Yea, the "long life" (3000h) and "rugged" lightbulbs are all that's available in my country. A fun fact is that they are less efficient than the normal incandescent bulbs. Efficiency rating of "G" compared to "E". Though, I like their light even more (lower color temperature) and while I do not have a big stockpile of them, I will.
For one, I have not found a good remote control program for Linux. With Windows I use RAdmin, it is fast, has Windows authentication and works good on slow connections. I tried VNC on Linux but it is slow.
Also, new KDE (the UI that is most like Windows because that's what I am used to) requires a good video card. If I run it in a VM, it is slow. If I run it on real hardware, it is slow, unless I have a good video card. Even disabling composition and other features does not make it as fast as Windows 2003 on an ATI Rage XL (the onboard video for pretty much every server until a few years ago) or similar video card and with 1GB or less RAM.
XP was designed and built using much older standards of thought about usability
Yea, it was designed for desktops and not tablets like Win8.
Take the 64bit drivers - 64bit Windows need signed drivers. This means that you need to pay Microsoft to sign the driver and not everyone can do it (open source developers for example). Also, this means that if I found an old driver that's compatible, it may not work just because it is not signed. Well, at least I can put Windows in test mode, but what if a new version no longer supports it?
it has grown up tremendously in that time. imagine someone honestly wanting to run a ten year old version of Linux at this point and wanting patches.
Doesn't CentOS get patches 10 years after release?
to use the seemingly needed car analogy: there is a reason the Panther platform was retired by American auto makers
Yet, I can still use an old car. In fact, I am using a 1982 car that has an engine with a carburetor and no computers. Unlike Windows, though, anybody (who knows how to weld) can patch a hole in my car when it appears, I do not need to ask the manufacturer to do it.
While Classic Shell makes Windows8 usable, the UI still looks awful with the borderless windows. And unlike Win7, there is no "classic" UI anymore. I have tried WindowBlinds - even that software cannot properly replicate 2000 or XP look.
Copying the explorer.exe from Win7 and disabling the compositor results in a Windows 7 basic look, which I would be OK with, however, disabling the compositor disables the metro UI (not a problem) and some configuration UI (problem).
Yes, they do. However, using a Linux server as domain controller and smb server is weird - I might as well use a Windows server and have better compatibility. Also, I might want to run graphical software on it, like uTorrent or bitcoin-qt and not want to run X.
I am a Linux admin, so it's not like I don't know my way around a Linux server. I have a few Linux VMs at home (and one real host - bitcoin miner controller), but I also use Windows (2003) servers.
A modest rate of inflation is not necessarily a bad thing, but having to go from paying 1/4 of your net income on your mortgage now to 1/2 of your net income in 15 years doesn't sound so hot either does it?
You know what would be better? Being able to actually save money for years to buy something and no having the money lose value until I save enough of it.
A way to allow anyone to submit work units is to have the receiver of the payment decide what that sender computes.
The problem is that in this case everybody would have to be miners (that is, have powerful computers etc) instead of the optional mining that is today. I can use Bitcoin and not participate in the network in any way (by using a lite client and not mining). Mining is optional and, thus, miners get compensated for their work (otherwise nobody would do it). If every transaction required the sender (and not a miner) to expend computer resources then it would be much harder to send the coins from, say, a cellphone.
Bitcoin received updates made by the community, but those updates have to be approved by the miners. If the majority of miners decide to not update (for whatever reason), then they won't accept blocks/transactions from the new version (at least those that are different in the new version) and everybody will have to stay with the old version.
The problem is that it would create a central authority - the BOINC for Folding project. If that goes away, so does you currency. If it decides to change the algorithm or whatever to benefit some portion of the miners then it can do so. There are probably other disadvantages to it that I didn't think of while writing this post.
OTOH, anybody can verify a SHA256 hash and Bitcoin block will always use SHA256. So, Bitcoin does not need to rely on any central authority at all.
I guess it would be possible to do some meaningful work instead of bruteforcing the hash, but it would need to be completely decentralized (anybody can verify the validity of the block and anybody can submit a problem to be solved) and quite limited in what it can do (you don't want to allow anyone to run arbitrary code on the miners). I guess something like generating primes could be done (and I think there is an alt for that).
