Mordazy's Profile

As for upholstered furniture and bedbugs: if you find something really worth taking home, there is a way to "nuke" the thing; you will need a sheet of foil or a plastic bag big enough to wrap the piece airtight, and some formaldehyde. Put the thing on the foil and wrap it airtight after putting a small bowl of formaldehyde on the foil under the piece. Leave it for 2-3 days outside, then unwrap, remove formaldehyde (if any left) and leave it for another 2-3 days before putting inside. Nothing survives this treatment.

Rckmnr:
you can run old DOS games in Windows using DosBox. Hope it helps bringing back memories :)

Living without MS Office is pretty easy for me and people I know. We mostly use OpenOffice and find its interface superior to the "new and improved" MSO 2007 and 2010 one. How many people can really tell the difference in functionality between OO and MSO? 1%? Less? And from my experience those who complain about glitches in document formatting are using spaces, tabs and enters as their only formatting tools. No wonder their documents fall apart.

Apple, Dell and Viewsonic... Please tell me you`re joking. What about Eizo? Barco? LaCie?

jesse.anne.o said...

"1) that's illegal and..."

True, the guy got in trouble. But I guess not as big as they could be in the U.S.; my country is a very strange one...

"2) even when you trap and have the cats put down, they don't stop unless you make the area inhospitable"

Or the neighbourhood runs out of cats. Thinking about the preparations the guy made, I think he could have been considering this. Must have been a real cat-hater.

"I think you heard bravado vs fact, sorry to say."

I never said (nor believed) that the media are true to the facts :) I treated this as a "humoristic" remark about what people may be capable of when constantly annoyed by something.

Looking back, I can say that in my case it`s not how long I hang onto old bits and pieces, but how many of these I still keep. I just got rid of a box full of old 486 and Pentium I and II motherboards (a couple of each "flavor") which I stored "just in case" (I`m a sysadmin and computer technician). I left one of each kind, threw away the rest. Did the same with my twenty keyboards, plan to do it with add-on cards, peripherals and so on.

That said, there are old tech pieces I`ll hang onto for a long time, probably even longer than common sense can justify. For example, a 5.25 inch floppy drive is on my "never throw out" list - I haven`t used it for twelve years, but about half a year ago it saved someone`s butt, when it turned out that the only copy of old (and suddenly essential) data was on a bunch of big floppies and nobody had a drive to read them.

Bottom line: some of old tech pieces are worth hanging onto, but unless you have unlimited storage space - choose wisely :)

Another "revolutionary" mouse, pleeeeze... I`ve seen dozens of such designs, and the more they were advertised as "super-ergonomic", "curing carpal tunnel", "bringing the world peace" and other buzzwords, the more they sucked in reality, and this one is no exception. Look at the hand - the wrist is in the air! Dang, my forearm hurts just by looking at this. It`s the same as with the so-called "ergonomic keyboards": people still prefer buying a non-working gadget to just learning to use properly these simple things they already own.

Underwear, toothbrushes, towels and other stuff that`s close to my body. Everything else - why not, of course if the price is right and the stuff is really useful and repairable by me. I once looked at my (used, but absolutely useful) tools, electronics and appliances and realized that I would declare bankruptcy if I bought all of them brand new.

Forget chemicals, electric drill with nylon brush does wonders. Yup, I know I`m a hardcore man :)
P.S. Of course you have to be careful and not get excited too much, because you could degrade the grout (and non-glazed tiles, too). However, if all else fails, you might try this one :)

Boycott is a hard action and difficult to maintain in the long run. Going worldwide with it is basically impossible, considering how lazy and inconsistent most people are (especially when it comes to extremes). Boycott requires clear goals, one enemy to be pointed at, very strong will and constant renewal of the anger that drives it. It`s not impossible, but still extremely hard.

Instead of forming an angry mass movement and pointing at one or two big companies, I suggest something else:
Just SLOW DOWN.
Don`t buy gadgets you want, but don`t really need;
Use your tech trinkets until they break, and treat them with care;
Stop buying new clothes / bag / shoes every week, your cabinet is full already;
Look at "made in..." to know the country of product`s origin;
Start visiting local markets and groceries, avoid big supermarkets;
Share things you don`t need every day: why buy a big drill you`d use twice a year? Borrow it from a neighbor.

And so on, and so on... There`s no point in boycott, revolution or whatever you call it. Instead slow down your own consumption. It`s not as radical and "righteous", but since it`s based on compromise, it just might work. Globally.