For starters, most "low-end" consumer electronics are not covered by what I would consider to be a long or extensive warranty, so this should come as no surprise to him that the warranty was already expired. Most of these devices are made to be disposable and/or have a fairly limited life span.
This logic is faulty. Phillips and KDS both offered monitors for dirt cheap prices, and both offered decent warranties. I've had get a ton of them replaced, so it is true they were crap, but they were crap that were replaced for free. The sub $50 DVD players that I bought not only had 1 year warrantees, but have outlasted their more costly Sony counterparts. While some are 1 year parts 90 days labor, many are not.
An X-box is an X-box, a Microsoft(tm) product. They cost what they cost. There is no cheap knock-off version of the X-box (that I'm aware). It's not unreasonable for a product you spend hundreds of dollars on to last more than a year. If your consumer grade sub $50 made in China outlasts an X-box, there is a problem.
To be blunt: expecting things to be cheap, always work, and be of high overall quality is just not realistic. There has to be a balance in the equation and for game consoles, price is what sells.
That's the thing. If you have a choice between two DVD players, and you go for the cheaper one and it breaks, I'd agree with you somewhat. The end user has no control over what Microsoft puts in the X-box. The end user has no option to buy a good x-box or a cheap bad x-box. They can only buy an X-box. It's Microsoft's job to find their own balance between price and quality of materials. If the X-box fails on a regular basis under 12 months, they are selling a defective product. It's that simple.
I beg to differ. When I was 14, I spilled coffee straight from a home-use (UL Listed) Mr. Coffee coffee machine... and got 2nd degree burns, blisters, and much pain. So you're entirely wrong when asserting that 'typical coffee' won't cause serious burns. I'd say that a Mr. Coffee coffee pot constitutes the De Facto typical cup of coffee, wouldn't you?
I wouldn't call Mr. Coffee de facto coffee. I'd call it horrible burnt coffee my self. But I'm willing to believe you got 2nd degree burns from an entire pot of Mr. Coffee. Your Mr. Coffee pot is very large and as a result would expose your skin to a hotter temp longer than a 12/16oz mug of coffee. But you didn't require 7 days in the hospital, skin grafts, or anything along those lines. In other words, the skin did not melt off your body.
Now, I could have (in theory) sued over the temperature controls, but I was raised to have a healthy respect for personal responsibility, and I understand that accidents happen.
This is reasonable, I agree. You spilt a pot of coffee on your self and got a 2nd degree burn. This was a pot, and this was hot liquid. But the skin did not melt off your body.
How many other people got 3rd degree burns from McDonald's coffee? Was there a trend? If it was an isolated incident, you would be damn hard pressed to prove negligence
Stella Lieback didn't seem to have a problem proving negligence. I'm not aware of how many other people got 3rd degree burns. But read here.
The skin melted off her body in less than 3 seconds because McDonalds served their coffee at 200+ degrees. McDonalds was perfectly aware of the problem but refused to address the issue. I am personaly unaware of anyone else who had their skin melted off because of McDonalds coffee. But considering 200+ degrees, i'd wager it was a trend.
First degree burns, normal. Second degree burns, perhaps. Third degree burns, negligence.
Good grief! YES IT IS! Get this: hot coffee is not safe to spill on your groin! Twas always thus, and always it will be!
Spilling coffee in your groin should cause the same amount of damage as a mild sunburn.
There's a principle called assumption of risk
Yes, drinking hot coffee you assume the risk equivalent of being on a beach in the buff in the summer at high noon for an hour or so. You *might* get a 1st degree burn from it but this is considered to be an acceptable risk if you want to get a tan. This there is no question. But you don't assume there would be any risk of your skin melting off.
Mcdonald's solution? Brew hotter coffee. Why? Because the customer reqested it.
It is unfortunate that the lady spilled hot coffee in her lap. It is unfortunate that people accidentally injure themselves when they use knives, guns, or pencils.
But it's an accepted risk of life. Don't want to risk it? Don't drink coffee.
Coffee is typically served at 180 degrees or so. This is hot. McDonald's coffee was served 200+ degrees. This is boiling or really close to it.
Spilling typical coffee on your lap is going to hurt for a moment, and at worse you'll get a 1st degree burn i.e. sun burn. This is an accepted risk of drinking a hot beverage.
Spilling boiling water in your lap is not only going to hurt, but at the very least will cause pain and blisters, i.e. 2nd degree burns. It may also cause skin loss and nerve damage, i.e. 3rd degree burns.
McDonalds made it a choice to serve their coffee at such an amazingly hot temperature that it caused 3rd degree burns in many cases. While they did this at *some* customers request, they neglected to tell everyone about it. My first experience with their coffee was awful, only a little bit caused my tongue to blister. They just laughed and said "oh, our coffee is too hot to drink, it's so it's still warm when you go into work." This was negligent.
Knives and guns are weapons which are known cause harm. Pencils are known to be sharp and cause harm. Oysters sometimes contain pearls and olives sometimes have pits both can chip a tooth. Coffee isn't typically used as a deadly weapon and spilling coffee does not typically result in so much damage that you need skin grafts. McDonalds in short fucked up.
I actually have a couple dells, 6 and 8 years old, still running on all the original hardware... Now, a Dell from 2-3 years ago is probably not running anymore unless the person got the extended warranty, since Dell's quality went to shit in the past 4 years.
The key difference between a dell from 6-8 years ago and a dell from 2-3 years ago is the use of proprietary power supply connectors and often proprietary NTX cases with riser cards was very common. This being said, if your 6+ year old Dell died, it's likely you can't drop in a standard motherboard or power supply. But for the most part, this isn't necessary so long as you are happy with a socket 5/7 class system. But this was a non-issue for them because the average user isn't going to upgrade their system above and beyond more memory. Let's face it, paying someone to do it isn't worth it. I have one Dimension XPS p166 that I upgraded with an Asus p3v4x motherboard and standard power supply. The old motherboard was retired simply because 166 MHz wasn't cutting the mustard anymore, but the motherboard and memory are still as solid as the day it was built. I know many people with vintage Dells. They are business surplus, sold for dirt cheap, and are damned reliable beasts.
