When I heard that the iPhone was "missing" the headphone jack, my first thought was "good call".
Here you have this insanely popular electronic device that people have with them at all times, and what's the number one complaint about it? No, no,/. friends, no, it's not planned obsolescence. It's "this thing dies if it so much as looks at water."
Well if you're going to try to take care of that problem one thing you might go for right away is getting rid of that crazy big hole in the top that by its very nature of design is all about exposed metal contacts.
I guess you could get all crazy in your head about DRM and shit but as someone else points out, at the end of the day however the sound is delivered it must end up being converted into a signal that can be used by standard speakers or headphones.
The only way around that is if Apple plans on making it so you have only two options:
* play the sound directly through the iPhone's built-in speaker
* send the sound via some Apple-proprietary encrypted cousin of bluetooth to one of Apple's own special speaker systems that if they get large enough to entertain a party probably cost many thousands of dollars
If that's the direction they're going to go I'd like to imagine it's going to be a complete failure because people don't have the money or wherewithal to spend on special speakers from Apple (the computer company, not the music company).
But then again you only have to know a handful of Apple users to understand that they would do exactly that, and would be glad to go broke doing it.
A waterproof receptacle IS possible to design, all this digital bullshit is unnecessary - it only has to work up to about 22KHz. Why add even more unnecessary digital circuitry to do what used to take all of one or two transistors to do? Every connection in the audio path introduces more noise.
Emoji's are meant to be a quick and simple way to express what is going on in our lives. Guns are real part of our lives. They can be used for cruelty or entertainment. If we keep censoring every little thing because someone might be offended we'll devolve in and Orwellian society.
Guns are also used to sustain life (self defence, hunting - feed one self & family), sports (exercise and improve hand-eye coordination, and provide safe non-violent competition), and war (something that's been part of earth history since the beginning of time and not likely to ever go away (even animals fight over territory, food, and other resources - a form of war, some even have built in weapons such as bees, jellyfish, stingrays, etc.
The fact that some humans kill each other with them is secondary to firearms existence.
Sure, they use caller ID spoofing so that we, the recipients, can't block the number, but you know who knows exactly who the spammers are? The phone company, for two reasons: first, they're routing the calls from end to end, so they know the real source rather than the spoofed one. Second, and more importantly, they're billing them for the calls. They're not sending out bills for thousands of calls to the spoofed IDs, but the real ones. And while individually, those calls are cheap, the tens of thousands a day add up and the phone company makes a lot of money from the spammers, all while telling the FCC and consumers that their hands are tied.
Freeze their assets until they release the billing information to the state AGs. That'll untie their hands really quick.
No, not really. Many of these outfits are using VOIP telephony so it's much harder to track the origins of the calls if it's possible at all.
Our systems are setup for passphrases. They are usually simple sentences easily remembered. It also helps to use passphrases with a token type system like kerberos (kinit) where you get access for a few hours only entering passphrase once since folks won't want to type a long passphrase for every system accessed.
All Linux has a root account, are you referring to being able to log directly in as root? Why is that necessary? I've just run "sudo su -" when I need root for decades. It gives me some peace-of-mind knowing not just anyone can log into my system as root. Ever checked your/var/log/secure or auth.log files? It's amazing how many hits a system gets from various entities attempting to ssh as root to my systems (even with a firewall you can't keep them all from trying).
We are in agreement about MS though, I haven't used Windows in my home environment for 15+ years. Linux is more than capable of doing what needs to be done on a computer.
P.S. OK, I have ONE copy of Windows 7 that runs in a VirtualBox instance on demand - only because my iphone requires iTunes that only runs on Win or MAC, my only software that make windows necessary.
Same thing with the chipped credit cards, they are so much slower than swiping. You must stick it into the reader and wait, and wait, and wait.
I don't see the "advantage" of the chipped cards at all. If someone steals it they just plug it in like I would and no-one will know it's not me unless they check ID (which almost nowhere does - I don't go back to places that don't check).
