Actually it's compulsory for every household in the UK to have a TV license. If you don't, you're made to suffer harassment at the hands of their "enforcement officers" and are likely to have your house searched under court order (reason for suspected crime: not having a TV License).
Many houses in the UK aren't "properly insulated". Most older houses (which we have a lot of) weren't built with insulated walls and have large single-pane windows which pass a significant amount of heat through. As an example I run my heating on full 24/7 for most of the year and even then an exterior wall merely inches away from a radiator can be cold to the touch. Unfortunately most people rent their houses (the cost of buying nowadays far exceeds what most can afford) so there is limited scope for doing anything about the problem.
Bibble (runs on Win/Linux/Mac) includes Noise Ninja and has a host of other features. Lightning quick on raw formats too... One of the few bits of software that's actually worth paying for!
I played a lot of those games. They were fun. Several years ago. Why would I want to re-buy them?
I am a gamer. I have a high-end gaming PC which I use more or less exclusively to play games (mainly Eve Online, Oblivion, MS Flight Sim, Steam games) under WinXP/Vista at 1920x1200 resolution at a decent ol' framerate with all the graphical niceness turned way up.
Linux? Can't even get an install CD (including Ubuntu's latest) to recognise the disk controller (have to boot another machine into linux and compile a module). In the (very) rare cases I can get the ATI drivers working without the machine completely locking up I'm able to benchmark Doom3/Quake4 (after fixing library issues) I get about 60% the performance of what I would get using just the one graphics card in Windows. Maybe I'm just not configuring it right for crossfire operation, but I shouldn't have to. Maybe I need a new kernel, but I can't be bothered working after work. Then there's the whole farce around buying another copy of the games to play them legally sometimes and the the wine/cedega fun. ALSA? ESD? OSS? ETC? Why isn't my soundcard working? And is it running hardware accelerated drivers or is it acting like a £5 card? Oh and there's always the fun bits like the network card which only has 32bit drivers. That you have to download. Somehow... Yes that's all a bit stretched but it's all happened on my gaming rig at one time or another.
Basically UNIXish OSs aren't usually suitable to run the sort of hardware (ie the latest generation consumer grade crap) that gamers like me like to blow our hard-earned money on. This is why I have a FreeBSD (Linux at work, urgh) desktop with specifically chosen hardware (with 100% OSS drivers) for doing serious work on, and a shit-hot gaming rig running Windows. It Just Works.
Until nvidia/ati find some magical way around the failings of the X server for gaming, hardware designers all donate driver code to the Linux kernel, AND everyone can make their binaries work against everyone else's libraries and kernels, it will always be easier and tbh a better all-round experience to just buy the latest computer game at the supermarket with my shopping, switch on the Windows box, pop the dvd in the drive, install, then download the no-cd crack. That's a BIG 'until'!
After 30 minutes of searching I couldn't find the Linux equivalent. It's either in one of the files here or maybe here. Maybe. OK I'm showing my ignorance somewhat here but I don't understand why there's a whole heap of stuff all over the place. Anyhow, netfilter's state matching basically about 4 lines which just checks a packet against a list of ip,srcport,dstport. Sorry I'd have been able to find it if I had a linux box to hand to grep on, but I don't at the moment
One thing should be stated in comparason - Linux is a *LOT* faster at throwing packets through its firewall, mind you it's a direct result of it not really checking them much...
Indeed. I've lost count of the amount of times I've had to do one-off CVs for agencies with stupid stuff anyone familiar with the work would take for granted like "pc hardware" and "vi" listed in the huge list of acronyms at the top (there only for the sake of matching on agencies searches).
The worst thing about dealing with agencies is their tendancy to treat skills as objects - 'you've "got" linux and bind but you haven't "got" vi so I won't put you forward for this role' - ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
The code behind iptables is disgusting. It doesn't even do a proper job of stateful tracking. Read and compare the source code if you don't believe me - There are many things which linux does in about 10 lines of code but run into hundreds or thousands of lines in the pf source because pf does the job properly
On the flip side, you can run into compatability issues.