A Dell under 3 years old, as far as I'm aware, is going to have a ATX power supply and ATX / Micro-ATX case where off the self replacements are possible.
I'll agree that Dell quality has fallen in the past few years. Let's face it, they are offering systems for a base price of $300 after rebates. After CPU, Drives, OEM licenses it doesn't leave much money invested in the core system. While they work, you notice bizzaro hard to diagnose problems, like a 56k that works pretty well in another box won't connect above 28.8 in the Dell unless you swap out the power supply. But what do you expect for $300.00?
I agree, in fact it irks me to no end the fact that when you go in the store to buy a printer, they don't include the required cable. Funny rule of thumb, modems come with both ethernet and usb cables, but printers simply do not.
There are many older lasers out there that either take refurbished cartridges, or will take raw toner. You have your choice to either buy the official toner which tends to be pretty cheap, or buy something similar but for a photocopier which might be even cheaper. Sure you have to replace the drum and developer from time to time, but it's in my minds eye worth it in the long run to keep my cost of consumables down.
Even if you have an old clunker like an HP laserjet II you can find those cartridges refurbished for under $50/each. Even at $100/each per 3000 pages this works out to be less than your typical ink jet. I still use inkjet, but for printing bulk text I go laser. Even at only 300DPI it's crisp, clear, and easy to read.
Look, a sub $101 computer isn't rocket science. There are landfills full of say 500Mhz and below machines...
The problem isn't finding sub $101 computers; the problem is selling them in large enough quantities to satisfy nations the size of India and Russia, and selling them preloaded with Microsoft software. Now... can this be done with landfill junk? My gut says this would be difficult simple because the cost of labor would shoot up.
What the hell does everyone need a 1Ghz or 2Ghz spec'd machine for? It produces tons of heat, typically noise too and eats up tons of electric with that huge power supply you all want..
Well... the funny thing about 1-2Ghz CPUs is they are currently in mass production and can be had for under $50/unit, less for quantity. Chipsets that support these chips are made in quantity and can be had for equality as cheaply. Memory for these chipsets are made in quantity. To make anything less would require the chip manufactures to retool. It might be worth it if the cost of production actually goes down, but chances are it would likely be more cost effective to just continue making the same chip for 3+ years, and just charge less for it till it reaches rock bottom price.
This I appricate much more than the parent post. The CPU sucks, but the motherboard is using an Ali Aladdin V. Far less fickle than intel chipsets about memory. I don't know if it will do 8X64 but I suspect that it's bloody likely.
You'll need ide cables and a power supply, I might reccomend that you just go with an ATX case, assuming microatx screws are identical. Too lazy to verify shipping charges... at least starmicro does offer free ups ground.
Other than that... good job!
Re:Labor (huh?) shipping (duh.) memory (hmm)
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How Cheap Can A PC Be?
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· Score: 2, Informative
Shipping was included, as I noted in my first post
Shipping was not included in most cases. I checked price watch to the best of my ability. Yes, many of the page one links "said" free shipping on pricewatch, but you go to the links pricewatch provides and it's clear that you get charged for either shipping, handeling, misc packing, or any of these in combination.
It's my belief that you didn't follow through and actually checked the websites like I did and actually saw the misc shipping charges. Your $112 estimate was in error. The parts you listed would cost $157.99 to get to your door, and the ram wouldn't work anyway. For that motherboard to work you're going to need to spend $80 per 256meg stick. Unless you can find a cheap source of low density ram that works with the i810 chipset.
If you're still not understanding what i'm saying... using your parts and ram that would work, we're looking at $177 for that machine with 256 megs machine or $257.99 for that machine with 512 megs. Not including the $20 for 20gb and ($12 DVDROM). $209 and 289.99 respectivly. If we are still not clear... page one price watch memory won't work in a i810 chipset.
Now, you did take the time to look for some crap, and I commend you for that. Please understand me when i'm telling you keeping within budget of $100 or even close, you are going to have to ditch the idea of socket 370 and intel chipsets. To keep costs low from the get go, you're better off looking at an AMD athlon / duron as ddr memroy is not only dirt cheap but is bloody likely to work.
I opted for the slower processor and tried to balance it out with more RAM
You opted for a motherboard with a i810 chipset that requires expensive ram. Now if this is the route you want to take, you might consider a VIA chipset. A VIA chipset is far more likely to beable to use dimms with x*4bit chips onboard.
You took the other approach and added more than $100 to the process
I don't know where you get $100 from, I was trying to illistrate that the dirt cheap PCs are going to be fast celerons, or low end AMD Athlons/Durons.
What imay be unaccpetable for you might be for him
It's unacceptable for a machine to NOT TO WORK. Your machine as configured either won't post, or will only see 1/4 of the memory you put onboard if you are lucky. Chances are the i810 motherboard will not post!!!
A bit of advice to you- Don't read between the lines so much. Oh, and pay a bit more attention to the story and its replies.
I understand you must have worked very hard browsing pricewatch to put together a system list. I can see why your feelings might be hurt. But that doesn't change the fact that those companies who say free shipping on price watch lie like dogs, and you picked a motherboard that would cost so much in terms of memory that you'd be better off buying a dell. If you really really really take your self seriously, I reccomend you re-evaluate your game plan. As in, if you want to keep costs as low as they can be, try looking for chipsets that will take cheap memory.
Again, if we are unclear... i810 won't take page one price watch memory. Use of the i810 chipset will double or tripple your estimate. Page one companies lie about shipping charges. Your machine would cost as much as a new dell as configured. To lower costs, pick a chipset that can deal with the flood of cheap memory that's on the market. {as a side note, sometimes it's cheaper to buy a pair of 256meg dimms for intel chipsets and have them be seen as being only 128megs, then buying one low density 128meg dimm).
