I usually use Zalman coolers that attach to the motherboard by screws (though you need to attach a new backplate to the motherboard so it's PITA if the computer is already built) and are quite good at cooling, but a bit expensive.
The worst shift that I remember was AGP to PCIe - you have to buy new video card if you want a new motherboard (or better, buy a new CPU, replace MB, RAM and VGA just to be compatible) and gaming cards are not cheap. At least with ISA/PCI/AGP you could still use the old card while you save the money for a new one. While I have a few AGP video cards laying around, if my PCIe VGA failed, until I repair it or buy a new one, I'd have to use a PCI VGA made in 1995.
I at least want the circuit diagrams and all images of the (E)EPROMs so I can fix the device when it breaks. It was like this in the past (circuit diagrams were in the manuals or in some magazines, at least in the USSR). I can find service manuals for some devices, but I want them included with the device and also have images of the chips that need to be programmed before they can be used.
The fact that other power generation methods cause more deaths does not make nuclear safer, but it shows that nuclear is safest of what we have now. Ideally, we should increase the safety of all power generation methods (including nuclear) so none of them cause deaths, but for now, nuclear is safer.
As for you example, well, since radiation is bad because it negatively affects health (and in turn, life span), I'm pretty sure that I'd rather receive a non-lethal radiation dose than die from drowning.
Or, do not build new (type) reactors because "all nuclear reactors are unsafe if you meet certain conditions" but keep the old ones running since you still need the power they produce and, well, they did not blow up in the last 30-40 years, why should they blow up now?
Also, big dams can cause bigger problems when they break than nuclear power plants - Banqiao Dam failure killed ~171000 people when it broke down.
I like Nokia's hardware, though as my current phone is N93 I may be out of date and the new phones might suck.
I do not know what problem people are having with the Symbian UI, but it is OK for me, maybe because I used Psion Series 5 (it has EPOC OS, the OS that later became Symbian) extensively and the UI is a bit similar.
Anyway, I guess I'll see what non-WP7 phones (preferably with a keypad) Nokia offers in 2011-2012 and buy a new one or just choose to stay with my N93 (it is 5 years old now and still works great).
Yea, small sample size means that the data might not be accurate. For example, I have >10 Seagate drives and they all work great (both the server grade drives and the consumer grade ones), but that could mean that some other guy got a lot of bad drives. Or that the drives really like being on 24/7 and the fact that the computers are connected to a UPS. OTOH, one of my two WD drives is acting up. One of my 4 (3x consumer-grade, 1x server-grade, 15kRPM) Maxtor drives corrupted the data after about 5 years of use, while an older one (5400RPM) still works normally.
Then again, last time I bought a new drive was about 3 years ago, the quality might have dropped after that.
First of all, it is very difficult to store a lot of electricity. That's why thee are peaking power plants that can quickly change their power output, even though the electricity provided by them is more expensive than that of a base load plant (that provides more or less the same power all the time). Pumped storage plants can help, but you need a very big reservoir. Still, it requires special features, since the upper reservoir needs to be above the water level and the reservoir needs space (and don't forget the fish).
Long transmission lines may be good for big countries like the US, but small countries would need to buy the electricity from other countries which raises a few problems - first you become dependent on that other country and all the countries that the transmission lines go trough (remember when Russia turned off gas for parts of the EU because it had a problem with Ukraine and the pipes go trough it?), second, it is worse for the economy, since most of the money for electricity goes to other countries (the one generating the power and the ones in the middle), instead of staying in the country.
Also, long transmission lines, even if within the same country, might make electricity more expensive because of the transmission losses or other problems.
Alternatively, if you don't currently back up your CD collection (by copying the CD), then not backing up your digital music collection is no different.
Well, in most cases yes, however, a (pressed) CD lasts longer than a hard drive because it has no moving parts (the CD itself, not the player obviously), so the music on CDs is safer than music in hard drives, even tough there are no backups.