Take for instance applications like X-Chat, GIMP, Pan and Gaim which use shared GTK libraries (I'm talking about Windows here). The amount of problems I've had with these four programmes taking offence to various versions of GTK dlls installed by one another is rediculous. I tend to copy by hand the dlls into the program directory nowadays. It saves messing about. OK so the OS now thinks I've got several broken GTK installations on it but hey at least the apps work.
Almost bang on. The thing is it's the fault of the default configuration, not the OS as a whole. I run my XP setup as plain as I can. Explorer windows are as minimal as they can be with the exception of the status bar and a little 'up one level' button I have unobtrusively on the same line as the menu bar. It is natural to me to work with small explorer windows (defaulted to 'list' view) and to drag-and-drop files around the place. It works wonderfully and really does make any other OS's method of doing things appear cumbersome to use. But when I'm asked to do something on someone else's Windows setup it does send a shiver down my spine. How can anyone really think that maximised explorer windows are anything but a pain in the arse?
It's not hard to resize an app to span multiple monitors under windows but you have to do it manually. Speaking personally I've always prefered to either use an app full-screen or just over full-screen, so that any tool windows are in the other screen. This still leaves you with a good amount of desktop space to do whatever with. Another point is that PC users are much more likely to be running a dual head setup with mis-matched monitors than Apple users, and running the same app over two different colour spaces is a pain, as usually is trying to perform colour calibration under Windows.
Do you know the exact speed of each wheel at any given time? Do you have an accurate accelerometer to measure lateral force? (The seat of your pants does not count.) Do you know, within a hundredth of a second, when an individual wheel looses traction? Can you respond within the next hundredth of a second?
Is there any system around that can detect a cyclist about to hit you from an unexpected angle and force the car into a ditch/pavement/skid/other lane/etc to avoid a painful accident? Is measuring lateral force essential when judging that the car in front is being driven by a drunk and a LOT of extra space is required?
Horses for courses. If I'm driving at 70mph on a wet motorway and a truck decides he wants to be where I am, I'm glad for any electronic wotsits that help ME keep control of my car. I certainly wouldn't want it to drive me from A to B however. I can distinguish between a threat (cyclist riding at speed across my path) and an emergency (cyclist falling off in front of me). I don't trust any computer to do that.
I understand and appreciate the desire to play with your vehicle, so long as it's done on a closed parking lot or track. But please, don't use a public road for a "spirited drive." There's always someone else, and they're probably not interested in a "spirited drive."
Over here in the UK we have a lot of countryside which in places has low traffic, great visibility and plenty of space to run off the side of the road in case you mess up. I regularly go for spirited drives in these places. It's safe and I learn how my car reacts and how to handle it in the event I lose traction when I don't expect it. As a result for example I have recently prevented a spin at 70mph on a wet motorway when a truck has decided to change lanes without looking if it's clear... I dare say without my experience of spirited driving I'd have lifted off the accelerator which due to my front wheel drive car and lack of rear wheel traction would have almost certainly resulted in a spin. I tell you I'd have been glad to have one of these Jags then, but for the love of God let me have fun when it's safe.
Also I'd like to say that practically all the people I've spoken to who have a blast in the countryside are actually sensible when driving around populated areas. It's good to get it out of your system!
Playing devil's advocate here, there are much better ways of using GPS systems in cars. Mine is delivered through an iPaq PDA mounted on my windscreen as high as possible without obstructing the view. The positioning and clarity of the display (TomTom 5) means I can glance at the screen and back to the road very quickly. In fact in most light conditions I can actually regain focus on the road ahead faster using the PDA's speedo than the one on the dashboard!
As for the brightness issue, TomTom includes a night mode with dark colours. This helps a LOT as obviously the last thing you need is a bright light in your peripheral vision at night!
I wouldn't like to try to use a device buried in the centre console though - especially if it didn't have a 'night mode'. As for a laptop, no chance! At the end of the day spoken instructions are all well and good but sometimes you really need to see the layout of the road ahead especially in new areas. I'm talking UK here, our roads are a LOT more compact than in the USA.
