Asimov's rules were always applied to intelligent robots. No-one (to my knowledge) has ever suggested that a hammer should have a sensor to recognise if it is hitting a nail or a thumb and refuse to obey the "command" of its operator if it is targetting the latter.
Allow me to be the first to suggest it. The idea occured to me earlier today, a few minutes after the throbbing pain in my thumb subsided.
If you would have RTFA, you would have realised that hybrids are not quite as environmentaly friendly as most people believe. Hybrids work well if you drive very short distances requiring stop and go driving. Normal gas or diesel cars are better suited for long commutes. And if you factor in the added cost of a hybrid, the environmental and maintenance costs of the batteries, etc, then for many a hybrid becomes nothing more than a "social statement".
I really wanted to buy a Honda Insight when it first came out, but I ended up with a Honda Prelude. In my case for instance, I drive my car so little that it would have taken about 20 years to save enough on gas to cover the extra costs of the hybrid. If I would have bought a Honda Civic instead, that time period would have been even longer.
Pretty much every music device that Sony released was crippled in one way or another. I loved the MD format, long battery life, and the ability to store the equivalent of 128Mb of MP3s on a $2 disk. But all of Sony's MD, CD and flash players would only play ATRAC (or a variation thereof). This would not have been a problem if ATRAC were an open standard.
But converting MP3s or CDs to ATRAC required Sony's drivers and software (which never worked in Linux). This HAS to be the buggiest and most DRM ridden software I ever used. I was so frustrated with it that when I got a free 128Mb RCA Lyra MP3 player, I just sold my MD player and the 50-ish MDs that I had (40 of them blank, because I couldn't bring myself to record them all).
Sony may have added support for other formats recently, but I got burnt once with their MDs. Unless they offer compelling new features over their competition, I don't see a reason I'd ever consider another Sony product.
The MS Office interface is very well established, and most (if not all) people are used to it. For people to migrate easily to OOo, it has to feel like a clone of MS Office. When its userbase will be significant enough, it will afford deviating from the norm. I am sure that MS Office implemented a similar interface to its precursors (WordPerfect et al) when it was introduced, and added new features gradually. And by the way, OOo did have a very different interface when it was still called StarOffice 5. It had a desktop manager, file browser, etc, but unfortunately, it felt cumbersome, and the suite ran slowly even on systems with reasonable specs. Moving to the current interface improved things significantly.
I have used OOo exclusively for the past two years, mostly for school work. Between taking notes in class, typing assignments, etc, I spent many hours using it. While I also have MS Office 97, 2k and XT, I stuck with OOo because of a few default behaviours and features. First, it does not bullet, tab, etc by default. You have to actvely format the text. When taking notes in class this is crucial, because I really do not have time to fuss around with how the text looks like. MS Office was driving me crazy with its auto-everything behaviour, which cannot be turned off (it can be undone on a case-by-case basis, but that is not good enough for me). Second, it can export the file as PDF. When sharing files, this is amazing. Not to mention that most people cannot edit your work if you chose not to let them. And upon completing a course I can just archive the material as PDF, without having to worry about installing OOo or MS Office in order to read it. MS Office however, does not (or at least did not) have this feature.
I just checked it out, and it's amazing. This is what online music distribution is all about. I haven't bought a CD (or any music for that matter) in more than 6 years. I might just buy something from them.
Even if you're worried about the life span of a DVD+/-R compared to a pressed CD, making two copies, with one stored in a dark, dry place would still save a LOT of room.
I have a very good use for a PS/2 port: my IBM Model M keyboard (manufactured in 1987). I tried dozens of different keyboards, and it's still the only one I truly enjoy using. Not to mention that after almost 20 years of use, it still works like new.
I know there is a company that makes M replicas with a USB connector. But I paid $10 for my M, whereas the replica is around $100. Another solution I looked into is a PS/2 to USB adapter. The ones that do true hardware conversion are also quite expensive (the cheap ones that come with mice don't work, as they require the hardware itself to support USB, which the M does not)
So I'll keep buying hardware that has a PS/2 port for that reason alone. I know eventually I will have to switch to USB, but not unless I don't have to.