No, Microsoft are not screwed. Microsoft's partners are screwed.
If Microsoft starts pushing out equipment that people want and emulates Apple - then there's no need for Dell. Anyway, who is Dell going to get an OS from? Apple? Dell has to keep selling Windows because its consumers need it (enterprise and business). Linux is not an option.
It's not just hardware partners Microsoft is screwing over - channel partners are in deep shit, too. All those millions of little IT shops days are numbered, too. Office 365, Azure integrated AD, etc. All spells a lot of trouble for people who have spent the last 10 years selling SBS boxes and PCs to small businesses.
Why not? The last company I worked at (a small SaaS provider) ran completely on Linux, ESXi (free version) and open source. Windows was not missed at all.
We ran one proprietary paid for application necessary for our work.
The company has been running fine with very high uptimes, no Weekly/monthly reboots to patch things.
I like having control over my vehicle and where it goes. You just know after they are out there, the govt. will disallow manually driven cars and will probably come up with a million places your self-driving car will not be allowed to go. That would end freedom of movement in the US.
IR can "see" through heavy rain and fog, so that's not really a problem, but just how will these self-driving cars deal with bad weather, i.e. snow covered or unplowed roads? What will it do on small, winding mountain roads and roads where there's a one lane bridge?
Unless you're a Comcast Xfinity customer, which by default their WiFi routers have public wifi connection running. The end user can't even log in to disable it themselves, it takes a call to Comcast to have it disabled.
I had to call to disable it so it wouldn't interfere with my own wifi router(s) running DD-WRT.
It doesn't matter whether it's legal or not, or whether it's a law. As long as the capabilities to gather and analyze this info exist they will be used by someone somewhere by the government (any government) or other entities.
It makes me wonder if it will just shift to having private enterprise do it for them, then constitutionality won't even matter.
Get used to being spied on; like AI, it's here to stay.
No, the air spaces aren't necessarily filled with air or gas containing oxygen, it could possibly be filled with a relatively inert gas such as nitrogen, helium, etc. or even a gas that retards fire.
The potential problem with this material is that a magnesium fire can rip the O2 it needs straight from the H2O bonds in water. You cannot extinguish a Mg fire with water, that would be adding fuel to the fire. A vessel made of this floating in water means that it is floating its own fuel.
Nice for hackers. So when your system is compromised all the attacker has to do is cause systemd or the system to crash and it deletes all evidence of the attack for you.
And if the logs get corruped and deleted, how are you supposed to do the root cause analysis?
I still can't figure out why the damn things got so popular. More expensive per cup, produces alot of unnecessary plastic waste, and limited selection of coffee type/flavors. I'll take my unbleached filters and fresh ground whole beans and have to wait the whole 4 minutes it takes me to drip-brew a pot of coffee anytime over that.
I swear, people are so f'ing impatient anymore. Just like so many prefer to use the spyware known as Chrome as a browser because it renders a page 1/3rd of a second faster than Firefox.
Actually the terrorists did win in a way. They achieved their goal of "terrorizing" us into enacting the policies now damaging our way of life. They caused the environment that allowed the government to pass the Patriot Act enabling/justifying their spying on us.
They made us suspect ourselves and each other and we now live in a state of paranoia and distrust.
My wife died on Christmas Day 2014 almost four years to the day of diagnosis and surgery of colon cancer.
I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone, but when I read about people like this it makes me think some people might deserve it.
I hope she is prosecuted and made to pay restitution somehow. Someday in the future when she really does have cancer, she'll see how wrong her behaviour is (or maybe she will become the victim of a horrible scam like this).
car is being repaired. Ridiculous! 20 MPG and every time I step on the brakes or the gas it rocks back and forth like a rocking chair. It seats about as many people as a sedan and can carry only slightly more junk than a sedan. Why do people want to drive these things? They aren't attractive, they don't stop/go fast, they can't carry much stuff. I don't get it.
