And none of them are worth the pain of installing all of the programs I use and configuring all the little settings all over again, basically guaranteeing that the computer won't work properly for a long time (I use some programs very rarely, so I may forget they exist, so when I actually need it, I'll have to hunt down the installer first.
I did not say that Windows 7 is no improvement over XP. However, XP is good enough for me. Yes, if I was building a PC today (or built it when 7 became available) I would probably be using 7 already, however, when I was building my current PC, I had basically two options for an OS - XP or Vista. I chose XP. Now, reinstalling Windows is such a PITA that I won't do it unless this system screws up (and my backup tape goes bad at the same time). My computer would most likely be able to run 7 (I would disable Aero just because I do not like it and would try to make the UI appear more like XP/2000 with tools like ClassicShell) . An analogy: let's say I record stuff from radio and have a mono tape deck. However, I record AM, so the source is mono. Now, there is a stereo tape deck available, but until I need to record in stereo my tape deck is still good enough (even though the new tape deck would be better). Why should I spend money on the new deck?
It can be protected by other means. Firewall will stop unwanted incoming connection (so Windows XP no SP won't get pwned by Blaster), noscript can help with malicious scripts. AV will help with downloaded files. And so on.
Old devices are generally simpler and easier to fix if something goes bad. Electrolytic capacitors are one example, but they are quite easy to replace and are cheap. The mechanical parts are designed with long therm in mind, even on a tape deck where output amplifier tube is used as bias oscillator when recording (thus saving a tube) the tape transport is quite well made and thick metal was used. Tubes go bad too, but they are easy to replace.
As for HDTV. I'll try to get a CRT HDTV, they were expensive in their time, so should be better built than modern stuff. If I can't get one - I'll get a SD CRT TV.
New does not mean better. New especially does not mean that the old device/version ceases to work. My car is 29 years old, I record TV shows on a 15 year old VCR, I also have 40+ year old audio devices (a tape recorder and a radio). They all work quite well despite the fact that there are newer versions of these devices out.
Same thing with an OS. why should I spend money on new hardware and software when my current PC is good enough? Just because the new software is "new"? No.
Well, an external hard drive is detected as a "hard drive", so it is partitioned and formatted like an internal hard drive. USB flash sticks and various cards in card readers are detected as "removable disk" and Widows does not want to create more than one partition and format it in NTFS.
(is FAT32 still used for these high >4GB densities?)
AFAIK, Windows does not like NTFS on a "removable" drive, so unless you make the CF card appear as a hard drive (which would be OK for Windows), you have to use FAT or FAT32.
Well, that sucks. The highest I get is about 34C, then my room is ~40C. It was like that for 3 days last year.
Still, AC uses too much power for me, It would probably double what I pay for electricity and I already pay a lot, using more than 1000kWh/month and all.
Then do not use AC - use a fan to pull colder air from outside. I have one, it uses only ~60W and keeps my room ~5C warmer than outside, given that the total power consumption of my PCs is 1.5-1.7kW.
Because those have actual physical units which can be used for various purposes. Melt down coins and build something. Use paper money as toilet paper, things to write on, fuel for fires, etc. Bitcoins...? Just seems like a progression of fiat money.
The paper of a 500EUR bill is worth so much less than the 500EUR that if you take away the paper, the value will not change.
What's preventing counterfeit bitcoins from being made? Oh, the fact that no one's cracked the algorithms used for cryptography? What happens once those are cracked?
It will be bad for bitcoin and everyone else that uses SHA256 and other cryptographic algorithms used in bitcoin (or at least those that are cracked) and bitcoin can probably be updated to use different algorithms.
How do you even prove that once the 21 million bitcoins are in circulation that it really is only 21 milion (or less given probable bitcoin loss)?
The block chain includes every transaction from the beginning and every transaction references previous transactions. Coins are generated in blocks of 50 (later it will be less), this is the first transaction for these coins. Later transactions will state that, you take some coins away from those generated (and miners will verify whether there are enough left) and transfer them to one or more addresses. Then the person who received your coins will say that he takes the coins he got from you (and maybe others) and transfers them to someone else. Miners and clients verify whether all transactions are valid, for example, if your balance does not become negative. Then the transaction gets put in a block which will be verified by the guy who makes another block on top of this one in the chain. For example, I can generate a block giving myself 100BTC instead of 50, however, others will not accept it and will continue the chain ignoring my block, so nobody will accept the coins that were supposed to be generated in that block.
If I run F@H or other distributed computing software on the GPU I waste power and get nothing in return. For now, at least, it seems that bitcoin mining can at least pay for the electricity (and I get to play with new hardware and think about how I can use the CPU/RAM/hard drives of the computer that is mining and pays for its power, since mining only uses the GPUs).