What you did was cool, I welcome you to redo the assignment, would be great with more follow through.
Thank you for your time and have an insperational day.
Labor.... shipping.... compatable memory
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How Cheap Can A PC Be?
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· Score: 2, Informative
Problems with your estimate in order
1. Will that memory work on a i810e chipset? Crucial lists only 256meg simms being as low as $79.99 per 256meg pc133. Other sites reccomends "8x8, 16x8 DRAM Chips Only" Chances are you won't find this in your grab bag. 2. Does this actually include shipping, just because pricewatch says it does doesn't mean it is so. Notice the little "NEW. BUY 1 FOR $4.63" for your NIC. I also notice that they "reccomend" double package protection for $1.99. They also have a 99cent handeling fee. In other words $4.99
$31.07 CPU $22 + $9.07 {www.arsenalpc.com} $24.95 motherboard {justdeals.com} $158.00 2-256mb low density pc100 (2*$79) www.1stchoicememory.com $4.99 NIC (www.shopampm.com) $29.99 compusa ATX case in store + tax $8.99 sync/fan $2.00+$6.99 --- Grand total=257.99 Without taking the memory into account (2 sticks your price) $157.99 *hard drive not included* *keyboard/mouse/speakers not included* *cd-rom not included*
Bit of advice to ya. When trying to save money, keep in mind that legacy machines sometimes need legacy parts. In your case the cost of the ram for your machine is equal to the cost of a replacement machine. That is simply unacceptable. Chances are if you go with something that will take slow pc-2100 DDR memory you're going to save a hell of alot more money than you ever would going with anything that takes pc100/pc133.
But now we can download songs? Well! That's something new and useless. Why would I want to do that when I could 1) do it at home more easily or 2) do it at a record store with more selection?
I think that's rather the point. Because of mobile phones it seems like the phone booth is less nessicary than it once was. I have to admit, the reason I got a mobile again is simply because because i'm not seeing as many public telephones as i'd like. So why the hell not offer a useful service from these places that are otherwise not as profitable as they once were.
So why the hell not offer some form of useful service. The street locations are already alocated, they have power and phone lines attached to them, why not let them do something. Not nessicarly offering.mp3s for a fee but anything will do, like wifi access just for example. Anything really to justify their existance if for nothing else but 911 access.
Public telephones... more than just for drug dealing.
Those old-style VHF/UHF tuning knobs were *expensive* because of the number of physical contacts within the switch. Buttons are a heck of a lot cheaper and TV manufacturers switched to the cheaper solution as soon as the tuning circuitry allowed them to. (Not because round knobs were "in fashion".)
Would this be more or less expensive than a sliding switch. I remember early in the days of cable the converter boxes employed the use of 30+ segmented switch, where each contact was wired up to a small pot on the inside of the box. You could adjust each pot to any channel whether it be in the VHF range or CATV range.
There was a barrier to just using a pot for the TV turner for channels 2-13, at least in America. There is a large gap between channels 6 & 7. Freq list at end of post.
Why go with a segmented switch when just a pot would do? Well there would be a blank spot of 92mhz when all you need is a range of 78mhz. Assuming an average of 6.5mhz (Should be 6mhz, but the numbers don't have a consistent gap) it would create a dial that is 1/2 useless. This would look sloppy.
Why not go with a TV with dials, one dial 2-6, another for 7-13, and the last one for UHF 14-83 (before it was realocated). That's a good question. I know this is how analog radios that tune in TV work.
To me it seems going with a single segmented dial was a fashion choice rather than a cost choice.
We went from knobs that were attatched to our televisions to buttons that evolved by having remotes and such.
Part of the reason that buttons on TVs became attractive is because it reduced the overall foot print of the TV. I have one 19 inch TV circa mid 80s that measures 25inches across, and one 27 inch tv that measures 24 inches cross, the key diffrence is the 19 inch has the old style turnknob and the 27 inch has but a handfull of buttons. More picture but smaller footprint, it's a good tradeoff, so long as you don't loose the remote control.
But who in this day and age would want to flip through the 100+ channels available on cable TV? Those who remember tuning in UHF might remember this noice *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK*! This would be far too impractical, but at the same time round volume controls are back in fashion. Unlike buttons they allow us to choose how fast we turn the knob, and we can remember there and abouts how far to turn to get at the right loudness level. I don't consider this to be de-evolution at all because the controls are often digital rather than an old style pot the likes of which gets cloged up with dust and dirt and becomes scratchy over time, but rather an evolution of what works and bringing to forth to the next level. Besides it's a hell of alot easier to spot the volume control if it's a knob rather than buttons.
Sure... you can live like a hermit in a little shack in the mountains, plug both fingers in your ears, and say "nah nah nah nah nah nah". Never the less, this is considered by many to not be a viable solution. If we are talking a resturant, or a bar, i'd agree you have a choice to go elsewhere. But captive advertising, captive AV media, that's another ball of wax.
I don't think this is at all extreme over a few TVs. In fact I have total empathy for people who experence information overload. Imagine having to listen to John Denver's Greatest Hits volume 2 over and over again while waiting for your bus/train/plane. Imagine if 5 people had big boomboxes all playing a diffrent song from John Denver's Greatest hits volume 2. Now imagine 20. "Lady are you crying...Think God I'm a Country boy...the things that you show us the story you tell". Would this not give you a headache, would this not cause you pain, would this not cause you to vomit? These people are not weirdos, nor in need for a therapist, but rather human beings. If you think otherwise i'll stick you in a waiting room with John Denver's greatest hits volume 2.
Chances are the people who take exception to this are being hit by so much audio video information that it's causing them distress. Why do you think they offer headphones on flights?
To this end I would support the following solutions.
1. CNN at airports with subtitles on. 2. CNN at airports with the audio broadast over radio. Little vending machines that offer radios. 3. An enclosed area with CNN that you could choose to go in to catch the news.
For people like me, they can keep in touch with world events, weather, some really important things when traveling. For others, they don't have to put up with the crap I happen to be watching. This is exactly what one expects on a flight, and it's not unreasonable to expect this before a flight.