Records also last a long time - I have a record made in 1915 and more records made 50 years ago. A modern record would also last 50 years (well, it's just a piece of plastic). I seriously doubt that any modern hard drive would last 50 years in storage. Flash memory is a new technology, it will be interesting to see how long it can retain its data.
Magnetic tape also lasts a long time, but the sound quality deteriorates from the presence of magnetic fields, but it's still better than a hard drive. I mean I have a tape recorded in 1951 and it still plays (and the quality is quite good, considering that the tape was most likely recorded from AM radio).
Coal (and other fossil fuel): Global warming - in the next 2 years, the north pole will heat up to +50C. Wind: requires a lot of space, cannot be the only method since wind is not constant. Also, won't somebody please think of the birds. Solar: requires a lot of space, cannot be the only method since there is no sunlight at night. Also, cannot be used everywhere, especially in places that get a lot of rain and/or snow. Hydro: cannot be used everywhere, while water is constant, it also requires a dam, oh look the landscape is changing, and won't somebody please think of the fish. Nuclear: we might not be able to build a reactor that can survive a magnitude 9 quake without any incidents. Also, if a terrorist blows it up we will have problems.
So, what do we use? Nuclear and fossil fuel can be used almost everywhere, while solar and hydro requires a special climate or special rivers.
And I try to download and archive stuff that I think I will want to see/hear/play/etc again. The website can go down. My internet connection may be down at the moment or some other reason.
The same reason why I collect music on records and tapes (and CDs, sometime) instead of just listening to radio (internet or not) or using other streaming services. To be able to play the CD or record or tape, I do not need to rely on someone else to help me - I have to keep the record player in working order, I have to protect the record, while with streaming, I have to rely on someone else to provide that service when I want it (and maybe pay for it, where I paid once for the record and it's mine and I do not need to keep paying to be able to play).
Basically, sitting on dial-up for a year or so 7 years ago really taught me that if I managed to download that CD image, I should make sure to keep it, since it will take a long time to get it again. Now with a good connection it would be much faster, but still a problem if the source disappears.
I have about 22 drives that are on 24/7 and are 3 to ~17 years old and work without problems. However, some drives have failed - a Maxtor 60GB drive got corrupted data all over the disk, I managed to repair the filesystem somewhat and extract most of the files, but not all of them. An old WD 800MB drive failed in my Smoothwall computer. A WD 500GB IDE drive is acting up (sometimes it timeouts the bus, not sure if itis a problem with the drive or the cable/controller, for now I have disconnected the drive).
In my experience, Seagate drives work great - the only two non-working Seagate drive that I have are an old MFM drive and a ~1GB drive that looks like it fell from a bit too high (there is a mark from the head on the platter) and I have 13 working drives.
Thugh it seems that the quality of Seagate drives went down in the last 3 years, meaning that I managed to avoid those problems since I did not buy any new hard drives (just a couple of used SCSI drives).
If you live in an area where such vandalism is common or you frequently visit such an area then it is unwise to spend a lot of money on the painting of your car. Why? Because it is going to be vandalized anyway and you most likely will not know who was the culprit, so you will not be able to get compensation from him, therefore you will just lose the money.
Where I live, thieves sometimes smash car windows even if there is a (possibly empty) cigarette pack inside, as such, if you leave your cigarettes (or something more valuable) inside the car as you leave it, you either are stupid (in thinking that it won't happen to you) or just ignorant (and do not know that your window can be smashed just for a cigarette pack).
I never said innocent citizens though. Criminals are like some elements of nature or something. They are there, you can sometimes get compensation from them (assuming you survive the attack (otherwise it will be your family who gets the compensation), the police manages to catch the criminal, the criminal does not bribe his way out, there is enough evidence for the court to convict him etc) if such compensation is possible (if you are not dead, do not get a permanent disability etc), but usually it's a good idea to reduce the probability that it is you who becomes their victim. Do not leave valuable things inside your car, do not display your new and expensive phone in a dark alley or near a group of thugs, lock your car, lock your home. Just like you protect yourself from lightning, cold, wild animals etc, you have to protect yourself from criminals.