If I see that mining no longer pays for the electricity, I'll shut down that PC, place the video card in my main PC and will enjoy better graphics in games (and GPU based video encoding/decoding).
I most likely won't find any. From what I understand, Laserdisc was not popular (if it existed at all) in the Soviet Union, so there are not a lot of people who have old discs that they used. I bought the player on eBay from Germany and some discs from the UK and the US (and got some with the player). I can get old records and some times reel to reel tapes (if I can find them, I can buy them much cheaper than they cost on ebay, though the tapes are arguably of lower quality, but still good enough for me).
Of course there is, a 286 booting Windows 3.10 and failing to run any network app because 1MB RAM is a bit too low for Windows + network driver + the app and there is no such thing as a page file.
And I still use a VCR to record TV shows and tape decks to record music. In both cases it is more convenient to me than using a non-dedicated PC and cheaper than using a dedicated digital device or a dedicated PC.
I have a LD player too, but I can't find cheap movies. The discs are heavy, so shipping (especially from the US) is really expensive.
If the contractor used old wire just because he liked it then yes. If the 50 year old wire was the only wire that was good quality (newer wire tends to catch fire and not always works with some devices) then the company would be to blame, since the contractor used the best wire he could get.
I torrent and have semi-recent hardware (would be enough for Win7 I guess). However, reinstalling Windows and then spending days if not weeks configuring and installing all the software is such a PITA that I do not want to do it without a really good reason (for example, all of my software stopping working in XP, XP no longer booting, not even if I restore from backup etc).
Last year, some guy wet to a store and bought a new (made in last year) PC with an operating system. Now he is being told that his operating system is really old and will not be supported. Then why was it for sale as recently as last year?
I'll try to make a house analogy.
You bought a new house right after it was built. A few years later you find out that you need to replace all the wiring because it is too old, since while the house was new, the wire used was made 50 years ago.
I guess the way HDMI does it makes it hard to separate the audio from the video, for example to route audio to a receiver or amplifier and video to the TV.SCART uses one cable to carry audio and video, but it uses multiple wires, so it's easy to, say, route the audio to both the TV and the amp and video to just the TV. Why would I want to do that? So I do not have to turn on the amp (and save power) if what I am watching does not have high sound quality.
IIRC some of them could record in uncompressed PCM. Maybe I should look into buying one. I sometimes want to record audio to a digital format but using a PC to do that (and using the PC for anything else while it records) leads to glitches, so I'd like to record to some device then copy the data to a PC, right now recording to PC is less convenient than recording to a cassette, but sometimes I want to have the music in a digital format.
Most likely it was because you could read the floppy on any computer, while memory cards required a special reader, or you had to connect the camera to the computer (and remember to bring the cable) etc. And carrying a bag of floppies wasn't all that different from carrying a bag of film. Also, if you ran out of either, you could go to a store and buy some, since they were affordable.
In that case, why do I need the 300mbps connection? I can then use the cheapest plan (or even switch to another ISP) and the ISP will get less money from me.
However, most likely not all nuclear power plants are shut down at the same time, so it becomes a matter of having enough of them so the working ones can provide the power needed while some are shut down for maintenance or whatever.
When it's night, it's dark all over the country (well, unless the country is Russia), so no matter how many solar power plants you build, they are going to be offline at the same time every day.
What is that pin connected to? Write that with the error message.
Also, when the guy connected a PC to the car, he got the error type, it was something that I, for example, can type to google and see if the problem is critical (as in my car is going to fall apart if I drive anywhere other than the mechanic) or not. I will make an appointment with the mechanic anyway, but I will know whether I can use the car until then or I have to borrow another one.
Even the error message that you wrote is good enough if I can find schematics or find it using google, but less practical than CKP SEN/CIRCUIT
In practice, what benefit does hydrogen actually have?
Better energy storage.
Batteries suck as a form of energy storage - the capacity depends on how fast it is discharging, also, the capacity decreases with age. Charging requires more energy than the battery produces, so it either takes a long time, or requires a very powerful source of electricity if you want the charge time to be comparable with the time it takes to fill up a gas tank.
Hydrogen and other fuels can be pumped pretty fast, the tank does not get smaller with age and the amount of fuel you get out of it is equal to the amount you put in, independent of the rate you are pumping it out.
In addition, you can modify a gasoline car to run on LPG, maybe it is possible to make it run on hydrogen too...