My radio is better cause it has more transistors!
on
Transistor Radio Turns 50
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Tom Watson that he provided a $49.95 (roughly $345 in current dollars!), four transistor TR-1 to each of his senior managers to kick-start the company's transition from valves."
I wish I had specific references of this, but it was a practice by some portable radio manufacturers to add extra transistors just so they could market as being a *12 transistor* radio. I've seen a couple of these where they only used two poles directly from the battery i.e. as diodes. I've seen one case where they just added extra ones before the speaker which did reduce over all sound quality. Sorta like they added an extra unnessicary smoke stack to the Titanic, cause more is better.
Back when doom1 was released, everyone and their dog had 14.4 or at least 9.6k modems. Which means that you spend 3 months to reduce the downloadtime about half a minute. WHOA.
Not everyone and their dog had 14.4k modems in 1993. Lots of people I knew upgraded and gave away their worthless 2400bps modems to people who couldn't quite afford the $100 to $300 for a "high speed" modem, or couldn't justify the expence to experence text. The sole reason I upgraded was I was networking a BBS long distance, and served very well to cut my long distance costs. The vast majority of my users were 2400bps, the vast majority of them using modems I gave them.
It's hard to say when everyone and their dog got 14.4k+ modems... but i'd say off the top of my head that this was post win95, when Compu$erve and AOL actually started offering something resembling internet access and flat rates, and the cost these modems dropped under $100/pop.
The number of monitors a Mac II (or any computer) can drive is only affected by the number of video cards in it. My G4 can drive 4 unique monitors and TV mirrors of 2 of them.
Ever try dual display on a pre-win9x box? The only way you could do it was with one color(CGA/EGA/VGA) card and one monochrome(herc) card. Two color cards would try to use the same space in the small 384k window, but because Mono and color cards used different locations they could co-exist.
This config wasn't really supported. You could use mode mono to switch to the monochrome, and mode co80 to switch to the color one. The mono was pretty much limited to dos. I admit, I found it useful for displaying a dos terminal full screen while I did something diffrent.
Mac was on the ball and actually supported multi-displays before Microsoft did. But IIRC correctly early version of MacOS were limited to 4 monitors due to their use of positive and negative coordinates. I don't know if this is still true.
The reason those women won't give you a handjob is because you drink 1/2 gal milk a day. Try hitting the treadmill and it might happen if you ask your sister
Wow, 720 calories (non-fat) has that much impact on my life?
Hit the treadmill? That would suck. I'd have to bump up to 1 gal 2% milk (or 1/2 gal ice cream 1/2 pound nonfat), 2 pounds of yogurt, 1 pound of nuts, use add soy protein to my bread, couple baked potatos, basicly increase chloric intake from about 3500 / 4000 day to 7000 / 8000+ a day.
(Sadly, I *was* fixing DHCP last night... but I have a baby boy, and can't go out anyways...)
Your baby boy handles DHCP? I try to assign children IP address but they can't be bothered to remember even the most simple of subnets. They all drop packets too, and where the hell do you put the RJ-45 jack?
It's sorta interesting to see how amazingly complex they make the act of buying a jug of milk. At present my local supermarket sells milk at about $4.00/gal. I also know the same milk is almost always onsale in the coupon book for 1/2 the price. I drink 1/2 gal daily and I easily save $300+ yearly. I hit the website before I hit the store and print off a coupon that won't scan (stupid jpg) and write a little note "web coupons don't scan blame them". Coupons are a total waste of time for both the consumer and the retailer. I only look for that milk coupon, I don't bother checking for anything else. However a Trader Joes will be opening near me, and they sell milk consistently for just slightly over $2.00/gal. Guess where I'll be buying my milk.
Now we have this smart-cart which I admit sounds like it has some nice features to it, but it mostly seems like a device designed to waste my time. I imagine this is no diffrent than any other medium, offing some great reward for taking the time to look at their crap. It would be nice if more stores would simply respect what consumers like my self want, which is to just freaking go in and buy stuff without any complex games with the prices.
Give me Trader Joes, give me Costco. Don't give me loyalty cards, don't give me targeted demographics, or captive advertising. Screw the marketing think tanks who's sole purpose in life is to convience me buying a coke will get women I hardly even know to give me a handjob.
A couple KFCs in my city have been busted for cooking and selling green chicken to customers. Ick. No Thanks.
Then by all means go buy anything, go in ask for a lid. Cut lid to the correct size and write in polite terms, "While I did not buy your product due to recently sited health code violations, I would like to take this time to say thank you for sponsoring Farscape". Or heck, pay the extra 12cents or so and mail them the lid.
Time factor. Take into account that parents are going to be an age where vinyl and tapes were ever so popular. A typical album is typicaly about 45min or so IIRC and should be played in real time if converting it to another format. Let's say there 50 albums in the collection... that would be about 40hours and flipping sides 100 times.
Not to say this wouldn't be a worth while project, but also a very time consuming one.
This is going to be the only time in my life that I'm ever going to buy a product based on what they sponcer. I have full plans on sunday to buy a bucket of chicken, cut it into post cards, and send a note to KFC thanking them for sponcering the mini series. This isn't my idea but never the less it's a good one.
I would reccomend that anyone else do the same and send little postcards made from KFC buckets to the following addresses:
Melanie Dyer
Associate Media Manager Kentucky Fried Chicken 1441 Gardiner Lane Louisville, KY 40213
John Gilbert Chief Marketing Officer Kentucky Fried Chicken 1441 Gardiner Lane Louisville, KY 40213
If your a vegitarian... get potatos. It's time to get off our ez chairs and do something about this flood of reality TV and make it clear to the sponcers what we want them to support.
Wait a second... why would you want a more rugged casing on a drive that's in a machine bolted to a rack in a machine room somewhere than you do in a machine you're walking around with all day? Isn't that a bit counterintuitive?
Why?
