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I actually think the GX501 trackpad isn't terrible in location, though it is kind of stupid they also provide a silicone palm rest that you need to put in front of the laptop. Stealth footprint increase. The 1080-MaxQ also seems to perform within 5% of a 1070 laptop card, so basically the Zephyrus is giving you GTX 1070 performance in that slim chassis, which is nothing to sneeze at, but the marketing magic is strong with calling it a "1080". More pleasantly surprising, the GTX 1070 MAX Q performs smack bang in the middle between a standard laptop 1070 and a laptop 1060 (so basically a little more powerful than a desktop 1060). I expected it to perform worse, so that's nice, and while I wouldn't recommend anyone upgrade from a 1060 to a 1070MQ, if you''re upgrading from anything older, going that route seems decent, as long as the price premium isn't too crazy for +20% performance on a 1060 laptop.
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Jun 28, 2017 05:07
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Hadlock posted:That's not a bad option, laptops with off center trackpads make me irrationally angry though It's only off-center because of the numpad, it's still centered between your hands in the normal touch-typing position. You should consider adding that Acer to the OP. It's a good option for $350 new.
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Jun 28, 2017 07:34
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Atomizer posted:It's only off-center because of the numpad, it's still centered between your hands in the normal touch-typing position. Yeah and then your hands are off center, it's loving communism in a clamshell format, I won't stand for it. Minus the off center trackpad I would have no issue adding that to the OP, probably about time for a rewrite again. It's been four years now.
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Jun 28, 2017 09:57
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Trackpads SHOULD be off centre even if the laptop has no numpad it just isn't as dramatic. Laptops which have the trackpad dead centre annoy me because then it's in slightly the wrong place when switching between it and the keyboard
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Jun 28, 2017 10:07
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Ah, you're right; I must be over-tired. Yes the centerline of the trackpad needs to match up with the GH keys on the keyboard. What annoys me is when they center the trackpad on the chassis and the keyboard is shifted <<< to the left which puts the trackpad in an awkward spot in relation to home row.
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Jun 28, 2017 10:29
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Off-center keyboards are a sin punishable by death
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Jun 28, 2017 14:02
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New thread name ideas? The Laptop Megathread: Gaming laptops actually work (buy a Chromebook anyway)
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Jun 28, 2017 14:30
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Pfft, that misses the third pillar of the thread "yes, the T/X ThinkPads are great, check if you can find one used/refurb".
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Jun 28, 2017 14:43
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Definitely one thing it's taking me way longer to get used to on my Aero 15 is how the keyboard is shifted left of the screen due to the numpad. I constantly feel like I need to shift my chair 2 inches to the left. I've only ever used 13.3" devices and under, so no numpads. But the numpad is actually pretty helpful for my particular use case. I play X3, for example, and having a numpad is super useful for keybinds. I also have to use the calculator app a lot and a numpad has made it seamless for me to switch between desktop and laptop for work.
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Jun 28, 2017 15:19
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Thank you two for your advice. I found another Acer for $700 that's a pretty good split between what I want versus what I actually need. Plus, I effectively get $35 off with my Prime Visa. My concern is I remember Acer being the cheap brand. I take it that's no longer the case? I've seen it recommended several times ITT.
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Jun 28, 2017 18:09
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All brands are the cheap brand. Some passable laptops exist, but brand names don't mean a thing.
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Jun 28, 2017 18:42
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Dango Bango posted:Thank you two for your advice. I found another Acer for $700 that's a pretty good split between what I want versus what I actually need. Plus, I effectively get $35 off with my Prime Visa. I wouldn't be too worried about Acer. You can have issues with any brand (see people buying new laptops and having to do a re-paste immediately to get acceptable heat dissipation) but it's more of a concern as price goes up (regardless of brand,) so if you get a good deal and have issues in a few years it's not that huge a deal. Then there's the fact that we're literally talking about brands and other companies generally manufacture the devices, so having an issue with brand X doesn't mean brand Y is immune to the same problems, etc. The bottom line is I have inexpensive Acers and haven't experienced any issues myself, and thus wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. Really the only company I've had issues with over the years is Toshiba, but that's another story.
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Jun 28, 2017 19:06
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Atomizer posted:I wouldn't be too worried about Acer...Really the only company I've had issues with over the years is Toshiba, but that's another story. Thanks for all your help. Part of my worry about "cheap" was my mom's experience with Toshiba 
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Jun 28, 2017 19:42
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Acers are actually pretty good. Just don't buy any of their 'gimmick' machines. Like the old Lamborghini branded laptops they used to come out with. Worst laptop I ever used was an HP G62. I'm convinced whoever designed the keyboard had parkinsons.