Do you teach your kids (or did your parents teach you when you were a kid) to not take candy from strangers and not get in their cars alone? Why? Why not just assume that all people are nice and if some stranger offers a candy, he is just sharing and has no malicious intent? And if some stranger does something bad, well, it still was not wrong to get into his windowless van.
Yes, she is stupid to wear that short skirt. the rapist is still guilty and everything, but she is still stupid.
Another example: I get out of my car, lock it but leave $100 visible from outside. some guy smashes the window and takes the money. Yes, the thief is guilty and he should give me the money back and pay the fine (or whatever is appropriate by the law), but I am an idiot for leaving a lot of money visible from outside. If I ever told any of my friends this, they would all say that I was stupid to leave the money. And they would be right - I know that there are thieves, some may even smash the window for a cigarette pack, so, if I want to reduce the risk of someone smashing the window, I should take or hide every valuable thing that is inside my car. Even if the police catches the thief and forces him to pay back the money and pay for a new window, I would still be worse off because of all of the inconvenience. So, I do not leave valuable things visible inside my car.
Same thing with the skirt. the woman, if not completely ignorant, should know that there are rapists, some of whom get more turned on by seeing a short skirt, so, she should wear something different or not go trough dark alleys.
Back to the topic - yes, the guy is guilty and has to do time, but the victims were stupid and paid for their stupidity, just like the guy who paid a lot of money to help his son who got into a traffic accident (some other guy helpfully offered to deliver the money) and then remembered that he has no kids.
Oh, OK. Some time ago I just used a programming device with a MAX232 (Serial to TTL level converter) chip, I could probably have used it to program in-circuit, but I just pulled the chip out to program it.
Maybe if the Arduino board was available to me locally it would be different, but now I would be able to buy the MCU and the parts needed to build another programming tool and it would be cheaper than Arduino, which IIRC uses some programming language that's probably slower than just C or asm.
It's been a while since I've installed a Mac but doesn't that only come with Safari? Doesn't Ubuntu only come with Firefox?
The difference is that neither Mac nor Ubuntu are a monopoly. Even if they both teamed up and decided to only allow one browser it would not change much in the grand scheme of things. Well, OSX probably only works on Intel CPUs but no one cares.
Microsoft has much more power than Apple or whatever company that makes Ubuntu. Before IE7, the vast majority of users used IE6, was it really because IE6 was the best browser that was available?
As I have a few tape decks and other old (>20 years old) devices, they sometimes fail (mostly because of bad capacitors) and I'd rather fix them myself than pay a lot of money for someone else to do it (and be uncertain if they did it correctly) so I have the tools and could easily fix the mouse. I sometimes build my own circuits but I usually use tubes or other components that do not need to be programmed to work.
It looks to me like the Arduino is too expensive, compared to just buying the microcontroller and programming it, but I guess it makes the programming easier.
I have a 8 port gigabit switch made by HP and it has no problems. HP LTO2 tape drive also works OK. OTOH, my HP Professional Series Color 2500CM printer needed a new ink supply station as the old one was too broken for me to fix.
Hmm.. It seems that I am listing older HP products. The quality probably went down after the devices I have were made. Same thing with Seagate - I have a lot of Seagate hard drives (4 to >16 years old) and all of them work great, but i read a lot of complaints about the reliability of the drives. However, my newest drive was made in 2007 (Seagate 750GB IDE) so the quality probably went down after the drive was made.
alternating between intermittent unresponsiveness and randomly darting the cursor off in various directions with a slew of phantom middle- and right-clicks
Most likely the cable is bad, probably a wire broke from all the flexing somewhere near the mouse. I fixed one mouse by cutting off the cable (found out that the bad part is just outside the mouse) and soldering the rest of the cable to the connector inside the mouse. Why did I do it instead of buying a new mouse? I was too lazy to go to the store so I figured I could try to fix it, I could not make it worse, anyway.
