CFLs are most often killed by high temperatures, not poor power. Many older light fixtures (possibly even most) are fully enclosed because they were designed for incandescent bulbs. The fixtures got very hot but not so hot as to cause a fire. The problem with CFLs is that even though they use less power and result in less heat, the ambient temperature inside a fully enclosed fixture will result in premature failure. Very few new fixtures on the market are fully enclosed for this reason.

The next most common cause of CFL failure that I've seen is CFLs being placed on dimmer switches. People don't read the warning label on the package and try to use regular CFLs with dimmer switches all the time. Don't expect those bulbs to last long.

And finally, with regards to poor power... Just as dimmer switches will cause a CFL to eventually fail, power spikes and sudden drops will have the same impact. If you wiring is bad or you have a noisy device attached to power, the cheap CFLs can die early. Had a MacPro with a bad power supply cause a hum in the lines that could be heard the next house over if you listened to the CFLs. It would only happen with drawing a significant amount of power - in my case, rendering video. Serves as a good example of how if you have premature failure then there's something that needs to be fixed - or else you are asking for other, more expensive problems.

Not really important. The Intel chips convert assembly instruction into microcode - how they implement it internally (either dedicated hardware or reusing existing silicon) is up to them. You can't make a blanket statement like that unless Intel has specifically stated that hardware support is included. But in general, the Atom series trims as much off the CPU core as possible so don't be surprised if hardware support for some of those exotic instructions is lacking. And many ARM cores include instructions that are just as interesting - mostly for the embedded DSP market. A manufacturer, with the appropriate license, can include whatever instructions and dedicated hardware they want.

What likely matters more then the instructions is the included memory and cache. Intel likely includes a larger cache - which will drive up the price. Cache is usually static and has a very low power draw when not in use. By including a large cache, Intel can minimize expensive requests to memory. Also note that DIMMs have a significant constant current draw. Low power DIMMs are available but more expensive. You can bet that Intel used the latest and greatest for their demo while others might opt for the cheaper and slightly more power hungry DIMMs.

This demo shows how having a process 1 step more advanced then the competition can make a big difference wrt power consumption. But newer ARMs will be available soon - I believe Samsung is scheduled for roll out 28nm in the near future. Intel still has a long way to go to convince manufacturers that they should pay more for what ARM can do for less.

So very true. And this should also apply to almost every other aspect of law in our society. Every law should include, not only the definition of the law, but reasons for the existence of the law. In the future, should it be shown the reasons for a law no longer apply, the law can be either removed or reinstated with updated reasoning.

Such a system would require us to rethink our laws to ensure they stay relevant. Needless red tape would be removed resulting in greater efficiency. And in addition, it would be more difficult for laws to be wrongfully enforced - a boost to our civil liberties.

If the house has a aluminium foil wrapping, it is either a house built before plastic was available or the foil was being used as more then just a vapour barrier. Probably an attempt to reflect radiant heat.

But you are absolutely right about the need of a vapour barrier. Most contractors don't understand just how important it is. With modern construction materials (windows, insulation) the overall effectiveness of the insulation has increased significantly over the years. But better insulation just increases the need for a proper vapour barrier. Every little mistake results in condensation within the insulation which leads to water damage and a larger heating bill. I had to tear apart the ceiling of my parents new house because the idiot contractor didn't know what they were doing. The ceiling was dripping water and house was always so cold - and it wasn't from a leak.

But back on topic, another common problem with radio signals and construction materials is the coating they put on hardwood floors. Some type of aluminium based compound? Can't remember exactly but it was mentioned on slashdot a couple years ago so it must be true.

Probably means "a machine that works". I use Linux at work and I started out with an older ATI card. What a mess, ended up putting in a cheap Nvidia card and that cleared up most, but not all, of my problems. Strange things still happen - like inverted colors in flash. Sure it can (and has) been fixed but I personally don't want to waste my time with such things.

Overall, I would say that Linux drivers generally suck when it comes to video cards. The one exception is Intel as the newer iSeries CPUs appear have good driver support. So my suggestion would be to pick up a laptop with a supported WiFi chipset, embedded Intel video, and a comfortable keyboard / screen / trackpad. It mostly depends on personal preference so it's not easy to recommend a specific laptop.

Hope not, by splitting into multiple rar files you can prioritize the order that they download. If you can get the first couple of rar files completely downloaded, you can unrar them or play them in VLC to verify you're downloading what you intended to. If it's just one big file it's much harder to preview and it's easy to waste a pile of bandwidth on garbage.

With more website using encrypted connections by default (https://), this won't work.

This would be fine. So long as there are multiple players in the mobile OS space, everyone benefits. Should any one player, even Android, hold over 90% then innovation will stagnate. It's great that both iOS and Android are doing well. Having Windows 8 enter the market is also great as it gives developers another reason to think about cross platform compatibility when writing their applications. With developers creating inherently cross platform apps, there is always the possibility of new mobile OSes entering the market. This was not possible on the desktop as everyone was tied to Microsoft and Intel. What we are seeing now is a market develop without those ties - and that's great for everyone.

It you are working on source code, chances are it will be cached in memory when you go to compile. The seek times don't have much of an impact assuming your OS does a good job at caching. Now I'm not saying that SSDs aren't great, just that the impact of disk access speed is not as pronounced as you make it sound - at least when compiling the same code multiple times. But when it comes to boot speed, or the time required to compile code that isn't cached, SSDs are amazing.

L/100km might contain the same information, but using distance as the domain is preferred. This is far more useful as people don't drive to burn fuel, they drive to travel. Distance is the important variable so fuel mileage should be with respect to distance. It makes comparing given fuel economy ratings easier as it better correlates with the amount of fuel you will use / cost of driving.

For example, consider the following fuel economy ratings: 4L/100km, 6L/100km, and 8L/100km. For a given distance, it is obvious that the most fuel efficient vehicle will be 1/2 the cost of the least efficient vehicle. The cost of third vehicle being is the average of the two other vehicles - or in the middle.

Now in mpg, those numbers are: 58.8mpg, 39.4mpg, 29.4mpg. Notice the 39.4mpg vehicle will cost the average of the 58.8mpg and 29.4mpg vehicles - but this is not apparent from looking at the numbers. It is because the numbers are represented using the wrong domain. Sure the information is there, it just is not represented in the most useful format.

If I remember correctly, Intel is using their own firmware on the SandForce controller. So an Intel SSD will still be different then those from their competitors.

Most of that pollution would not occur if a synthesized fuel like this one was used. It should burn cleaner as it will have no contaminates. The big offenders creating soot/dust are the big trucks burning diesel and lacking proper catalytic converters. A modern car using this fuel should be fine - much like a car burning propane or natural gas.

You sure? The initial release was on Feburary 13, 2002 - 10 years ago. Windows 95 was release 17 years ago and it could never even run .NET. The first version of Windows that could run .NET was Windows 98 - released 14 years ago. And I doubt that they had .NET ready for that initial version - doubt they even had an internal alpha version.

Surface requires a different API so all those Win32 apps will need far more then a recompile - they need a redesign.

Because it would take longer so the airline would not be able to charge as much for tickets. Also, the crew would have to be paid for more hours for each flight. Maintenance would also cost more per flight as each flight would involve logging more air time. And I would feel bad for the air traffic controllers - their job would get significantly more difficult.