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And none of them are worth the pain of installing all of the programs I use and configuring all the little settings all over again, basically guaranteeing that the computer won't work properly for a long time (I use some programs very rarely, so I may forget they exist, so when I actually need it, I'll have to hunt down the installer first.
I did not say that Windows 7 is no improvement over XP. However, XP is good enough for me. Yes, if I was building a PC today (or built it when 7 became available) I would probably be using 7 already, however, when I was building my current PC, I had basically two options for an OS - XP or Vista. I chose XP. Now, reinstalling Windows is such a PITA that I won't do it unless this system screws up (and my backup tape goes bad at the same time). My computer would most likely be able to run 7 (I would disable Aero just because I do not like it and would try to make the UI appear more like XP/2000 with tools like ClassicShell)
.
An analogy: let's say I record stuff from radio and have a mono tape deck. However, I record AM, so the source is mono. Now, there is a stereo tape deck available, but until I need to record in stereo my tape deck is still good enough (even though the new tape deck would be better). Why should I spend money on the new deck?
It can be protected by other means. Firewall will stop unwanted incoming connection (so Windows XP no SP won't get pwned by Blaster), noscript can help with malicious scripts. AV will help with downloaded files. And so on.
Old devices are generally simpler and easier to fix if something goes bad. Electrolytic capacitors are one example, but they are quite easy to replace and are cheap. The mechanical parts are designed with long therm in mind, even on a tape deck where output amplifier tube is used as bias oscillator when recording (thus saving a tube) the tape transport is quite well made and thick metal was used. Tubes go bad too, but they are easy to replace.
As for HDTV. I'll try to get a CRT HDTV, they were expensive in their time, so should be better built than modern stuff. If I can't get one - I'll get a SD CRT TV.
New does not mean better. New especially does not mean that the old device/version ceases to work.
My car is 29 years old, I record TV shows on a 15 year old VCR, I also have 40+ year old audio devices (a tape recorder and a radio). They all work quite well despite the fact that there are newer versions of these devices out.
Same thing with an OS. why should I spend money on new hardware and software when my current PC is good enough? Just because the new software is "new"? No.
Well, an external hard drive is detected as a "hard drive", so it is partitioned and formatted like an internal hard drive. USB flash sticks and various cards in card readers are detected as "removable disk" and Widows does not want to create more than one partition and format it in NTFS.
Well, at least Windows XP does this.
(is FAT32 still used for these high >4GB densities?)
AFAIK, Windows does not like NTFS on a "removable" drive, so unless you make the CF card appear as a hard drive (which would be OK for Windows), you have to use FAT or FAT32.
Well, that sucks. The highest I get is about 34C, then my room is ~40C. It was like that for 3 days last year.
Still, AC uses too much power for me, It would probably double what I pay for electricity and I already pay a lot, using more than 1000kWh/month and all.
Then do not use AC - use a fan to pull colder air from outside. I have one, it uses only ~60W and keeps my room ~5C warmer than outside, given that the total power consumption of my PCs is 1.5-1.7kW.
Because those have actual physical units which can be used for various purposes. Melt down coins and build something. Use paper money as toilet paper, things to write on, fuel for fires, etc. Bitcoins...? Just seems like a progression of fiat money.
The paper of a 500EUR bill is worth so much less than the 500EUR that if you take away the paper, the value will not change.
What's preventing counterfeit bitcoins from being made? Oh, the fact that no one's cracked the algorithms used for cryptography? What happens once those are cracked?
It will be bad for bitcoin and everyone else that uses SHA256 and other cryptographic algorithms used in bitcoin (or at least those that are cracked) and bitcoin can probably be updated to use different algorithms.
How do you even prove that once the 21 million bitcoins are in circulation that it really is only 21 milion (or less given probable bitcoin loss)?
The block chain includes every transaction from the beginning and every transaction references previous transactions. Coins are generated in blocks of 50 (later it will be less), this is the first transaction for these coins. Later transactions will state that, you take some coins away from those generated (and miners will verify whether there are enough left) and transfer them to one or more addresses. Then the person who received your coins will say that he takes the coins he got from you (and maybe others) and transfers them to someone else.
Miners and clients verify whether all transactions are valid, for example, if your balance does not become negative. Then the transaction gets put in a block which will be verified by the guy who makes another block on top of this one in the chain.
For example, I can generate a block giving myself 100BTC instead of 50, however, others will not accept it and will continue the chain ignoring my block, so nobody will accept the coins that were supposed to be generated in that block.
If I run F@H or other distributed computing software on the GPU I waste power and get nothing in return. For now, at least, it seems that bitcoin mining can at least pay for the electricity (and I get to play with new hardware and think about how I can use the CPU/RAM/hard drives of the computer that is mining and pays for its power, since mining only uses the GPUs).
