Hardware Insights Forum

Wow...it's been a long time since anyone else posted here.

There goes a DVD player. These things probably aren't built with any real quality anymore. I think it's the laser that failed. So one of my rules is: If you can't get a reliable device new, get an old model and hope for the best. Do you think I should add that to my signature??? (After all, it's only a one-liner in its current form.)

Yeah, I know about those audio cables. I've seen some that are just so thin you know there can't possibly be any shielding.

LongRunner wrote:[Tone of voice in the English language] isn't actually conveyed at all [in text] - the reader is left to guess about it. (Then again, I suppose targeted swearing would give it away...)

I think I've figured out a workaround. It's listed in my signature. I know getting the whole world to adopt that system would be a miracle, but we could at least use it on this forum.

If you want to use it, that's fine, but I'm not going to enforce it.

I wouldn't have imposed it either.

But if any other members are going to use it, at least follow my system.

Modern TV sets have bastardised "brightness" controls. If you turn it down dark colours wash into black, and if you turn it up the image blends into white. Turning down "contrast" (at least on LCDs) gives okay picture quality, but wastes power as it blocks more of the light instead of reducing the backlight power. Who designed this crap???

Let's not forget those meaningless "celebrations" like Christmas.

LongRunner wrote:Modern TV sets have bastardised "brightness" controls. If you turn it down dark colours wash into black, and if you turn it up the image blends into white. Turning down "contrast" (at least on LCDs) gives okay picture quality, but wastes power as it blocks more of the light instead of reducing the backlight power.

I haven't found that. I usually have the brightness at about half, though, which seems to work well.

LongRunner wrote:Let's not forget those meaningless "celebrations" like Christmas.

I agree on that one, and we don't celebrate Christmas. It's a pretty well known fact that Jesus wasn't even born in December, and that the early Christians never celebrated it.

Who in the world needs 70-year (or even longer) copyrights??? By the time it's legal to distribute copies of a video game, you'll be lucky if the system even works. Why the developers even care about games from five generations ago is a mystery. Copyright lasting way beyond discontinuation is bad. Enough said.

I can't get Windows XP to let me choose and keep the folder view settings I want. It either chooses what it thinks are best (unpredictably, for that matter), or if you enable (set a non-zero value) the "ClassicViewState" registry option (in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced), it uses a single setting for every folder.

Programs that don't save their window size and placement, websites that automatically play videos...there are too many usability problems to count.

Fluorescent light fittings made of non-UV-stabilised plastics, accelerating discolouration. Fibreboard (?) with fake wood finishing that peels away and looks terrible. Connectors designed to look good, but that have pathetic strain relief. Everything that's touted as being green, but due to bad quality, ends up being the opposite.