Yes, I bought a brand new VCR from a store maybe 3 ears ago, but it did not last very long (a mechanical part broke, from the looks of it I would need to replace a lot of stuff to fix it). Now I mainly use an older SVHS VCR (made in 1994) and apart from one bad capacitor (which I replaced) in the power supply it works fine.
No, I used a Pentium 120MHz computer as a router when I had DSL. Before I got FTTH, I upgraded to Celeron 1000MHz computer as router, since the 120MHz PC cannot do even 80mbps up/down at the same time (1GHz can do about 140mbps up/down at the same time, a bit lower than my theoretical 200mbps to Lithuania, but good enough (higher than my 80mbps to other countries) and I already had that computer)
Same here. My VCR is more reliable than a computer used to record from TV, tapes are not expensive and if I want to keep the recording I can do it just by keeping the tape. No DRM and the tape can be played on any other PAL VHS VCR.
There are 100Hz TVs, LCDs have visible pixels. Plasma TVs have burn-in that's comparable to very old CRTs, fail soon (AFAIK) and use more power than a CRT.
That's why I will buy a (used) CRT HDTV when I have the room ready. The only problem is that the TV is heavy, but I do not plan on moving it around after I set it in its place, so the weight will be a one time inconvenience. While the TV will most likely only support 1080i, interlaced does not mean half resolution and in some cases it may be better than progressive scan at 25 or 30fps.
Contrast on a CRT can be adjusted (internally, by raising the appropriate voltage), but as CRTs can produce very good black levels, the while levels (brightness) are not that important, so even if the screen dims over time it will still be OK.
Slashdot Mirror
Depends on the fan/heatsink.
I usually use Zalman coolers that attach to the motherboard by screws (though you need to attach a new backplate to the motherboard so it's PITA if the computer is already built) and are quite good at cooling, but a bit expensive.
The worst shift that I remember was AGP to PCIe - you have to buy new video card if you want a new motherboard (or better, buy a new CPU, replace MB, RAM and VGA just to be compatible) and gaming cards are not cheap. At least with ISA/PCI/AGP you could still use the old card while you save the money for a new one. While I have a few AGP video cards laying around, if my PCIe VGA failed, until I repair it or buy a new one, I'd have to use a PCI VGA made in 1995.
I at least want the circuit diagrams and all images of the (E)EPROMs so I can fix the device when it breaks. It was like this in the past (circuit diagrams were in the manuals or in some magazines, at least in the USSR). I can find service manuals for some devices, but I want them included with the device and also have images of the chips that need to be programmed before they can be used.
The fact that other power generation methods cause more deaths does not make nuclear safer, but it shows that nuclear is safest of what we have now. Ideally, we should increase the safety of all power generation methods (including nuclear) so none of them cause deaths, but for now, nuclear is safer.
As for you example, well, since radiation is bad because it negatively affects health (and in turn, life span), I'm pretty sure that I'd rather receive a non-lethal radiation dose than die from drowning.
Or, do not build new (type) reactors because "all nuclear reactors are unsafe if you meet certain conditions" but keep the old ones running since you still need the power they produce and, well, they did not blow up in the last 30-40 years, why should they blow up now?
Also, big dams can cause bigger problems when they break than nuclear power plants - Banqiao Dam failure killed ~171000 people when it broke down.
I like Nokia's hardware, though as my current phone is N93 I may be out of date and the new phones might suck.
I do not know what problem people are having with the Symbian UI, but it is OK for me, maybe because I used Psion Series 5 (it has EPOC OS, the OS that later became Symbian) extensively and the UI is a bit similar.
Anyway, I guess I'll see what non-WP7 phones (preferably with a keypad) Nokia offers in 2011-2012 and buy a new one or just choose to stay with my N93 (it is 5 years old now and still works great).