You can make the additives yourself. Or you can try to replicate the smell in other ways. Also, you should have bought a few cubic meters of leaded gas when it was still available for those special occasions when you want to enjoy the smell.
This is what I am doing with the light bulbs - buying a big stash of light bulbs. In contrast to gasoline, storing enough light bulbs to last to 50 years is easier and cheaper. I am using a lot of electricity anyway, I really do'n care that my always on (well, not 24/7, but whenever I am in the room and I do not like daylight) 40W light adds a few dollars to my electricity costs.
Adding the resistor will drop the voltage and the temperature of the filament. Lower temperature filament is less efficient at producing visible light (that is the only reason why halogen bulbs are more efficient - they run at higher temperature). In addition to that, the resistor will dissipate power as heat.
So, you have a lightbulb that is about as efficient as a regular incandescent and a resistor that dissipates power. The end result is a lightbulb that is less efficient than a incandescent without a resistor.
OTOH, yes, it will use less power than the halogen without a resistor, but produce much less light. So, my new 60W halogen may only use 50W with a resistor, but will produce about as much light as a 40W incandescent (numbers not accurate).
So, I guess it would then last as long as a regular bulb? Still, it'd either this or a color filter and splicing in a big resistor (yea, I would use an actual resistor) is easier than finding a correct color filter and installing it around the bulb.
I do sometimes use a dimmer to make the lightbulb glow about as much as a vacuum tube (with indirectly heated cathode) for when I want it to be dark, but still want to be able to see.
Besides, you can just connect a big resistor in series with a halogen bulb. This lowers the color temperature to that of a regular incandescent and probably makes the bulb last longer. As a side effect it makes the efficiency even worse than that of an incandescent bulb.
While EU kindabanned regular light bulbs, the "specialty" ones are still available. That includes rugged and longer life bulbs, both of which have efficiency rating of "G", while the normal light bulbs had a rating of "E". A 60W long-life light bulb produces about as much light as a 40W regular. OTOH, the color temperature is even lower, so I like them. Both are also labeled "not for room lighting",
If they ever decide to ban the long-life bulbs as well, I will buy a lot of them. I still have mu stash of ~100 regular bulbs.
The reason is that I like the light they produce. A point source of continuous spectrum light with a low color temperature. I do not care about the efficiency - after all, my computers use ~1kW and my Bitcoin miners use ~600W, I really do not care about the 40W or 60W that goes to a light bulb.
However, usually the copper thieves are smart and use insulated tools to cut the wires. While embedding power line within fiber cable would cook an unprepared fiber thief (who did not expect the fiber cable to have high voltage), it would not do anything for the copper thief (who already though this was a power cable), actually, it would be worse - now the thief would at least get a consolation prize - the embedded power wire.
The problem is that some of them (like mine) have electronic ignition. The circuit uses a couple of transistors so it could be susceptible to RFI (it would most likely need a stronger signal to start misbehaving), though I guess it would be much easier to shield that than to shield the electronics in a modern car.
OTOH, cars with contact breaker ignition should be immune to this. Or old diesel cars.
In the event that two miners manage to mine a block (lets call them A and B blocks) a the same time, the blocks propagate trough the network and various other miners start mining the next block (lets call it C) using A or B as "previous block" - depending on which block they received first). When somebody mines block C, the chain including C becomes the longest and the only one valid.
However, usually blocks will be seconds or minutes apart with the previous block given enough time to propagate trough the network.
The fact that it can be divided to 8 decimal places and the ability to easily transfer it over the internet is what makes it a better alternative than, say, gold.
Yea, instead of using BTC people could just use gold (and have limited supply etc), but it is difficult to transfer any amount of it to someone who is not physically there with you and it also is a bit of a problem to give, say, $1 worth of gold accurately. OTOH, you can transfer 0.0001BTC with no problems.
Did you read the whole sentence? Yes, electric cars can now go 200km and more on a single charge. However, they do not look like (and are not the same size as) Mercedes W140. To be able to go 200km or more on a single charge the car has to be extremely efficient - including the air resistance, so you cannot make a car that looks better if that compromises the efficiency.