I don't understand why so many people want to drive pickups either. In a pickup you can only haul stuff you care about in decent weather. I get it if you're a farmer or ranch hand and need to haul messy stuff year round, but why would anyone else want to drive a truck? And why is it that the bigger the pickup, the greater the odds that they will back into parking spaces?
I don't know about a Pathfinder, but I drive a 2001 Infiniti QX4 that is based on the Pathfinder. Mine does not handle like that, it pretty much drives like a luxury car, very smooth and predictable and pretty fast. It sounds like yours needs new struts badly and maybe a tune-up. Mine ran much better after a new MAF was installed.
I don't know what you were trying to fit in yours, but I can fit a stack of full 4x8 sheets of plywood or a 60" plasma TV in box and other big bulky items in it without trouble.
I drove a 1994 Acura Integra for almost 20 years. I finally needed something I could haul/tow with since my new home has several acres of wooded land.
P.S. It is my spare bad weather beater and utility vehicle, not my daily driver. Some people NEED a vehicle like this (I hate trucks/SUV's)
Replace "First" with "Second", and your statement is still perfectly valid.
No, it's not the same thing at all. The 2nd specifies that it applies to a well regulated militia, so it doesn't actually apply literally to gun control, the question is if control violates the intent of it. The 1st, on the other hand, has the qualification of "congress shall make no law..." So any law granting authority for NSLs violates the constitution. In same cases the argument is made that something other than congress passing a law violates the intent of the 1st, but in the case of NSLs, the FBI uses various laws passed by congress as it's rationale, therefore any portions of those laws that do grant the FBI authority for NSLs is unconstitutional whether the 1st is taken literally or on its intent. Of course, that just applies to the disclosure portion. The purpose of the NSL is to force a search and/or seizure without a warrant, which is in direct violation of the 4th amendment.
Nowhere in the text of either the 1st or 4th amendments does it specify exceptions for suspected terrorism. This sort of thing is exactly what the Bill of Rights is meant to protect us against.
WRONG!! You're reading it wrong.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The text of the amendment is a comma separated list of things that cannot be infringed. It should be read as: "These things shall not be infringed; A well regulated militia (necessary to the security of the state) and the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
That comma between the "well regulated militia" portion of the sentence and the "right of the people" means AND.
Also "well regulated militia" does not mean "regulated" as in govt. controlled, it means a trained militia. Study the founders supporting documentation a little sometime and you may learn something.
XP users will bitch and moan enough already if they have to use Windows 7 or 8. Giving them Linux would be much worse.
Here are some common misconceptions about end users:
1. They are stupid and only do stupid thing with there PC: Firefox and libreOffice is not the limit to a persons PC usage. They are going to do more complex things even if they don't realize it. They will want to share files over the network, they may want to attach their Camera to their PC, Video Conference, Do some graphics manipulations, even sometimes do basic system admin on their PC, such as updates or putting in a driver. You need to give them more credit then most people do. Linux for the desktop tends to have a doughnut hole in usability. You get Granny Open your program and browse the web. You got advanced user where you can script and program all you want... The hole is in the Moderate user category.
2. Their PC's will work great with Linux: Who really fully checks the Linux compatibility list when getting a PC. Especially if you initially get a windows PC. Even old PC's you may find that a network controller isn't supported, or a video driver never really worked right with that screen. Hardware makers usually make sure their stuff works on windows first then perhaps in Linux if they feel like there is a market for it.
3. Vendors/Customers/Partners will bend backwards to help you keep supported. I am sending you a DOCX with a Macro in it for you to view. Are you really going to have them redo their work so you can view that document. A vendor may give you a crappy convert. The customer will defiantly give you lip. A partner may question you.
4. We don't use Legacy Software: There is always that piece of legacy software that you have that makes porting expensive.