If I see that mining no longer pays for the electricity, I'll shut down that PC, place the video card in my main PC and will enjoy better graphics in games (and GPU based video encoding/decoding).
I most likely won't find any. From what I understand, Laserdisc was not popular (if it existed at all) in the Soviet Union, so there are not a lot of people who have old discs that they used. I bought the player on eBay from Germany and some discs from the UK and the US (and got some with the player). I can get old records and some times reel to reel tapes (if I can find them, I can buy them much cheaper than they cost on ebay, though the tapes are arguably of lower quality, but still good enough for me).
Of course there is, a 286 booting Windows 3.10 and failing to run any network app because 1MB RAM is a bit too low for Windows + network driver + the app and there is no such thing as a page file.
Then I guess I am not a real geek, since I have some hardware that is as old as me or even older, so I cannot remember when it was new.
And I still use a VCR to record TV shows and tape decks to record music. In both cases it is more convenient to me than using a non-dedicated PC and cheaper than using a dedicated digital device or a dedicated PC.
I have a LD player too, but I can't find cheap movies. The discs are heavy, so shipping (especially from the US) is really expensive.
It depends.
If the contractor used old wire just because he liked it then yes. If the 50 year old wire was the only wire that was good quality (newer wire tends to catch fire and not always works with some devices) then the company would be to blame, since the contractor used the best wire he could get.
I torrent and have semi-recent hardware (would be enough for Win7 I guess). However, reinstalling Windows and then spending days if not weeks configuring and installing all the software is such a PITA that I do not want to do it without a really good reason (for example, all of my software stopping working in XP, XP no longer booting, not even if I restore from backup etc).
There is a difference.
Last year, some guy wet to a store and bought a new (made in last year) PC with an operating system. Now he is being told that his operating system is really old and will not be supported. Then why was it for sale as recently as last year?
I'll try to make a house analogy.
You bought a new house right after it was built. A few years later you find out that you need to replace all the wiring because it is too old, since while the house was new, the wire used was made 50 years ago.
So, no SCART?
I guess the way HDMI does it makes it hard to separate the audio from the video, for example to route audio to a receiver or amplifier and video to the TV.SCART uses one cable to carry audio and video, but it uses multiple wires, so it's easy to, say, route the audio to both the TV and the amp and video to just the TV. Why would I want to do that? So I do not have to turn on the amp (and save power) if what I am watching does not have high sound quality.
IIRC some of them could record in uncompressed PCM. Maybe I should look into buying one. I sometimes want to record audio to a digital format but using a PC to do that (and using the PC for anything else while it records) leads to glitches, so I'd like to record to some device then copy the data to a PC, right now recording to PC is less convenient than recording to a cassette, but sometimes I want to have the music in a digital format.
Most likely it was because you could read the floppy on any computer, while memory cards required a special reader, or you had to connect the camera to the computer (and remember to bring the cable) etc. And carrying a bag of floppies wasn't all that different from carrying a bag of film. Also, if you ran out of either, you could go to a store and buy some, since they were affordable.
In that case, why do I need the 300mbps connection? I can then use the cheapest plan (or even switch to another ISP) and the ISP will get less money from me.
However, most likely not all nuclear power plants are shut down at the same time, so it becomes a matter of having enough of them so the working ones can provide the power needed while some are shut down for maintenance or whatever.
When it's night, it's dark all over the country (well, unless the country is Russia), so no matter how many solar power plants you build, they are going to be offline at the same time every day.
What is that pin connected to? Write that with the error message.
Also, when the guy connected a PC to the car, he got the error type, it was something that I, for example, can type to google and see if the problem is critical (as in my car is going to fall apart if I drive anywhere other than the mechanic) or not. I will make an appointment with the mechanic anyway, but I will know whether I can use the car until then or I have to borrow another one.
Even the error message that you wrote is good enough if I can find schematics or find it using google, but less practical than CKP SEN/CIRCUIT
In practice, what benefit does hydrogen actually have?
Better energy storage.
Batteries suck as a form of energy storage - the capacity depends on how fast it is discharging, also, the capacity decreases with age. Charging requires more energy than the battery produces, so it either takes a long time, or requires a very powerful source of electricity if you want the charge time to be comparable with the time it takes to fill up a gas tank.
Hydrogen and other fuels can be pumped pretty fast, the tank does not get smaller with age and the amount of fuel you get out of it is equal to the amount you put in, independent of the rate you are pumping it out.
In addition, you can modify a gasoline car to run on LPG, maybe it is possible to make it run on hydrogen too...