I've bought CFLs which were made for dimmer switches. It will be a long time before I buy more of them:
I bought them for my home office, where I usually prefer very dark (just-barely-able-to-navigate) lighting. I'd been using regular incandescent, but wanted something different and more efficient.
The "dimming" was strange, and useless. To put some rough numbers with my observations: They'd work fine at 100%, dim to perhaps 45%, and then turn off.
Further, they were slower to come up to full brightness than any other CFL that bought for years prior, and the colors were ugly.
I relegated them areas like the basement and the pantry. None of these areas have dimmer switches, and that's fine, because these (expensive!) "dimmable" CFLs aren't useful in applications where dimming is desirable.
a 40W lamp in an enclosed, opaque space is exactly as efficient as a 40W heater in that same enclosed space.
True.
But the comment you're replying to wasn't talking about enclosed, opaque spaces: A bread proofing box (ever been to Subway?) is often fitted with a transparent door: Light (energy!) leaks out.
A small animal tank (I write this as I look over my shoulder, where a 75W incandescent UV bulb completely fails to illuminate a bearded dragon but does keep him reasonably toasty during what it thinks is night time) is not opaque, either. During the day, it's got a 150W incandescent along with a 13W CFL, both of which emit a rather strange spectrum, and much of which leaks out of the tank.
A lava lamp is certainly not opaque, but also emits light.
The world you speak of, wherein pulleys are frictionless, rope doesn't stretch, and incandescent lights used as heaters are always 100% efficient doesn't really exist.
(Unless you're just a Score:5 (Misdirection) strawman by intent, in which case you're still wrong.)
I've noticed, over time, that every incandescent light I have connected to a dimmer switch has lasted almost forever. I moved into this house about 3 years ago, re-did a lot of the switching and wiring, installed incandescent fixtures with Lutron dimmers in the dining room, kitchen, office, and living room, and haven't replaced a bulb yet. And two of these are candelabras with 6 or 8 bulbs each, which should increase the chances of losing a bulb accordingly.
They get used (off, on, dimmed, etc) all the time.
The bulbs have lasted so long that my wife has actually taken them out, cleaned them, and reinstalled them.
Previous experiences at different places using different dimmers (including ratty X10 gear from way back when they were giving the stuff away) has been similar.
Perhaps there is a difference in dimmers -- it's certainly possible those I've used always start at zero crossing, whereas others may not. Or that they've got a soft turn-on function which is present but difficult for me to see with my eyes. (Alas, I lack the oscilloscope needed to find out, so it's just a theory...)
The first link, of three different LEDs, is certainly interesting. But I place no confidence in the results because the spectrums simply look smeared all to hell -- any peaks or dips in the spectrum will be squished to meaningless blur.
The second set of links is useless in regards to this complaint. You're focusing on color temperature, whereas the complaint was about peaky spectrum (ala the "monochromatic" observation).
I recently had to identify some wire colors, while patching back together some gear that the cat had eaten the cabling for. Under CFL, I could not tell what two of the colors were: They both appeared "white," which seemed very improbable.
Under LED (Luxeon Star flash light), one of the "white" colors appeared to be yellow instead, but my eyes still weren't quite convincing enough for me to complete the splice. And under incandescent, it was very plain that I was looking at both white and yellow. (I'm sure that sunlight would've been equally useful, but alas, it was dark outside.)
This is what folks complain about when they declare that they don't like the colors of modern lighting: It's not so much that things aren't colorful, but that the colors themselves are sometimes wrong.
I mean: I like your under-cabinet project, which looks very nice (and is something I might clone). I use CFLs where it doesn't matter, and I'm transitioning to LEDs in places where it makes sense to do so.
In the basement where all I do is thaw pipes, string Romex, mitigate floods, be terrified of spiders, and bang on the furnace? CFL. In the pantry where all I do is select canned goods? CFL. In the lamp by the front porch that has a daylight sensor? CFL, at least during the warmer months.
But in the dining room, where folks eat the food? It's incandescent. In the bathroom where my wife applies her face? Incandescent. On the porch when it's cold outside? Incandescent (a CFL never warms up to useful-light levels, and if I didn't want to light the outside of my home, I would de-install the fixture altogether). In the range hood, under which I cook food? Incandescent again -- I need to see what I'm doing, not guess at it.
My wife has a drawing room. It is lit with halogens, and will remain that way until the alternatives stop lying to me.
I've seen the inside of a lot of police cars: I wire them up to do what they do, and have for years.
I've never been requested to integrate a radar (or other speed indicator) into a video system. Many video systems these days do have GPS, and will record the officer's speed plainly on the video, and some of them allow some manner of interconnection to another speed-measuring device, but again: I've never seen that. In fact, I've never even done much radar installation: Usually, the officer takes care of that himself by simply attaching the widget to the dashboard with velcro and plugging it into an available lighter socket.
Mind you, cars in Real Cities might be configured differently (I work with relatively small departments in my corner of Ohio). And I'm reasonably sure that I recall seeing radar data being displayed over video on some episode of COPS or similar at some point or another.