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Jun 28, 2017 20:12
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Arivia posted:It could run WoW, at least for dailies and some dungeon finder. You'll want to get one of the upgraded models with the Iris Plus graphics; the lower models barely beat Legion's minimum requirements. The Iris Plus will be medium to medium low settings for now, but won't be doing them at the XPS 13's native resolution, probably half. Luckily that doesn't matter too much for WoW. I've played WoW for years on similarly specced laptops. It's not great but it's doable. I always wondered the deal on the Developer edition considering you aren't paying for a Windows license but are paying more for the equipment. I wonder how well it plays with Kali/aircrack. Won't matter since I won't even consider Ubuntu on the desktop until 18.04 when they finally chuck Unity. Happily we can all go back to just making GBS threads on the travesty that is Gnome 3. Ganson fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Jun 28, 2017 |
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Jun 28, 2017 20:18
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Man, I really thought people were just a usual level of whiny when it comes to the Killer wireless on the XPS15, but the correct view to take beforehand is really to just act as if it ships without wifi. I am sure it works fine for some people who have the right access points and don't travel enough, but it is a complete crapshot whether a given hotel or venue will function with it. It seems especially notoriously bad in any situation where someone has set up a network with multiple ap's built with crappy consumer hardware, not sure what it does, but it seems to like to live up to its name and actually kill those off.
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Jun 28, 2017 21:36
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Cybernetic Vermin posted:Man, I really thought people were just a usual level of whiny when it comes to the Killer wireless on the XPS15, but the correct view to take beforehand is really to just act as if it ships without wifi. I am sure it works fine for some people who have the right access points and don't travel enough, but it is a complete crapshot whether a given hotel or venue will function with it. It seems especially notoriously bad in any situation where someone has set up a network with multiple ap's built with crappy consumer hardware, not sure what it does, but it seems to like to live up to its name and actually kill those off. I had a Lenovo Edge X430 like that. Otherwise great laptop that you could swap a second drive in with an aftermarket kit. Completely POS wifi with the added bonus of bios code which wouldn't allow it to boot without whitelisted hardware. I ended up trashing it, luckily I only paid $50 and the burned in 7 key was able to be updated to Retail Windows 10 so I made out on the deal. I don't buy Lenovos anymore. Ganson fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Jun 28, 2017 |
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Jun 28, 2017 21:54
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Hello, please forgive me I am a stupid newbie. May the SA community please tell me a good 17" or larger display laptop for web browsing and streaming? I do not have a preference for a brand I just want something reliable. Thanks.
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Jun 28, 2017 22:04
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Your wants are misplaced: you do not actually want a 17" laptop. 17" laptops are Too Big for anything you'd consider a laptop for (class, work, coffee shop, airplane, toilet, etc). I'd consider 15" laptops as the top-end of how large as you want to get and the sweet spot for gaming/performance due to thermals.
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Jun 28, 2017 22:47
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dwebb posted:Hello, please forgive me I am a stupid newbie. No Go buy a 13" laptop and a 24" display and call it a day There's a reason why Apple hasn't made a 17" laptop since 2009
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Jun 28, 2017 23:36
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 Apple made the 17" MBP until 2011
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Jun 29, 2017 00:48
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reeeing like a goddamn tornado siren
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Jun 29, 2017 00:53
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Hadlock posted:Go buy a 13" laptop and a 24" display and call it a day I mostly use a laptop in bed, I'm pretty sure I'd be fine with 17" but annoyed by separate screen. I'm also fine with 15" or 13" because my vision is decent, I just mean the vitriol against 17" doesn't make sense to me. The only way I can imagine a standalone machine being usable without a desk is if all the parts mount to some sort of weird contraption.
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Jun 29, 2017 02:11
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Ganson posted:I always wondered the deal on the Developer edition considering you aren't paying for a Windows license but are paying more for the equipment. I wonder how well it plays with Kali/aircrack. Adobe really needs to rework flash to make it the greatest again. Then it can be effectively used on phones too.
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Jun 29, 2017 02:51
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roomforthetuna posted:Wait, how would that work? re: non-sequitur question A 15" laptop on your lap (mine on my lap right now is ~20" away) is about as big as a 24" screen on your desk at 36" (about arm's distance). But a 13" laptop can actually be used comfortably during travel. My guess is that when this isn't on this guy's lap, it will be at his desk. At that point you're better off buying a larger display anyways, and the number of goons posting in this thread and that don't already have a mouse and keyboard somewhere has to be vanishingly small.
