£1.50 is currently $2.50, and we're talking one large swede, 4 carrots, a small onion and a large parsnip. It's a litre of tomato juice = 4.2 US cups. I might add a potato, which would add, say 25p to the cost.
The soup from just those ingredients will last me 7 evening meals if I let it, and wasn't sharing. Actually, since I'm not struggling financially, I'm likely to vary my meals, and end up with leftovers that have to be thrown away -- but if I needed to, I could.
So yeah, I neglected lunches. Still, it's significantly cheaper than McDonald's, and while it may be marginally more expensive than just instant ramen, it won't harm you over time.
(Not that I've anything against instant ramen. Add some pak-choi, some sliced mushrooms, some radishes, beansprouts, maybe a small amount of grilled chicken and you've got yourself a balanced meal.)
Hmm, on Monday I bought a pack of seasonal vegetables (carrot, swede, onion, parsnip) for £1.50 and a carton of value tomato juice for 65p. The soup will feed me for the rest of the week.
Prompted by this discussion I found out my phone could take light readings; albeit only at 5 Lux intervals.
I tested my bedroom light, which is the one which irritates me most. It's a three bulb fitting with Phillips bulbs in it.
2 seconds after turning on, it's 5 Lux. 4 seconds later it's 10. 30 seconds after turning on it's 15. 30 seconds after that, it's 20. 40 seconds later it's at 25 where it seems to stay.
So that's 100 seconds from switch on to full brightness. I'd say 60 seconds before it's comfortable light.
Philips bulbs hit 90% brightness in under 1 second, and full brightness in 30 seconds. They are pretty cheap too.
I have no idea why your apparently quality bulbs are so bad. In the UK even the cheap ones reach 80% brightness in about 10 seconds, so if yours are taking minutes I start to wonder if there is a fault or someone old you some 10+ year old ones.
I'm in the UK, and I've tried Phillips bulbs. There's nothing wrong with my wiring -- same results in two different houses.
Just to be clear, we're not talking minutes to start. We're talking dim light (comparable to a 40W incandescent) within 2 seconds of turning on, only reaching useful brightness about a minute later. Actually maybe your 30 seconds is accurate -- but that's too long. In many circumstances, 30 seconds is a long time to be twiddling your thumbs waiting for useful light.
Maybe you have young eyes. I can't (for example) read the spine of a CD case in the dim light of just-switched-on CFL.
They are more expensive but I replaced the six 55W bulbs in my office with LED bulbs.
Unfortunately, the lights you want to reach full brightness fastest, are also the ones you don't want to be expensive upfront.
Some lights, you turn on at dusk, and leave on until bedtime. If they cost a lot upfront, but use much less power, that's fine because the energy savings will offset the upfront cost.
Some lights, you flick on, do some task, then flick off. If it's drawing a lot of power, it doesn't really matter because it's for such a short time. So an LED is great for this because it's bright immediately. But it's bad for this because you may never offset the initial cost. For example, the incandescent in my cellar probably cost 50p, and I've probably used less than £5's worth of electricity since fitting it years ago.
Of course, just to confuse things, there are rooms where you want both properties. Sometimes I'm in my living room all evening, so a slow-to-brighten bulb would only be inconvenient once a night. Other times I want to dash in, grab something, and dash back out -- and there I want full brightness immediately.
The UK is cold in winter, but my house is heated, and the CFLs are no better in the summer.
Genuinely, I think if you came to my house (or I came to yours) we'd have a conversation that went:
YOU: See, it's perfectly fine. ME: But it's still dark YOU: What do you mean? It's at 90% brightness already ME: But it's still dim!
etc.
I think some people are so able to cope in low light, that they barely notice it.
It's not just me though; my girlfriend also complains about the dim room lighting. I'd do something about it (get halogen bulbs) but it's rented and we're moving soon.
See the "packaging" thread on this subject. I've shopped around for CFLs that reach usable brightness in a reasonable time. I reckon I've wasted £50 failing to find one. If you can tell me a reliable way to know my next one will work, please do.