Of course going back to the distractions element, I find I'm much, much more distracted when I'm looking for a direction on one of many signposts leading up to a roundabout than I am when I can take half a second well in advance to look at the PDA and know instantly which exit to take and whereabouts on the roundabout it is. Usually by the time you've found the right sign, and worked out which exit you need to take, you're already in the wrong lane!
I rely on my SatNav so so much. But I love it, and it makes me a safer driver in unknown territory:)
I want sites to send emails containing jobs matching search criteria.
Jobsite and JobServe do it, PlanetRecruit and Monster don't. I don't want to spend all day trawling through several websites, I want my little CGI script at home to combine everything into one. One that I can apply more advanced filtering to which shows me just the jobs I want.
I know several people who also don't use PlanetRecruit (any more) or Monster due to the lack of emails from them. Even without my funky CGI, it's so much quicker to read through a 1 MB email from start to finish than browse pages 1 to 50 of some search
Well firstly you lose around 33% of your income (or more dependant on how much you earn) to income tax and national insurance You pay £1000-£2000 per year to your council for the "privilige" of living in the country You pay £130 for your TV License (or suffer bullying, harrassment, and search warrants even if you don't own a TV) You pay over £4 tax on a pack of 20 cigarettes (£5) You pay 17.5% "value added" tax on virtually everything you buy (most foods and books are exempt iirc) You pay around £1 tax on a pint of beer (£2.50-£3) You pay around 75p tax per litre of petrol (90p-£1.10) No idea what the tax is on gas/electricity/water is, but I imagine it's nuts.
Linux users don't want Linux to be a dumping ground for Windows, Solaris, and Macintosh applications
This is demonstrated by WINE and Crossover Office being total failures and nobody ever using the Linux ports of Oracle, Veritas and VMWare right?
The primary thing that ports and (so-called) cross platform applications do is degrade the user experience on Linux.
Damn and I thought X11, X.org, KDE, Gnome, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, GCC, the GNU utilities and Exim (to name but a few) were a good thing... Still, if you don't like using cross platform applications it's your loss. Just out of interest, which X server do you use? I've never heard of any stable ones which have been developed from the ground up to be Linux-only...
I'll take a working NDIS driver over a buggy work-in-progress native driver any day. And I do on a daily basis.
The fact of the matter is that for a lot of wireless chipsets you simply won't get source code. FCC regulations et al, game over.
NDIS is a fantastic cross-platform API. It's not emulation or whatever like WINE. It's "NDIS command goes in this end, radio waves fly through the air". It lets us use modern hardware straight from the shop without having to hack it to work (or waiting for someone else to). Open source drivers are nice when they've been written, bug-fixed, and are stable, but NDIS works brilliantly(*) where that's simply not possible.
Applications using alsa doesn't suffer such problems. Stop using apps that use/dev/dsp directly....
OK so you want developers to break compatability with non-Linux platforms and you want users to abandon their software and just use something else (ignoring the fact that in a lot of cases "something else" doesn't exist, is broken, unreliable, unsupported, etc)?
Makes sense... And after all, people porting code to run on other OS's *really* enjoy re-writing huge chunks of Linux specific junk...
Have you ever seen the insides of a large (28-35") CRT? I ain't. The only time I opened up a telly it was a 14" thing a long while ago. I slipped and there was an exceptionally big bang. Since then I've decided it's best to leave the job to professionals. I certainly wouldn't want my father (who's now getting a bit shaky) prodding around near those huge capacitors.
Not that one person can reasonably move a large telly on their own...
They have occasionally asked for repair quotes for their sets, but were quoted close to the price of a new set. Tough choice.
They do. They switch it off on the set, then off at the wall, then unplug it. Several times a day every day. It's The Routine Which Shall Never Be Broken... *rolls eyeballs*
I've been telling them to use standby since I was a little kiddie, but it's not The Routine.:)
Nobody seems to have mentioned yet that power switches have moving parts, and moving parts are always the first thing to break. (Yes I am aware that 'standby' usually involves a relay which contains a moving part, but relays don't involve the 'human factor')
My parents routinely turn things off instead of using standby and get through a TV rougly every 4 years. Cause of failure? The power switch! Kettle? Hoover? Stereo? All die within a few years because of a dead power switch! In contrast I moved out of the house some 10 or so years ago and have yet to have anything die. Go figure.