But the point is this: It's entirely likely that even if video of the stop does exist (and can be subpoenaed), that doesn't mean that any telemetry also exists.
It depends on the garage: My garage lamps, if I had a garage currently, would be used quite a bit since I would be spending a fair bit of time out there. Other folks, not so much: The garage might just be where they park their cars, and/or have some infrequently-accessed storage. Either way, "garage" by itself doesn't indicate much about the usage of the bulb, but only that the space it is installed in was at one point intended to park a car in.
And it depends on the bulb.
Perhaps some forward-thinking bloke, back in the day 40 years ago, installed a 130V lamp instead of a 120V, which is a common "trick" for areas with bulbs that are difficult to replace or where safety is more important than efficiency. Or perhaps its particular tungsten filament just has an unusually high impedance.
For one to last 40 years is impressive, but is really no more impressive than a 40-year-old Ford that still runs fine with minimal maintenance: It's unusual, but there were so many of the things made that it is a statistical certainty that some of them will last a lot (decades, at least) longer than others.
In other news, I've got an old 15-year-old hard drive that still works fine. Is it remarkable? Perhaps. Is it an indication of forgotten manufacturing prowess? I doubt it -- this particular device was just lucky. Most others failed a long time ago.
Try it sometime with a deaf cat: First, you have to get the cat's attention (which is harder than it should be). Then, you have to signal it with hand movements. Then it ignores you (it is a cat, after all), and there is at least one iteration of rinse/repeat before compliance happens.
That said, I talk to my deaf cat all the time (even though I'm very aware that it will never, ever hear me) and don't feel the slightest bit weird in doing so, but I feel very silly talking to a computer -- no matter how advanced the speech recognition.
Perhaps some of it is upbringing: I've always had pets around that would variously respond to voice commands (except for this most recent cat), and I'm just young enough to not remember a time when there wasn't a household computer around (even if it was a TRS-80). Talking to a cat has always made sense, just as typing to a computer always has.
Saying, "Open a command prompt," is in no way more convenient, faster, or easier than slamming the mouse to the lower left, clicking, and typing cmd.exe. Having it say, "OK, here's a command prompt," afterward would just be annoying.
The rest of us Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000/(98? 95?) users have grown accustomed to just using the following sequence: Windows+R, "cmd", enter.
No mouse required.
Back on topic: I feel very strange when I talk to my Droid, especially when there's people around. Its speech recognition is quite good -- the best I've ever used -- and it is adequate to fire off a quick SMS while doing other things, or to search the Intarwebs, and it is generally faster than entering the same text with its physical or on-screen keyboard (including Swype).
Despite the fact that it generally works Just Fine, I seldom use it simply because of the fact that it feels awkward.
With Windows 7 (and probably Vista) start menu, there is a little arrow to the right of the Steam client in the most-opened program list.
And when I click or hover on that arrow, a menu of frequently-played Steam titles folds out, right there in the start menu. Launching Fallout:NV with Steam takes exactly two clicks for me using this method.
I can also pin the Steam client to the taskbar, and then right-click on it to bring up the same thing.
I guess this isn't technically playing nice with the start menu, though I personally think it's better.
Back to the original topic: If I were to add WoW to Steam's list, I presume that it would also show up in the same Steam menu (despite not being a proper Steam title), which might be useful in that all oft-played games would show up in the same place.
Naah. They'll reply with "a bunch of brown trucks," since "package delivery company" has too high of a syllable-to-word ratio for layfolk to be able to conjure such parlance.
I've got a decent-sized UPS powering my home office. When the power dips, I shut down the computers and kill the UPS. This leaves a lot of clean 120V of power available for whatever small task(s). I used it a couple of days ago when the transformer feeding my house blew up from ice buildup, and it kept about 500W of gear alive for about 10 minutes, depleting the battery to only about 85% -- I'm too lazy to do the math, but that obviously means lots of charging small electronics and placing POTS calls.
I don't have a regular phone anymore, but the last time I did it was with AT&T Uverse. Uverse provides its own battery backup, which seems to be good for a day or so of use (keeping the router, wifi, and telephone ports working, along with a 4-port switch).
Meanwhile, my old Panasonic cordless phone has its own battery backup. It's a simple little DC-powered battery pack, which (AFAICT) has no or nearly no electronics. I picked it up from some online Panasonic parts supplier, and it was cheap. I've never seen a similar item for sale retail, which is unfortunate, since everyone who wants to rely on POTS and has a cordless phone should have such a thing.
Any of these things can be used sparingly, turned off when not needed, and easily last through whatever sort of event.
I've got a few old (but digital) cell phones, too, from various carriers. (CDMA. I probably should pick up a PCS and/or GSM handset at some point.)
And if all that fails: I've got a small, ratty inverter that I can power from any of the three working vehicles outside. It's a bit of wear-and-tear to keep a gas-powered car engine idling long-term, but if it looks like it'll be a Long, Long Time I'm handy enough to fudge the idle speed up a bit to keep the oil pressure high and the coolant flowing well. (The ratty nature of the inverter is important, too: By completely failing to actually emulate a proper sine wave, it's quite efficient compared to the UPS mentioned above, while perfectly capable of driving switch-mode power supplies.)