SMP ready cpu's weren't always more expensive than there UP breatheren. The CPU's are almost exactly the same, but the manufacturers just disable the SMP ability and sell them for more.
So in other words, UP CPUs were just as cheap to make, but they were marketed at higher prices. The end result to the consumer was that UP CPUs were significantly cheaper than MP CPUs.
It's the same in any field. I'm a fan of mountainbiking, and bike component prices show the same trends as CPUs. The manufacturing cost difference between a high end component and an average component is very small, but the final price difference can be quite large (50-100% more).
SMP without the mess (extra CPUs, cooling, expensive/complicated motherboards) and cost is definitely something to be impressed about.
The motherboards supporting dual core CPUs should be identical to those running single core CPUs. I guess this is where having the memory controller integrated into the CPU really pays off for AMD since it further simplifies mb design. But in the past SMP motherboards weren't THAT much more expensive (at the most $100 extra) than similar single CPU motherboards. The main cost associated with SMP setups were the very expensive SMP CPUs, which were anywhere from 1.5 times or more expensive than regular CPUs. The pricing of dual core CPUs remains to be seen, but I think it'll still be cheaper than 2 separate SMP-enabled CPUs.
However I completely agree with the rest of your post. Not having separate heatsinks, large motherboards, etc is a definite advantage. Just because of that the market acceptance will increase very rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised if games and other CPU intensive apps started supporting dual core CPUs soon.
Why is the previous post flamebait? I'm a Canadian who by definition are more liberal than most Americans. It may be debatable, I also believe I'm pretty liberal in my opinions. However, I agree with the previous poster.
Why should illegal immigrants be given driver's licenses?!? I don't see the right to drive on the basic human rights list. In fact, last time I checked, driving was a priviledge, not a right.
The fact that the current system allows people to get a license without being legally in the country (US or Canada) does not automatically imply that changes preventing them from it would deny them any inalienable rights. Any illegal immigrant who has a valid reason to be in the US or Canada can apply for refugee status. From my experience, most will be granted. So should anyone want a driver's licence, they should apply for legal status, or they should not complain.
I have to agree with you on this. I have the 5mp (no difference from the 5P other than Mac and PC support) and it's simply amazing. It just turned 10 years old this month, and it still runs like new. It only prints at 4ppm, but since it has a large tray built-in, I can leave it printing for a couple of hours without worry. Since it has a straight paper path, it can also print envelopes, or thicker paper that would jam any other printer.
Another good option to the 5P is the 6P or 6MP. It's just an updated version that can print at 6ppm, but otherwise it's just as reliable.
Yeah, I'd go with xvid or divx. The codecs are available for any OS, so regardless of your player, they should run without problems. Not to mention that these formats give you so many options in terms of quality settings you can have any filesize you want.
On a side note, WMV files have problems playing in Windows as well. I'm still running Win2K on my laptop, and I did not want to upgrade to WMP9 from WMP6.4 because of its bloat and DRM, but I installed the WMP9 codecs. All WMV files will play, but some refuse to scroll forward. If you do, you can lose the video.
By our "great-great-grandparents" standards, it was probably normal for a man in his 20s or 30s to marry a girl of 14. Back then women were less educated than men, so the mental ellement in the relationship that the grandparent post mentions was almost nonexistent. From a physical point of view as well, people lived shorter lives, so a girl of 14 would be equivalent to a girl of 17-18 today. Add to those factors the fact that society itself, with its moral standards, quality of life, and all its over aspects, was very different from today.
Society changed quite a bit (at least in the civilized world) since then. So while 100 or more years ago marying a girl of 14 was normal (although just barely), today it is unacceptable.