(I am asking because I do not know).
Why not just use AC if the frequency on both ends is the same?
Yea, small sample size means that the data might not be accurate. For example, I have >10 Seagate drives and they all work great (both the server grade drives and the consumer grade ones), but that could mean that some other guy got a lot of bad drives. Or that the drives really like being on 24/7 and the fact that the computers are connected to a UPS. OTOH, one of my two WD drives is acting up. One of my 4 (3x consumer-grade, 1x server-grade, 15kRPM) Maxtor drives corrupted the data after about 5 years of use, while an older one (5400RPM) still works normally.
Then again, last time I bought a new drive was about 3 years ago, the quality might have dropped after that.
First of all, it is very difficult to store a lot of electricity. That's why thee are peaking power plants that can quickly change their power output, even though the electricity provided by them is more expensive than that of a base load plant (that provides more or less the same power all the time). Pumped storage plants can help, but you need a very big reservoir. Still, it requires special features, since the upper reservoir needs to be above the water level and the reservoir needs space (and don't forget the fish).
Long transmission lines may be good for big countries like the US, but small countries would need to buy the electricity from other countries which raises a few problems - first you become dependent on that other country and all the countries that the transmission lines go trough (remember when Russia turned off gas for parts of the EU because it had a problem with Ukraine and the pipes go trough it?), second, it is worse for the economy, since most of the money for electricity goes to other countries (the one generating the power and the ones in the middle), instead of staying in the country.
Also, long transmission lines, even if within the same country, might make electricity more expensive because of the transmission losses or other problems.
Alternatively, if you don't currently back up your CD collection (by copying the CD), then not backing up your digital music collection is no different.
Well, in most cases yes, however, a (pressed) CD lasts longer than a hard drive because it has no moving parts (the CD itself, not the player obviously), so the music on CDs is safer than music in hard drives, even tough there are no backups.
Records also last a long time - I have a record made in 1915 and more records made 50 years ago. A modern record would also last 50 years (well, it's just a piece of plastic). I seriously doubt that any modern hard drive would last 50 years in storage. Flash memory is a new technology, it will be interesting to see how long it can retain its data.
Magnetic tape also lasts a long time, but the sound quality deteriorates from the presence of magnetic fields, but it's still better than a hard drive. I mean I have a tape recorded in 1951 and it still plays (and the quality is quite good, considering that the tape was most likely recorded from AM radio).
So, what should we use?
Coal (and other fossil fuel): Global warming - in the next 2 years, the north pole will heat up to +50C.
Wind: requires a lot of space, cannot be the only method since wind is not constant. Also, won't somebody please think of the birds.
Solar: requires a lot of space, cannot be the only method since there is no sunlight at night. Also, cannot be used everywhere, especially in places that get a lot of rain and/or snow.
Hydro: cannot be used everywhere, while water is constant, it also requires a dam, oh look the landscape is changing, and won't somebody please think of the fish.
Nuclear: we might not be able to build a reactor that can survive a magnitude 9 quake without any incidents. Also, if a terrorist blows it up we will have problems.
So, what do we use? Nuclear and fossil fuel can be used almost everywhere, while solar and hydro requires a special climate or special rivers.
And I try to download and archive stuff that I think I will want to see/hear/play/etc again. The website can go down. My internet connection may be down at the moment or some other reason.
The same reason why I collect music on records and tapes (and CDs, sometime) instead of just listening to radio (internet or not) or using other streaming services. To be able to play the CD or record or tape, I do not need to rely on someone else to help me - I have to keep the record player in working order, I have to protect the record, while with streaming, I have to rely on someone else to provide that service when I want it (and maybe pay for it, where I paid once for the record and it's mine and I do not need to keep paying to be able to play).