And if I can't get outside: I'll get outside anyway. I keep a digging shovel, a chainsaw, a big hammer, a good pry bar, and a combination Mattock pick in the house. (In the basement, actually: If a tornado ever levels this place around me, I want to be prepared to liberate myself, but it's also a simple practical matter in that I must keep them somewhere.)
And if everything really, really fails: I've got an Icom VHF portable radio with a good battery, programmed with the local radio club's repeater, along with some local public safety bands and the private ambulance operator just down the road from here, which I can charge from either 12VDC or 120VAC. I'm not licensed to talk on any of these frequencies, but I genuinely don't believe that it will matter: If things turn horrible and I absolutely require assistance after Verizon kills the 911 trunks, I will be able to summon help.
Most of this is just stuff that I'd have around anyway (UPS for clean power, inverter for convenience, shovel/pick/chainsaw for yard work, VHF portable for work, etc). I think that if folks can't figure out how to communicate, that they must be doing something wrong.
Yep. It is silly. Though, in times past (before DACs were worth a shit in common residential gear), I've been known to use an external DAC with stereo sources. (These widgets are rather rare on today's new equipment market, since "everyone" has a surround receiver that can accept S/PDIF.)
Meanwhile, some of these "simple" stereo receivers are digital inside. Common home stereo is dead at the moment -- at least in sales -- but modern car stereos fit squarely into this space, too: Everything's done digitally internally because it's cheaper, better and simpler, but all of the IO is analog just because it's cheaper. (For example: I want to use Bluetooth to try to get better sound out of my Droid while traveling, since that's likely the best output mode it has. But the Bluetooth adapters for my Pioneer head(s) all have analog outputs to match the head's analog inputs. Meanwhile the head itself is digital internally. Extraneous analog stages, FTW.)
The live sound sector is worse: There's a shit-ton of gear these days, from mixers to crossovers to amplifiers which are digital inside at one stage or another, but the interconnects are analog. Extra AD/DA stages are always silly.
My TV does have an analog output for audio, which I guess I do use for the singular OTA ATSC channel that I get.
My main gripe right now is that I might like to add surround to my already good stereo, which I've built with separates over the last 15 or 20 years. I'd like to find a decently-priced receiver which has a full array of pre-amp outputs so that it plays nice with the gear I've already got. This would soften the upgrade cost while allowing me to keep the existing (and wonderful) amplifiers that I already have, and allow me the option to upgrade the center/surround/side/whatever channels later. AFAICT, such a feature doesn't exist outside of spending Real Money for a receiver with more bells, whistles and amplifiers than I care to buy.
Add the current moving-target nature of HDMI, and the fact that such a receiver really wants to live right in the middle of the video path these days, and the result is that whatever I'd buy today will turn into a timebomb tomorrow. So I guess I'm stuck with a good stereo for now until things settle out, or I commit myself to "renting" receivers from Ebay.
I've seen similar message from my Uverse box when I had that service. It was cabling-related. Sorry that I failed to mention it among the complete array of other issues that I listed which were also caused by cabling issues.
Meanwhile: Which part of basic fucking troubleshooting don't you get?
Go work out in your home gym without your fancy-pants TV. I could, frankly, give a shit less. (I did give a shit. But then, you showed me that you're impossible to help. I suspect you probably trade your cars in when they run out of gas, too, because you can't be bothered to learn how to work the filler door.)
Fuck you, buddy - I was trying to help. Now I hope your house burns down, so that when you rebuild you can actually install some structured cabling and quit bothering everyone with your paranoid bullshit (Oh noes! The HDCP cops won't let me use wireless!!@@!).
And I maintain that if a merchant wants to accept credit cards, then they must follow the rules.
Just as a cardholder who wishes to use credit cards must follow the rules.
And a bank which services a merchant account must follow the rules.
And a bank which issues the credit cards must follow the rules.
And so on.
Being a merchant doesn't make them special. Even if they don't like the rules.
There's a lot of rules in life, business, and law that I don't like, but I don't expect that I'll be able to get away with ignoring them just because I don't like them.
Are you saying that you did try doing things differently, that you did not try to do things differently, or that you're still just thinking with your fists?
Please remember that this is Michigan, which is the same state that took one hundred and five years to eliminate a law that prohibited using foul language in the presence of women and children -- a law that stood on the books until 2002. A law under which a man was successfully convicted after the canoe he was traveling in hit a rock and dumped him (and presumably, his stuff) into the drink, producing the sort of surprise and inconvenience that I think would cause most people to get awfully profane for a few minutes as they swim around trying to gather their shit up (or more likely, get their "fucking shit" out of the "goddamned water," after having the "fucking boat" hit a "motherfucking piece-of-shit dick-taking rock," perhaps with repeated nonsensical utterances about the "fucking asshole thing").