I know exactly what you mean. I recently sold my Aiwa NetMD and the 40 blank MDs I had purchased because I only got around to recording 4 MDs in the 2 years I had it. Everything was great untill the point where you have to deal with SonicStage to record MDs. IMNHO it's one of the worst applications out there.
Had NetMD players supported MP3s, I probably would have had my entire music collection on them. I ended up cutting my losses and buying an iRiver 1Gb MP3 player.
But seriously, if you waited as long as you did to upgrade to 2.6.9, why do you feel like you have to upgrade to 2.6.10 as soon as it's out?
I was just kidding about compiling 2.6.10 right away. It's hard finding a kernel and ATI drivers that work together, so I will stick with 2.6.9 untill ATI releases new drivers.
...that I _JUST_ installed 2.6.9 yesterday. I never learn, if I decide to upgrade kernels, I should do it RIGHT after it's released. Who cares it may nuke my system, at least I won't have to recompile it 24 hours later. *grin*
That's what I thought at first. My setup is a Slack gateway, a Windows XP gaming machine, a Slack box, a Slack laptop and Windows 2k machine. I checked all Windows computers on my LAN for virii and spyware. I also disconnected everything other than the gateway and the Windows gaming machine. I reinstalled Windows XP and the game. None of it helped.
At that point, I just called it a day. It's been 6 months now. In the meantime I did try playing AA once, and the connection was amazing, but unfortunately that game does not do anything for me anymore. But like I said, it's all for the better, I don't really miss it.
... is the most important part in my opinion. My ISP has always been extremely reliable, with at the most a day of downtime every six months. But for a while about half a year ago, their latency increased to the point where any online game became unplayeable. The connection was just fine for downloading data or browsing, but any server I could connect to would ping higher than 1s. Unfortunately, I could not switch ISPs, so I ended up giving up on gaming online.
I used to be an Americas Army fanatic, spending even 4-5 hours a day playing. I won't try to pretend that I've stopped playing games, but now I only do it at lan parties, or I play games that don't require an internet connection. The reason I was spending so much time online was not necessarily playing the game itself, but playing it with other people. Since that element was removed, I spend less than an hour a day playing, mostly Warcraft3.
As an interesting side note, my GPA improved quite a bit, and I have time to spend on other things... Imagine that!
I'm still running Win2k Pro on my Compaq Evo N600c laptop with a P3m 1.2Ghz and 768Mb RAM. I ran WinXP Pro on it for about a year, and while it was fast enough, it always had problems that only a reinstall would fix. But every reinstall would bring along new problems. Just as an example, sometimes it would not resume from stand by, other times it simply would not boot, apps would not start or take a very long time to do so, etc.
I've reinstalled XP Pro about 5 times because of those issues, and every time I had the latest drivers, patches, service packs, etc, including all drivers available from Compaq's website. I did not have spyware or virii on the computer, it was simply an issue of my laptop not being compatible with XP Pro.
Less than a month ago I gave up on winXP and installed Win2k Pro, and it's been rock solid since. Not a single problem, and all the apps are behaving properly. This is why I choose to run a 5 year old OS. I just want to use the laptop, without worrying about fixing problems and reinstalling every couple of months, especially since I don't care about the latest bells and whistles. I still have XP Pro SP1 and Slack 10 on my desktop, so it's not as if I insist on running Win2k.
The only way they would get an impartial jury would be if somehow they find 12 people without an internet connection. Regardless of the provider, EVERYBODY has to deal with spam in one way or another.
But this is one case where I wouldn't mind having the defendents tarred and feathered...
About a year ago I was working in the tech support department in one of the universities in Toronto. Every summer the older employees had to create presentations to train the new employees before the school year would start. My task, as luck would have it, was to teach them how the wireless network was set up, and what software/hardware was required to connect to it. As any good employee, I spent a couple of my afternoons working on the Powerpoint slides, got it ready on time even though I did not get paid for the extra time I worked on it.