I get mine at Walmart and they start ini under half a second. I haven't ever seen a CFL that took ten seconds; they're not like the big flourescent tubes in your office.
I haven't ever seen a CFL that takes less than 10 seconds. And 10 seconds is generous. It feels like a minute between turning my bedroom light on, and having enough light to read by. Big fluorescent tubes, on the other hand, tend to flicker a couple of times, then go straight to full brightness.
I wonder whether some of us are more tolerant of dim light than others. I've had this conversation right here on Slashdot on previous occasions - people eager to tell me that CFLs don't have this problem any more. I'm kinda bored of spending £5 on yet another bulb, only to learn they're wrong.
A 100W equivalent light is painfully blindingly bright. I wouldn't even be able to keep my eyes open in a room with one for more than a few seconds at a time.
Do you ever go outside? How do you manage in sunlight?
I would only consider using 60W bulbs on multi-bulb fittings. I certainly couldn't read by a single 60W incandescent. Low energy bulbs generally tend to be slightly dimmer than their supposed incandescent equivalent.
Obviously I have lampshades. We're not savages. Bare bulbs are for cellars and warehouses;)
What form factor is this? I fitted LED GU10s in my kitchen, and soon put the less efficient halogens back. The packaging suggested that they were equivalent, but subjectively they were dimmer, and the spread was too narrow.
I'm having nothing dimmer than a 100W equivalent as a primary room light.
The BBC Micro User Guide had a sentence early on saying (paraphrase) "Feel free to experiment, there's nothing you can damage that can't be fixed by power-cycling".
But: 10 *MOTOR 1 20 *MOTOR 0 30 GOTO 10... would burn out the cassette relay if you left it running for a couple of minutes.
One guy of the caliber of a Stallman or a Thovalds will probably do much better than a team of Visual Source Safe users, even if that guy has no source control system.
Linus Torvalds, author of Git? Richard Stallman, author of GNU diff; without which many revision control systems wouldn't work?
If Windows is your primary OS and you want to use Linux, VirtualBox is a better solution than dual-booting today.
Unless your reason for running Linux is to do processing and not just run some arbitrary piece of Linux-only software. Then you want to run as close to bare metal as possible.
CPUs have so much virtualisation support nowadays, VM software is so mature, I think the margins are pretty small.
I disagree. If you want to start learning a high level language, you shouldn't need to learn a bunch of other stuff first. If you want to learn that stuff, then fine. But you shouldn't need to.
If you can boot a machine and get a text editor into which you can type Python, and a simple way to execute it, that's great for learning Python.
If you wanted to learn to paint, would you insist on knowing how to manufacture oil paint, and stretch canvas? Would you refuse to learn to play a guitar you hadn't built yourself?
It doesn't *need* a case. A case would bump it over the price point.Plug it in without a case, and get coding.
In the primary school environment it's intended for (sorry, I don't know what American is for Primary School), an early "OK Kids, today we're going to make a case for our Raspberry Pi out of egg cartons" would be entirely appropriate.
I've got one on order because I need something cheap to run Logitech Media Server. I probably won't bother with a case, or if I do I'll make one out of cardboard.
Slashdot Mirror
£1.50 is currently $2.50, and we're talking one large swede, 4 carrots, a small onion and a large parsnip. It's a litre of tomato juice = 4.2 US cups. I might add a potato, which would add, say 25p to the cost.
The soup from just those ingredients will last me 7 evening meals if I let it, and wasn't sharing. Actually, since I'm not struggling financially, I'm likely to vary my meals, and end up with leftovers that have to be thrown away -- but if I needed to, I could.
So yeah, I neglected lunches. Still, it's significantly cheaper than McDonald's, and while it may be marginally more expensive than just instant ramen, it won't harm you over time.
(Not that I've anything against instant ramen. Add some pak-choi, some sliced mushrooms, some radishes, beansprouts, maybe a small amount of grilled chicken and you've got yourself a balanced meal.)
Hmm, on Monday I bought a pack of seasonal vegetables (carrot, swede, onion, parsnip) for £1.50 and a carton of value tomato juice for 65p. The soup will feed me for the rest of the week.