At least in the case of the cussing canoeist, sanity eventually prevailed. Unfortunately, it took about four years for this to happen, between citation and dismissal.
My dad doesn't cuss. Ever. He certainly knows how, as his vocabulary is very prolific. But I've heard him do it twice: Once, when a large limb he was cutting out of a tree nearly fell (variously) on the neighbor's pool, the overhead power lines, or my house -- just before it tried to kill him (it failed). The other time was after we had unexpectedly exited a canoe on the Mohican.:)
So now you're trying to drum up malware business for iOS to make the Android world look less shitty? Pretty lame.
Yes, of course. Everything's a conspiracy, isn't it? Everyone has an agenda to push. Everyone is a fan of something, and therefore an enemy of some other thing.
My world is far more grey than that. And I could frankly give a shit less which mobile OS wins: In fact, my grey attitude is that I'd prefer that none of them do, so that we continue to have competition and innovation instead of stagnation, which should be good for everyone.
I have a hard time believing that all the great unwashed masses that thought VHS over a composite cable was fine
VHS over a composite cable is fine: VHS is recorded as composite video on the tape. There is nothing to be gained by transmitting the resultant signal in any other way.
SVHS, meanwhile, does keep the Y/C signals separate on the tape. Avoiding composite video with SVHS is always a good idea whenever quality is a concern.
I sometimes have the same sorts of issues on my Samsung when using cables that have ferrite beads on them. I have had no issues, ever, with cables (no matter how cheap/free) that have no ferrites attached.
I have taken the step of removing the ferrites from my (otherwise lovely and cheap) Monoprice cables using a knife (to cut the vinyl cover) and a hammer (to shatter the ferrite itself), which made things go from "works, usually, but not at all with some devices" to "works always," using the same cable. Other, non-Monoprice cables with ferrites also behaved similarly.
I have read similar reports both here on Slashdot and elsewhere about this issue.
Incidentally, what's the point of a digital audio out if the only thing that ever comes out of it is 2 channel stereo?
The point: My (rather nice) home theater system is still stereo, you insensitive clod. DVD recorders may only accept stereo PCM. The TOSLINK input on my Minidisc recorder only supports stereo PCM. Etc, so on, so forth...
That said, here's why it works that way:
Your TV is stereo, right? Two speakers, a stereo amplifier built into it somewhere, etc. So, it requests a stereo mix over HDMI from whatever source you're using, since that's the simplest approach. It's cheaper/easier/better this way for any typical installation (which, mind you, still does not include a separate audio system).
When you plug something into the digital output and turn off the TV's speakers, the same thing still happens: The TV still requests a stereo mix.
Why? Because it's cheaper/easier (and sometimes better) this way: To do it in any other fashion would require a new menu on the TV to select which audio formats you might be happy with, which takes work to put together along with more testing and troubleshooting and... And the inclusion of such a menu would give additional opportunities for the layperson to come up with configurations which only work sometimes, or when doing some things (which is far harder for layfolk to troubleshoot than a problem which breaks everything).
And for most clued folks with modern (or not so modern) home theater gear, it doesn't matter how this all works anyway, because they (like me) don't let their TVs handle any audio, ever. The video system does video, the audio system does audio.
like to use headphones when on the treadmill and to avoid disturbing others. My TV turns off the RCA audio outputs if an HDMI input is selected (like nobody can open the case and attach to the speakers, if they are bent on making a copy). A hearing impaired person needs to hit them with the ADA.
A guess:
You have your TV set to use the digital audio output (TOSLINK, most likely).
Stop doing that, and your stereo RCA outputs will work just fine.
Are you sure that you weren't just having one of the weird issues which HDCP and HDMI sometimes include?
I've got some nice, cheap Monoprice HDMI cables, with ferrite beads on them, here which only worked with some source devices: PS3 was generally OK. Xbox 360 was OK. Motorola STB was no-go. Uverse STB was temperamental. Sony Blu-Ray machine was no-go. Some of the failure modes would include strange color shifts (IIRC, green or sometimes purpose), or bad resolution selection, or just a black screen.
Frankly, I blamed the components: I blamed the TV, I blamed the STBs: I blamed everything but the cables, since the cables worked Just Fine(tm) with other gear. I then hooked stuff up with component video and moved on with life.
Sometime later I noticed if I used even cheaper (freebie) HDMI cables, things -always- worked fine. And that they didn't have any ferrites on them.
So, I cut the vinyl covering off of the ferrites on the Monoprice cables, and used a hammer to crush and eliminate the ferrite. They work fine now, no matter what gear is on each end.
It's not always a conspiracy. In my case, it was simply the fact that the ferrites were adding too much series inductance, and that removing this inductance from the circuit made things happy.
I know that it's fashionable to blame HDCP for everything (just as it used to be fashionable to blame "the computer" whenever anything went wrong with an early American car with electronic fuel injection), but geez dude: If you want your shit to work, you're going to have to put a little more effort into it than waving your hands around and shouting.
