A company that creates animated movies hired a lot of animators on the US to create their movies.
After some years they found out that animators salaries are expensive and that they can outsource it's animators to other countries.
So the company reduce it's size, it only depends on creative people for the story and some high level animators to set the road for the overseas animator's outsourced army.
After some time, technology evolves, and movies can be created by a smaller group of animators behind a computer.
The outsourced army of animators are fired, the jobs get back to the US, but now with a reduced team.
Today China may be the factory and workforce of the world. They produce the good products and the bad products too, the expensive stuff and the cheap things. With the coming of mechatronics maybe China's last creations will be the one that take away their jobs.
It is the CFO dream to reduce a factory of 1000 workers to an outsourced cheaper factory, but it is his wildest dream on earth to reduce the 1000 outsourced workers to a one shot machinery expense and a group of 20 people to operate those.
Just imagine the an hypothetical logo on the next device you will buy on the future:
(Original Source: Despair.com)
So, Mechatronics may be the future, but the humans also needs to evolve to do more complex jobs. Just like Charlie's fathers on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", it is not a high paid job for humans to just screw the toothpaste cap, but when he returned to fix the machine that fired him, that was "payback".
So I got my hands on the Levono Miix 510. The first thing that I will like to tell is that feels a lot more "high end" that other Lenovo Miix tablet that I had tried on the past.
I access the BIOS the same way of the Miix 700, by pressing "Volume Up + Power".
The things that I liked (and I appreciate a lot) on the BIOS are:
1) You can disable Secure Boot
2) You can put Legacy mode on UEFI, it is important if you want to try a different OS.
3) You can Enable Intel Virtualization. (I will try my VMs on the future)
Pre-Installed Software
I think that with all the past issues that Lenovo had has with "Super fish" and other software that was included, this time Lenovo didn't want to run into any more risk and it almost didn't included any strange software on it.
It is very clean and the only Lenovo software that you see at once is "Lenovo Companion" which it is useful to update the firmware and drivers of the machine.
Mouse
Even that I complete dislike the touchpad mouse (I'm a Trackpoint guy), this time Lenovo improved the touchpad. If I compared it with the one on the Miix 310, the Miix 310 touchpad was very unreliable and lack precision in my opinion, the one included on the Miix 510 offers you a better mouse movement.
Pen
This model didn't came with a Pen, but it uses Wacom technology to support one. I grabbed my "Lenovo ThinkPad Pen Pro" (4X80H34887) and it worked like a charm. Even that it didn't came with "Lenovo Write It" pre-installed I just download it from the site and start using it with the pen.
An important issue of the Miix 510 is that when you tried a tablet of this quality you don't want to go back to use a "lower-end" one. For what I have tested it I'm very happy with it, but I still want to try more the USB-C port and the BIOS properties (just because I like to touch everything).
The tablet does not has a pen holder, I was just trying on the next picture to see if you can hold the pen with the magnet. Since the "Lenovo ThinkPad Pen Pro" came with an USB holder, I also tried it on the tablet.
Keyboard
The keyboard has backlight !!
You can put the keyboard on two positions if you like to press the keys a little higher. All grabbed with the magnet that the keyboard has.
USB
It has two USB ports, one USB-C and one regular.
The hinges
The hinges to hold the back side are very similar to the newer Lenovo Yoga hinges. It is like a cropped version of it, since it does require to be full reversible like a laptop.
The Jacket?
It came with a bag/jacket to store it. It is very simple and it has a little part to hold a pen there.
...and that's all.
Let's see is this year's holiday I can make it run OS/2 Warp.
There is this scene that I liked on the "A Beautiful Mind" movie. I can not know if this dialog happened on real life or it was just a little bit of Hollywood pixie dust. It is very subtle and it may not be as important and other scenes but I did liked it because I had seen this kind of behavior in real life.
- Walk with me, John. I've been meaning to talk with you. The faculty is completing mid-year reviews. We're deciding which placement applications to support.
- Wheeler, sir. That would be my first choice. Actually, I don't really have a second choice, sir.
- John. Your fellows have attended classes. They've written papers. They've published.
- I'm still searching, sir, for my...
- Your original idea.
- Governing dynamics, sir.
- It's very clever, John, but I'm afraid it's just not nearly good enough.
- I'm working on manifold embedding. My bargaining stratagems show some promise. If you could just arrange another meeting with Professor Einstein. I've repeatedly asked you for that. I'd be able to show him my revisions on his...
- John. Do you see what they're doing there? It's the pens. Reserved for a member of the department that makes the achievement of a lifetime. Now what do you see, John?
- Recognition.
- Well, try seeing accomplishment. John, You haven't focused. I'm sorry, but up to this point, your record doesn't warrant any placement at all. Good day.
The important message of the scene is the accomplishment thing, but that is not the words that impressed me. What impressed me was John's excuse when he was not focusing on his idea or the research paper: " If you could just arrange another meeting with Professor Einstein. I've repeatedly asked you for that. I'd be able to show him my revisions on his..."