Fire Earthquake Flood Tornado Hurricane Tsu nami *Incompetent techs* "whoops"
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For starters, most "low-end" consumer electronics are not covered by what I would consider to be a long or extensive warranty, so this should come as no surprise to him that the warranty was already expired. Most of these devices are made to be disposable and/or have a fairly limited life span.
This logic is faulty. Phillips and KDS both offered monitors for dirt cheap prices, and both offered decent warranties. I've had get a ton of them replaced, so it is true they were crap, but they were crap that were replaced for free. The sub $50 DVD players that I bought not only had 1 year warrantees, but have outlasted their more costly Sony counterparts. While some are 1 year parts 90 days labor, many are not.
An X-box is an X-box, a Microsoft(tm) product. They cost what they cost. There is no cheap knock-off version of the X-box (that I'm aware). It's not unreasonable for a product you spend hundreds of dollars on to last more than a year. If your consumer grade sub $50 made in China outlasts an X-box, there is a problem.
To be blunt: expecting things to be cheap, always work, and be of high overall quality is just not realistic. There has to be a balance in the equation and for game consoles, price is what sells.
That's the thing. If you have a choice between two DVD players, and you go for the cheaper one and it breaks, I'd agree with you somewhat. The end user has no control over what Microsoft puts in the X-box. The end user has no option to buy a good x-box or a cheap bad x-box. They can only buy an X-box. It's Microsoft's job to find their own balance between price and quality of materials. If the X-box fails on a regular basis under 12 months, they are selling a defective product. It's that simple.
I beg to differ. When I was 14, I spilled coffee straight from a home-use (UL Listed) Mr. Coffee coffee machine... and got 2nd degree burns, blisters, and much pain. So you're entirely wrong when asserting that 'typical coffee' won't cause serious burns. I'd say that a Mr. Coffee coffee pot constitutes the De Facto typical cup of coffee, wouldn't you?
I wouldn't call Mr. Coffee de facto coffee. I'd call it horrible burnt coffee my self. But I'm willing to believe you got 2nd degree burns from an entire pot of Mr. Coffee. Your Mr. Coffee pot is very large and as a result would expose your skin to a hotter temp longer than a 12/16oz mug of coffee. But you didn't require 7 days in the hospital, skin grafts, or anything along those lines. In other words, the skin did not melt off your body.
Now, I could have (in theory) sued over the temperature controls, but I was raised to have a healthy respect for personal responsibility, and I understand that accidents happen.
This is reasonable, I agree. You spilt a pot of coffee on your self and got a 2nd degree burn. This was a pot, and this was hot liquid. But the skin did not melt off your body.
How many other people got 3rd degree burns from McDonald's coffee? Was there a trend? If it was an isolated incident, you would be damn hard pressed to prove negligence
Stella Lieback didn't seem to have a problem proving negligence. I'm not aware of how many other people got 3rd degree burns. But read here.
The skin melted off her body in less than 3 seconds because McDonalds served their coffee at 200+ degrees. McDonalds was perfectly aware of the problem but refused to address the issue. I am personaly unaware of anyone else who had their skin melted off because of McDonalds coffee. But considering 200+ degrees, i'd wager it was a trend.
First degree burns, normal. Second degree burns, perhaps. Third degree burns, negligence.
Good grief! YES IT IS! Get this: hot coffee is not safe to spill on your groin! Twas always thus, and always it will be!
Spilling coffee in your groin should cause the same amount of damage as a mild sunburn.
There's a principle called assumption of risk
Yes, drinking hot coffee you assume the risk equivalent of being on a beach in the buff in the summer at high noon for an hour or so. You *might* get a 1st degree burn from it but this is considered to be an acceptable risk if you want to get a tan. This there is no question. But you don't assume there would be any risk of your skin melting off.
Mcdonald's solution? Brew hotter coffee. Why? Because the customer reqested it.
It is unfortunate that the lady spilled hot coffee in her lap. It is unfortunate that people accidentally injure themselves when they use knives, guns, or pencils.
But it's an accepted risk of life. Don't want to risk it? Don't drink coffee.
Coffee is typically served at 180 degrees or so. This is hot. McDonald's coffee was served 200+ degrees. This is boiling or really close to it.
Spilling typical coffee on your lap is going to hurt for a moment, and at worse you'll get a 1st degree burn i.e. sun burn. This is an accepted risk of drinking a hot beverage.
Spilling boiling water in your lap is not only going to hurt, but at the very least will cause pain and blisters, i.e. 2nd degree burns. It may also cause skin loss and nerve damage, i.e. 3rd degree burns.
McDonalds made it a choice to serve their coffee at such an amazingly hot temperature that it caused 3rd degree burns in many cases. While they did this at *some* customers request, they neglected to tell everyone about it. My first experience with their coffee was awful, only a little bit caused my tongue to blister. They just laughed and said "oh, our coffee is too hot to drink, it's so it's still warm when you go into work." This was negligent.
Knives and guns are weapons which are known cause harm. Pencils are known to be sharp and cause harm. Oysters sometimes contain pearls and olives sometimes have pits both can chip a tooth. Coffee isn't typically used as a deadly weapon and spilling coffee does not typically result in so much damage that you need skin grafts. McDonalds in short fucked up.
I actually have a couple dells, 6 and 8 years old, still running on all the original hardware ...
Now, a Dell from 2-3 years ago is probably not running anymore unless the person got the extended warranty, since Dell's quality went to shit in the past 4 years.
The key difference between a dell from 6-8 years ago and a dell from 2-3 years ago is the use of proprietary power supply connectors and often proprietary NTX cases with riser cards was very common. This being said, if your 6+ year old Dell died, it's likely you can't drop in a standard motherboard or power supply. But for the most part, this isn't necessary so long as you are happy with a socket 5/7 class system. But this was a non-issue for them because the average user isn't going to upgrade their system above and beyond more memory. Let's face it, paying someone to do it isn't worth it. I have one Dimension XPS p166 that I upgraded with an Asus p3v4x motherboard and standard power supply. The old motherboard was retired simply because 166 MHz wasn't cutting the mustard anymore, but the motherboard and memory are still as solid as the day it was built. I know many people with vintage Dells. They are business surplus, sold for dirt cheap, and are damned reliable beasts.