Slashdot Mirror
I've bought CFLs which were made for dimmer switches. It will be a long time before I buy more of them:
I bought them for my home office, where I usually prefer very dark (just-barely-able-to-navigate) lighting. I'd been using regular incandescent, but wanted something different and more efficient.
The "dimming" was strange, and useless. To put some rough numbers with my observations: They'd work fine at 100%, dim to perhaps 45%, and then turn off.
Further, they were slower to come up to full brightness than any other CFL that bought for years prior, and the colors were ugly.
I relegated them areas like the basement and the pantry. None of these areas have dimmer switches, and that's fine, because these (expensive!) "dimmable" CFLs aren't useful in applications where dimming is desirable.
True.
But the comment you're replying to wasn't talking about enclosed, opaque spaces: A bread proofing box (ever been to Subway?) is often fitted with a transparent door: Light (energy!) leaks out.
A small animal tank (I write this as I look over my shoulder, where a 75W incandescent UV bulb completely fails to illuminate a bearded dragon but does keep him reasonably toasty during what it thinks is night time) is not opaque, either. During the day, it's got a 150W incandescent along with a 13W CFL, both of which emit a rather strange spectrum, and much of which leaks out of the tank.
A lava lamp is certainly not opaque, but also emits light.
The world you speak of, wherein pulleys are frictionless, rope doesn't stretch, and incandescent lights used as heaters are always 100% efficient doesn't really exist.
(Unless you're just a Score:5 (Misdirection) strawman by intent, in which case you're still wrong.)
Strange.
I've noticed, over time, that every incandescent light I have connected to a dimmer switch has lasted almost forever. I moved into this house about 3 years ago, re-did a lot of the switching and wiring, installed incandescent fixtures with Lutron dimmers in the dining room, kitchen, office, and living room, and haven't replaced a bulb yet. And two of these are candelabras with 6 or 8 bulbs each, which should increase the chances of losing a bulb accordingly.
They get used (off, on, dimmed, etc) all the time.
The bulbs have lasted so long that my wife has actually taken them out, cleaned them, and reinstalled them.
Previous experiences at different places using different dimmers (including ratty X10 gear from way back when they were giving the stuff away) has been similar.
Perhaps there is a difference in dimmers -- it's certainly possible those I've used always start at zero crossing, whereas others may not. Or that they've got a soft turn-on function which is present but difficult for me to see with my eyes. (Alas, I lack the oscilloscope needed to find out, so it's just a theory...)
I'm not sure what to gather from your prose.
The first link, of three different LEDs, is certainly interesting. But I place no confidence in the results because the spectrums simply look smeared all to hell -- any peaks or dips in the spectrum will be squished to meaningless blur.
The second set of links is useless in regards to this complaint. You're focusing on color temperature, whereas the complaint was about peaky spectrum (ala the "monochromatic" observation).
I recently had to identify some wire colors, while patching back together some gear that the cat had eaten the cabling for. Under CFL, I could not tell what two of the colors were: They both appeared "white," which seemed very improbable.
Under LED (Luxeon Star flash light), one of the "white" colors appeared to be yellow instead, but my eyes still weren't quite convincing enough for me to complete the splice. And under incandescent, it was very plain that I was looking at both white and yellow. (I'm sure that sunlight would've been equally useful, but alas, it was dark outside.)
This is what folks complain about when they declare that they don't like the colors of modern lighting: It's not so much that things aren't colorful, but that the colors themselves are sometimes wrong.
I mean: I like your under-cabinet project, which looks very nice (and is something I might clone). I use CFLs where it doesn't matter, and I'm transitioning to LEDs in places where it makes sense to do so.
In the basement where all I do is thaw pipes, string Romex, mitigate floods, be terrified of spiders, and bang on the furnace? CFL. In the pantry where all I do is select canned goods? CFL. In the lamp by the front porch that has a daylight sensor? CFL, at least during the warmer months.
But in the dining room, where folks eat the food? It's incandescent. In the bathroom where my wife applies her face? Incandescent. On the porch when it's cold outside? Incandescent (a CFL never warms up to useful-light levels, and if I didn't want to light the outside of my home, I would de-install the fixture altogether). In the range hood, under which I cook food? Incandescent again -- I need to see what I'm doing, not guess at it.
My wife has a drawing room. It is lit with halogens, and will remain that way until the alternatives stop lying to me.
Wilshire in Westwood?
Just how small is your Slashdot?
I've seen the inside of a lot of police cars: I wire them up to do what they do, and have for years.
I've never been requested to integrate a radar (or other speed indicator) into a video system. Many video systems these days do have GPS, and will record the officer's speed plainly on the video, and some of them allow some manner of interconnection to another speed-measuring device, but again: I've never seen that. In fact, I've never even done much radar installation: Usually, the officer takes care of that himself by simply attaching the widget to the dashboard with velcro and plugging it into an available lighter socket.
Mind you, cars in Real Cities might be configured differently (I work with relatively small departments in my corner of Ohio). And I'm reasonably sure that I recall seeing radar data being displayed over video on some episode of COPS or similar at some point or another.
