Aren't we at the point where we just ignore "speed" and look at what's inside them that's going to make them last a long time and keep our data safe?

Only if you've got a verifiable test for durability, and enough time to implement it.

Over here in reality, we have zero real data about how each new generation of SSD actually ages as time marches on. We can postulate and we can theorize, but we're ultimately full of shit when it comes to finding an new SSD to "last a long time and keep our data safe."

So, yeah: I'll take speed benchmarks. Some data is always better than bullshit.

^this, it's amazing how few people actually understand that most writes on modern systems are buffered either in the kernel cache or in the disk cache without any form of protection. Disable those volatile caches and your OS with it's resource hog apps will behave as slowly has a 386 on floppy disks. At least, the laptop battery can act has a giant capacitor and your exposition to data loss due to power failure on a laptop should be very very small.

^ !english, it's charming to watch people write such comparisons when it is plain that they've never run a 386 from floppy disks...none of which, generally, had any write caching at all. (And, no, BUFFERS in config.sys doesn't count.)

And batteries acting as capacitors? Why can't the battery just be the battery that it is? Why diminish the perfectly cromulent role of a battery to that of a capacitor? What are you gaining from writing such nonsense, other than perhaps a good feeling because you got to use more words instead of fewer words?

I do like your idea of a data loss exposition, though. Where can I buy tickets?

Also, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

For playback on the BFT, I've got a few options. I can use the PS3 (ideal -- the scaler is awesome), the Xbox 360 (meh), a modified Wii (has other issues), an old laptop with a barely-supported video card (similar issues to the Wii), or a Krell DVD-Standard (only issue is lack of HDMI/DVI output, and physical wear and tear on an $8,000.00 device).

For Cinavia-tainted backups (which both the PS3 and 360 puke on), I've found that the best option (as in: the option with the least fuckery) for me is to use AVStoDVD (free, OSS, zero bullshit, technical enough for tweak-mongers, always works, fairly fast, awesome output) to burn a proper DVD and play it on the Krell.

Yeah, it's 480p. But it's a beautiful 480p, devoid of meaningful artifacts. Playback, once the media is on a DVD, is simple: Select appropriate inputs, insert DVD, adjust volume, do nothing else, and enjoy the film.

I could do the same with any cheap bog-standard pre-Cinavia DVD player, but my bog-standrard DVD player just happens to be a ridiculously-expensive Krell.

And so I guess this is my point: Cheap DVD players really are -cheap-, easily-replaced, and essentially universal. My backup will play nicely in anything from the Krell to a Chrysler minivan: I can lend it to others and as long as their player is not infected with Cinavia, they'll have zero issues playing it. And DVD+/-R media is cheap/fast enough that that it is both disposable and versatile (unlike thumbdrives, or Internet connectivity).

It doesn't take a Raspberry Pi and fuckery to play this stuff: All it takes is $20 and a trip to the dollar store or pawn shop.

(And data loss? Don't scratch the disc, and be sure to store it in the dark. Done. Really.)

We were without power here for over a week after the Derecho a few years ago...this led to some fun (and very hot) experimentation. Some results:

- Most small-ish generators are loud, a bitch to maintain (a synthetic oil change every 30 hours? if you insist...), loud, expensive to fuel, loud, and difficult to fuel at first until (some) gas stations had proper gensets brought in from out-of-state, and loud.

- Cell service never blinked. Whatever they were doing for backup power, be it regular fuel delivery or natural gas, was working fine.

- That with a cheap (less-than-$20) unregulated solar panel from Lowes and the car charger for my Android phone (which accepts up to 24VDC according to its label), I was able to keep more than one phone going continuously even on a mostly-cloudy day just by putting the solar panel in an unshaded window. They charged normally (ie: in an hour or so), and the charge lasted about as long as it normally would (24 hours or so). (I learned all of this because of generators being loud and sleep being useful.)

- Our VDSL line never dropped. It never even thought about it, according to its accumulated stats. The modem/router/gateway/whatever-widget has a perfectly reasonable battery in its external DC power supply, which would get opportunistically charged whenever the generator was running (usually a just few hours/day to charge batteries for lights and make ice to keep the beer cold, though there was some running of dishwashers and window ACs as well). (Interestingly, the only reason it has its own battery is because we initially ordered it with a VOIP phone line. If we'd ordered just Internet, it would have died as soon as the power did.)