Sorry, NIC's are a bad example since just about every enterprise datacenter uses Linux as servers. Every one of 'em have a NIC in them and Linux had some of the first support foro 10G ethernet NICs. Any server HW vendor NOT supporting Linux would quickly go out of business.
Even alot of consumer HW now has Linux support, check any printer vendor, it's hard to find one that doesn't either have a downloadable driver or one that Linux automagically recognizes.
I have a friend who is severely computer illiterate to the point he hates using any computer. Since his last windows system died, I gave him one of my retired Dell 4600's with Ubuntu. He called me a couple of times to ask a question how to do something but for over two years now I have not received one call for support.
Sure, mineral oil, cooking oil, fluorinert distilled water, bunch of other esoteric fluids. The real thing that it comes down to the heat transfer between the component and the fluid itself. And this newer stuff is apparently leaps above flurorinert, especially besides that it won't kill you quite so quickly and won't destroy the ozone layer quite so badly. You thought that freon was bad? Fluorinert makes freon look like a glass of water in terms of reactivity.
HUH? Kill you? Flourinert is just what it means, it's inert! It's what the medical community was been playing with years ago in an attempt to treat lung infections, you can breath it, like in the move "The Abyss" where they dunk his rat in the tank (they actually did that). It IS slightly toxic and is probably one of the reasons it never made into actual medical use.
Toxicity Profile
Fluorinert liquid FC-70 is non-irritating to the eyes and skin, and is practically non-
toxic orally. The product also demonstrates very low acute and sub-chronic inhalation
toxicity. A Material Safety Data Sheet is available upon request.
Although you are correct about it's greenhouse potential, it's vapors are extremely dense and thus relatively easy to contain.
I used to work with the stuff doing vapor phase soldering on specialized components.
Slashdot Mirror
When I heard that the iPhone was "missing" the headphone jack, my first thought was "good call".
Here you have this insanely popular electronic device that people have with them at all times, and what's the number one complaint about it? No, no, /. friends, no, it's not planned obsolescence. It's "this thing dies if it so much as looks at water."
Well if you're going to try to take care of that problem one thing you might go for right away is getting rid of that crazy big hole in the top that by its very nature of design is all about exposed metal contacts.
I guess you could get all crazy in your head about DRM and shit but as someone else points out, at the end of the day however the sound is delivered it must end up being converted into a signal that can be used by standard speakers or headphones.
The only way around that is if Apple plans on making it so you have only two options: * play the sound directly through the iPhone's built-in speaker * send the sound via some Apple-proprietary encrypted cousin of bluetooth to one of Apple's own special speaker systems that if they get large enough to entertain a party probably cost many thousands of dollars
If that's the direction they're going to go I'd like to imagine it's going to be a complete failure because people don't have the money or wherewithal to spend on special speakers from Apple (the computer company, not the music company).
But then again you only have to know a handful of Apple users to understand that they would do exactly that, and would be glad to go broke doing it.
A waterproof receptacle IS possible to design, all this digital bullshit is unnecessary - it only has to work up to about 22KHz. Why add even more unnecessary digital circuitry to do what used to take all of one or two transistors to do? Every connection in the audio path introduces more noise.
Emoji's are meant to be a quick and simple way to express what is going on in our lives. Guns are real part of our lives. They can be used for cruelty or entertainment. If we keep censoring every little thing because someone might be offended we'll devolve in and Orwellian society.
Guns are also used to sustain life (self defence, hunting - feed one self & family), sports (exercise and improve hand-eye coordination, and provide safe non-violent competition), and war (something that's been part of earth history since the beginning of time and not likely to ever go away (even animals fight over territory, food, and other resources - a form of war, some even have built in weapons such as bees, jellyfish, stingrays, etc.
The fact that some humans kill each other with them is secondary to firearms existence.
