If by "Only a fool" you mean "pretty much everyone".
You'd have to be a fucking idiot to stick a PWM regulator next to each and every LED you ever use. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, sticks a current limiting resistor to set the brightness of an LED.
I stole the information in my post from experience. All you need to get an LED running on 120VAC is a big enough resistor to limit the current to where you want it.
My dad's been doing it longer than the Internet's even been around, so I'd trust him before I trust it.
If anyone rectifies the voltage heading TO an LED light bulb, they should have their engineering degree taken away.
Protip: LEDs are diodes. Rectifiers are diodes. Just stick a current regulating resistor in series, stick a voltage smoothing capacitor in parallel, and use a regular dimmer to limit the current to whatever you need. Using a complicated solution to the problem would be criminal.
It's hard to take you seriously when you don't know about a SINGLE component in the system.
First, LEDs are definitely variable in a non-binary sense. Anyone who has ever used an LED in pretty much any application ever can tell you that light output can be changed by altering the current.
Second, a dimmer isn't a variable resistor. It cuts the AC waveform, reducing the current available to an incandescent light bulb.
Pulse width modulation is definitely NOT the only way to vary the light output of an LED.
Actually, you should be able to use a standard dimmer switch on these things. Unless someone is doing something I've never seen before, there's no logic in them, just the diode and a resistor. Maybe a capacitor if they were really ambitious.
I'd expect control with an LED to be much better than an incandescent, because the fact that the 'light emitting' voltage stays relatively constant between the on state and off state, so you should get better effective rangability and control.
You'd be looking at a pointer increment, a memory write, a memory read, and a compare. I'd call it 5 instructions to test. According to wikipedia, the fastest processor available gets about 14 billion instructions per second, so the CPU should be able to test about 3GB/s.
It's strange; I figured it would be a memory bandwidth issue, but memory throughput in such a machine would be about 8GB/s, more than enough to stock the CPU.
My directories were beautifully structured before Windows. It was a work of functional art.
Now I don't even know where they put anything.c:\program files\vendor name\program name? c:\documents and settings\username\Application files\vendor name\random squiggles?
I remember it used to be my games were in c:\games. My tools were in c:\tools. My applications were in c:\tools. All of them were accessed with hdm4, in c:\hdm4.
A far more important problem is that FAT32 has terrible reliability.
One of the greatest advances of moving from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 or XP was that FAT32 would randomly decide your boot drive shouldn't boot anymore. After the change, a major failure mode of PCs disappeared.
This has been happening a lot lately. At some point, Slashdot stopped being filled with Engineers, because everyone started to lose the concept of "The first step of design is determining user requirements"
But it smells like depleted uranium and massive deficits brought about by cutting taxes at a time of decreasing revenues and inflation caused by historic low interest rates!
What, do you think it's Kenya that smells like that?
Well, According to Gartner, The world PC market was 264 million units in 2007 [1]. According to displaysearch, The world netbook market reached 14 million units in 2008.[2]
Granted they're different years, but comparing volumes, netbooks accounted for roughly 5% of the world PC market in 2008. Even if only one of three netbooks sold in 2008 ran Linux, that alone would push market share for Linux by volume on new PCs in 2008 above 0.86%.
As for installed base(Which you may have meant by "market share"), I don't think any company, IDC included, has a reasonable method to determine how many PCs exist in the first place, let alone what OS they run.
Why does everyone always come up with the bizzare niche scenario when someone says "I don't need to do this"?
Earlier, I asked why I'd want to encrypt my hard disk. Someone said their employer required it. Mine doesn't! Here you are doing the same thing. Why would this guy want to use antivirus software? Because some industry somewhere requires it!
I'm ashamed to be a techie on a tech site that almost willfully ignores user requirements.
I'm running Windows 7 on a netbook, and it subjectively feels about as fast as XP.
The beta is free to try, so why not take a look?
Science: You have a prediction regarding the performance. Test it, then see whether your prediction is accurate. Otherwise, linux fanboy, mac fanboy, or windows fanboy, you're still just a fanboy wasting everyone's time.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The only thing particularly WRONG with vista is its pathetic performance.