Our provider (Deathstar) had gensets at each VRAD cabinet, humming away quietly 24/7. Most of these were VERY shiny trailer-mounted rigs, but I did spot a couple of smaller portable ones. And I did my part, too, by opening up my AP and renaming it to "Free Wifi for Storm Victims" -- which actually served a fairly big area, since the 2.4GHz spectrum was remarkably interference-free. ;)

By extension of all of this, I can quite safely assume that if I still had POTS, I'd have had a functional dialtone during that entire time: The CO plainly had power (and was built to withstand a war), and the VRAD cabinets (which also terminate some POTS lines these days) had power, and everything was proven to have connectivity....despite most of the telephone pairs and backbone fiber being overhead in these parts, and -lots- of trees down everywhere.

I got through that storm with multiple forms of uninterrupted communication just fine, just by using crap that I had laying around. I'd have done it just as well without a generator (which itself was just a lucky break), between the cheap solar panel and multiple vehicles and an inverter and charged SLAs and CFL lights that can run from them directly, full-conversion sinewave UPSs, and other stuff that I've accumulated just because I'm a geek.

And that, I guess, is the point: Even if one form of communication failed (multiple cell tower failure, OR VDSL failure), I'd still have been a happy camper without power. Me. Just me.

I have thus demonstrated that I, myself, don't need POTS. In my neighborhood.

But then, this is /., and I am therefore not normal. I also live in in a small city in mostly-rural Ohio where I have a fair variety of communication options and just enough density that a little bit of work on a provider's part will light up hundreds/thousands of people instead of dozens...or 1.

A 15-minute drive will take me to areas that are not so-blessed, and these folks still need POTS: The local loops are tens-of-miles long and can't support *DSL, there is no cable, cellular service (while normally quite good) is often served by a singular tower with redundant zero overlap, and any notion of "bandwidth" comes from an 802.11-based WISP which also has zero redundancy.

These folks are expensive to provide service to, and are (if it's still around) subsidized by the Universal Service Fund. This is a Good Thing.

And if were of poor health or were taking care of someone who were, you can bet your ass I'd pony up monthly for POTS in addition to whatever else I might happen to have...even if I had zero intent to actually use it for anything.

But again, I don't need POTS. And you're probably geeky enough that you don't need POTS.

Meanwhile, the US still needs universal POTS -- at any expense. All safety and redundancy issues aside and if for no other reason than there's a LOT more bandwidth in an ancient 500-pair cable than anything that is RF-based. The neighbors who I saw sitting in lawn chairs with laptops in their front yard soaking up my bandwidth, their food rotting in their warm fridge and stopping by to recharge cell phones? They -NEED- POTS availability, too.

Whether they take advantage of it or not is their problem. It's my problem to make sure they've got options, not to tell them what to do with them. :)

So I'm good with POTS. Because it generally just works and provides (it turns out) a very flexible cable plant that can be used for a huge number of different things, and folks need options.

There is no need to abandon ICEs to achieve carbon neutrality. The answer is biofuels.

Agreed.

We already know how to make 1:1 replacements for both diesel and gasoline out of any organic material.

But can we do it efficiently? Last I looked in on the subject, ethanol in the US (which is a biofuel that you didn't mention, which is OK) barely breaks even (at best) once corn subsidies and other agricultural props are accounted for.

The benefits of growing ethanol as a fuel are drowned by the farm/transportation/refining/transportation (yes, twice -- at least twice) equipment which powered by fossils.

But our government is literally complicit in oil company conspiracies to prevent us from having them.

Is that "literally" in the "literal" sense, or "literally" in way in which "literally" literally means virtually?

Either way, [[citation needed]].

Making biodiesel in a carbon-neutral (actually carbon-negative) way depends on being permitted to use BLM lands, which you can do for coal or oil but just try getting green energy permits

Carbon-negative? The only "carbon negative" processes I'm aware of involve the cutting of trees, and lashing them to the ocean floor, or the moral equivalent thereof ....and even -that- is time-limited (albeit on a grand scale).

Can you explain?

Butanol is a 1:1 replacement for gasoline that we've known how to make since the 1800s, which we could buy right now if not for lawsuits by Butamax, a shell company owned by BP and DuPont.