But the point is this: It's entirely likely that even if video of the stop does exist (and can be subpoenaed), that doesn't mean that any telemetry also exists.
It depends on the garage: My garage lamps, if I had a garage currently, would be used quite a bit since I would be spending a fair bit of time out there. Other folks, not so much: The garage might just be where they park their cars, and/or have some infrequently-accessed storage. Either way, "garage" by itself doesn't indicate much about the usage of the bulb, but only that the space it is installed in was at one point intended to park a car in.
And it depends on the bulb.
Perhaps some forward-thinking bloke, back in the day 40 years ago, installed a 130V lamp instead of a 120V, which is a common "trick" for areas with bulbs that are difficult to replace or where safety is more important than efficiency. Or perhaps its particular tungsten filament just has an unusually high impedance.
The oldest known, continuously-lit light bulb is currently about 109 years old, and still doing fine.
For one to last 40 years is impressive, but is really no more impressive than a 40-year-old Ford that still runs fine with minimal maintenance: It's unusual, but there were so many of the things made that it is a statistical certainty that some of them will last a lot (decades, at least) longer than others.
In other news, I've got an old 15-year-old hard drive that still works fine. Is it remarkable? Perhaps. Is it an indication of forgotten manufacturing prowess? I doubt it -- this particular device was just lucky. Most others failed a long time ago.
Try it sometime with a deaf cat: First, you have to get the cat's attention (which is harder than it should be). Then, you have to signal it with hand movements. Then it ignores you (it is a cat, after all), and there is at least one iteration of rinse/repeat before compliance happens.
That said, I talk to my deaf cat all the time (even though I'm very aware that it will never, ever hear me) and don't feel the slightest bit weird in doing so, but I feel very silly talking to a computer -- no matter how advanced the speech recognition.
Perhaps some of it is upbringing: I've always had pets around that would variously respond to voice commands (except for this most recent cat), and I'm just young enough to not remember a time when there wasn't a household computer around (even if it was a TRS-80). Talking to a cat has always made sense, just as typing to a computer always has.
The rest of us Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000/(98? 95?) users have grown accustomed to just using the following sequence: Windows+R, "cmd", enter.
No mouse required.
Back on topic: I feel very strange when I talk to my Droid, especially when there's people around. Its speech recognition is quite good -- the best I've ever used -- and it is adequate to fire off a quick SMS while doing other things, or to search the Intarwebs, and it is generally faster than entering the same text with its physical or on-screen keyboard (including Swype).
Despite the fact that it generally works Just Fine, I seldom use it simply because of the fact that it feels awkward.
With Windows 7 (and probably Vista) start menu, there is a little arrow to the right of the Steam client in the most-opened program list.
And when I click or hover on that arrow, a menu of frequently-played Steam titles folds out, right there in the start menu. Launching Fallout:NV with Steam takes exactly two clicks for me using this method.
I can also pin the Steam client to the taskbar, and then right-click on it to bring up the same thing.
I guess this isn't technically playing nice with the start menu, though I personally think it's better.
Back to the original topic: If I were to add WoW to Steam's list, I presume that it would also show up in the same Steam menu (despite not being a proper Steam title), which might be useful in that all oft-played games would show up in the same place.
Naah. They'll reply with "a bunch of brown trucks," since "package delivery company" has too high of a syllable-to-word ratio for layfolk to be able to conjure such parlance.
A little bit of power is easy.
I've got a decent-sized UPS powering my home office. When the power dips, I shut down the computers and kill the UPS. This leaves a lot of clean 120V of power available for whatever small task(s). I used it a couple of days ago when the transformer feeding my house blew up from ice buildup, and it kept about 500W of gear alive for about 10 minutes, depleting the battery to only about 85% -- I'm too lazy to do the math, but that obviously means lots of charging small electronics and placing POTS calls.
I don't have a regular phone anymore, but the last time I did it was with AT&T Uverse. Uverse provides its own battery backup, which seems to be good for a day or so of use (keeping the router, wifi, and telephone ports working, along with a 4-port switch).
Meanwhile, my old Panasonic cordless phone has its own battery backup. It's a simple little DC-powered battery pack, which (AFAICT) has no or nearly no electronics. I picked it up from some online Panasonic parts supplier, and it was cheap. I've never seen a similar item for sale retail, which is unfortunate, since everyone who wants to rely on POTS and has a cordless phone should have such a thing.
Any of these things can be used sparingly, turned off when not needed, and easily last through whatever sort of event.
I've got a few old (but digital) cell phones, too, from various carriers. (CDMA. I probably should pick up a PCS and/or GSM handset at some point.)
And if all that fails: I've got a small, ratty inverter that I can power from any of the three working vehicles outside. It's a bit of wear-and-tear to keep a gas-powered car engine idling long-term, but if it looks like it'll be a Long, Long Time I'm handy enough to fudge the idle speed up a bit to keep the oil pressure high and the coolant flowing well. (The ratty nature of the inverter is important, too: By completely failing to actually emulate a proper sine wave, it's quite efficient compared to the UPS mentioned above, while perfectly capable of driving switch-mode power supplies.)