Sure, they use caller ID spoofing so that we, the recipients, can't block the number, but you know who knows exactly who the spammers are? The phone company, for two reasons: first, they're routing the calls from end to end, so they know the real source rather than the spoofed one. Second, and more importantly, they're billing them for the calls. They're not sending out bills for thousands of calls to the spoofed IDs, but the real ones. And while individually, those calls are cheap, the tens of thousands a day add up and the phone company makes a lot of money from the spammers, all while telling the FCC and consumers that their hands are tied.
Freeze their assets until they release the billing information to the state AGs. That'll untie their hands really quick.
No, not really. Many of these outfits are using VOIP telephony so it's much harder to track the origins of the calls if it's possible at all.
Our systems are setup for passphrases. They are usually simple sentences easily remembered. It also helps to use passphrases with a token type system like kerberos (kinit) where you get access for a few hours only entering passphrase once since folks won't want to type a long passphrase for every system accessed.
All Linux has a root account, are you referring to being able to log directly in as root? /var/log/secure or auth.log files? It's amazing how many hits a system gets from various entities attempting to ssh as root to my systems (even with a firewall you can't keep them all from trying).
Why is that necessary? I've just run "sudo su -" when I need root for decades. It gives me some peace-of-mind knowing not just anyone can log into my system as root.
Ever checked your
We are in agreement about MS though, I haven't used Windows in my home environment for 15+ years. Linux is more than capable of doing what needs to be done on a computer.
P.S. OK, I have ONE copy of Windows 7 that runs in a VirtualBox instance on demand - only because my iphone requires iTunes that only runs on Win or MAC, my only software that make windows necessary.
Same thing with the chipped credit cards, they are so much slower than swiping. You must stick it into the reader and wait, and wait, and wait.
I don't see the "advantage" of the chipped cards at all. If someone steals it they just plug it in like I would and no-one will know it's not me unless they check ID (which almost nowhere does - I don't go back to places that don't check).
No, Microsoft are not screwed. Microsoft's partners are screwed. If Microsoft starts pushing out equipment that people want and emulates Apple - then there's no need for Dell. Anyway, who is Dell going to get an OS from? Apple? Dell has to keep selling Windows because its consumers need it (enterprise and business). Linux is not an option. It's not just hardware partners Microsoft is screwing over - channel partners are in deep shit, too. All those millions of little IT shops days are numbered, too. Office 365, Azure integrated AD, etc. All spells a lot of trouble for people who have spent the last 10 years selling SBS boxes and PCs to small businesses.
Why not? The last company I worked at (a small SaaS provider) ran completely on Linux, ESXi (free version) and open source. Windows was not missed at all. We ran one proprietary paid for application necessary for our work. The company has been running fine with very high uptimes, no Weekly/monthly reboots to patch things.
I like having control over my vehicle and where it goes. You just know after they are out there, the govt. will disallow manually driven cars and will probably come up with a million places your self-driving car will not be allowed to go. That would end freedom of movement in the US.
IR can "see" through heavy rain and fog, so that's not really a problem, but just how will these self-driving cars deal with bad weather, i.e. snow covered or unplowed roads? What will it do on small, winding mountain roads and roads where there's a one lane bridge?
Unless you're a Comcast Xfinity customer, which by default their WiFi routers have public wifi connection running. The end user can't even log in to disable it themselves, it takes a call to Comcast to have it disabled.
I had to call to disable it so it wouldn't interfere with my own wifi router(s) running DD-WRT.
And all the climate change deniers are considered nuts for thinking that the scientists don't have the climate models right?
Proof positive that ANY computer model can be inaccurate. What is more dynamic and chaotic than the atmosphere?
It doesn't matter whether it's legal or not, or whether it's a law. As long as the capabilities to gather and analyze this info exist they will be used by someone somewhere by the government (any government) or other entities.
It makes me wonder if it will just shift to having private enterprise do it for them, then constitutionality won't even matter.
Get used to being spied on; like AI, it's here to stay.
No, the air spaces aren't necessarily filled with air or gas containing oxygen, it could possibly be filled with a relatively inert gas such as nitrogen, helium, etc. or even a gas that retards fire.
