Slashdot Mirror
Computers Top BBC List of Stress Producers
twitter writes "The BBC is reporting results of a poll by UK charity Developing Patient Partnerships that shows crashing computers to be one of the most common stresses and that it's actually killing people by driving them to drink and smoke. The quoted list has: 1. IT problems - 30%, 2. Change in financial status/personal injury - 24%, 3. Commuting - 20%. I've seen people take a smoke break when their computer pops a window and they lose an hour or two of work and admins taking their break straight from the bottle."
From the article: "1. IT problems - 30% ... 2. Change in financial status/personal injury - 24%" Then later: "Over two thirds thought stress was simply having a 'bad day', 63% said it was dealing with difficult people and 58% saw stress as having too much to do." Okay, so which is it? 30% said IT problems were the top problem, but 63% said dealing with difficult people? Maybe the IT problems are caused by difficult people...?
Elsewhere: Considering that most people - 79% - believe they have been stressed in the last year.... ONLY 79%?! Who are these 21% of people who haven't felt stressed in the last 365 days?
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
I tried beer on Frosted Flakes once in college when I was out of milk.
Not good.....
Hate too sound like a troll but I am trying too reistall my mac becuase it destroyed two hours of work the other day from a kernel panic. Oh well, once in 6 months too a year isn't bad right?
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
I work on linux (redhat 7.2) and although I'm constrained to older libs due to company reasons, I have mozilla and system crashes at least once a week. My bro is a IT director for a book company and he has shared many a tale of apple system crashes too. Windows is crap, but it isn't the only software that crashes. I suppose even WinTel running VIM all the time prob won't crash (until it is hacked).
A friend of mine put a bunch of beer in a mini-fridge that he also used for vodka (thus it was on the coldest setting). Next day, some had exploded. Result? Beer cereal! Ate the beer slush from a bowl with a spoon.
Sample (sadly, not Mr Formby).
That reminds me of the bug windows 95 had where it you left it running for 40 days it would crash. it only took them 6 years to reproduce the bug so they could fix it.
XP at stock is very stable, though, but there is a wider problem in computing than just the 'OS' the electrical grid can have spikes (no problem a good PSU can protect you) and worse, undervoltages. there is Nothing (other than having massive redundent arrays of capacitors) that can be done about under voltaging, and even then it's just a matter of time before the undervolateges cause the capacitors to all blow... then we have people trying to plug everything on one 15 amp breaker that was designed when people had like a living room radio as 'entertainment'
PC power and cooling is selling a PSU that can draw 38 amps from Each 12 volt rail. Dude, my OVEN only operates on 60 amps. but i guess if you want that quad sli setup so you can run battlfield 2 at full resolution on a 40" LCD screen... call an electrician, and have em put in some 60 amp wiring to where your pc plugs in...
er, well there is more than just power issues there are 'reliability' a lot of technology is built on a 'pump and dump' model make it cheap as possible and who cares if it blows up, or sucks etc. they'll just buy more of the junk. still more hardware is designed and engineered broken, but it seems to work fine so they ship it and then find that it seems to work fine but only with one configuration of hardware etc.. it takes a lot of time and energy to really find out who's got a good solid product, and who's selling the flimsy ones.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I remember that. Or, more accurately, I remember reading about that. I never managed to keep a Windows 9x machine alive for the requisite span of time.
That's not entirely true. A well-designed power supply which provides a maximum of 12 volts DC can work with an input of just a bit more than than 12 volts RMS. A power supply could actually be designed with step-up capability such that, so long as the source will provide adequate current, the required ouput voltage can be maintained with any input voltage.
This is a bit beside the point, however, as power supplies for computers are not designed with such silliness in mind. Enter the line conditioner. This handy (albeit usually expensive) device will provide a stable AC output voltage for a wide range of input voltages, and also acts as the mother of all surge suppressors. You plug it into the wall and plug your equipment into the line conditioner. I have one inline with my UPS. When power drops out altogether, my UPS covers me. When the voltage drops far too low to safely run my equipment, my conditioner protects me. The better UPSes actually have integrated line conditioning, so read the specs before dismissing that horribly expensive UPS. Me? I'm a cheap bastid, so my setup is a bit goofy.
Not all amps are created equal. Your 60 amp oven is drawing 14.4 kilowatts of power (Electric ovens operate on 240 volts RMS here in USAnia, times the stated 60 amps, times an assumed power factor of 1 since ovens are a resistive load). The two twelve volt, 38 amp power rails combined can supply 912 watts of power to a load. On the source side, that ammounts to only 7 amps of current (the 912 watts, divided by 120 volts RMS, divided by a power factor of 1 just to make the math easier). This is not nearly so significant.
Batou: Hey, Major... You ever hear of "human rights"? Major: I understand the concept, but I've never seen it in action