And if I can't get outside: I'll get outside anyway. I keep a digging shovel, a chainsaw, a big hammer, a good pry bar, and a combination Mattock pick in the house. (In the basement, actually: If a tornado ever levels this place around me, I want to be prepared to liberate myself, but it's also a simple practical matter in that I must keep them somewhere.)
And if everything really, really fails: I've got an Icom VHF portable radio with a good battery, programmed with the local radio club's repeater, along with some local public safety bands and the private ambulance operator just down the road from here, which I can charge from either 12VDC or 120VAC. I'm not licensed to talk on any of these frequencies, but I genuinely don't believe that it will matter: If things turn horrible and I absolutely require assistance after Verizon kills the 911 trunks, I will be able to summon help.
Most of this is just stuff that I'd have around anyway (UPS for clean power, inverter for convenience, shovel/pick/chainsaw for yard work, VHF portable for work, etc). I think that if folks can't figure out how to communicate, that they must be doing something wrong.
Yep. It is silly. Though, in times past (before DACs were worth a shit in common residential gear), I've been known to use an external DAC with stereo sources. (These widgets are rather rare on today's new equipment market, since "everyone" has a surround receiver that can accept S/PDIF.)
Meanwhile, some of these "simple" stereo receivers are digital inside. Common home stereo is dead at the moment -- at least in sales -- but modern car stereos fit squarely into this space, too: Everything's done digitally internally because it's cheaper, better and simpler, but all of the IO is analog just because it's cheaper. (For example: I want to use Bluetooth to try to get better sound out of my Droid while traveling, since that's likely the best output mode it has. But the Bluetooth adapters for my Pioneer head(s) all have analog outputs to match the head's analog inputs. Meanwhile the head itself is digital internally. Extraneous analog stages, FTW.)
The live sound sector is worse: There's a shit-ton of gear these days, from mixers to crossovers to amplifiers which are digital inside at one stage or another, but the interconnects are analog. Extra AD/DA stages are always silly.
My TV does have an analog output for audio, which I guess I do use for the singular OTA ATSC channel that I get.
My main gripe right now is that I might like to add surround to my already good stereo, which I've built with separates over the last 15 or 20 years. I'd like to find a decently-priced receiver which has a full array of pre-amp outputs so that it plays nice with the gear I've already got. This would soften the upgrade cost while allowing me to keep the existing (and wonderful) amplifiers that I already have, and allow me the option to upgrade the center/surround/side/whatever channels later. AFAICT, such a feature doesn't exist outside of spending Real Money for a receiver with more bells, whistles and amplifiers than I care to buy.
Add the current moving-target nature of HDMI, and the fact that such a receiver really wants to live right in the middle of the video path these days, and the result is that whatever I'd buy today will turn into a timebomb tomorrow. So I guess I'm stuck with a good stereo for now until things settle out, or I commit myself to "renting" receivers from Ebay.
I've seen similar message from my Uverse box when I had that service. It was cabling-related. Sorry that I failed to mention it among the complete array of other issues that I listed which were also caused by cabling issues.
Meanwhile: Which part of basic fucking troubleshooting don't you get?
Go work out in your home gym without your fancy-pants TV. I could, frankly, give a shit less. (I did give a shit. But then, you showed me that you're impossible to help. I suspect you probably trade your cars in when they run out of gas, too, because you can't be bothered to learn how to work the filler door.)
Fuck you, buddy - I was trying to help. Now I hope your house burns down, so that when you rebuild you can actually install some structured cabling and quit bothering everyone with your paranoid bullshit (Oh noes! The HDCP cops won't let me use wireless!!@@!).
You presume a lot about me, and my intent.
I mean only what I write.
And I maintain that if a merchant wants to accept credit cards, then they must follow the rules.
Just as a cardholder who wishes to use credit cards must follow the rules.
And a bank which services a merchant account must follow the rules.
And a bank which issues the credit cards must follow the rules.
And so on.
Being a merchant doesn't make them special. Even if they don't like the rules.
There's a lot of rules in life, business, and law that I don't like, but I don't expect that I'll be able to get away with ignoring them just because I don't like them.
I'm confused.
Are you saying that you did try doing things differently, that you did not try to do things differently, or that you're still just thinking with your fists?
I'm unmodding by posting this.
Please remember that this is Michigan, which is the same state that took one hundred and five years to eliminate a law that prohibited using foul language in the presence of women and children -- a law that stood on the books until 2002. A law under which a man was successfully convicted after the canoe he was traveling in hit a rock and dumped him (and presumably, his stuff) into the drink, producing the sort of surprise and inconvenience that I think would cause most people to get awfully profane for a few minutes as they swim around trying to gather their shit up (or more likely, get their "fucking shit" out of the "goddamned water," after having the "fucking boat" hit a "motherfucking piece-of-shit dick-taking rock," perhaps with repeated nonsensical utterances about the "fucking asshole thing").