Basically, sitting on dial-up for a year or so 7 years ago really taught me that if I managed to download that CD image, I should make sure to keep it, since it will take a long time to get it again. Now with a good connection it would be much faster, but still a problem if the source disappears.
I have about 22 drives that are on 24/7 and are 3 to ~17 years old and work without problems. However, some drives have failed - a Maxtor 60GB drive got corrupted data all over the disk, I managed to repair the filesystem somewhat and extract most of the files, but not all of them. An old WD 800MB drive failed in my Smoothwall computer. A WD 500GB IDE drive is acting up (sometimes it timeouts the bus, not sure if itis a problem with the drive or the cable/controller, for now I have disconnected the drive).
In my experience, Seagate drives work great - the only two non-working Seagate drive that I have are an old MFM drive and a ~1GB drive that looks like it fell from a bit too high (there is a mark from the head on the platter) and I have 13 working drives.
Thugh it seems that the quality of Seagate drives went down in the last 3 years, meaning that I managed to avoid those problems since I did not buy any new hard drives (just a couple of used SCSI drives).
Yes.
If you live in an area where such vandalism is common or you frequently visit such an area then it is unwise to spend a lot of money on the painting of your car. Why? Because it is going to be vandalized anyway and you most likely will not know who was the culprit, so you will not be able to get compensation from him, therefore you will just lose the money.
Where I live, thieves sometimes smash car windows even if there is a (possibly empty) cigarette pack inside, as such, if you leave your cigarettes (or something more valuable) inside the car as you leave it, you either are stupid (in thinking that it won't happen to you) or just ignorant (and do not know that your window can be smashed just for a cigarette pack).
I never said innocent citizens though. Criminals are like some elements of nature or something. They are there, you can sometimes get compensation from them (assuming you survive the attack (otherwise it will be your family who gets the compensation), the police manages to catch the criminal, the criminal does not bribe his way out, there is enough evidence for the court to convict him etc) if such compensation is possible (if you are not dead, do not get a permanent disability etc), but usually it's a good idea to reduce the probability that it is you who becomes their victim. Do not leave valuable things inside your car, do not display your new and expensive phone in a dark alley or near a group of thugs, lock your car, lock your home. Just like you protect yourself from lightning, cold, wild animals etc, you have to protect yourself from criminals.
Do you teach your kids (or did your parents teach you when you were a kid) to not take candy from strangers and not get in their cars alone? Why? Why not just assume that all people are nice and if some stranger offers a candy, he is just sharing and has no malicious intent? And if some stranger does something bad, well, it still was not wrong to get into his windowless van.
I see this argument every so often.
Yes, she is stupid to wear that short skirt. the rapist is still guilty and everything, but she is still stupid.
Another example:
I get out of my car, lock it but leave $100 visible from outside. some guy smashes the window and takes the money. Yes, the thief is guilty and he should give me the money back and pay the fine (or whatever is appropriate by the law), but I am an idiot for leaving a lot of money visible from outside. If I ever told any of my friends this, they would all say that I was stupid to leave the money. And they would be right - I know that there are thieves, some may even smash the window for a cigarette pack, so, if I want to reduce the risk of someone smashing the window, I should take or hide every valuable thing that is inside my car. Even if the police catches the thief and forces him to pay back the money and pay for a new window, I would still be worse off because of all of the inconvenience. So, I do not leave valuable things visible inside my car.
Same thing with the skirt. the woman, if not completely ignorant, should know that there are rapists, some of whom get more turned on by seeing a short skirt, so, she should wear something different or not go trough dark alleys.
Back to the topic - yes, the guy is guilty and has to do time, but the victims were stupid and paid for their stupidity, just like the guy who paid a lot of money to help his son who got into a traffic accident (some other guy helpfully offered to deliver the money) and then remembered that he has no kids.
Oh, OK. Some time ago I just used a programming device with a MAX232 (Serial to TTL level converter) chip, I could probably have used it to program in-circuit, but I just pulled the chip out to program it.