A Dell under 3 years old, as far as I'm aware, is going to have a ATX power supply and ATX / Micro-ATX case where off the self replacements are possible.
I'll agree that Dell quality has fallen in the past few years. Let's face it, they are offering systems for a base price of $300 after rebates. After CPU, Drives, OEM licenses it doesn't leave much money invested in the core system. While they work, you notice bizzaro hard to diagnose problems, like a 56k that works pretty well in another box won't connect above 28.8 in the Dell unless you swap out the power supply. But what do you expect for $300.00?
3) when at home put your mobile phone in a wok or umbrella and use a headset.
Images from here
I agree, in fact it irks me to no end the fact that when you go in the store to buy a printer, they don't include the required cable. Funny rule of thumb, modems come with both ethernet and usb cables, but printers simply do not.
There are many older lasers out there that either take refurbished cartridges, or will take raw toner. You have your choice to either buy the official toner which tends to be pretty cheap, or buy something similar but for a photocopier which might be even cheaper. Sure you have to replace the drum and developer from time to time, but it's in my minds eye worth it in the long run to keep my cost of consumables down.
Even if you have an old clunker like an HP laserjet II you can find those cartridges refurbished for under $50/each. Even at $100/each per 3000 pages this works out to be less than your typical ink jet. I still use inkjet, but for printing bulk text I go laser. Even at only 300DPI it's crisp, clear, and easy to read.
Look, a sub $101 computer isn't rocket science. There are landfills full of say 500Mhz and below machines...
The problem isn't finding sub $101 computers; the problem is selling them in large enough quantities to satisfy nations the size of India and Russia, and selling them preloaded with Microsoft software. Now... can this be done with landfill junk? My gut says this would be difficult simple because the cost of labor would shoot up.
What the hell does everyone need a 1Ghz or 2Ghz spec'd machine for? It produces tons of heat, typically noise too and eats up tons of electric with that huge power supply you all want..
Well... the funny thing about 1-2Ghz CPUs is they are currently in mass production and can be had for under $50/unit, less for quantity. Chipsets that support these chips are made in quantity and can be had for equality as cheaply. Memory for these chipsets are made in quantity. To make anything less would require the chip manufactures to retool. It might be worth it if the cost of production actually goes down, but chances are it would likely be more cost effective to just continue making the same chip for 3+ years, and just charge less for it till it reaches rock bottom price.
This I appricate much more than the parent post. The CPU sucks, but the motherboard is using an Ali Aladdin V. Far less fickle than intel chipsets about memory. I don't know if it will do 8X64 but I suspect that it's bloody likely.
You'll need ide cables and a power supply, I might reccomend that you just go with an ATX case, assuming microatx screws are identical. Too lazy to verify shipping charges... at least starmicro does offer free ups ground.
Other than that... good job!
Shipping was included, as I noted in my first post
Shipping was not included in most cases. I checked price watch to the best of my ability. Yes, many of the page one links "said" free shipping on pricewatch, but you go to the links pricewatch provides and it's clear that you get charged for either shipping, handeling, misc packing, or any of these in combination.
It's my belief that you didn't follow through and actually checked the websites like I did and actually saw the misc shipping charges. Your $112 estimate was in error. The parts you listed would cost $157.99 to get to your door, and the ram wouldn't work anyway. For that motherboard to work you're going to need to spend $80 per 256meg stick. Unless you can find a cheap source of low density ram that works with the i810 chipset.
If you're still not understanding what i'm saying... using your parts and ram that would work, we're looking at $177 for that machine with 256 megs machine or $257.99 for that machine with 512 megs. Not including the $20 for 20gb and ($12 DVDROM). $209 and 289.99 respectivly. If we are still not clear... page one price watch memory won't work in a i810 chipset.
Now, you did take the time to look for some crap, and I commend you for that. Please understand me when i'm telling you keeping within budget of $100 or even close, you are going to have to ditch the idea of socket 370 and intel chipsets. To keep costs low from the get go, you're better off looking at an AMD athlon / duron as ddr memroy is not only dirt cheap but is bloody likely to work.
I opted for the slower processor and tried to balance it out with more RAM
You opted for a motherboard with a i810 chipset that requires expensive ram. Now if this is the route you want to take, you might consider a VIA chipset. A VIA chipset is far more likely to beable to use dimms with x*4bit chips onboard.
You took the other approach and added more than $100 to the process
I don't know where you get $100 from, I was trying to illistrate that the dirt cheap PCs are going to be fast celerons, or low end AMD Athlons/Durons.
What imay be unaccpetable for you might be for him
It's unacceptable for a machine to NOT TO WORK. Your machine as configured either won't post, or will only see 1/4 of the memory you put onboard if you are lucky. Chances are the i810 motherboard will not post!!!
A bit of advice to you- Don't read between the lines so much. Oh, and pay a bit more attention to the story and its replies.
I understand you must have worked very hard browsing pricewatch to put together a system list. I can see why your feelings might be hurt. But that doesn't change the fact that those companies who say free shipping on price watch lie like dogs, and you picked a motherboard that would cost so much in terms of memory that you'd be better off buying a dell. If you really really really take your self seriously, I reccomend you re-evaluate your game plan. As in, if you want to keep costs as low as they can be, try looking for chipsets that will take cheap memory.
Again, if we are unclear... i810 won't take page one price watch memory. Use of the i810 chipset will double or tripple your estimate. Page one companies lie about shipping charges. Your machine would cost as much as a new dell as configured. To lower costs, pick a chipset that can deal with the flood of cheap memory that's on the market. {as a side note, sometimes it's cheaper to buy a pair of 256meg dimms for intel chipsets and have them be seen as being only 128megs, then buying one low density 128meg dimm).
