Comment Re:Better call it Windows 11 (Score 1) 644
Could end up with WINDOWS !) if they're in a big rush to get it packaged.
Could end up with WINDOWS !) if they're in a big rush to get it packaged.
At work I'm on 3.6. Just as they finally moved us from IE6 to FF, it was at version 3.6... which because 18 versions out of date pretty promptly
Buy Crees. I work in LED driver design, and Cree, who I don't work for but I work with, seem to do a good job of making sure their LED's don't get associated with junk. Philips similarly, to a lesser extent.
Weird. My experience has been the opposite. I've tried the Cree bulbs from Home Depot and they suck because they strobe at 120 Hz (verified on a scope). That's not usually noticeable except when you move your eyes quickly (like reading), or if something moves quickly like your kid swinging a baton. The strobe effect really bothers me. I also have 15 of the Philips L-prize bulbs that they discontinued after collecting their prize money, and those do not have any sort of strobe effect and they are more efficient than the Cree bulbs.
Cree is a world leader in making the actual LED elements themselves. These are found in products made by other manufacturers. They only recently stepped into the consumer space by designing and packaging a 120V screw in LED bulb, which I agree has a noticeable 120Hz flicker, but that's a result of their driver design, not the LEDs themselves. I was also similarly disappointed with Phillips A-line slim. It also had a noticeable flicker. Both bulbs do an excellent job of 2700K colour temperature, and price, but the flicker is too noticeable for me (though it's not 100% unfiltered, I've seen a lot worse bulbs).
Which is why when installing screw in LEDs or CFLs, I only put them in open, base down (or sideways if I must) fixtures. It's amazing how few ceiling fixtures there are that meet these criteria. With CFLs I've had very few premature failures, where the people that complain about them lasting less than an incandescent I assume put them in the worst applications possible (enclosed, base up, on a dimmer when not rated, short cycled).
Ideal for LED is an entire replacement fixture, where thermal management can be integral. I like the Lithonia Versi Lite. It's attractive, dimmable (with a cheap $3 Leviton Trimatron dimmer), and cheap at $35 (if building new you need to buy a fixture anyways), the downside is I notice 120Hz flicker on them, so they are only really suited to hallways, closets, and utility rooms.
Red, orange, and green are acceptable depending on the purpose to allow choice. If there's multistate you can have green for good, red for fault. Old laptops used to use green to mean powered on ( or charging), and red to mean low battery, or bad power supply voltage. Old desktops would be green for power, orange for turbo, and red for HDD. For for a simple pilot light red is the cheapest (and I agree the best). Thankfully all the blue LEDs have significantly faded over the past 7 years since I bought my laptop and turned it on (and left it on 24/7). Meanwhile the red LED on my 23 year old power bar is still going strong.
Blue and white when not needed are such a pain. My company issued car cellphone charger has a big bright white LED. WTF? In a car when you're driving at night you want the minimal amount of light. I have to make sure it's rotated to face down. Put a small red or green pilot light if you must. I bought a three socket individually switched 12V power splitter for the car (since the ignition doesn't kill the socket). The switches mount right on the plug and have a tiny red pilot LED for each switch. Then the whole switch assembly is lit up with these bright blue always on LEDs. WTF? I still need to take it apart and disable the LEDs so there's no vampire power (or annoyance at night).
Back in the day monitors would have a small green LED when powered up, and amber when in standby. My new monitor lights the whole button up bright blue. And don't get me started about TV's with white light up SONY logos (or the morons that buy them, and aren't bothered enough to figure out the menu to disable them.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briefcase_%28Microsoft_Windows%29
Basically it was an option on the "New..." section of the context menu that allowed older users to become totally befuddled by the mysterious appearance of these "My Briefcase (x)" icons all over their desktop...
Some Zip Drive users found them handy.
I found it to be very finicky and unreliable.
The problem that Apple is going to face is that watches, for the most part, are something someone buys once and keeps forever. Antique Rolex watches for example.
People have been "trained" to toss their phone annually. Same with their tablet.