The setup was fairly involved because it required a VPN client that was not easy to set up, and a user name and password, which again, were complicated to obtain. On top of that, each MAC address had to be registered with the server. A day before the presentation, the entire system was changed. the VPN client was dumped in favour of a proxy system, which still required a user name and password. Needless to say, my presentation was worthless, and I was required to redo it within a day. I started working on it, but because I had made plans for the evening, I decided to finish it at the last moment the next day. I never got around to it.
I should mention this was not a 9-5 job, the shifts were 4 hours long. I even had to work from 3-11pm and then the next morning from 8am-3pm. Now for the rest of my story.
The day my unfinished presentation was due was such a beautiful, hot summer day I decided to ride my motorcycle to work. I thought I could wing it on the spot, and the whole way I kept thinking of it. The closer I got to the campus though, the more I dreaded having to deal with a problem I had not created. So I rode into the campus when I saw one of my supervisors walking around. But instead of turning into the parking lot, I just kept on going.
Later that evening I pulled up on a friend's driveway in Ottawa, about 450km away from the stupid presentation and my former job. I came back a week later to collect my last paycheck. That's how I quit my bad job.
I recently noticed that MSI had released a new version of the BIOS for my motherboard, and I decided it can't hurt to upgrade. I flashed the BIOS from Windows (the other option would be a DOS floppy, but my box does not have a floppy drive). There were no errors untill I rebooted into Windows, then everything went wrong. As soon as there would be any significant hdd activity, the computer would just freeze, and it would reboot a few seconds later.
I decided to roll back to the previous version of the BIOS, but it turns out upgrading is much easier. Apparently the MSI Windows utility will only allow a newer version of the BIOS to be installed, but not old ones. Since I could not use the fdd method, I had to trick the utility into using the old BIOS file. Everything worked (thankfully) in the end and all I lost was time. But I could have needed a new motherboard...
It is MSI's fault that the new BIOS is extremely unstable, but it would not be their responsability if my motherboard got fried while flashing the BIOS (or after). It was my choice to flash it, even though they recommend against it if everything works properly.
In your case, just get the replacement unit and try not to complain. I think it's more than a fair deal Linksys is willing to give you.
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Asimov's rules were always applied to intelligent robots. No-one (to my knowledge) has ever suggested that a hammer should have a sensor to recognise if it is hitting a nail or a thumb and refuse to obey the "command" of its operator if it is targetting the latter.
Allow me to be the first to suggest it. The idea occured to me earlier today, a few minutes after the throbbing pain in my thumb subsided.
You worked for Rogers, didn't you?
I simply drink myself into a stupor and try not to wake up untill the new year is well on its way.
If you would have RTFA, you would have realised that hybrids are not quite as environmentaly friendly as most people believe. Hybrids work well if you drive very short distances requiring stop and go driving. Normal gas or diesel cars are better suited for long commutes. And if you factor in the added cost of a hybrid, the environmental and maintenance costs of the batteries, etc, then for many a hybrid becomes nothing more than a "social statement".
I really wanted to buy a Honda Insight when it first came out, but I ended up with a Honda Prelude. In my case for instance, I drive my car so little that it would have taken about 20 years to save enough on gas to cover the extra costs of the hybrid. If I would have bought a Honda Civic instead, that time period would have been even longer.
Pretty much every music device that Sony released was crippled in one way or another. I loved the MD format, long battery life, and the ability to store the equivalent of 128Mb of MP3s on a $2 disk. But all of Sony's MD, CD and flash players would only play ATRAC (or a variation thereof). This would not have been a problem if ATRAC were an open standard.
But converting MP3s or CDs to ATRAC required Sony's drivers and software (which never worked in Linux). This HAS to be the buggiest and most DRM ridden software I ever used. I was so frustrated with it that when I got a free 128Mb RCA Lyra MP3 player, I just sold my MD player and the 50-ish MDs that I had (40 of them blank, because I couldn't bring myself to record them all).
Sony may have added support for other formats recently, but I got burnt once with their MDs. Unless they offer compelling new features over their competition, I don't see a reason I'd ever consider another Sony product.