Also, there are no electric SUVs as far as I know. I wonder why...
The range of fuel burning cars does not really matter - the tank can be refilled in a few minutes (including paying for the fuel) and the fuel stations are very common.
also, some of the other electric cars....are just ugly. If Tesla can make an electric car that looks as nice and sexy as the Model S, why can't the other manufacturers? Perhaps, they don't want to or think it won't sell.
Two reasons: 1. Battery technology is not there yet - so the car has to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible. A Mercedes W140 with an electric motor probably would not go very far. 2. If your electric car looks exactly the same as a gasoline car, how will anyone be able to see that you are driving an electric car and saving the planet?
Yea, people have trouble starting diesel cars when it's -25C outside, I wonder how far could you drivein an electric car - especially that heat is no longer "free" like in a gas/diesel car.
These days, if I want to run a Windows program in Linux on x86 hardware, I can just start up a virtual machine on Linux with a complete install of any version of Windows that I own and have zero compatibility issues.
Or you could just run Windows natively.
The problem with virtualization is that the guest OS does not have all access to hardware. Imagine you had a $100k device that only had drivers for Windows 2000 (or maybe even XP), but not Linux or newer Windows OSs. Could you make the guest OS see the device?
Oh, your computer just broke and the Windows XP license was attached to it (OEM license). And you can't buy new Windows XP licenses anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
Yea, the "long life" (3000h) and "rugged" lightbulbs are all that's available in my country. A fun fact is that they are less efficient than the normal incandescent bulbs. Efficiency rating of "G" compared to "E". Though, I like their light even more (lower color temperature) and while I do not have a big stockpile of them, I will.
For one, I have not found a good remote control program for Linux. With Windows I use RAdmin, it is fast, has Windows authentication and works good on slow connections. I tried VNC on Linux but it is slow.
Also, new KDE (the UI that is most like Windows because that's what I am used to) requires a good video card. If I run it in a VM, it is slow. If I run it on real hardware, it is slow, unless I have a good video card. Even disabling composition and other features does not make it as fast as Windows 2003 on an ATI Rage XL (the onboard video for pretty much every server until a few years ago) or similar video card and with 1GB or less RAM.
XP was designed and built using much older standards of thought about usability
Yea, it was designed for desktops and not tablets like Win8.
Take the 64bit drivers - 64bit Windows need signed drivers. This means that you need to pay Microsoft to sign the driver and not everyone can do it (open source developers for example). Also, this means that if I found an old driver that's compatible, it may not work just because it is not signed. Well, at least I can put Windows in test mode, but what if a new version no longer supports it?
it has grown up tremendously in that time. imagine someone honestly wanting to run a ten year old version of Linux at this point and wanting patches.
Doesn't CentOS get patches 10 years after release?
to use the seemingly needed car analogy: there is a reason the Panther platform was retired by American auto makers
Yet, I can still use an old car. In fact, I am using a 1982 car that has an engine with a carburetor and no computers. Unlike Windows, though, anybody (who knows how to weld) can patch a hole in my car when it appears, I do not need to ask the manufacturer to do it.
While Classic Shell makes Windows8 usable, the UI still looks awful with the borderless windows. And unlike Win7, there is no "classic" UI anymore. I have tried WindowBlinds - even that software cannot properly replicate 2000 or XP look.
Copying the explorer.exe from Win7 and disabling the compositor results in a Windows 7 basic look, which I would be OK with, however, disabling the compositor disables the metro UI (not a problem) and some configuration UI (problem).
Windows 7 will be the new XP...
At least, they have dropped support for the 8 and 16 bit stuff.
And one of the first things I installed in my new PC (with Win7/64bit) was XP Mode, so I could run the 16bit programs I need.
Yes, they do. However, using a Linux server as domain controller and smb server is weird - I might as well use a Windows server and have better compatibility. Also, I might want to run graphical software on it, like uTorrent or bitcoin-qt and not want to run X.