Interesting. I've never heard of either Butanol or Butamax. Further research is required on my part on these latter subjects.

Cars must move on from fossil fuels, all of them. And yet, nothing need be lost but oil company profits.

Eek. My opinion here is something that is tempered by my stated lack of knowledge of Butanol, but: It occurs to me immediately that there are still some ICEs which require fossil fuels to operate properly, just as there are historic engines that require TEL gasoline to perform properly.

(Case in point: An antique fire engine that I've seen, and talked to the people who maintain it.. It is used only for parades and publicity and never for fighting fires, in a small town in Ohio. It has never seen any real engine work, and indeed has very low operating hours. It lives in a spotless, dedicated, newly-built, and well-lit garage all to itself at a volunteer fire department there. They fill it with aviation gas (with lead!) from a nearby airport, because that's the closest thing to the fuel that it was made for that they can get their hands on easily. No, it's not a "useful" vehicle, but it is living history which ought to be preserved in functional state for even more future generations.)

In other news, soylentnews.org is up and running!

And 4-digit UIDs are still available!

The company I work for the IT folks keep a complete list of usernames and passwords in a text file, stored on a machine open to the Internet (including FTP!) which is, itself, is "protected" by those same passwords.

Oh, but it's OK, they told me once: It's in a password-protected zip file, so it's safe.

I'm sure that the unencrypted plaintext is scattered all over the temp directory of every machine they've ever used to view this file.

I'm (very) glad I don't get paid to care about that network anymore.

TMobile has sold the Windows-based Nokia Lumia 521 for $100 (non contract) for half a year or a year now.

So you're telling me that I can walk into a T-Mobile store and walk out with a completely paid-for Nokia Lumia 521, for $100, cash and carry?

Because if I can't do that, then it's not a $100 device.

Doesn't that violate the basic theory of "software cannot cause hardware problems"?

Drivers can be changed. Operating systems get reinstalled or change completely.

And then we're back to warranty SNAFU....

Right. Good work, son.

Now come back and see me when you have a solution that can profitably be applied to $0.50 laptop speakers.

Look, don't code. Don't encourage your kids or students to code. It'll make those who do more valuable. Do mechanics worry about everyone on the planet knowing how to fix their car? Do carpenters spend countless hours navel-gazing about bringing carpentry to school children and girls and the average CEO? Do HVAC specialists?

Look, I don't code either (unless you count hacking Perl every few years "coding"). I don't encourage kids to code.

But not because it makes those who can/do code more valuable, because that's closer to eugenics than my username might suggest I'm comfortable with.

And yet, I am mechanically-inclined. I fix my own cars. I fix other people's cars. Professionally? No. (Could probably be a "real mechanic" if I wanted to be, but I'm OK with it being a hobby.)

And when I'm saving some friend $400 on a simple front brake rotor/pad replacement, I implore them to help. To kneel down on the stones with me, and at least see what I'm doing...and turn wrenches if they're game for that. It's easy and very straight-forward work, and anyone should be able to do it themselves.

Household HVAC is also simple. I learned enough in a couple of months as a grunt under a brilliant mechanical engineer working on HVAC that there is no mystery to the why's and how's of it.

But coding? Coding is closer to painting a portrait or a landscape, than it is to automotive or HVAC repair.

When I start working on a car, I have constants: The car itself is a (big, expensive) constant. The problem that I'm solving is a constant. Normally the only variables are the cost, quality, and availability of parts.

When I start hacking Perl, I have few constants. I have a problem to solve, which may or may not be constant. And I have so many options for dealing with that problem that it's a creative process moreso than an iterative process.

So, I guess: Should people try to teach other people (kids, perhaps) how to code? Yes, they should try to do so, if only to allow their minds to know what creative opportunities they might have in the world.

Should it be pushed and required? No, or at least no more-so than sculpting, painting, or sketching or [...]. Art is useful to some people, and coding is also useful to some people. Most people aren't good at these things.

Should it be squandered so that existing coders, or those who find it naturally on their own, are allowed to be in (artificial) demand? No. Knowledge should never be squandered: If it's really easy enough that anyone can do it, then we're doing ourselves a disservice by not showing everyone how to do it.

No art has ever been advanced through being purposefully reluctant to share information.