Prompted by this discussion I found out my phone could take light readings; albeit only at 5 Lux intervals.
I tested my bedroom light, which is the one which irritates me most. It's a three bulb fitting with Phillips bulbs in it.
2 seconds after turning on, it's 5 Lux. 4 seconds later it's 10. 30 seconds after turning on it's 15. 30 seconds after that, it's 20. 40 seconds later it's at 25 where it seems to stay.
So that's 100 seconds from switch on to full brightness. I'd say 60 seconds before it's comfortable light.
I'm in the UK. Every CFL in every house I have visited has taken too long to reach useful brightness.
I mean you can *see* within 1 second of switching on. But you have to wait before you can, say, read a newspaper.
Philips bulbs hit 90% brightness in under 1 second, and full brightness in 30 seconds. They are pretty cheap too.
I have no idea why your apparently quality bulbs are so bad. In the UK even the cheap ones reach 80% brightness in about 10 seconds, so if yours are taking minutes I start to wonder if there is a fault or someone old you some 10+ year old ones.
I'm in the UK, and I've tried Phillips bulbs. There's nothing wrong with my wiring -- same results in two different houses.
Just to be clear, we're not talking minutes to start. We're talking dim light (comparable to a 40W incandescent) within 2 seconds of turning on, only reaching useful brightness about a minute later. Actually maybe your 30 seconds is accurate -- but that's too long. In many circumstances, 30 seconds is a long time to be twiddling your thumbs waiting for useful light.
Maybe you have young eyes. I can't (for example) read the spine of a CD case in the dim light of just-switched-on CFL.
They are more expensive but I replaced the six 55W bulbs in my office with LED bulbs.
Unfortunately, the lights you want to reach full brightness fastest, are also the ones you don't want to be expensive upfront.
Some lights, you turn on at dusk, and leave on until bedtime. If they cost a lot upfront, but use much less power, that's fine because the energy savings will offset the upfront cost.
Some lights, you flick on, do some task, then flick off. If it's drawing a lot of power, it doesn't really matter because it's for such a short time. So an LED is great for this because it's bright immediately. But it's bad for this because you may never offset the initial cost. For example, the incandescent in my cellar probably cost 50p, and I've probably used less than £5's worth of electricity since fitting it years ago.
Of course, just to confuse things, there are rooms where you want both properties. Sometimes I'm in my living room all evening, so a slow-to-brighten bulb would only be inconvenient once a night. Other times I want to dash in, grab something, and dash back out -- and there I want full brightness immediately.
I have some GE bulbs, and I have some Phillips bulbs. Not from Walmart/Samsclub because I'm in Britain. But from supermarkets and DIY superstores.
They're no good. So there's evidently more to it than just the branding.
The UK is cold in winter, but my house is heated, and the CFLs are no better in the summer.
Genuinely, I think if you came to my house (or I came to yours) we'd have a conversation that went:
YOU: See, it's perfectly fine.
ME: But it's still dark
YOU: What do you mean? It's at 90% brightness already
ME: But it's still dim!
etc.
I think some people are so able to cope in low light, that they barely notice it.
It's not just me though; my girlfriend also complains about the dim room lighting. I'd do something about it (get halogen bulbs) but it's rented and we're moving soon.
See the "packaging" thread on this subject. I've shopped around for CFLs that reach usable brightness in a reasonable time. I reckon I've wasted £50 failing to find one. If you can tell me a reliable way to know my next one will work, please do.
How much better? $50 a year, say? I'd pay the price of an Xbox game every year, to have lights that you can read by as soon as you turn them on.
I really don't understand who these hoarders might be.
I frequently want to turn on a room light for less than a minute. Light on, grab something from the fridge/bookshelf/whatever, light off, leave room.
With a CFL in that situation, you're fumbling in dim light.
Yes, there's halogen which is better.
I get mine at Walmart and they start ini under half a second. I haven't ever seen a CFL that took ten seconds; they're not like the big flourescent tubes in your office.