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Jun 29, 2017 03:06
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17" laptops are huge, and using one in bed seems problematic to me. The only time I'd consider a 17" laptop is as a desktop replacement, and then it's basically never leaving my desk. Why get something like that over an actual desktop? If I move houses frequently, or if I like to spend half the day using it on the kitchen counter, etc. But 17" in bed, that's heavy and unwieldy. I came to a 15" 'in a 14" body' from a 13.3 and 10" previously used laptops, and it's even quite big and bulky to me.
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Jun 29, 2017 03:57
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If they're close to the same price for the same or similar specs, is there any reason to buy a lenovo (y720) over a sager (np7850) or vice versa?
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Jun 29, 2017 04:31
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Hadlock posted:A 15" laptop on your lap (mine on my lap right now is ~20" away) is about as big as a 24" screen on your desk at 36" (about arm's distance). But a 13" laptop can actually be used comfortably during travel. My guess is that when this isn't on this guy's lap, it will be at his desk. At that point you're better off buying a larger display anyways, and the number of goons posting in this thread and that don't already have a mouse and keyboard somewhere has to be vanishingly small. But yeah, I guess my bad for not recognizing that the external monitor option makes sense if you assume (or just add $20 for) the presence of an external mouse and keyboard. Though accompanied by my assumption of poor eyesight it still wouldn't really make sense to get a smaller laptop at that point, when you could instead get like a minnowboard or a raspberry pi or something since the small screen wouldn't be any use anyway. (I guess maybe not the pi since streaming was one of the uses and netflix on pi is still painful, but the minnowboard or some other x86 small computer might make sense if you're always going to use it with external screen and devices.)
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Jun 29, 2017 05:40
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On the subject of external screens, has anyone tried any of the face-mounted screens like the Avegant Glyph (720p @ $400) or the Royole Moon (1080p @ $800)? Different from VR headsets in that they don't do motion sensing, and they work with just a regular HDMI input. Specifically I'm curious whether this sort of display is usable for reading text. (I see amazon question-answerers saying it's fine on the Glyph, but they're not saying "720p kind of sucks for browser vertical space" which makes their opinions suspect.) I guess the same usability question about HTC Vive, too, if anyone has tried using that with Virtual Desktop as a serious display device.
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Jun 29, 2017 06:46
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Well.. lenovo killed my order. Instead they offered me an x1 with an m7-6y75 for 30 bucks more. Downside is the ssd downgrade to 256gig. But it also has an lte sim card slot that works with att so still ok i guess. I can make do with memory pretty easily with the sd card slot and a portable 128g ssd.
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Jun 29, 2017 07:08
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roomforthetuna posted:Fair enough. Just seems weird the level of HELL NO when someone asks for a 17" laptop, I'm just very jaded about 17" laptops after running this thread for four years In other news, fell down a very deep rabbit hole, found this article written in 2001 about "future technologies": https://web.archive.org/web/20020802064137/http://www.cnn.com:80/2001/TECH/ptech/12/25/pc.changes.idg/index.html OLED displays claimed "Two to three years for PDAs and cell phones; five to ten for laptops and desktop displays." (PDA is like a cell phone but without internet access) 802.11 networks, "wireless networks can be less secure." yeah about WEP... XML was a thing, once (long live JSON): "Though the XML 1.0 spec was finalized in 1998, huge companies like Fidelity Investments have only begun to convert all their data to XML, while scores of industry-specific dialects have been developed for finance, medicine, and other sectors. Applications written in XML will also let search engines distinguish between, say, the name Price on a Web page and the price of an item on that page, leading to faster, more accurate searches." Hyperthreading, like wifi, was one of the few big winners from this list: "Desktops may see a similar gain once applications are written to take advantage of it, but the benefits would likely be felt first by compulsive multitaskers who like to play games, download files, and print databases at the same time....Windows XP and Linux support Hyper-Threading, but apps tuned for it are years away." TFT computers, Magnetic RAM (MRAM!) P2P networking, fuel cell laptop batteries with longer run times than NiCad and Li-Ion batteries. Distributed computing is attributed to helping larger corporations but in reality Amazon's AWS has enabled smaller companies to flourish. CNN gave it an impact rating of 3. Voice-driven Web sites. aka Google Now, Siri, Alexa; When's it coming? Initial deployment has begun; widespread use is expected in three to five years. hah. the future posted:Your notebook PC specs in 2004
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Jun 29, 2017 07:18
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roomforthetuna posted:Fair enough. Just seems weird the level of HELL NO when someone asks for a 17" laptop, if that response is built on that many assumptions. In the absence of any further explanation my assumption if someone specifically asks for a 17" laptop is that their use-case involves having poor eyesight and using it either in bed (where a desktop solution doesn't help and the size isn't too bad) or at desks in more than one location, but not in transit (where a desktop solution would require buying multiple screens, and the size is only a minor carrying inconvenience). Just to restate what other posters have already mentioned, large (i.e. 17"+) laptops aren't made for the same use cases as smaller laptops. Ultrabooks are meant to be super-portable at the expense of [extreme] performance and outright cost, whereas large laptops are intended to be desktop replacements. They're technically portable, but not intended to be lugged around everywhere like you'd take your business laptop or whatever. Also, because they're so big and heavy (6-8 lbs. and up) they're not comfortable to hold in your lap for long periods of time. Even the 15.6" laptop I was using in bed the other night was large and awkward, and that's more or less a mid-sized laptop.