Sure, not using standby may save a few watts per year but what about the extra waste generated by dead electronics
I have a sweet laptop (under windows) running X unaccelerated under FreeBSD because of those twats at ATI. I tried doing some OpenGL coding once and spent more time rebooting than I did coding. Not directly ATI's fault - more a load of Mesa bugs I think, but I may as well have written my own software 3D rendering engine given all the performance I couldn't get out of this ATI chip.
Even under Linux I understand getting 3D acceleration is next to impossible unless you're willing to run someone else's kernel!
I have no objections to well wrappered closed-source kernel or X.org modules (given a proper wrapper!) but running someone else's kernel is a definite no-no. To me this wreaks of clueless people being scared off innovation by the GPL and the Linux OSS zealots
The main strangth of it of course is FreeBSD which "oh look" hasn't run XFree86 by default for something like 3-4 years...;) I also have serious doubts that NetBSD are still using XFree86 and what the hell is MirOS?:)
There are more operating systems out there running X11 than your favourite RPM-based overly-dependant brand of Linux. Most of them have the sense to distinguish between the need for X client libraries and an X server. I refer to the Free/Net/OpenBSD, Solaris, and AIX servers I have not 10 yards from me now which all happily run X11 apps without having an X server installed. Also I doubt Linux distributions which do things 'properly' like Slackware and Debian would dare install an X server without explicit confirmation although I may be corrected on this latter point.
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Actually it's compulsory for every household in the UK to have a TV license. If you don't, you're made to suffer harassment at the hands of their "enforcement officers" and are likely to have your house searched under court order (reason for suspected crime: not having a TV License).
Many houses in the UK aren't "properly insulated". Most older houses (which we have a lot of) weren't built with insulated walls and have large single-pane windows which pass a significant amount of heat through. As an example I run my heating on full 24/7 for most of the year and even then an exterior wall merely inches away from a radiator can be cold to the touch. Unfortunately most people rent their houses (the cost of buying nowadays far exceeds what most can afford) so there is limited scope for doing anything about the problem.
Bibble (runs on Win/Linux/Mac) includes Noise Ninja and has a host of other features. Lightning quick on raw formats too... One of the few bits of software that's actually worth paying for!
I played a lot of those games. They were fun. Several years ago. Why would I want to re-buy them?
I am a gamer. I have a high-end gaming PC which I use more or less exclusively to play games (mainly Eve Online, Oblivion, MS Flight Sim, Steam games) under WinXP/Vista at 1920x1200 resolution at a decent ol' framerate with all the graphical niceness turned way up.
Linux? Can't even get an install CD (including Ubuntu's latest) to recognise the disk controller (have to boot another machine into linux and compile a module). In the (very) rare cases I can get the ATI drivers working without the machine completely locking up I'm able to benchmark Doom3/Quake4 (after fixing library issues) I get about 60% the performance of what I would get using just the one graphics card in Windows. Maybe I'm just not configuring it right for crossfire operation, but I shouldn't have to. Maybe I need a new kernel, but I can't be bothered working after work. Then there's the whole farce around buying another copy of the games to play them legally sometimes and the the wine/cedega fun. ALSA? ESD? OSS? ETC? Why isn't my soundcard working? And is it running hardware accelerated drivers or is it acting like a £5 card? Oh and there's always the fun bits like the network card which only has 32bit drivers. That you have to download. Somehow... Yes that's all a bit stretched but it's all happened on my gaming rig at one time or another.
Basically UNIXish OSs aren't usually suitable to run the sort of hardware (ie the latest generation consumer grade crap) that gamers like me like to blow our hard-earned money on. This is why I have a FreeBSD (Linux at work, urgh) desktop with specifically chosen hardware (with 100% OSS drivers) for doing serious work on, and a shit-hot gaming rig running Windows. It Just Works.