The MS Office interface is very well established, and most (if not all) people are used to it. For people to migrate easily to OOo, it has to feel like a clone of MS Office. When its userbase will be significant enough, it will afford deviating from the norm. I am sure that MS Office implemented a similar interface to its precursors (WordPerfect et al) when it was introduced, and added new features gradually. And by the way, OOo did have a very different interface when it was still called StarOffice 5. It had a desktop manager, file browser, etc, but unfortunately, it felt cumbersome, and the suite ran slowly even on systems with reasonable specs. Moving to the current interface improved things significantly.
I have used OOo exclusively for the past two years, mostly for school work. Between taking notes in class, typing assignments, etc, I spent many hours using it. While I also have MS Office 97, 2k and XT, I stuck with OOo because of a few default behaviours and features. First, it does not bullet, tab, etc by default. You have to actvely format the text. When taking notes in class this is crucial, because I really do not have time to fuss around with how the text looks like. MS Office was driving me crazy with its auto-everything behaviour, which cannot be turned off (it can be undone on a case-by-case basis, but that is not good enough for me). Second, it can export the file as PDF. When sharing files, this is amazing. Not to mention that most people cannot edit your work if you chose not to let them. And upon completing a course I can just archive the material as PDF, without having to worry about installing OOo or MS Office in order to read it. MS Office however, does not (or at least did not) have this feature.
I just checked it out, and it's amazing. This is what online music distribution is all about. I haven't bought a CD (or any music for that matter) in more than 6 years. I might just buy something from them.
Why not consolidate those CDs on DVD+/-Rs?
Even if you're worried about the life span of a DVD+/-R compared to a pressed CD, making two copies, with one stored in a dark, dry place would still save a LOT of room.
I have a very good use for a PS/2 port: my IBM Model M keyboard (manufactured in 1987). I tried dozens of different keyboards, and it's still the only one I truly enjoy using. Not to mention that after almost 20 years of use, it still works like new.
I know there is a company that makes M replicas with a USB connector. But I paid $10 for my M, whereas the replica is around $100. Another solution I looked into is a PS/2 to USB adapter. The ones that do true hardware conversion are also quite expensive (the cheap ones that come with mice don't work, as they require the hardware itself to support USB, which the M does not)
So I'll keep buying hardware that has a PS/2 port for that reason alone. I know eventually I will have to switch to USB, but not unless I don't have to.
So in other words, UP CPUs were just as cheap to make, but they were marketed at higher prices. The end result to the consumer was that UP CPUs were significantly cheaper than MP CPUs.
It's the same in any field. I'm a fan of mountainbiking, and bike component prices show the same trends as CPUs. The manufacturing cost difference between a high end component and an average component is very small, but the final price difference can be quite large (50-100% more).
The motherboards supporting dual core CPUs should be identical to those running single core CPUs. I guess this is where having the memory controller integrated into the CPU really pays off for AMD since it further simplifies mb design. But in the past SMP motherboards weren't THAT much more expensive (at the most $100 extra) than similar single CPU motherboards. The main cost associated with SMP setups were the very expensive SMP CPUs, which were anywhere from 1.5 times or more expensive than regular CPUs. The pricing of dual core CPUs remains to be seen, but I think it'll still be cheaper than 2 separate SMP-enabled CPUs.
However I completely agree with the rest of your post. Not having separate heatsinks, large motherboards, etc is a definite advantage. Just because of that the market acceptance will increase very rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised if games and other CPU intensive apps started supporting dual core CPUs soon.
Why is the previous post flamebait? I'm a Canadian who by definition are more liberal than most Americans. It may be debatable, I also believe I'm pretty liberal in my opinions. However, I agree with the previous poster.
Why should illegal immigrants be given driver's licenses?!? I don't see the right to drive on the basic human rights list. In fact, last time I checked, driving was a priviledge, not a right.