The potential problem with this material is that a magnesium fire can rip the O2 it needs straight from the H2O bonds in water. You cannot extinguish a Mg fire with water, that would be adding fuel to the fire. A vessel made of this floating in water means that it is floating its own fuel.
Nice for hackers. So when your system is compromised all the attacker has to do is cause systemd or the system to crash and it deletes all evidence of the attack for you.
And if the logs get corruped and deleted, how are you supposed to do the root cause analysis?
Me too!
I still can't figure out why the damn things got so popular. More expensive per cup, produces alot of unnecessary plastic waste, and limited selection of coffee type/flavors. I'll take my unbleached filters and fresh ground whole beans and have to wait the whole 4 minutes it takes me to drip-brew a pot of coffee anytime over that.
I swear, people are so f'ing impatient anymore. Just like so many prefer to use the spyware known as Chrome as a browser because it renders a page 1/3rd of a second faster than Firefox.
Actually the terrorists did win in a way. They achieved their goal of "terrorizing" us into enacting the policies now damaging our way of life. They caused the environment that allowed the government to pass the Patriot Act enabling/justifying their spying on us.
They made us suspect ourselves and each other and we now live in a state of paranoia and distrust.
For that matter can we please go back to paper medical records too? How long will it be before all our medical histories become public knowledge?
While in theory, EMR's can do a lot of good by providing any doctor instant critical info but in the current big-data low security environment, no.
Did iTunes ever really work at all?
It must be the shittiest, most unintuitive POS app I've used in a long time.
I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone, but when I read about people like this it makes me think some people might deserve it.
I hope she is prosecuted and made to pay restitution somehow. Someday in the future when she really does have cancer, she'll see how wrong her behaviour is (or maybe she will become the victim of a horrible scam like this).
car is being repaired. Ridiculous! 20 MPG and every time I step on the brakes or the gas it rocks back and forth like a rocking chair. It seats about as many people as a sedan and can carry only slightly more junk than a sedan. Why do people want to drive these things? They aren't attractive, they don't stop/go fast, they can't carry much stuff. I don't get it.
I don't understand why so many people want to drive pickups either. In a pickup you can only haul stuff you care about in decent weather. I get it if you're a farmer or ranch hand and need to haul messy stuff year round, but why would anyone else want to drive a truck? And why is it that the bigger the pickup, the greater the odds that they will back into parking spaces?
I don't know about a Pathfinder, but I drive a 2001 Infiniti QX4 that is based on the Pathfinder. Mine does not handle like that, it pretty much drives like a luxury car, very smooth and predictable and pretty fast. It sounds like yours needs new struts badly and maybe a tune-up. Mine ran much better after a new MAF was installed.
I don't know what you were trying to fit in yours, but I can fit a stack of full 4x8 sheets of plywood or a 60" plasma TV in box and other big bulky items in it without trouble.
I drove a 1994 Acura Integra for almost 20 years. I finally needed something I could haul/tow with since my new home has several acres of wooded land.
P.S. It is my spare bad weather beater and utility vehicle, not my daily driver. Some people NEED a vehicle like this (I hate trucks/SUV's)
This would be perfect for powering an eye implant like the one recently demonstrated in the news.
Hmmm. Found it in 20 seconds on the archive and it works in my version of mame on Ubuntu:
main page: http://archive.org/download/MA...
Battlezone: http://archive.org/download/MA...
Reactor: http://ia601001.us.archive.org...
Replace "First" with "Second", and your statement is still perfectly valid.
No, it's not the same thing at all. The 2nd specifies that it applies to a well regulated militia, so it doesn't actually apply literally to gun control, the question is if control violates the intent of it. The 1st, on the other hand, has the qualification of "congress shall make no law..." So any law granting authority for NSLs violates the constitution. In same cases the argument is made that something other than congress passing a law violates the intent of the 1st, but in the case of NSLs, the FBI uses various laws passed by congress as it's rationale, therefore any portions of those laws that do grant the FBI authority for NSLs is unconstitutional whether the 1st is taken literally or on its intent. Of course, that just applies to the disclosure portion. The purpose of the NSL is to force a search and/or seizure without a warrant, which is in direct violation of the 4th amendment.