Until nvidia/ati find some magical way around the failings of the X server for gaming, hardware designers all donate driver code to the Linux kernel, AND everyone can make their binaries work against everyone else's libraries and kernels, it will always be easier and tbh a better all-round experience to just buy the latest computer game at the supermarket with my shopping, switch on the Windows box, pop the dvd in the drive, install, then download the no-cd crack. That's a BIG 'until'!
Here's the OpenBSD link Search for pf_test_state_tcp - it's abotu 2/3 the was down the page
After 30 minutes of searching I couldn't find the Linux equivalent. It's either in one of the files here or maybe here. Maybe. OK I'm showing my ignorance somewhat here but I don't understand why there's a whole heap of stuff all over the place. Anyhow, netfilter's state matching basically about 4 lines which just checks a packet against a list of ip,srcport,dstport. Sorry I'd have been able to find it if I had a linux box to hand to grep on, but I don't at the moment
One thing should be stated in comparason - Linux is a *LOT* faster at throwing packets through its firewall, mind you it's a direct result of it not really checking them much...
Indeed. I've lost count of the amount of times I've had to do one-off CVs for agencies with stupid stuff anyone familiar with the work would take for granted like "pc hardware" and "vi" listed in the huge list of acronyms at the top (there only for the sake of matching on agencies searches).
The worst thing about dealing with agencies is their tendancy to treat skills as objects - 'you've "got" linux and bind but you haven't "got" vi so I won't put you forward for this role' - ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
Only if you discount firewalling as a feature.
The code behind iptables is disgusting. It doesn't even do a proper job of stateful tracking. Read and compare the source code if you don't believe me - There are many things which linux does in about 10 lines of code but run into hundreds or thousands of lines in the pf source because pf does the job properly
On the flip side, you can run into compatability issues.
Take for instance applications like X-Chat, GIMP, Pan and Gaim which use shared GTK libraries (I'm talking about Windows here). The amount of problems I've had with these four programmes taking offence to various versions of GTK dlls installed by one another is rediculous. I tend to copy by hand the dlls into the program directory nowadays. It saves messing about. OK so the OS now thinks I've got several broken GTK installations on it but hey at least the apps work.
Almost bang on. The thing is it's the fault of the default configuration, not the OS as a whole. I run my XP setup as plain as I can. Explorer windows are as minimal as they can be with the exception of the status bar and a little 'up one level' button I have unobtrusively on the same line as the menu bar. It is natural to me to work with small explorer windows (defaulted to 'list' view) and to drag-and-drop files around the place. It works wonderfully and really does make any other OS's method of doing things appear cumbersome to use. But when I'm asked to do something on someone else's Windows setup it does send a shiver down my spine. How can anyone really think that maximised explorer windows are anything but a pain in the arse?
It's not hard to resize an app to span multiple monitors under windows but you have to do it manually. Speaking personally I've always prefered to either use an app full-screen or just over full-screen, so that any tool windows are in the other screen. This still leaves you with a good amount of desktop space to do whatever with. Another point is that PC users are much more likely to be running a dual head setup with mis-matched monitors than Apple users, and running the same app over two different colour spaces is a pain, as usually is trying to perform colour calibration under Windows.
Do you know the exact speed of each wheel at any given time? Do you have an accurate accelerometer to measure lateral force? (The seat of your pants does not count.) Do you know, within a hundredth of a second, when an individual wheel looses traction? Can you respond within the next hundredth of a second?
Is there any system around that can detect a cyclist about to hit you from an unexpected angle and force the car into a ditch/pavement/skid/other lane/etc to avoid a painful accident? Is measuring lateral force essential when judging that the car in front is being driven by a drunk and a LOT of extra space is required?
Horses for courses. If I'm driving at 70mph on a wet motorway and a truck decides he wants to be where I am, I'm glad for any electronic wotsits that help ME keep control of my car. I certainly wouldn't want it to drive me from A to B however. I can distinguish between a threat (cyclist riding at speed across my path) and an emergency (cyclist falling off in front of me). I don't trust any computer to do that.