I am a Linux admin, so it's not like I don't know my way around a Linux server. I have a few Linux VMs at home (and one real host - bitcoin miner controller), but I also use Windows (2003) servers.
A modest rate of inflation is not necessarily a bad thing, but having to go from paying 1/4 of your net income on your mortgage now to 1/2 of your net income in 15 years doesn't sound so hot either does it?
You know what would be better? Being able to actually save money for years to buy something and no having the money lose value until I save enough of it.
A way to allow anyone to submit work units is to have the receiver of the payment decide what that sender computes.
The problem is that in this case everybody would have to be miners (that is, have powerful computers etc) instead of the optional mining that is today. I can use Bitcoin and not participate in the network in any way (by using a lite client and not mining). Mining is optional and, thus, miners get compensated for their work (otherwise nobody would do it). If every transaction required the sender (and not a miner) to expend computer resources then it would be much harder to send the coins from, say, a cellphone.
Bitcoin received updates made by the community, but those updates have to be approved by the miners. If the majority of miners decide to not update (for whatever reason), then they won't accept blocks/transactions from the new version (at least those that are different in the new version) and everybody will have to stay with the old version.
I think there are some alts that do it.
The problem is that it would create a central authority - the BOINC for Folding project. If that goes away, so does you currency. If it decides to change the algorithm or whatever to benefit some portion of the miners then it can do so. There are probably other disadvantages to it that I didn't think of while writing this post.
OTOH, anybody can verify a SHA256 hash and Bitcoin block will always use SHA256. So, Bitcoin does not need to rely on any central authority at all.
I guess it would be possible to do some meaningful work instead of bruteforcing the hash, but it would need to be completely decentralized (anybody can verify the validity of the block and anybody can submit a problem to be solved) and quite limited in what it can do (you don't want to allow anyone to run arbitrary code on the miners). I guess something like generating primes could be done (and I think there is an alt for that).
You can make the additives yourself. Or you can try to replicate the smell in other ways. Also, you should have bought a few cubic meters of leaded gas when it was still available for those special occasions when you want to enjoy the smell.
This is what I am doing with the light bulbs - buying a big stash of light bulbs. In contrast to gasoline, storing enough light bulbs to last to 50 years is easier and cheaper. I am using a lot of electricity anyway, I really do'n care that my always on (well, not 24/7, but whenever I am in the room and I do not like daylight) 40W light adds a few dollars to my electricity costs.
Or do like it was done with old laptops and include the power supply in the laptop. Then the connector could be a standard 230V one.
Adding the resistor will drop the voltage and the temperature of the filament. Lower temperature filament is less efficient at producing visible light (that is the only reason why halogen bulbs are more efficient - they run at higher temperature). In addition to that, the resistor will dissipate power as heat.
So, you have a lightbulb that is about as efficient as a regular incandescent and a resistor that dissipates power. The end result is a lightbulb that is less efficient than a incandescent without a resistor.
OTOH, yes, it will use less power than the halogen without a resistor, but produce much less light. So, my new 60W halogen may only use 50W with a resistor, but will produce about as much light as a 40W incandescent (numbers not accurate).
So, I guess it would then last as long as a regular bulb? Still, it'd either this or a color filter and splicing in a big resistor (yea, I would use an actual resistor) is easier than finding a correct color filter and installing it around the bulb.
I do sometimes use a dimmer to make the lightbulb glow about as much as a vacuum tube (with indirectly heated cathode) for when I want it to be dark, but still want to be able to see.
Besides, you can just connect a big resistor in series with a halogen bulb. This lowers the color temperature to that of a regular incandescent and probably makes the bulb last longer. As a side effect it makes the efficiency even worse than that of an incandescent bulb.
While EU kindabanned regular light bulbs, the "specialty" ones are still available. That includes rugged and longer life bulbs, both of which have efficiency rating of "G", while the normal light bulbs had a rating of "E". A 60W long-life light bulb produces about as much light as a 40W regular. OTOH, the color temperature is even lower, so I like them. Both are also labeled "not for room lighting",
If they ever decide to ban the long-life bulbs as well, I will buy a lot of them. I still have mu stash of ~100 regular bulbs.