At least in the case of the cussing canoeist, sanity eventually prevailed. Unfortunately, it took about four years for this to happen, between citation and dismissal.
My dad doesn't cuss. Ever. He certainly knows how, as his vocabulary is very prolific. But I've heard him do it twice: Once, when a large limb he was cutting out of a tree nearly fell (variously) on the neighbor's pool, the overhead power lines, or my house -- just before it tried to kill him (it failed). The other time was after we had unexpectedly exited a canoe on the Mohican. :)
Oh.
I guess, as hinted at before by someone else, that you live in a small world.
I do, too. I've only got a half-dozen folks around me that I consider close enough to be "friends."
Two of them have PS3s, and both use them to watch Blu-Ray movies.
*shrug*
Yes, of course. Everything's a conspiracy, isn't it? Everyone has an agenda to push. Everyone is a fan of something, and therefore an enemy of some other thing.
My world is far more grey than that. And I could frankly give a shit less which mobile OS wins: In fact, my grey attitude is that I'd prefer that none of them do, so that we continue to have competition and innovation instead of stagnation, which should be good for everyone.
I have a hard time believing that all the great unwashed masses that thought VHS over a composite cable was fine
VHS over a composite cable is fine: VHS is recorded as composite video on the tape. There is nothing to be gained by transmitting the resultant signal in any other way.
SVHS, meanwhile, does keep the Y/C signals separate on the tape. Avoiding composite video with SVHS is always a good idea whenever quality is a concern.
I know it sounds like a dumb idea, but:
Try a different cable.
I sometimes have the same sorts of issues on my Samsung when using cables that have ferrite beads on them. I have had no issues, ever, with cables (no matter how cheap/free) that have no ferrites attached.
I have taken the step of removing the ferrites from my (otherwise lovely and cheap) Monoprice cables using a knife (to cut the vinyl cover) and a hammer (to shatter the ferrite itself), which made things go from "works, usually, but not at all with some devices" to "works always," using the same cable. Other, non-Monoprice cables with ferrites also behaved similarly.
I have read similar reports both here on Slashdot and elsewhere about this issue.
The point: My (rather nice) home theater system is still stereo, you insensitive clod. DVD recorders may only accept stereo PCM. The TOSLINK input on my Minidisc recorder only supports stereo PCM. Etc, so on, so forth...
That said, here's why it works that way:
Your TV is stereo, right? Two speakers, a stereo amplifier built into it somewhere, etc. So, it requests a stereo mix over HDMI from whatever source you're using, since that's the simplest approach. It's cheaper/easier/better this way for any typical installation (which, mind you, still does not include a separate audio system).
When you plug something into the digital output and turn off the TV's speakers, the same thing still happens: The TV still requests a stereo mix.
Why? Because it's cheaper/easier (and sometimes better) this way: To do it in any other fashion would require a new menu on the TV to select which audio formats you might be happy with, which takes work to put together along with more testing and troubleshooting and... And the inclusion of such a menu would give additional opportunities for the layperson to come up with configurations which only work sometimes, or when doing some things (which is far harder for layfolk to troubleshoot than a problem which breaks everything).
And for most clued folks with modern (or not so modern) home theater gear, it doesn't matter how this all works anyway, because they (like me) don't let their TVs handle any audio, ever. The video system does video, the audio system does audio.
*shrug*
That said, the reviews for this fairly inexpensive device seem to indicate that it will solve your problem.
A guess:
You have your TV set to use the digital audio output (TOSLINK, most likely).
Stop doing that, and your stereo RCA outputs will work just fine.
Are you sure that you weren't just having one of the weird issues which HDCP and HDMI sometimes include?
I've got some nice, cheap Monoprice HDMI cables, with ferrite beads on them, here which only worked with some source devices: PS3 was generally OK. Xbox 360 was OK. Motorola STB was no-go. Uverse STB was temperamental. Sony Blu-Ray machine was no-go. Some of the failure modes would include strange color shifts (IIRC, green or sometimes purpose), or bad resolution selection, or just a black screen.
Frankly, I blamed the components: I blamed the TV, I blamed the STBs: I blamed everything but the cables, since the cables worked Just Fine(tm) with other gear. I then hooked stuff up with component video and moved on with life.
Sometime later I noticed if I used even cheaper (freebie) HDMI cables, things -always- worked fine. And that they didn't have any ferrites on them.
So, I cut the vinyl covering off of the ferrites on the Monoprice cables, and used a hammer to crush and eliminate the ferrite. They work fine now, no matter what gear is on each end.
It's not always a conspiracy. In my case, it was simply the fact that the ferrites were adding too much series inductance, and that removing this inductance from the circuit made things happy.
I know that it's fashionable to blame HDCP for everything (just as it used to be fashionable to blame "the computer" whenever anything went wrong with an early American car with electronic fuel injection), but geez dude: If you want your shit to work, you're going to have to put a little more effort into it than waving your hands around and shouting.
I own two PS3s.
So: You're now aware of at least this much. And you know who I am (adolf, #21054).