I understand and appreciate the desire to play with your vehicle, so long as it's done on a closed parking lot or track. But please, don't use a public road for a "spirited drive." There's always someone else, and they're probably not interested in a "spirited drive."
Over here in the UK we have a lot of countryside which in places has low traffic, great visibility and plenty of space to run off the side of the road in case you mess up. I regularly go for spirited drives in these places. It's safe and I learn how my car reacts and how to handle it in the event I lose traction when I don't expect it. As a result for example I have recently prevented a spin at 70mph on a wet motorway when a truck has decided to change lanes without looking if it's clear... I dare say without my experience of spirited driving I'd have lifted off the accelerator which due to my front wheel drive car and lack of rear wheel traction would have almost certainly resulted in a spin. I tell you I'd have been glad to have one of these Jags then, but for the love of God let me have fun when it's safe.
Also I'd like to say that practically all the people I've spoken to who have a blast in the countryside are actually sensible when driving around populated areas. It's good to get it out of your system!
Playing devil's advocate here, there are much better ways of using GPS systems in cars. Mine is delivered through an iPaq PDA mounted on my windscreen as high as possible without obstructing the view. The positioning and clarity of the display (TomTom 5) means I can glance at the screen and back to the road very quickly. In fact in most light conditions I can actually regain focus on the road ahead faster using the PDA's speedo than the one on the dashboard!
:)
As for the brightness issue, TomTom includes a night mode with dark colours. This helps a LOT as obviously the last thing you need is a bright light in your peripheral vision at night!
I wouldn't like to try to use a device buried in the centre console though - especially if it didn't have a 'night mode'. As for a laptop, no chance! At the end of the day spoken instructions are all well and good but sometimes you really need to see the layout of the road ahead especially in new areas. I'm talking UK here, our roads are a LOT more compact than in the USA.
Of course going back to the distractions element, I find I'm much, much more distracted when I'm looking for a direction on one of many signposts leading up to a roundabout than I am when I can take half a second well in advance to look at the PDA and know instantly which exit to take and whereabouts on the roundabout it is. Usually by the time you've found the right sign, and worked out which exit you need to take, you're already in the wrong lane!
I rely on my SatNav so so much. But I love it, and it makes me a safer driver in unknown territory
I want sites to send emails containing jobs matching search criteria.
Jobsite and JobServe do it, PlanetRecruit and Monster don't. I don't want to spend all day trawling through several websites, I want my little CGI script at home to combine everything into one. One that I can apply more advanced filtering to which shows me just the jobs I want.
I know several people who also don't use PlanetRecruit (any more) or Monster due to the lack of emails from them. Even without my funky CGI, it's so much quicker to read through a 1 MB email from start to finish than browse pages 1 to 50 of some search
Well firstly you lose around 33% of your income (or more dependant on how much you earn) to income tax and national insurance
You pay £1000-£2000 per year to your council for the "privilige" of living in the country
You pay £130 for your TV License (or suffer bullying, harrassment, and search warrants even if you don't own a TV)
You pay over £4 tax on a pack of 20 cigarettes (£5)
You pay 17.5% "value added" tax on virtually everything you buy (most foods and books are exempt iirc)
You pay around £1 tax on a pint of beer (£2.50-£3)
You pay around 75p tax per litre of petrol (90p-£1.10)
No idea what the tax is on gas/electricity/water is, but I imagine it's nuts.
Linux users don't want Linux to be a dumping ground for Windows, Solaris, and Macintosh applications
This is demonstrated by WINE and Crossover Office being total failures and nobody ever using the Linux ports of Oracle, Veritas and VMWare right?
The primary thing that ports and (so-called) cross platform applications do is degrade the user experience on Linux.
Damn and I thought X11, X.org, KDE, Gnome, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, GCC, the GNU utilities and Exim (to name but a few) were a good thing... Still, if you don't like using cross platform applications it's your loss. Just out of interest, which X server do you use? I've never heard of any stable ones which have been developed from the ground up to be Linux-only...
I'll take a working NDIS driver over a buggy work-in-progress native driver any day. And I do on a daily basis.
