Sex came before the iPod

The RAND study did not examine the use or effect of IPods...as you noted, the study began well before the use of the IPod was prevalent.

Catherine Hunter
RAND Communications officer

Subject: Dell laptop blew up the truck

I just thought I'd point out - in relation to all these "flaming laptop" stories - that the potential for the batteries to ignite has apparently been long recognized and possibly just ignored. A company called Valence (which has stock, but I don't own it) developed a battery technology a few years back that claims to offer a non-fiery alternative.

Their website says, "The safety characteristics inherent to Saphion® technology result from the incorporation of phosphates as the cathode material. Phosphates are extremely stable in overcharge or short circuit conditions and have the ability to withstand high temperatures without decomposing. When abuse does occur, phosphates are not prone to thermal runaway and will not burn. As a result, Saphion® technology possesses safety characteristics that are fundamentally superior to those of Lithium-ion batteries made with other cathode materials."

Valence and their Saphion batteries may be found at http://www.valence.com/saphion.asp

There may be other companies and other battery technologies with energy characteristics that are similar to - or better than - that presently used in laptops, but I'm not any sort of an expert in this field and I'm happy to end my "flaming" point right here. :o)

stgrady

Subject: Dell Delays Miff Customers

Well what do people expect for a chip that has just been released.... Intel put them self in this mess to begin with and believe me I'm a geek that thinks of Dell as a "Duh I got a Dell";. Anyway Intel brought this onto them self, they had lost faith in the P4 core and the old Pentium M cores and have been touting the new Pentium M as the thing to get almost 8 months before it even had production level working models.

Consumers seem to be big babies sometimes, RTFR (Read The F#$%ing Reviews...) is a good term for these "Where's my dell, I need my dell, I can't live withoug my dell, oh god when will the pain end";. Get over it and buy it from someone who has it. Didn't anyone read about the falling out that Dell and Intel had a few months back (not that they don't talk anymore but the relationship is definitely not what it once was).

Geese Louise these grass-roots movements have lost focus and value to anyone with anything less than a double lobotomy. Well I guess that is enough venting about this but people need to read a little more instead of cry and whine about things that companies like Dell don't have control over, this is Intel's fault to bring expectations up. Hey there's always the heaps and mountains old crap from Intel out there buy that instead.... oh yeah that stuff sux0rz.

Daniele Bastianello

Subject: IBM and Power

I worked for HOUSTON LIGHTING AND POWER COMPANY in the early 70s when the price of electricty jumped form 7 mills per kilowatt hour to 2.8 cents per Kw. in a 4 year period. Given the increases in natural gas for last two years and the increaseon diesel costs in hauling coal, the fuel adjustment for City Public Service has doubled in the last two years to where it is now nearly 5 cents per Kwh ,third lowest non hydro in the country.

To just use one cabinet of the Cray XT3 because there are good numbers on the web. The cabinet with all internals uses 14.37 kw. that load means that it generates 14.37 Kw aproximately of heat load resulting in 3413 btu/kw x14.37/12000btu pertonAC = 4+ tons per cabinet. depending on SEER the amount of electricrty per ton of ac runs about 1.25 kw/ton for the most effiecent. That gives us a grand total of 20kw per hour or at todays average industrial rate of 10 cents per Kw about $3 per hour which is roughly 20 cents per kw of connected load. or $2700.

EBH

Subject: Sex and the iPod

Another way to look at it is that teens that are more sexually active listen to music with more sexual lyrics. So don't blame the music

JT Clemons

Subject: China Dell

I've seen bunches of examples of companies here in the US not honoring price mistakes. I've gotten in on a few of them just for fun....you know placing orders for the occasional 1 dollar laptop bag shipped or a grossly underpriced dell peripheral or whatever. Sometimes a few ship/slip out before their caught. Most often its just a "we're sorry email" for almost everyone.

So what am I missing? There doesn't seem to be any laws here in the US that us FWers know of and are using to force companies to shell out their 8 dollar hard drives and other price mistakes, etc.

Glen

Subject: Brit web-heads wibble away 50 days per year

Wow, this article was HUGELY educational, I mean...really..wow. (yes that is sarcasm in case you are american).

Glossing over the 'people are stupid' thing which the article seems to entail, here is my main problem with it.

"Online games accounted for four hours 40 minutes, of a wasted week, while emailing takes up three hours 26 minutes of users' time online."

Why are online games a 'wasted week', but emailing is just 'users time'.

What is wasted about a week spent doing something you find fun? Do you not think time is wasted by watching tv, playing with your childrean, reading, playing a musical instrument, or another activity that an individual may find fun.

What else should be done with this 'wasted' time? Sit down (or stand up to avoid looking like waster), and just...do...nothing.

Or how about just work 70 hours a week, then sit down (or stand), and do nothing?

Basically, how is a recreational activity a waste? Why the stigma.

Here is my suggestion to you, given by a lowly warehouse worker who by rights, shouldn't have two brain cells to click together.

Get some new goddamn writers, whoever wrote the article in question is a tool. I could write better, in my sleep, whilst on fire. The subject is dull and obvious, and the actual content is crap, at best.

Sure, this is just one email / contact out of a multitude you probably recieve each day, but make it count, read it and take it in.

Then give me a job and sack the moron who is writing this crap for you :)

Laters,

Just a normal bloke,

Dan

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