I don't see this as that much of an issue. Makers of inaccurate mechanical watches like to pretend they're a treasure to be handed down through the generations, but as it is I think most people are like myself and will wear a quartz (digital or analog... in my case both) watch until it breaks, then replace it with similar. An analog quartz watch from 10 years ago has the same features as one today, so if all it needs is a $5 battery, or a $5 strap, that will be replaced and the watch will keep going until complete failure.
With early cell phones there was no real advantage to upgrading, so people kept them until they broke. With smartphones the trend of frequent upgrades started because of new features (processing power, screen size, camera, OS / App support, etc), so many people upgrade before the phone actually broke.
With the Smart Watch I'm currently hesitant about it being a market that could take off, but I was wrong before with the iPad, so I could be wrong again. In this case if the Apple Watch 3gs offered a camera, ability to make phone calls out of range of an iPhone, etc, etc, existing owners may trade them up before they break. I think the history of longevity of simple wrist mounted time pieces will play no roll.
or why they went out of style in all but 5 cities.
My understanding it was the GM diesel bus lobby. Meanwhile the Electric streetcars and trolly busses were owned by electric utilities.
My my...repeat posts for molten salt reactors...
It's better than repeat posts on HOSTS files.
It works best if to "Scan" they are actually faxing it to a Fax-PDF number, to ensure the lowest of quality possible.
Of all technologies I have ever used across all time, floppies are one of the few that I've been thankful to say good riddance to, and hope it stays in the dustbin of history. CLI, modems, dot matrix printers, CRT's, they all have something charming about them, but not floppies.
About a year ago was the first time I had to use a floppy in years. It supposedly had the backup copy of an important program for work (and as far as I knew, the only copy that ever existed). Someone had overwritten the disk with something else, but eventually I did find a copy of the software on another floppy. The time before that I was trying to write a boot floppy to bootstrap an install off a CD-ROM (BIOS couldn't boot from CD). It took 5 disks to get a working one.
Since I first used floppies 25 years ago they sucked, and they still suck. The number of people I saw that kept the only copy of all their schoolwork on a floppy, only to have it rendered unreadable is heart breaking. They were always slow, small, and unreliable, but for some reason people were told they were more reliable than HDD (which may have been true for early HDD, but not in the 90's). How many times have you copied something, with a nice consistent *tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-whir-whir-tick-tick-tick-tick*, only to get to 97 Percent and *whir-whir, whir-whir, whir-whir, whir-whir* "NOT READY READING DRIVE A:"
Even dealing with retro-computing there's better options. I use Sewell's FastLynx. It's like an updated version of Interlink (and you can buy it with the Serial and Parallel cables). You can connect to DOS machines, and a Windows NT4/9X/XP/7/8 machine with null modem serial or parallel cable (your modern machine must have a real LPT port, you can't use a serial converter) to transfer files. It can write the software on the remote PC over a serial link so you don't even need a floppy for the original install. The speed over Parallel is surprisingly fast.
You can slipstream SATA / SCSI drivers onto the install CD using Nlite.
You can also take a Youtube URL (with the exception of VEVO), And enter it into VLC: Media->Open Network stream
Where it will play without ads.
As a side benefit, since VLC wasn't coded using garbage, like Adobe Flash is, the video won't stutter and stall on older PCs.
uTorrent IS malware these days.
Sadly true. I recently switched to qBittorrent and and though it lacks a few of the bells and whistles, I have not looked back.
Agreed. I made the switch this year. F---ing conduit search malware. Ninite dropped uTorrent in preference for qBittorent as well.
One feature I like about qBittorrent is it remembers recent download folder selections, making organizing TV torrents a breeze.
Yes, because the US cheats and uses 220 split-phase to provide 110 power. Most everywhere else that needs high power uses 3-phase, as it's smoother, easier to produce and rectify, and just as safe to transmit.
3 phase makes electric motors more efficient, and that's it. Technically, you could have as many phases as you could imagine having... each making the motor a tad more efficient. But they are not "smoother" and don't improve transmission.
3-Phase AC produces a smoother (considerably less ripple) DC current pattern when rectified than single or split-phase AC.
I've seen 3 phase 700V+ DC drives at over 1000kW that are very harmonic rich. Over 100% THD. Not smooth AT ALL.
Kleeneness is next to Godelness.