What you did was cool, I welcome you to redo the assignment, would be great with more follow through.
Thank you for your time and have an insperational day.
Problems with your estimate in order
1. Will that memory work on a i810e chipset? Crucial lists only 256meg simms being as low as $79.99 per 256meg pc133. Other sites reccomends "8x8, 16x8 DRAM Chips Only" Chances are you won't find this in your grab bag.
2. Does this actually include shipping, just because pricewatch says it does doesn't mean it is so. Notice the little "NEW. BUY 1 FOR $4.63" for your NIC. I also notice that they "reccomend" double package protection for $1.99. They also have a 99cent handeling fee. In other words $4.99
$31.07 CPU $22 + $9.07 {www.arsenalpc.com}
$24.95 motherboard {justdeals.com}
$158.00 2-256mb low density pc100 (2*$79) www.1stchoicememory.com
$4.99 NIC (www.shopampm.com)
$29.99 compusa ATX case in store + tax
$8.99 sync/fan $2.00+$6.99
---
Grand total=257.99
Without taking the memory into account (2 sticks your price)
$157.99
*hard drive not included*
*keyboard/mouse/speakers not included*
*cd-rom not included*
Page one machine on www.pricewatch.com
$116 Celeron 1.7ghz 128mb CD-rom keyboard $104 + $12 shipping
Bit of advice to ya. When trying to save money, keep in mind that legacy machines sometimes need legacy parts. In your case the cost of the ram for your machine is equal to the cost of a replacement machine. That is simply unacceptable. Chances are if you go with something that will take slow pc-2100 DDR memory you're going to save a hell of alot more money than you ever would going with anything that takes pc100/pc133.
But now we can download songs? Well! That's something new and useless. Why would I want to do that when I could 1) do it at home more easily or 2) do it at a record store with more selection?
.mp3s for a fee but anything will do, like wifi access just for example. Anything really to justify their existance if for nothing else but 911 access.
I think that's rather the point. Because of mobile phones it seems like the phone booth is less nessicary than it once was. I have to admit, the reason I got a mobile again is simply because because i'm not seeing as many public telephones as i'd like. So why the hell not offer a useful service from these places that are otherwise not as profitable as they once were.
So why the hell not offer some form of useful service. The street locations are already alocated, they have power and phone lines attached to them, why not let them do something. Not nessicarly offering
Public telephones... more than just for drug dealing.
Those old-style VHF/UHF tuning knobs were *expensive* because of the number of physical contacts within the switch. Buttons are a heck of a lot cheaper and TV manufacturers switched to the cheaper solution as soon as the tuning circuitry allowed them to. (Not because round knobs were "in fashion".)
Would this be more or less expensive than a sliding switch. I remember early in the days of cable the converter boxes employed the use of 30+ segmented switch, where each contact was wired up to a small pot on the inside of the box. You could adjust each pot to any channel whether it be in the VHF range or CATV range.
There was a barrier to just using a pot for the TV turner for channels 2-13, at least in America. There is a large gap between channels 6 & 7. Freq list at end of post.
Why go with a segmented switch when just a pot would do? Well there would be a blank spot of 92mhz when all you need is a range of 78mhz. Assuming an average of 6.5mhz (Should be 6mhz, but the numbers don't have a consistent gap) it would create a dial that is 1/2 useless. This would look sloppy.
Why not go with a TV with dials, one dial 2-6, another for 7-13, and the last one for UHF 14-83 (before it was realocated). That's a good question. I know this is how analog radios that tune in TV work.
To me it seems going with a single segmented dial was a fashion choice rather than a cost choice.
2 55.25
+6mhz
3 61.25
+6mhz
4 67.25
+10mhz
5 77.25
+6
6 83.25
+92
7 175.25
+6
8 181.25
+6
9 187.25
+6
10 193.25
+6
11 199.25
+6
12 205.25
+6
13 211.25
We went from knobs that were attatched to our televisions to buttons that evolved by having remotes and such.
Part of the reason that buttons on TVs became attractive is because it reduced the overall foot print of the TV. I have one 19 inch TV circa mid 80s that measures 25inches across, and one 27 inch tv that measures 24 inches cross, the key diffrence is the 19 inch has the old style turnknob and the 27 inch has but a handfull of buttons. More picture but smaller footprint, it's a good tradeoff, so long as you don't loose the remote control.
But who in this day and age would want to flip through the 100+ channels available on cable TV? Those who remember tuning in UHF might remember this noice *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK*! This would be far too impractical, but at the same time round volume controls are back in fashion. Unlike buttons they allow us to choose how fast we turn the knob, and we can remember there and abouts how far to turn to get at the right loudness level. I don't consider this to be de-evolution at all because the controls are often digital rather than an old style pot the likes of which gets cloged up with dust and dirt and becomes scratchy over time, but rather an evolution of what works and bringing to forth to the next level. Besides it's a hell of alot easier to spot the volume control if it's a knob rather than buttons.
No one is forcing you to go to an airport.
Sure... you can live like a hermit in a little shack in the mountains, plug both fingers in your ears, and say "nah nah nah nah nah nah". Never the less, this is considered by many to not be a viable solution. If we are talking a resturant, or a bar, i'd agree you have a choice to go elsewhere. But captive advertising, captive AV media, that's another ball of wax.
I don't think this is at all extreme over a few TVs. In fact I have total empathy for people who experence information overload. Imagine having to listen to John Denver's Greatest Hits volume 2 over and over again while waiting for your bus/train/plane. Imagine if 5 people had big boomboxes all playing a diffrent song from John Denver's Greatest hits volume 2. Now imagine 20.
"Lady are you crying...Think God I'm a Country boy...the things that you show us the story you tell". Would this not give you a headache, would this not cause you pain, would this not cause you to vomit? These people are not weirdos, nor in need for a therapist, but rather human beings. If you think otherwise i'll stick you in a waiting room with John Denver's greatest hits volume 2.
