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Software To Diagnose Faulty PC Hardware?
Etylowy writes "Over the years I have repaired my own PC and those belonging to family and friends many, many times. While in most cases it turned out to be restoring a system after malware/the user/Windows made a mess, or simple cases of 'follow the smell of smoke and molten plastic,' there were some nasty ones where the computer mostly works. By 'mostly,' I mean: you can boot it up, it might even work for a while, but will crash way too often to blame it all on Microsoft — what do you do then? Once you strip it of any extra hardware (which, with today's motherboards that have pretty much everything integrated, might not be an option) you are left with the CPU, motherboard, graphics card, RAM and HDD. You can test the HDD, you can run memtest86+ to check the RAM, but how do you go about testing the CPU, motherboard and graphics card trio to find which is to blame? Replacing them one by one isn't really an option. Do you know of any software that would help the way memtest helps with RAM?"
There is no such thing. Every culture has a small number of people for whom nothing is as good as it once was. Music "deteriorated" when The Beatles arrived, because their music wasn't as "good" as Glenn Miller or Beethoven. Painting "deteriorated" when those sloppy Impressionists stopped coloring inside the lines. Movies "deteriorated" when Godard didn't tell a story as neatly as Howard Hawkes. Human communications "deteriorated" because people send email instead of writing letters. Everything was better "back in my day".
I don't believe "ongoing long-term cultural deterioration" means what you think it means, if it exists at all.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It is pretty easy to cite examples you would probably find credible.
For instance, there has not been a new fundamental science discovery in sixty years. The current dominate TOE is string theory which with 30 years of work has not produced one testable conjecture. In fact it is so political dominate in the physics departments that you cannot get a job unless you sign on to it.
As far as your examples are concerned, I am not much into music, but consider Ode to Joy to be a culturally universal anthem of freedom and thus superior to the Beatles. Still I have enjoyed the Beatles on occasion. I especially like "Here comes the sun".
Modern painting is a complex subject, but I respect (darn, blank on his name) statement that modern art was the hope of the world. I think he is wrong. One reason is the art world is well-documented to be more about who you know than how "good" you are. Actually I used to own an original piece of Japanese abstract art.
I do not go to movies, watch TV or do DVD's. I figure I have better things to do. So I am not sure what the current offerings are like. But I understand sequels are often produced, which does not much reflect creativity, except perhaps originally by marketing. I suspect Hollywood is hard to defend, but most attacks on it seem to be by right-wing crazies. They may have the right idea, but are too ignorant to say anything fundamental.
I probably do most of my communication in emails. I like it because it is asynchronous. It is my preferred method of communications. I think I plead non-guilty there. My preferred workstation is OpenBSD so I am pretty much a computer nerd.
Anyway, these are your examples, not mine. I would tend to cite more substantive things. Ultimately, it is a philosophy issue, a two thousand year old social disease. But for current events I would trace it to 1945.
So, I do not think I am saying what you think I am saying.