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A Mythbuster's Biggest Tech Headaches (and Solutions)
An anonymous reader writes "The Mythbusters' Jamie Hyneman shares his top tech annoyances. Hyneman runs down the little things that bug him about everything from tools (exotic chargers) to cars (useless features). He also notes that there's a lot of room for improvement on PC desktops: 'In addition to being buggy ... extra features tend to bog down your system by demanding more processing power and memory. Computer-makers: Don't load up operating systems with features and then make us sweat to figure out how to get rid of the fat ... There's another solution available to consumers: Switch to a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu. Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.'"
All my phones in recent years use a USB port to charge. My new iMate Ultimate 6150 does, my previous HTC Trinity did, my wife's Motorola phones do. I won't buy a phone without a USB port to charge with. We carry around a small AA charger that has a USB port on it to charge devices on the go, it works great for long flights or any sort of travel away from a USB port.
In my car I tossed the 12V "cigarette lighter" from the dash to the truck. I also increased its power from a small 5A fuse to a 10A fuse, so I can run a reasonably sized 120V inverter (also in the trunk) to power a few devices on-the-go.
In the place of the dash 12V adapter, I installed a nice custom panel with 3 USB ports. They're high power ports, so I can charge a phone, a GPS receiver, and a plethora of other devices that use USB to charge. In the future I'd like to connect one port to a radio so I can play music on-the-go without my iPod.
In the past, I've had relatively complicated small PCs to run my music system, but I'm seeing more and more options for in-vehicle PCs running Linux. Eventually I think we'll see a system that works well and is cheap. Since we only buy used cars, tossing the radio is one of the first things we do, and it's at most a loss of maybe $25 worth of electronics.
There are many things I wish were modernized, standardized, and more open. First, vehicle information is very proprietary. Why is it that cars can't report status information via a simple USB connection? All the information is either there, or could be generated VERY cheaply. I ran out of wiper fluid two days ago (lots of snow in Chicago lately), and I sat there thinking how lame it is that the wiper fluid reservoir doesn't have a simple sensor to detect low fluid (it's a 2001 vehicle, not THAT old). Even that could be transported across a USB chain with regular updates. Heck, a $2 sensor could even sense fluid at 3 levels. Simple enough.
At home, we have a DC run throughout the house wherever we upgraded our power, and I'm seriously thinking of changing it to USB charging. AC in the home is useful, but so many devices use DC (and the dreaded overheating wall-warts!) that I'm shocked that more devices aren't standardizing on DC. 18V, 5A+, not a big deal -- but so many devices could use it (charging tools, video games, cell phones, even some computer monitors). Simple, without needed ANOTHER heat-generating and wasting transformer. My laptop is DC, too, yet I need the darned transformer throughout the house.
But I still see more and more devices standardizing in many ways. Over time, manufacturers are seeing that power is a commodity, not a profit maker. I tell my friends and family to stop buying products that use proprietary charging hardware. With tools, the battery situation is frustrating, but I think we'll see some changes there. I like the idea of having a standard 6V pack, and just adding more if you need 12V or 18V. Even better would be a "serial/parallel" switch so you could go from 6V 1A to 6V 2A or 12V 1A with the flip of a switch. Ahh, to dream.
Well, no, not to a geek. But the general public might find some of it enlightening.
Also, it's kind of nice to get support for this kind of view from a celebrity. It's like "no, you're not crazy. Jamie Hyneman Agrees!!".
I am in total agreement with his stance on Vista for example. (I find it almost hilarious that MS now includes a movie editor, MSN, media this and media that, but still doesn't provide a decent text editor.)
Actually, I'm somewhat surprised Jamie mentioned Linux. I have noticed in some (past) shows they show a computer screen in a few camera shots and I recognized AOL. AOL is rarely the choice of the computer literate. Since Mythbusters seems to avoid product placements, I believe the fact I could spot AOL was more an accident than intentional. Haven't seen it lately though.
Still, going from the choice of the not computer literate to talking about Linux as a desktop OS, in a non-computer tech magazine...that's a sign of progress. Is that another crack I hear forming in MS's empire?
I agree. Even for someone who's heard of Linux, sometimes the sheer number of distros out there can be overwhelming. Now this theoretical reader has a place to start.
You must have gotten that Motorola Q from someone other than Verizon. If you plug a regular USB cable into a Verizon phone(my old RAZR), you get an "Unauthorized Charger" message. They may have changed since then, but you can't be certain that just because the plug is standard the charger is too.
Non gratis rodentus anus
My apologies, but ATi has given the linux community (up until late last year) NO support to produce free drivers for them, and the drivers they put out at that time, while existant, may as well have not been built. Those cards (I have one sitting on a shelf) are just no-go under Ubuntu. nVidia vs ATi is a great example of what open specs, cooperation, and transparency get you. nVidia provided decent binary drivers (they had their issues at times) and has worked with the community to develop an open source driver.
ATi, however, crapped out drivers that don't work for years. Unfortunately, the answer is that you're SOL. I battled with a 9800 all in wonder pro for close to a month under gentoo then ubuntu before I just dropped back and made that machine into a server. So yes, the answer if you would like to use your machine with Ubuntu is to get a better video card. Sorry you had it put to you so rudely before, but that's what open development on one side and closed on the other gets you: winners and losers. If only they were all open.
My Babylon