The reason is that I like the light they produce. A point source of continuous spectrum light with a low color temperature. I do not care about the efficiency - after all, my computers use ~1kW and my Bitcoin miners use ~600W, I really do not care about the 40W or 60W that goes to a light bulb.
However, usually the copper thieves are smart and use insulated tools to cut the wires. While embedding power line within fiber cable would cook an unprepared fiber thief (who did not expect the fiber cable to have high voltage), it would not do anything for the copper thief (who already though this was a power cable), actually, it would be worse - now the thief would at least get a consolation prize - the embedded power wire.
The problem is that some of them (like mine) have electronic ignition. The circuit uses a couple of transistors so it could be susceptible to RFI (it would most likely need a stronger signal to start misbehaving), though I guess it would be much easier to shield that than to shield the electronics in a modern car.
OTOH, cars with contact breaker ignition should be immune to this. Or old diesel cars.
How do they know it with digital TV?
DVB-T - simplex transmission, just like analog.
DVB-C - also a simplex transmission.
They can only track you if you use IPTV or connect the box to the internet so it can phone home.
However, you could shorten the blockchain by calculaing the balances and then dropping the old blocks.
A mines 50BTC (before the reduction)
some time later A sends to B 10BTC.
then B sends to C 4BTC.
C sends to A 1BTC.
This could be simplified (when the transactions get a couple of years old) to
A: 41BTC
B: 6BTC
C: 3BTC
Now when A, B or C sends coins, you can just check it against their balance and all transactions since then.
Well, it works like this:
In the event that two miners manage to mine a block (lets call them A and B blocks) a the same time, the blocks propagate trough the network and various other miners start mining the next block (lets call it C) using A or B as "previous block" - depending on which block they received first). When somebody mines block C, the chain including C becomes the longest and the only one valid.
However, usually blocks will be seconds or minutes apart with the previous block given enough time to propagate trough the network.
The fact that it can be divided to 8 decimal places and the ability to easily transfer it over the internet is what makes it a better alternative than, say, gold.
Yea, instead of using BTC people could just use gold (and have limited supply etc), but it is difficult to transfer any amount of it to someone who is not physically there with you and it also is a bit of a problem to give, say, $1 worth of gold accurately. OTOH, you can transfer 0.0001BTC with no problems.
There are fucking huge electric mining trucks
1. Are they actually electric and not diesel-electric like locomotives?
2. Do they go any distance without the cable?
Did you read the whole sentence? Yes, electric cars can now go 200km and more on a single charge. However, they do not look like (and are not the same size as) Mercedes W140. To be able to go 200km or more on a single charge the car has to be extremely efficient - including the air resistance, so you cannot make a car that looks better if that compromises the efficiency.
Also, there are no electric SUVs as far as I know. I wonder why...
The range of fuel burning cars does not really matter - the tank can be refilled in a few minutes (including paying for the fuel) and the fuel stations are very common.
also, some of the other electric cars....are just ugly.
If Tesla can make an electric car that looks as nice and sexy as the Model S, why can't the other manufacturers?
Perhaps, they don't want to or think it won't sell.
Two reasons:
1. Battery technology is not there yet - so the car has to be as aerodynamically efficient as possible. A Mercedes W140 with an electric motor probably would not go very far.
2. If your electric car looks exactly the same as a gasoline car, how will anyone be able to see that you are driving an electric car and saving the planet?
Yea, people have trouble starting diesel cars when it's -25C outside, I wonder how far could you drivein an electric car - especially that heat is no longer "free" like in a gas/diesel car.
These days, if I want to run a Windows program in Linux on x86 hardware, I can just start up a virtual machine on Linux with a complete install of any version of Windows that I own and have zero compatibility issues.
Or you could just run Windows natively.
The problem with virtualization is that the guest OS does not have all access to hardware. Imagine you had a $100k device that only had drivers for Windows 2000 (or maybe even XP), but not Linux or newer Windows OSs. Could you make the guest OS see the device?
Oh, your computer just broke and the Windows XP license was attached to it (OEM license). And you can't buy new Windows XP licenses anymore.