Because you can redistribute them with your software to allow it to be installed on windows systems that don't yet have those components. That doesn't mean you are allowed to redistribute them in other contexts.

Indeed. From here (which I picked at random after typing "microsoft redistributable license" into Google -- this particular one being for .NET Framework)

NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALID EULA FOR ANY "OS PRODUCT" (MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98, WINDOWS ME, WINDOWS NT 4.0 (DESKTOP EDITION), WINDOWS 2000 OPERATING SYSTEM, WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL AND/OR WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION), YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO INSTALL, COPY OR OTHERWISE USE THE OS COMPONENTS AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS UNDER THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA.

That said, I have an old XP license.

So it's not a problem for me in the first world, nor might it be a problem in the third world where such license is likely to be glued to the side of the computer.....

(IANAL, etc)

Given that Dell has full control over the amount of power being used to drive the speakers, they have no excuse for throwing too much at them.

That's a little bit short-sighted.

Without knowing the nature of the failure, it's impossible to say what the problem actually is. Were the loudspeakers destroyed through mechanical stress or thermal stress?

Limiting the power output of an amplifier for the purpose of preventing loudspeaker damage is not a trivial thing to do.

In terms of damage, loudspeakers don't care (within reason and obvious mechanical limits) about instantaneous power. They care about long-term heating.

If you just clip the signal, you generate an approximation of a squarewave (which loudspeakers hate): This reduces peak power (which isn't normally a problem), and increases average power (which is always a problem), and reduces cooling, AND it sounds terrible (though some listeners seem to not care). Clipping, therefore, at any stage -- including within software (ala VLC), or even during the recording process -- is a problem.

If you add a simple limiter, you've got the same problems all over again, although with less harmonic distortion: Peak power goes down, but average power stays high. Voice coils cook.

If you add a complicated multiband limiter that understands heating, you might have a shot at solving it, but you're into real money in engineering dollars and DSP parts....over some $.50 laptop speakers.

That all said, companies have been selling and folks have been buying integrated audio systems for well over half a decade. If this is 1949 and I crank up my RCA tube set so I can listen to music in the garden and cook the loudspeaker, that's my fault -- not RCA's fault. The best I can hope is that RCA is willing to sell me a replacement speaker at a reasonable price.

Same with a 1980s Fisher "rack system," or a wall full of modern Krell and Martin Logan gear. Or any random boombox. And, I dare say, a laptop.

It is traditionally the job of the listener to ensure that an audio system is performing within its limitations, and not the job of the audio system to protect itself from the listener.

If I crank VLC up to 120 or 200% or whatever the maximum is, and it starts clipping samples and generating square waves, and I turn the other volume controls up so I can hear that distorted drone over the drone of my hot tub, and something breaks...gosh, I guess I'm going to say that it was my own fault for not hearing the plain and obvious distortion that was occurring, and you know, just turn things down. Just as with any other audio system, big or small.

Back to legal stuff: The Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act does not protect consumers from their own stupidity. If I drop my Jeep down a 4-foot embankment and break a front control arm, that's my own dumb fault -- it's certainly not the manufacturer's fault for failing to ensure that I would be unable to perform such maneuvers in MY Jeep (yes, emphasis: If I owned a Jeep, it would be MINE).

HOWEVER, what MMWA does do is ensure that if the manufacturer suspects that a failure is due to end-user modification, that the the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that this is the case. I can be rock-crawling in my Jeep with its trick aftermarket suspension, and if the engine dies from a broken pushrod, it's the manufacturer's responsibility to prove that it's either not a warranted fault OR that my modifications caused the pushrod to break.

Likewise, the onus is on Dell to prove that some software (such as VLC) caused the failure...or that the speakers aren't warranted to begin with due to signs of abuse. Dismissing a warranty claim out-of-hand because of the software installed on a computer, or the shocks on a Jeep (even IF it might be the case that the software did in fact cause the problem, as VLC might be capable of doing) is illegal in all 50 states.

Just as for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, for every anecdote there is an equal and opposite anecdote. See also: Quantum entanglement.

That said, it's a lovely story that you have. But what are you adding?

You're offered something for nothing at a time when you say you don't make enough money to qualify for insurance from the Exchange, and even that's not good enough?

What planet are you from? And why do you hate yourself so?