Questions Arising On Mercury In Compact Fluorescents

Patchw0rk F0g sends in an article from MSNBC on how some environmentalists are having second thoughts on compact fluorescent bulbs. Their relative energy efficiency is unquestioned. The problem is the mercury — enough in one bulb to contaminate 1,000 gallons of water, even in newer low-mercury bulbs. The EPA has an 11-step cleanup process to follow when you break a CFL in your home. The specialized recycling facilities that are needed are thin on the ground — about one per county in California, one of seven states where it is illegal to dispose of CFLs in the general waste stream.

Comments

Re:Same old story

[UbuntuDupe]

Ah, so you're one of the immature brats who use the moderation system to satisfy your petty vendettas.

I owe an apology for only one thing: telling a harsh truth (that the design was poor enough to lock someone out of a computer despite major precautions) a little too harshly. That's it. And I'd even *give* that apology, on the Ubuntu forums ... if, you know, they didn't ban and censor people who criticize Ubuntu.

You are apparently still too dense to see that I could not possibly have caused my troubles. You claim I didn't take precautions? Um, hello? I CONFINED UBUNTU TO A THIRD HARD DRIVE SO THAT I COULD STILL ACCESS THE COMPUTER in the inevitable event of an install failure. If that's not a precaution, I don't know what is. Hell, if that's not an above and beyond precaution, I don't know what is.

I also had a separate laptop from whence I could ask for advice, and set aside a large block of time when I could be without my computer. I followed the install instructions to the letter. I had a Live CD (remember, the current consensus is that the Install CD *is* the Live CD, even though no one can actually, you know, tell me how to get my computer working ... why don't you go ahead and stay with the consensus ;-) )THOSE ARE PRECAUTIONS.

To this date, the only people who attempt to give technical explanations for my situation *in which I'm at fault*, are all obviously impossible, like how I must have edited some file that I didn't know existed and while not knowing how to edit files from the command line. Or how my download (which was verified, as was the burn) erred in just *precisely* the right way to make EVERYTHING go right except grub stage 1.5 and throw an error 25, which is well-documented but no one is capable of fixing until it's too late.

I am the one who deserves a gold-plated apology:

-For HIGHLY RECOMMENDING that I REMOVE THE PRECAUTION THAT I USED to isolate ubuntu failures to a third hard drive. (Remind me how I was supposed to know not to take HIGHLY RECOMMENDED advice?)
-For not throwing a flag when it saw my HD was too big (which, it turned out was what caused the problem, remember? Er, that and the shitty design that can't handle it).
-For ignoring things I said in my post.
-For not following up on the times that I actually *could* follow your advice.
-For repeatedly recommending infeasible advice after I said I couldn't do it.
-For pretending not to understand how it's possible to download a CD yet not be able to burn CDs when you can't get into that computer.
-And so on and so forth.

If any of my advice about Ubuntu has actually been taken ... well, then I *definitely* deserve a gold-plated apology.

Stop demonstrating why Linux will never catch on for the desktop. Use your mod points for good, not to shoot messengers whose messages you don't like.

In two words: grow up.