Nope, not in the TI-82. I had a TI-85 in high school, and so did quite a few people I knew. It seemed that the polynomial solver was a pretty well kept secret, as everyone else seemed to make their own programs to do what the calculator did already.
Textbooks are more of a scam at the college level. My high school would buy a batch of textbooks, usually more than they would need (they had the foresight to realize that some would be lost/destroyed). Then they would use those same textbooks for 10-15+ years until they were completely destroyed, then buy new ones. Since all the textbooks were bought at once, they avoided the whole "lets change the textbook every 18 months and make everyone buy new ones" scam.
It's great. There is nothing greater than watching the horror on someone's face when you take their non-working drive full of valuable data and smack it on a table a few times. Except maybe the look you get when you plug it back in and they heard it spin up.
Olive oil? That's a new one. Though I must say I WD-40'd a CPU fan the other day because I had no other option (other than drive to Best Buy and pay way too much for a cheap-ass noisy fan). So far, been working fine.
Well, you are the exact opposite of my story. I don't have a single WD drive because every one I have ever gotten has failed. Usually in a sudden, unexpected, you better of had backups kind of way. Even the infamously bad IBM drives failed more gracefully. I've found Samsung to be good (seen no failures yet), Seagate reliable like usual, and Maxtor is ok.
Those Pioneer slot loaders are good drives. I knew a hardcore gamer with one of those drives. He never cracked the games or did full installs to the harddrive (in other words, the CD drive would be spinning whenever he played). Drive went for years and years, averaging hours of use per day. Finally started getting slow on the seek times, and got replaced. But still works, and currently sitting in my spare parts box.
Incidently, I also had a Pioneer CD player for a car. Lasted 6 years in a car, which is pretty harsh conditions if you ask me - especially in Minnesota. It finally failed, the transformer in the back blew out. Never had any problems reading any disk upto the very end, and I used it all the time (never listened to radio).
I actually buy CD-RW's for all my computers now, as I find them to be the most reliable, not to mention the most capable of reading damaged disks. The regular CD drives seem too cheap, and get flakey after a while. DVD drives are some of the crappiest computer components out there, most every one will stop reading DVDs in less than a year. The only exception I have seen where some generic OEM ones I got in a HP computer. I have yet to buy a DVD recorder, as I don't see the need.
Actually, Consumer Report's test of the Ionic Breeze was flawed. The Ionic Breeze lacks a fan to move air around. They make bogus claims that it uses charges and other voodoo to push the air around, but in reality the device just depends on air currents in the room to work. Consumer Reports tested the device by enclosing it in a static chamber of dirty air and letting it run, and of course it wasn't able to do much. But in real life situations, the Ionic Breeze does work. Of course, the units with integrated fans do a better job, but for many people, the Ionic Breeze is good enough.
My experience is that Dell builds reliable, but underperforming machines. What I mean is that they are really stable, low failure rate, but get smoked by simular machines I build off of newegg.
And it's not like Apple hasn't had it's share of reliability problems. I would feel sorry for any company stupid enough to buy 1,000 iBooks.
The problem with most budget computers now is that they don't have enough ram. They certainly have enough processing power (a $400 Dell now comes with a 2.8Ghz P4, apparently). 256MB is enough to get Windows started, and run an application or two. But once you load anti-virus on that computer, what little free memory you had is now gone, and the computer spends all it's time fragging the disk.
If I had $2,999, I would build a dual AMD64 system myself. It would be cheaper, and would smoke both the Apple and the Dell. And I would probably save enough money to buy an iBook with the leftovers.
The whole reason to buy an Intel chip is got an Intel chipset, which are the most stable chipsets around. To spend all that money on an Intel CPU and then use a nVidia chipset would be lunacy.
For the record, I use an AMD chip on a nVidia chipset.
I just use task manager to set the reencoding to a lower priority, then go about my business with a computer that is almost as responsive as it is normally. And this is on a 2Ghz Athlon. Usually for burning I let the computer be until it finishes.
Most of the really bright LEDs you see are driven by a higher voltage, and this shortens their lifetime. The LEDs you are used to, like the power indicator ones on your computer, are low voltage and will last practicallly forever.
Just wait until the purple LEDs start becoming commercially viable.
What I don't understand is why they don't seem to make a soft blue LED. It seems that all the blue LEDs they put into electronics are the variety intended for flashlights.
I think the poster was referring to aftermarket LED light replacement kits. Which like many aftermarket car parts aimed at the ricer crowd, are of pretty questionable quality (both build and aesthetic). Factory LED lights on cars work well and last a long time, though they can still fail and are expensive to replace when they do.
People keep complaining about the Mini being "not so cheap" when you factor in the keyboard, mouse and monitor. But come on! How many people are really buying one of these as a "first machine" these days? Everyone I know has a spare monitor, keyboard and mouse lying around someplace - or at least can take the old ones off the system they're swapping out for the new Mini.