The fact that the current system allows people to get a license without being legally in the country (US or Canada) does not automatically imply that changes preventing them from it would deny them any inalienable rights. Any illegal immigrant who has a valid reason to be in the US or Canada can apply for refugee status. From my experience, most will be granted. So should anyone want a driver's licence, they should apply for legal status, or they should not complain.
I have to agree with you on this. I have the 5mp (no difference from the 5P other than Mac and PC support) and it's simply amazing. It just turned 10 years old this month, and it still runs like new. It only prints at 4ppm, but since it has a large tray built-in, I can leave it printing for a couple of hours without worry. Since it has a straight paper path, it can also print envelopes, or thicker paper that would jam any other printer.
Another good option to the 5P is the 6P or 6MP. It's just an updated version that can print at 6ppm, but otherwise it's just as reliable.
Yeah, I'd go with xvid or divx. The codecs are available for any OS, so regardless of your player, they should run without problems. Not to mention that these formats give you so many options in terms of quality settings you can have any filesize you want.
On a side note, WMV files have problems playing in Windows as well. I'm still running Win2K on my laptop, and I did not want to upgrade to WMP9 from WMP6.4 because of its bloat and DRM, but I installed the WMP9 codecs. All WMV files will play, but some refuse to scroll forward. If you do, you can lose the video.
By our "great-great-grandparents" standards, it was probably normal for a man in his 20s or 30s to marry a girl of 14. Back then women were less educated than men, so the mental ellement in the relationship that the grandparent post mentions was almost nonexistent. From a physical point of view as well, people lived shorter lives, so a girl of 14 would be equivalent to a girl of 17-18 today. Add to those factors the fact that society itself, with its moral standards, quality of life, and all its over aspects, was very different from today.
Society changed quite a bit (at least in the civilized world) since then. So while 100 or more years ago marying a girl of 14 was normal (although just barely), today it is unacceptable.
I know exactly what you mean. I recently sold my Aiwa NetMD and the 40 blank MDs I had purchased because I only got around to recording 4 MDs in the 2 years I had it. Everything was great untill the point where you have to deal with SonicStage to record MDs. IMNHO it's one of the worst applications out there.
Had NetMD players supported MP3s, I probably would have had my entire music collection on them. I ended up cutting my losses and buying an iRiver 1Gb MP3 player.
I was just kidding about compiling 2.6.10 right away. It's hard finding a kernel and ATI drivers that work together, so I will stick with 2.6.9 untill ATI releases new drivers.
...that I _JUST_ installed 2.6.9 yesterday. I never learn, if I decide to upgrade kernels, I should do it RIGHT after it's released. Who cares it may nuke my system, at least I won't have to recompile it 24 hours later. *grin*
That's what I thought at first. My setup is a Slack gateway, a Windows XP gaming machine, a Slack box, a Slack laptop and Windows 2k machine. I checked all Windows computers on my LAN for virii and spyware. I also disconnected everything other than the gateway and the Windows gaming machine. I reinstalled Windows XP and the game. None of it helped.
At that point, I just called it a day. It's been 6 months now. In the meantime I did try playing AA once, and the connection was amazing, but unfortunately that game does not do anything for me anymore. But like I said, it's all for the better, I don't really miss it.
... is the most important part in my opinion. My ISP has always been extremely reliable, with at the most a day of downtime every six months. But for a while about half a year ago, their latency increased to the point where any online game became unplayeable. The connection was just fine for downloading data or browsing, but any server I could connect to would ping higher than 1s. Unfortunately, I could not switch ISPs, so I ended up giving up on gaming online.
I used to be an Americas Army fanatic, spending even 4-5 hours a day playing. I won't try to pretend that I've stopped playing games, but now I only do it at lan parties, or I play games that don't require an internet connection. The reason I was spending so much time online was not necessarily playing the game itself, but playing it with other people. Since that element was removed, I spend less than an hour a day playing, mostly Warcraft3.