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Jun 29, 2017 08:53
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17" laptop bad. It's a heavy beast with no better bits than in a 13-15", the screen isn't going to be any better either and you aren't going to be carrying it onto any train or plane. But adding a sweet 24" monitor to a 12-15" and you'll either have even more screen real estate than you realised you needed at your desk or close the laptop at your desk and use a 120/144hz rock solid display. Picked up a 17" ACER GUILD OF GAMING thing with a 260GTX card for playing quake for $300 a couple of years ago and that's still more laptop than I want to carry around. It spends months sitting in a drawer since I'm doing all my other work on a thinkpad or faffing around with a tablet. edit: and you know, desktop machine. Basically, don't get attached to this idea of a golden picture of a laptop on a nice wooden desk photoshopped in the golden hour as a lifestyle solution. impulse 7 effect fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Jun 29, 2017 |
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Jun 29, 2017 12:25
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impulse 7 effect posted:17" laptop bad. It's a heavy beast with no better bits than in a 13-15", the screen isn't going to be any better either and you aren't going to be carrying it onto any train or plane. On the other hand 1080p @ 17" is a very usable 127ppi compared to 140-160ppi on a 14/15" screen roomforthetuna posted:Wait, how would that work? At first I was thinking you'd use the laptop closed, but then you'd also need to add a keyboard and mouse. But if it's open, the 13" screen is going to be in the way of your larger screen, or you're going to be uncomfortable looking at the screen at a weird angle, or need a mount for it, or something. I normally put my laptop directly in front of me and then have an external monitor on either the left or right side at an angle. Even if I had two equally size monitors I wouldn't sit in the middle of them.  (don't make fun of my lovely work laptop)
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Jun 29, 2017 12:51
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Bob Morales posted:On the other hand 1080p @ 17" is a very usable 127ppi compared to 140-160ppi on a 14/15" screen It's okay, we've all had to touch Lenovo Edge laptops at one point or another. It doesn't make you any less of a man Mr. Pansy. ;-) How does the wireless hold up for you? The E430 I had was godawful, literally scrapped it for a T500.
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Jun 29, 2017 19:13
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impulse 7 effect posted:edit: and you know, desktop machine. Basically, don't get attached to this idea of a golden picture of a laptop on a nice wooden desk photoshopped in the golden hour as a lifestyle solution. I'm so incredibly triggered by this, don't tell me how to live my life! 
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Jun 29, 2017 19:17
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roomforthetuna posted:On the subject of external screens, has anyone tried any of the face-mounted screens like the Avegant Glyph (720p @ $400) or the Royole Moon (1080p @ $800)? Different from VR headsets in that they don't do motion sensing, and they work with just a regular HDMI input. Specifically I'm curious whether this sort of display is usable for reading text. (I see amazon question-answerers saying it's fine on the Glyph, but they're not saying "720p kind of sucks for browser vertical space" which makes their opinions suspect.) I want to know this too so I finally live out my life long dream of getting paid to be a Radical Edward cosplayer! 
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Jun 29, 2017 19:21
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Ganson posted:It's okay, we've all had to touch Lenovo Edge laptops at one point or another. It doesn't make you any less of a man Mr. Pansy. ;-) Can't you see the Dell logo? It's an E6440 or something
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Jun 29, 2017 20:04
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Bob Morales posted:Can't you see the Dell logo? It's an E6440 or something Apparently not, it has a very similar strip around it to some of the old Lenovo Edge models. My mistake.
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Jun 29, 2017 20:34
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Ganson posted:I'm so incredibly triggered by this, don't tell me how to live my life! Hello Sir, I am calling from your Microsoft. We are very pleased with your good report and can offer you a special deal. I will call back tomorrow in case it is payday 
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Jun 29, 2017 22:47
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