But this is the federal government we are talking about, not Bob who lives down the street. Unless you think the government has warehouses of keyboards, mice, and monitors laying around somewhere.
But most contracts are simply something like "We need 10,000 computers that can run MS Office". The Dells are $400, and the Mac Mini's are $500. So they buy the Dells. And that's ignoring the fact that they probably want keyboards, mice, and monitors too.
That is so wrong it's not even funny. I use the damn taskbar by day, and Expose by night. From an HCI standpoint it is FAR easier and quicker to find most windows visually than to play Shrunken Taskbar Icon Hunter. Folding the taskbar icons (grouping) helps you find windows easier but is way slow to use. Leaving them all out (which I prefer) makes them unreadable and still makes it hard sometimes to quickly get to what you want.
Get a whole bunch of windows open on the Mac, and then you get to play "Which one of the white rectangles is the one I want?". Even more fun when you decide get rid of some of them by minimizing them to the dock, then it's "Which one of the really small white rectangles is the right one?". Expose is great for a few windows open, but for more than 6-7 windows it becomes a pain in the ass, and I'm looking for the taskbar.
Also, grouping tasks on the taskbar is one of the few "improvements" that I really like in Windows XP.
I'm sure at some point the hardware will fail and the cost of purchasing replacements will outweigh the cost of having someone convert the files, but it hasn't happened yet.
Sounds like a good job for QEMU (or VirtualPC, etc).
Besides, Windows 98 is still hanging in there. I bought a new NForce motherboard the other day, and the CD that came with it still had drivers for Windows 98. Windows NT is dying fast though.
The ATI 9600Pro is adequate for the current crop of games, atleast on my 2Ghz PC driving a 1600x1200 display. At the rate PC games get ported over to the Mac, my guess is the ATI 9600 will be fine in the iMac for several years to come.
Especially interesting since the rumors say nothing about Apple's line of notebook computers, which is what I would assume the original poster would purchase.
Too bad there is no speedup for the Mac mini yet, I'd love to see a Mac mini with a base G5. However it does look like they may begin putting dual core processors out in this update.
My guess is that you would not be able to get a G5 into a mini without it sounding like one of those SFF PC's with an Intel Prescott in it. The G5 is just too hot.
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Nope, not in the TI-82. I had a TI-85 in high school, and so did quite a few people I knew. It seemed that the polynomial solver was a pretty well kept secret, as everyone else seemed to make their own programs to do what the calculator did already.
And the worst part is, that you all had TI-85's and no one realized that a powerful polynomial solver is built in!
Textbooks are more of a scam at the college level. My high school would buy a batch of textbooks, usually more than they would need (they had the foresight to realize that some would be lost/destroyed). Then they would use those same textbooks for 10-15+ years until they were completely destroyed, then buy new ones. Since all the textbooks were bought at once, they avoided the whole "lets change the textbook every 18 months and make everyone buy new ones" scam.
There is always Jabber.
You know what's scarier?
"This is a true story..."
It's great. There is nothing greater than watching the horror on someone's face when you take their non-working drive full of valuable data and smack it on a table a few times. Except maybe the look you get when you plug it back in and they heard it spin up.
Olive oil? That's a new one. Though I must say I WD-40'd a CPU fan the other day because I had no other option (other than drive to Best Buy and pay way too much for a cheap-ass noisy fan). So far, been working fine.
Well, you are the exact opposite of my story. I don't have a single WD drive because every one I have ever gotten has failed. Usually in a sudden, unexpected, you better of had backups kind of way. Even the infamously bad IBM drives failed more gracefully. I've found Samsung to be good (seen no failures yet), Seagate reliable like usual, and Maxtor is ok.
Those Pioneer slot loaders are good drives. I knew a hardcore gamer with one of those drives. He never cracked the games or did full installs to the harddrive (in other words, the CD drive would be spinning whenever he played). Drive went for years and years, averaging hours of use per day. Finally started getting slow on the seek times, and got replaced. But still works, and currently sitting in my spare parts box.
Incidently, I also had a Pioneer CD player for a car. Lasted 6 years in a car, which is pretty harsh conditions if you ask me - especially in Minnesota. It finally failed, the transformer in the back blew out. Never had any problems reading any disk upto the very end, and I used it all the time (never listened to radio).
I actually buy CD-RW's for all my computers now, as I find them to be the most reliable, not to mention the most capable of reading damaged disks. The regular CD drives seem too cheap, and get flakey after a while. DVD drives are some of the crappiest computer components out there, most every one will stop reading DVDs in less than a year. The only exception I have seen where some generic OEM ones I got in a HP computer. I have yet to buy a DVD recorder, as I don't see the need.