Maybe the scene is to obvious but I had seen something similar on real life (not with Einstein of course). I knew people that were not able to accomplish something and thinking that a little talk with someone "awesome" will inspire them to their breakthrough. Or maybe they have on their mind the crazy idea that if a genius approves or agree with your idea, they will became a respectful genius too.
Sometimes maybe it can be counterproductive to talk to a genius about an specific thing that you are working on. I knew professors that are at some high level of geniality that just don't care of all the subjects that students may came out with. You don't present a business case to "high energy research physic", he would not care about it, just like you don't show a "clock potato" to a business management guru.
So maybe instead of getting approval for your idea by "notorious people", it will be better if you start producing something first and see if goes in good track. Oh, that's the "accomplishment thing" that this scene talks about.
The normal mouse (with bluetooth) is recognized as the Thinkpad X1 Mouse and the touchpad mouse (on the back) is recognized with the regular Windows 10 drivers.
It has three. Left, right and middle...on the top.
Where is the scroll button??
It is there, is the red line on the mouse...wow
Is it Bluetooth? Is it wireless with dongle ?
It has both. You can choose any of the two modes.
If you slide the back side you can find the dongle and select the mode of the mouse, regular wireless (dongle) or bluetooth.
By the way, to hold the USB dongle in place it has a magnet. Super cool, but don't put this mouse over your floppies :)
What is with the back side???
The backside is a touchpad mouse with the "PgUp" and "PgDn" buttons. It is great for presentations. If you tap the touchpad it is the regular click.
Charging
It uses a micro USB cable. When it is charging you can see the side lights on the mouse that indicated the level of charge. Also, when you turn on the mouse the lights shows the charge level of the mouse.
Lenovo Mouse Suite
Lenovo Mouse Suite also offers some customization for the mouse.
Buena Idea: Una empresa grande tiene problemas de retención de clientes y bajas ventas. Quieren hacer cambios importantes y radicales en su negocio para conseguir nuevos clientes, mejorar su imagen y retener a los clientes que tienen.
Mala Idea: Para lograr esto despidieron y cambiaron a todos los que trabajaban y dejaron a los mismos jefes.
Un día de 7 de septiembre caminaba por afuera del Centro Comercial Unicornio cerca de mi oficina e ingresé al lugar para dar una vuelta ya que tenía unos minutos libres.
Me di cuenta que no existía luz en los pasillos, mientras que los locales si la tenían y era lo único que alumbraba la parte comunal. Me pareció raro que se encuentren las escaleras y pasillos tan apagados.
Cuando vi a un guardia le pregunté:
- ¿Qué paso? ¿Porque todo esto están sin luz? - esperando que me contestara que hubo alguna falla eléctrica o que saltó un breaker.
- La administración no pagó la luz y la cortaron - me respondió.
Solo acerté a responder... "ahhh"
El centro comercial Unicornio nunca fue un referente de éxito. En su inicio intentaron vender los locales como "la gran inversión" con propagandas de televisión. Me imagino que mucha gente compró locales pensando que era una inversión que no podía fallar. Luego tuvo una vertiginosa caída en las visitas por la falta del conocido como "local ancla" que tiene la función de atraer a la gente.
Se convirtió en uno de esos centro comerciales de los cuales nunca vas decir algo como "Me estaba tomando un café en el CC Unicornio y me encontré con la Fernanda haciendo shopping". Más bien si en una conversación dices que estuviste en ese centro comercial es posible que te pregunten "¿Que mier... estabas haciendo ahí?". Para no crearme enemigos lo puedo definir como un "Centro Comercial de Nicho" donde hay ciertas tiendas especializadas, la cual su giro de negocios no da tanta rentabilidad para estar un lugar más tránsito comercial.
Este lugar en los últimos años se dedicó a ciertos comercios
específicos, en donde los locales que mejor están son los ubicados hacia la
calle y luego los que se encuentra en el nivel de la calle. En el
segundo piso tiene algunos locales de copias de CDs, juegos piratas,
recarga de cartuchos de tinta, instalación de chip a consolas,
cables/estuches para teléfonos y un almacén de música (discos de acetato
de colección). El segundo piso es más una zona fantasma donde la parte
posterior tiene también un pequeño local de discos y el resto son
oficinas que tienen persianas y no exhiben ningún producto.
El tercer piso es un descuidado centro de entretenimiento infantil y la oficina de la administración. Y donde no me he atrevido a ingresar en la última visita, el subsuelo, que asumo también deben ser oficinas con persianas cerradas. Aunque me acuerdo que antes había un local donde reparaban las consolas de video juegos.
Es lamentable ver que la crisis afecta primero a lo más sensible, los sitios que tienen poco éxito y baja afluencia de clientes. Especulo que varios locales ya deben estar en morosidad con la administración y cada vez el dinero escasea para poder pagar los servicios comunales. Posiblemente el CC Unicornio ya nunca pueda ser como inicio su idea original, sin embargo a veces sueño despierto de como podría haber sido distinta su situación.