Maybe if the Arduino board was available to me locally it would be different, but now I would be able to buy the MCU and the parts needed to build another programming tool and it would be cheaper than Arduino, which IIRC uses some programming language that's probably slower than just C or asm.
It's been a while since I've installed a Mac but doesn't that only come with Safari? Doesn't Ubuntu only come with Firefox?
The difference is that neither Mac nor Ubuntu are a monopoly. Even if they both teamed up and decided to only allow one browser it would not change much in the grand scheme of things. Well, OSX probably only works on Intel CPUs but no one cares.
Microsoft has much more power than Apple or whatever company that makes Ubuntu. Before IE7, the vast majority of users used IE6, was it really because IE6 was the best browser that was available?
As I have a few tape decks and other old (>20 years old) devices, they sometimes fail (mostly because of bad capacitors) and I'd rather fix them myself than pay a lot of money for someone else to do it (and be uncertain if they did it correctly) so I have the tools and could easily fix the mouse. I sometimes build my own circuits but I usually use tubes or other components that do not need to be programmed to work.
It looks to me like the Arduino is too expensive, compared to just buying the microcontroller and programming it, but I guess it makes the programming easier.
I have a 8 port gigabit switch made by HP and it has no problems. HP LTO2 tape drive also works OK. OTOH, my HP Professional Series Color 2500CM printer needed a new ink supply station as the old one was too broken for me to fix.
Hmm.. It seems that I am listing older HP products. The quality probably went down after the devices I have were made. Same thing with Seagate - I have a lot of Seagate hard drives (4 to >16 years old) and all of them work great, but i read a lot of complaints about the reliability of the drives. However, my newest drive was made in 2007 (Seagate 750GB IDE) so the quality probably went down after the drive was made.
alternating between intermittent unresponsiveness and randomly darting the cursor off in various directions with a slew of phantom middle- and right-clicks
Most likely the cable is bad, probably a wire broke from all the flexing somewhere near the mouse. I fixed one mouse by cutting off the cable (found out that the bad part is just outside the mouse) and soldering the rest of the cable to the connector inside the mouse. Why did I do it instead of buying a new mouse? I was too lazy to go to the store so I figured I could try to fix it, I could not make it worse, anyway.
190 may be a problem, but I can get E195 tapes made by Fuji and Acme (local no-name brand) quite easily.
Yes, I bought a brand new VCR from a store maybe 3 ears ago, but it did not last very long (a mechanical part broke, from the looks of it I would need to replace a lot of stuff to fix it). Now I mainly use an older SVHS VCR (made in 1994) and apart from one bad capacitor (which I replaced) in the power supply it works fine.
No, I used a Pentium 120MHz computer as a router when I had DSL. Before I got FTTH, I upgraded to Celeron 1000MHz computer as router, since the 120MHz PC cannot do even 80mbps up/down at the same time (1GHz can do about 140mbps up/down at the same time, a bit lower than my theoretical 200mbps to Lithuania, but good enough (higher than my 80mbps to other countries) and I already had that computer)
Same here. My VCR is more reliable than a computer used to record from TV, tapes are not expensive and if I want to keep the recording I can do it just by keeping the tape. No DRM and the tape can be played on any other PAL VHS VCR.
There are 100Hz TVs, LCDs have visible pixels. Plasma TVs have burn-in that's comparable to very old CRTs, fail soon (AFAIK) and use more power than a CRT.
That's why I will buy a (used) CRT HDTV when I have the room ready. The only problem is that the TV is heavy, but I do not plan on moving it around after I set it in its place, so the weight will be a one time inconvenience. While the TV will most likely only support 1080i, interlaced does not mean half resolution and in some cases it may be better than progressive scan at 25 or 30fps.
Contrast on a CRT can be adjusted (internally, by raising the appropriate voltage), but as CRTs can produce very good black levels, the while levels (brightness) are not that important, so even if the screen dims over time it will still be OK.