Actually, Consumer Report's test of the Ionic Breeze was flawed. The Ionic Breeze lacks a fan to move air around. They make bogus claims that it uses charges and other voodoo to push the air around, but in reality the device just depends on air currents in the room to work. Consumer Reports tested the device by enclosing it in a static chamber of dirty air and letting it run, and of course it wasn't able to do much. But in real life situations, the Ionic Breeze does work. Of course, the units with integrated fans do a better job, but for many people, the Ionic Breeze is good enough.
My experience is that Dell builds reliable, but underperforming machines. What I mean is that they are really stable, low failure rate, but get smoked by simular machines I build off of newegg.
And it's not like Apple hasn't had it's share of reliability problems. I would feel sorry for any company stupid enough to buy 1,000 iBooks.
The problem with most budget computers now is that they don't have enough ram. They certainly have enough processing power (a $400 Dell now comes with a 2.8Ghz P4, apparently). 256MB is enough to get Windows started, and run an application or two. But once you load anti-virus on that computer, what little free memory you had is now gone, and the computer spends all it's time fragging the disk.
If I had $2,999, I would build a dual AMD64 system myself. It would be cheaper, and would smoke both the Apple and the Dell. And I would probably save enough money to buy an iBook with the leftovers.
The whole reason to buy an Intel chip is got an Intel chipset, which are the most stable chipsets around. To spend all that money on an Intel CPU and then use a nVidia chipset would be lunacy.
For the record, I use an AMD chip on a nVidia chipset.
I just use task manager to set the reencoding to a lower priority, then go about my business with a computer that is almost as responsive as it is normally. And this is on a 2Ghz Athlon. Usually for burning I let the computer be until it finishes.
Most of the really bright LEDs you see are driven by a higher voltage, and this shortens their lifetime. The LEDs you are used to, like the power indicator ones on your computer, are low voltage and will last practicallly forever.
Enough with these bright blue ones.
Just wait until the purple LEDs start becoming commercially viable.
What I don't understand is why they don't seem to make a soft blue LED. It seems that all the blue LEDs they put into electronics are the variety intended for flashlights.
I think the poster was referring to aftermarket LED light replacement kits. Which like many aftermarket car parts aimed at the ricer crowd, are of pretty questionable quality (both build and aesthetic). Factory LED lights on cars work well and last a long time, though they can still fail and are expensive to replace when they do.
People keep complaining about the Mini being "not so cheap" when you factor in the keyboard, mouse and monitor. But come on! How many people are really buying one of these as a "first machine" these days? Everyone I know has a spare monitor, keyboard and mouse lying around someplace - or at least can take the old ones off the system they're swapping out for the new Mini.
But this is the federal government we are talking about, not Bob who lives down the street. Unless you think the government has warehouses of keyboards, mice, and monitors laying around somewhere.
But most contracts are simply something like "We need 10,000 computers that can run MS Office". The Dells are $400, and the Mac Mini's are $500. So they buy the Dells. And that's ignoring the fact that they probably want keyboards, mice, and monitors too.
That is so wrong it's not even funny. I use the damn taskbar by day, and Expose by night. From an HCI standpoint it is FAR easier and quicker to find most windows visually than to play Shrunken Taskbar Icon Hunter. Folding the taskbar icons (grouping) helps you find windows easier but is way slow to use. Leaving them all out (which I prefer) makes them unreadable and still makes it hard sometimes to quickly get to what you want.
Get a whole bunch of windows open on the Mac, and then you get to play "Which one of the white rectangles is the one I want?". Even more fun when you decide get rid of some of them by minimizing them to the dock, then it's "Which one of the really small white rectangles is the right one?". Expose is great for a few windows open, but for more than 6-7 windows it becomes a pain in the ass, and I'm looking for the taskbar.
Also, grouping tasks on the taskbar is one of the few "improvements" that I really like in Windows XP.
I'm sure at some point the hardware will fail and the cost of purchasing replacements will outweigh the cost of having someone convert the files, but it hasn't happened yet.
Sounds like a good job for QEMU (or VirtualPC, etc).
Besides, Windows 98 is still hanging in there. I bought a new NForce motherboard the other day, and the CD that came with it still had drivers for Windows 98. Windows NT is dying fast though.
The ATI 9600Pro is adequate for the current crop of games, atleast on my 2Ghz PC driving a 1600x1200 display. At the rate PC games get ported over to the Mac, my guess is the ATI 9600 will be fine in the iMac for several years to come.
Especially interesting since the rumors say nothing about Apple's line of notebook computers, which is what I would assume the original poster would purchase.
Too bad there is no speedup for the Mac mini yet, I'd love to see a Mac mini with a base G5. However it does look like they may begin putting dual core processors out in this update.
My guess is that you would not be able to get a G5 into a mini without it sounding like one of those SFF PC's with an Intel Prescott in it. The G5 is just too hot.
A dual core G4 Mini would be interesting though.