The fact of the matter is that for a lot of wireless chipsets you simply won't get source code. FCC regulations et al, game over.
NDIS is a fantastic cross-platform API. It's not emulation or whatever like WINE. It's "NDIS command goes in this end, radio waves fly through the air". It lets us use modern hardware straight from the shop without having to hack it to work (or waiting for someone else to). Open source drivers are nice when they've been written, bug-fixed, and are stable, but NDIS works brilliantly(*) where that's simply not possible.
(*) under FreeBSD at least.
Applications using alsa doesn't suffer such problems. Stop using apps that use /dev/dsp directly....
OK so you want developers to break compatability with non-Linux platforms and you want users to abandon their software and just use something else (ignoring the fact that in a lot of cases "something else" doesn't exist, is broken, unreliable, unsupported, etc)?
Makes sense... And after all, people porting code to run on other OS's *really* enjoy re-writing huge chunks of Linux specific junk...
Haha I actually sold my first hoover after a few years when the bag got full and I couldn't be arsed going out to buy a new one. I have a Dyson now :D
;)
Also now I have pets which shed fur, so hoovering ain't something I can put off too often. I'm still eyeing up one of those robotic ones though!
Have you ever seen the insides of a large (28-35") CRT? I ain't. The only time I opened up a telly it was a 14" thing a long while ago. I slipped and there was an exceptionally big bang. Since then I've decided it's best to leave the job to professionals. I certainly wouldn't want my father (who's now getting a bit shaky) prodding around near those huge capacitors.
Not that one person can reasonably move a large telly on their own...
They have occasionally asked for repair quotes for their sets, but were quoted close to the price of a new set. Tough choice.
They do. They switch it off on the set, then off at the wall, then unplug it. Several times a day every day. It's The Routine Which Shall Never Be Broken... *rolls eyeballs*
:)
I've been telling them to use standby since I was a little kiddie, but it's not The Routine.
Nobody seems to have mentioned yet that power switches have moving parts, and moving parts are always the first thing to break. (Yes I am aware that 'standby' usually involves a relay which contains a moving part, but relays don't involve the 'human factor')
My parents routinely turn things off instead of using standby and get through a TV rougly every 4 years. Cause of failure? The power switch! Kettle? Hoover? Stereo? All die within a few years because of a dead power switch! In contrast I moved out of the house some 10 or so years ago and have yet to have anything die. Go figure.
Sure, not using standby may save a few watts per year but what about the extra waste generated by dead electronics
Can't complain about the geddon's drone bay post-RMR :)
I have a sweet laptop (under windows) running X unaccelerated under FreeBSD because of those twats at ATI. I tried doing some OpenGL coding once and spent more time rebooting than I did coding. Not directly ATI's fault - more a load of Mesa bugs I think, but I may as well have written my own software 3D rendering engine given all the performance I couldn't get out of this ATI chip.
Even under Linux I understand getting 3D acceleration is next to impossible unless you're willing to run someone else's kernel!
I have no objections to well wrappered closed-source kernel or X.org modules (given a proper wrapper!) but running someone else's kernel is a definite no-no. To me this wreaks of clueless people being scared off innovation by the GPL and the Linux OSS zealots
My next laptop will definitely be using nVidia.
That really is a pathetic list :)
;) I also have serious doubts that NetBSD are still using XFree86 and what the hell is MirOS? :)
The main strangth of it of course is FreeBSD which "oh look" hasn't run XFree86 by default for something like 3-4 years...
There are more operating systems out there running X11 than your favourite RPM-based overly-dependant brand of Linux. Most of them have the sense to distinguish between the need for X client libraries and an X server. I refer to the Free/Net/OpenBSD, Solaris, and AIX servers I have not 10 yards from me now which all happily run X11 apps without having an X server installed. Also I doubt Linux distributions which do things 'properly' like Slackware and Debian would dare install an X server without explicit confirmation although I may be corrected on this latter point.
Who's to decide if I'm illegally downloading, or if I already own that CD and just couldn't be bothered ripping it myself?