Really, you don't need a huge value for the new OS. I didn't upgrade from Windows 95OSR2 to Windows 98SE because there was some killer feature I absolutely needed. I didn't upgrade from Windows 98SE to Windows 2000 because there was some killer feature I absolutely needed. I didn't upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows XP because there was some killer feature I absolutely needed.
All I really need is for the new OS to be slightly less of a headache to get running than the previous ones, and a few incremental improvements to make my life easier. Vista, by contrast, was a failure because it wasn't an improvement in key areas.
I'm running the Windows 7 beta on my netbook, and it runs as fast as XP on the same hardware. The install was really simple, all my hardware worked to some degree out of the box. With autopatcher, it took almost a 1GB download to get all the patches installed for Windows XP. With Windows 7, I had one patch from Windows Update.
I don't use an OS for the OS part. I use it because I run certain applications, and those applications don't tend to change. Whether I'm using ubuntu or MacOS or OS/2 Warp or BeOS or Windows 7, I'm using Skype(on systems which support it), MSN Messenger or a clone, firefox, openoffice, and maybe a few OS specific programs for this or that(for example, Gametap on windows platforms).
Barring some "rape the dog" moment, odds are I'm going to continue to be sold on Windows 7. All Microsoft needs to do is continue to keep performance at levels where I'm not tempted to stay with Windows XP just to have a smooth running system.
Slashdot Mirror
If by "Only a fool" you mean "pretty much everyone".
You'd have to be a fucking idiot to stick a PWM regulator next to each and every LED you ever use. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, sticks a current limiting resistor to set the brightness of an LED.
I stole the information in my post from experience. All you need to get an LED running on 120VAC is a big enough resistor to limit the current to where you want it.
My dad's been doing it longer than the Internet's even been around, so I'd trust him before I trust it.
If anyone rectifies the voltage heading TO an LED light bulb, they should have their engineering degree taken away.
Protip: LEDs are diodes. Rectifiers are diodes. Just stick a current regulating resistor in series, stick a voltage smoothing capacitor in parallel, and use a regular dimmer to limit the current to whatever you need. Using a complicated solution to the problem would be criminal.
Ouch, I get on the first page then click "Post Anonymously"...
It's hard to take you seriously when you don't know about a SINGLE component in the system.
First, LEDs are definitely variable in a non-binary sense. Anyone who has ever used an LED in pretty much any application ever can tell you that light output can be changed by altering the current.
Second, a dimmer isn't a variable resistor. It cuts the AC waveform, reducing the current available to an incandescent light bulb.
Pulse width modulation is definitely NOT the only way to vary the light output of an LED.
Actually, you should be able to use a standard dimmer switch on these things. Unless someone is doing something I've never seen before, there's no logic in them, just the diode and a resistor. Maybe a capacitor if they were really ambitious.
I'd expect control with an LED to be much better than an incandescent, because the fact that the 'light emitting' voltage stays relatively constant between the on state and off state, so you should get better effective rangability and control.
Yes, I'm a control systems geek. :P
I bet you kick kittens too.
You'd be looking at a pointer increment, a memory write, a memory read, and a compare. I'd call it 5 instructions to test. According to wikipedia, the fastest processor available gets about 14 billion instructions per second, so the CPU should be able to test about 3GB/s.
It's strange; I figured it would be a memory bandwidth issue, but memory throughput in such a machine would be about 8GB/s, more than enough to stock the CPU.
Not THE Patton, A Patton.
I'm sure the general has a cute granddaughter (She'd be about 20 now, right?), I wouldn't mind having THAT patton on top of me(Assuming she's cool).
WinFS Is Not a FileSystem?
Curse you, oh insidious recursive acronyms!
Are you nuts?!
My directories were beautifully structured before Windows. It was a work of functional art.
Now I don't even know where they put anything.c:\program files\vendor name\program name? c:\documents and settings\username\Application files\vendor name\random squiggles?
I remember it used to be my games were in c:\games. My tools were in c:\tools. My applications were in c:\tools. All of them were accessed with hdm4, in c:\hdm4.
The old days were nice.
A far more important problem is that FAT32 has terrible reliability.
One of the greatest advances of moving from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 or XP was that FAT32 would randomly decide your boot drive shouldn't boot anymore. After the change, a major failure mode of PCs disappeared.