Chances are the people who take exception to this are being hit by so much audio video information that it's causing them distress. Why do you think they offer headphones on flights?
To this end I would support the following solutions.
1. CNN at airports with subtitles on.
2. CNN at airports with the audio broadast over radio. Little vending machines that offer radios.
3. An enclosed area with CNN that you could choose to go in to catch the news.
For people like me, they can keep in touch with world events, weather, some really important things when traveling. For others, they don't have to put up with the crap I happen to be watching. This is exactly what one expects on a flight, and it's not unreasonable to expect this before a flight.
Tom Watson that he provided a $49.95 (roughly $345 in current dollars!), four transistor TR-1 to each of his senior managers to kick-start the company's transition from valves."
I wish I had specific references of this, but it was a practice by some portable radio manufacturers to add extra transistors just so they could market as being a *12 transistor* radio. I've seen a couple of these where they only used two poles directly from the battery i.e. as diodes. I've seen one case where they just added extra ones before the speaker which did reduce over all sound quality. Sorta like they added an extra unnessicary smoke stack to the Titanic, cause more is better.
Back when doom1 was released, everyone and their dog had 14.4 or at least 9.6k modems. Which means that you spend 3 months to reduce the downloadtime about half a minute. WHOA.
Not everyone and their dog had 14.4k modems in 1993. Lots of people I knew upgraded and gave away their worthless 2400bps modems to people who couldn't quite afford the $100 to $300 for a "high speed" modem, or couldn't justify the expence to experence text. The sole reason I upgraded was I was networking a BBS long distance, and served very well to cut my long distance costs. The vast majority of my users were 2400bps, the vast majority of them using modems I gave them.
It's hard to say when everyone and their dog got 14.4k+ modems... but i'd say off the top of my head that this was post win95, when Compu$erve and AOL actually started offering something resembling internet access and flat rates, and the cost these modems dropped under $100/pop.
The number of monitors a Mac II (or any computer) can drive is only affected by the number of video cards in it. My G4 can drive 4 unique monitors and TV mirrors of 2 of them.
Ever try dual display on a pre-win9x box? The only way you could do it was with one color(CGA/EGA/VGA) card and one monochrome(herc) card. Two color cards would try to use the same space in the small 384k window, but because Mono and color cards used different locations they could co-exist.
This config wasn't really supported. You could use mode mono to switch to the monochrome, and mode co80 to switch to the color one. The mono was pretty much limited to dos. I admit, I found it useful for displaying a dos terminal full screen while I did something diffrent.
Mac was on the ball and actually supported multi-displays before Microsoft did. But IIRC correctly early version of MacOS were limited to 4 monitors due to their use of positive and negative coordinates. I don't know if this is still true.
The reason those women won't give you a handjob is because you drink 1/2 gal milk a day. Try hitting the treadmill and it might happen if you ask your sister
Wow, 720 calories (non-fat) has that much impact on my life?
Hit the treadmill? That would suck. I'd have to bump up to 1 gal 2% milk (or 1/2 gal ice cream 1/2 pound nonfat), 2 pounds of yogurt, 1 pound of nuts, use add soy protein to my bread, couple baked potatos, basicly increase chloric intake from about 3500 / 4000 day to 7000 / 8000+ a day.
No thanks.
(Sadly, I *was* fixing DHCP last night... but I have a baby boy, and can't go out anyways...)
Your baby boy handles DHCP? I try to assign children IP address but they can't be bothered to remember even the most simple of subnets. They all drop packets too, and where the hell do you put the RJ-45 jack?
It's sorta interesting to see how amazingly complex they make the act of buying a jug of milk. At present my local supermarket sells milk at about $4.00/gal. I also know the same milk is almost always onsale in the coupon book for 1/2 the price. I drink 1/2 gal daily and I easily save $300+ yearly. I hit the website before I hit the store and print off a coupon that won't scan (stupid jpg) and write a little note "web coupons don't scan blame them". Coupons are a total waste of time for both the consumer and the retailer. I only look for that milk coupon, I don't bother checking for anything else. However a Trader Joes will be opening near me, and they sell milk consistently for just slightly over $2.00/gal. Guess where I'll be buying my milk.
Now we have this smart-cart which I admit sounds like it has some nice features to it, but it mostly seems like a device designed to waste my time. I imagine this is no diffrent than any other medium, offing some great reward for taking the time to look at their crap. It would be nice if more stores would simply respect what consumers like my self want, which is to just freaking go in and buy stuff without any complex games with the prices.
Give me Trader Joes, give me Costco. Don't give me loyalty cards, don't give me targeted demographics, or captive advertising. Screw the marketing think tanks who's sole purpose in life is to convience me buying a coke will get women I hardly even know to give me a handjob.
A couple KFCs in my city have been busted for cooking and selling green chicken to customers. Ick. No Thanks.
Then by all means go buy anything, go in ask for a lid. Cut lid to the correct size and write in polite terms, "While I did not buy your product due to recently sited health code violations, I would like to take this time to say thank you for sponsoring Farscape". Or heck, pay the extra 12cents or so and mail them the lid.
Say 1 CD at 192 is about 100MB
Time factor. Take into account that parents are going to be an age where vinyl and tapes were ever so popular. A typical album is typicaly about 45min or so IIRC and should be played in real time if converting it to another format. Let's say there 50 albums in the collection... that would be about 40hours and flipping sides 100 times.
Not to say this wouldn't be a worth while project, but also a very time consuming one.
I would reccomend that anyone else do the same and send little postcards made from KFC buckets to the following addresses:
If your a vegitarian... get potatos. It's time to get off our ez chairs and do something about this flood of reality TV and make it clear to the sponcers what we want them to support.
Wait a second... why would you want a more rugged casing on a drive that's in a machine bolted to a rack in a machine room somewhere than you do in a machine you're walking around with all day? Isn't that a bit counterintuitive?
u nami
Why?
Fire
Earthquake
Flood
Tornado
Hurricane
Ts
*Incompetent techs* "whoops"