibly do anything to help with significant problems such as HIV/AIDS or world hunger or food insecurity
Maybe because of my UNIX-influenced worldview which says that the things I'm using should be streamlined, do-one-thing-but-do-it-very-well, and should be "composable" as in ... via UNIX pipes, if we're talking about software utilities, and by putting them on the same network, if we're talking about computing devices.
Ahem, your post sounds so enthusiastic about a product that has proven to be a dud with consumers, that I'm missing some kind of disclosure from you. Therefore, let me ask you this: are you in any way affiliated with microsoft? As in, you know, employee, freelance evangelist or member of a benefit program such as MVP.
LATER EDIT: Yeah I looked at your profile, my suspicions were confirmed.
Or perhaps it could just be that we find anything made by microsoft mind-numbingly uninteresting. Just like anything made by SAP, IBM, Oracle, CA and other old-guard tech companies. Seriously, why are there e.g. no SAP employees on HN wondering whether HN is really that anti SAP?
I'll take your word for it. But you have to be careful with your enthusiasm, because microsoft and satellites are known for their aggressive astroturfing, and you might sound like a paid shill.
This kind of what's-a-good-word-for-it behavior is what makes me wish upon a star that microsoft would slide into irrelevance already and leave the software industry alone.
> "There are a lot of rabid anti-Microsoft developers on HN"
Intellectual laziness test: Have you spent some time considering that maybe there is a good reason for that? Or are you just simplistically dismissing it out of hand as uninformed hatred?