This has been happening a lot lately. At some point, Slashdot stopped being filled with Engineers, because everyone started to lose the concept of "The first step of design is determining user requirements"
But it smells like depleted uranium and massive deficits brought about by cutting taxes at a time of decreasing revenues and inflation caused by historic low interest rates!
What, do you think it's Kenya that smells like that?
Well shit, it's been 8 years, and you're still hating on Clinton. Why give up on a good thing?
He could just take the George W. Bush tactic of claiming it's legal despite the fact that it's clearly not.
I bought and insured the vehicle I'm driving now for 650 total, so it's all about where you are. Cheap cars, expensive playstation 3s. :P
I think the less said about those pieces of crap, the better.
I tried using Live Search for a couple days. It was so bad I had to move back to google just to get any work done.
I mean, TERRIBLE. You can't even find Microsoft's own stuff very easily, where under Google it's the first hit.
Well, According to Gartner, The world PC market was 264 million units in 2007 [1]. According to displaysearch, The world netbook market reached 14 million units in 2008.[2]
Granted they're different years, but comparing volumes, netbooks accounted for roughly 5% of the world PC market in 2008. Even if only one of three netbooks sold in 2008 ran Linux, that alone would push market share for Linux by volume on new PCs in 2008 above 0.86%.
As for installed base(Which you may have meant by "market share"), I don't think any company, IDC included, has a reasonable method to determine how many PCs exist in the first place, let alone what OS they run.
Yeah, people don't care enough to suffer for basic morality. They don't want to abuse kids, but fuck, that t-shirt was SO cheap!
By all means though, let's get back to banning video games, since we don't think about horrible moral atrocities unless it's convenient.
I'm noticing a strange trend of this.
Why does everyone always come up with the bizzare niche scenario when someone says "I don't need to do this"?
Earlier, I asked why I'd want to encrypt my hard disk. Someone said their employer required it. Mine doesn't! Here you are doing the same thing. Why would this guy want to use antivirus software? Because some industry somewhere requires it!
I'm ashamed to be a techie on a tech site that almost willfully ignores user requirements.
It doesn't require 16GB. Fully installed it takes about 6GB.
That isn't an entirely fair portrait though. The OS is about 2GB, with a 2GB swap file and a 2GB hibernation file.
Works fine on my netbook(Acer Aspire One), though admittedly I've only been using it for a couple days.
Sell me a mac netbook for $350 and we'll talk.
I'm running Windows 7 on a netbook, and it subjectively feels about as fast as XP.
The beta is free to try, so why not take a look?
Science: You have a prediction regarding the performance. Test it, then see whether your prediction is accurate. Otherwise, linux fanboy, mac fanboy, or windows fanboy, you're still just a fanboy wasting everyone's time.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The only thing particularly WRONG with vista is its pathetic performance.
Really, you don't need a huge value for the new OS. I didn't upgrade from Windows 95OSR2 to Windows 98SE because there was some killer feature I absolutely needed. I didn't upgrade from Windows 98SE to Windows 2000 because there was some killer feature I absolutely needed. I didn't upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows XP because there was some killer feature I absolutely needed.
All I really need is for the new OS to be slightly less of a headache to get running than the previous ones, and a few incremental improvements to make my life easier. Vista, by contrast, was a failure because it wasn't an improvement in key areas.
I'm running the Windows 7 beta on my netbook, and it runs as fast as XP on the same hardware. The install was really simple, all my hardware worked to some degree out of the box. With autopatcher, it took almost a 1GB download to get all the patches installed for Windows XP. With Windows 7, I had one patch from Windows Update.
I don't use an OS for the OS part. I use it because I run certain applications, and those applications don't tend to change. Whether I'm using ubuntu or MacOS or OS/2 Warp or BeOS or Windows 7, I'm using Skype(on systems which support it), MSN Messenger or a clone, firefox, openoffice, and maybe a few OS specific programs for this or that(for example, Gametap on windows platforms).
Barring some "rape the dog" moment, odds are I'm going to continue to be sold on Windows 7. All Microsoft needs to do is continue to keep performance at levels where I'm not tempted to stay with Windows XP just to have a smooth running system.