Nowhere in the text of either the 1st or 4th amendments does it specify exceptions for suspected terrorism. This sort of thing is exactly what the Bill of Rights is meant to protect us against.
WRONG!! You're reading it wrong.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
The text of the amendment is a comma separated list of things that cannot be infringed. It should be read as: "These things shall not be infringed; A well regulated militia (necessary to the security of the state) and the right of the people to keep and bear arms." That comma between the "well regulated militia" portion of the sentence and the "right of the people" means AND. Also "well regulated militia" does not mean "regulated" as in govt. controlled, it means a trained militia.
Study the founders supporting documentation a little sometime and you may learn something.
I really miss it as one of the best general *NIX mags out there for a sysadmin.
You are getting yourself in a world of pain!
XP users will bitch and moan enough already if they have to use Windows 7 or 8. Giving them Linux would be much worse.
Here are some common misconceptions about end users: 1. They are stupid and only do stupid thing with there PC: Firefox and libreOffice is not the limit to a persons PC usage. They are going to do more complex things even if they don't realize it. They will want to share files over the network, they may want to attach their Camera to their PC, Video Conference, Do some graphics manipulations, even sometimes do basic system admin on their PC, such as updates or putting in a driver. You need to give them more credit then most people do. Linux for the desktop tends to have a doughnut hole in usability. You get Granny Open your program and browse the web. You got advanced user where you can script and program all you want... The hole is in the Moderate user category.
2. Their PC's will work great with Linux: Who really fully checks the Linux compatibility list when getting a PC. Especially if you initially get a windows PC. Even old PC's you may find that a network controller isn't supported, or a video driver never really worked right with that screen. Hardware makers usually make sure their stuff works on windows first then perhaps in Linux if they feel like there is a market for it.
3. Vendors/Customers/Partners will bend backwards to help you keep supported. I am sending you a DOCX with a Macro in it for you to view. Are you really going to have them redo their work so you can view that document. A vendor may give you a crappy convert. The customer will defiantly give you lip. A partner may question you.
4. We don't use Legacy Software: There is always that piece of legacy software that you have that makes porting expensive.
Sorry, NIC's are a bad example since just about every enterprise datacenter uses Linux as servers. Every one of 'em have a NIC in them and Linux had some of the first support foro 10G ethernet NICs. Any server HW vendor NOT supporting Linux would quickly go out of business.
Even alot of consumer HW now has Linux support, check any printer vendor, it's hard to find one that doesn't either have a downloadable driver or one that Linux automagically recognizes.
I have a friend who is severely computer illiterate to the point he hates using any computer. Since his last windows system died, I gave him one of my retired Dell 4600's with Ubuntu. He called me a couple of times to ask a question how to do something but for over two years now I have not received one call for support.
Sure, mineral oil, cooking oil, fluorinert distilled water, bunch of other esoteric fluids. The real thing that it comes down to the heat transfer between the component and the fluid itself. And this newer stuff is apparently leaps above flurorinert, especially besides that it won't kill you quite so quickly and won't destroy the ozone layer quite so badly. You thought that freon was bad? Fluorinert makes freon look like a glass of water in terms of reactivity.
HUH? Kill you? Flourinert is just what it means, it's inert! It's what the medical community was been playing with years ago in an attempt to treat lung infections, you can breath it, like in the move "The Abyss" where they dunk his rat in the tank (they actually did that). It IS slightly toxic and is probably one of the reasons it never made into actual medical use.
Although you are correct about it's greenhouse potential, it's vapors are extremely dense and thus relatively easy to contain.
I used to work with the stuff doing vapor phase soldering on specialized components.