As an interesting side note, my GPA improved quite a bit, and I have time to spend on other things... Imagine that!
I'm still running Win2k Pro on my Compaq Evo N600c laptop with a P3m 1.2Ghz and 768Mb RAM. I ran WinXP Pro on it for about a year, and while it was fast enough, it always had problems that only a reinstall would fix. But every reinstall would bring along new problems. Just as an example, sometimes it would not resume from stand by, other times it simply would not boot, apps would not start or take a very long time to do so, etc.
I've reinstalled XP Pro about 5 times because of those issues, and every time I had the latest drivers, patches, service packs, etc, including all drivers available from Compaq's website. I did not have spyware or virii on the computer, it was simply an issue of my laptop not being compatible with XP Pro.
Less than a month ago I gave up on winXP and installed Win2k Pro, and it's been rock solid since. Not a single problem, and all the apps are behaving properly. This is why I choose to run a 5 year old OS. I just want to use the laptop, without worrying about fixing problems and reinstalling every couple of months, especially since I don't care about the latest bells and whistles. I still have XP Pro SP1 and Slack 10 on my desktop, so it's not as if I insist on running Win2k.
The only way they would get an impartial jury would be if somehow they find 12 people without an internet connection. Regardless of the provider, EVERYBODY has to deal with spam in one way or another.
But this is one case where I wouldn't mind having the defendents tarred and feathered...
I found that
dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/hda
works wonders too...
About a year ago I was working in the tech support department in one of the universities in Toronto. Every summer the older employees had to create presentations to train the new employees before the school year would start. My task, as luck would have it, was to teach them how the wireless network was set up, and what software/hardware was required to connect to it. As any good employee, I spent a couple of my afternoons working on the Powerpoint slides, got it ready on time even though I did not get paid for the extra time I worked on it.
The setup was fairly involved because it required a VPN client that was not easy to set up, and a user name and password, which again, were complicated to obtain. On top of that, each MAC address had to be registered with the server. A day before the presentation, the entire system was changed. the VPN client was dumped in favour of a proxy system, which still required a user name and password. Needless to say, my presentation was worthless, and I was required to redo it within a day. I started working on it, but because I had made plans for the evening, I decided to finish it at the last moment the next day. I never got around to it.
I should mention this was not a 9-5 job, the shifts were 4 hours long. I even had to work from 3-11pm and then the next morning from 8am-3pm. Now for the rest of my story.
The day my unfinished presentation was due was such a beautiful, hot summer day I decided to ride my motorcycle to work. I thought I could wing it on the spot, and the whole way I kept thinking of it. The closer I got to the campus though, the more I dreaded having to deal with a problem I had not created. So I rode into the campus when I saw one of my supervisors walking around. But instead of turning into the parking lot, I just kept on going.
Later that evening I pulled up on a friend's driveway in Ottawa, about 450km away from the stupid presentation and my former job. I came back a week later to collect my last paycheck. That's how I quit my bad job.
I recently noticed that MSI had released a new version of the BIOS for my motherboard, and I decided it can't hurt to upgrade. I flashed the BIOS from Windows (the other option would be a DOS floppy, but my box does not have a floppy drive). There were no errors untill I rebooted into Windows, then everything went wrong. As soon as there would be any significant hdd activity, the computer would just freeze, and it would reboot a few seconds later.
I decided to roll back to the previous version of the BIOS, but it turns out upgrading is much easier. Apparently the MSI Windows utility will only allow a newer version of the BIOS to be installed, but not old ones. Since I could not use the fdd method, I had to trick the utility into using the old BIOS file. Everything worked (thankfully) in the end and all I lost was time. But I could have needed a new motherboard...
It is MSI's fault that the new BIOS is extremely unstable, but it would not be their responsability if my motherboard got fried while flashing the BIOS (or after). It was my choice to flash it, even though they recommend against it if everything works properly.
In your case, just get the replacement unit and try not to complain. I think it's more than a fair deal Linksys is willing to give you.