I haven't ever seen a CFL that takes less than 10 seconds. And 10 seconds is generous. It feels like a minute between turning my bedroom light on, and having enough light to read by. Big fluorescent tubes, on the other hand, tend to flicker a couple of times, then go straight to full brightness.
I wonder whether some of us are more tolerant of dim light than others. I've had this conversation right here on Slashdot on previous occasions - people eager to tell me that CFLs don't have this problem any more. I'm kinda bored of spending £5 on yet another bulb, only to learn they're wrong.
A 100W equivalent light is painfully blindingly bright. I wouldn't even be able to keep my eyes open in a room with one for more than a few seconds at a time.
Do you ever go outside? How do you manage in sunlight?
I would only consider using 60W bulbs on multi-bulb fittings. I certainly couldn't read by a single 60W incandescent. Low energy bulbs generally tend to be slightly dimmer than their supposed incandescent equivalent.
Obviously I have lampshades. We're not savages. Bare bulbs are for cellars and warehouses ;)
Why not just change the law so a store can't sell incandescent bulbs cheaper than CFL or LED? You wouldn't need to ban them to have the save effect.
People without strong financial constraints would continue to buy the incandescent bulbs, because they work better in many situations.
What form factor is this? I fitted LED GU10s in my kitchen, and soon put the less efficient halogens back. The packaging suggested that they were equivalent, but subjectively they were dimmer, and the spread was too narrow.
I'm having nothing dimmer than a 100W equivalent as a primary room light.
Is there yet a way to tell at time of purchase whether a CFL bulb is going to warm up in an acceptable time?
I'm assured that bulbs exist that reach a decent brightness in under 10 seconds, but I have yet to manage to buy one.
The BBC Micro User Guide had a sentence early on saying (paraphrase) "Feel free to experiment, there's nothing you can damage that can't be fixed by power-cycling".
But: ... would burn out the cassette relay if you left it running for a couple of minutes.
10 *MOTOR 1
20 *MOTOR 0
30 GOTO 10
I'm sure there are equivalents on a modern PC.
>
One guy of the caliber of a Stallman or a Thovalds will probably do much better than a team of Visual Source Safe users, even if that guy has no source control system.
Linus Torvalds, author of Git?
Richard Stallman, author of GNU diff; without which many revision control systems wouldn't work?
Googled, found shUnit.
I don't know how good it is, but it exists.
In practice, I wouldn't nowadays use shell to write anything complex enough to need unit testing.
It's a great choice for someone whose first goal is to learn a HLL, who has a TV, no computer, and $50
Which was entirely arbitrary and can't be achieved due to taxes and shipping.
And which also led to a focus on low-cost versus quality of components.
If you want something more expensive with higher quality components, then buy one.
Raspberry Pi met its design goals.
If Windows is your primary OS and you want to use Linux, VirtualBox is a better solution than dual-booting today.
Unless your reason for running Linux is to do processing and not just run some arbitrary piece of Linux-only software. Then you want to run as close to bare metal as possible.
CPUs have so much virtualisation support nowadays, VM software is so mature, I think the margins are pretty small.
Yeah, but it doesn't boot *into* a BASIC prompt though, does it?
Depends what SD card you boot off.
I disagree. If you want to start learning a high level language, you shouldn't need to learn a bunch of other stuff first. If you want to learn that stuff, then fine. But you shouldn't need to.
If you can boot a machine and get a text editor into which you can type Python, and a simple way to execute it, that's great for learning Python.
If you wanted to learn to paint, would you insist on knowing how to manufacture oil paint, and stretch canvas? Would you refuse to learn to play a guitar you hadn't built yourself?
It doesn't *need* a case. A case would bump it over the price point.Plug it in without a case, and get coding.
In the primary school environment it's intended for (sorry, I don't know what American is for Primary School), an early "OK Kids, today we're going to make a case for our Raspberry Pi out of egg cartons" would be entirely appropriate.
I've got one on order because I need something cheap to run Logitech Media Server. I probably won't bother with a case, or if I do I'll make one out of cardboard.