Letters to the Editor
TomRitchford
Published Letters: 233 Editor's Choice: 10
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MTBF is in some cases misleading, but not in this case.
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]ElectroRobot is fair to bring up this factor, even though it probably doesn't work out as significant in the long run.
Almost all manufactured components have a bimodal distribution of their time to failure, one with "two humps". There's one hump indicating devices that fail during burn-in - informally, the first few dozen uses. Then there's another, much wider and much flatter hump, out by the MTBF.
The point is that if your device doesn't fail "soon", it won't fail "for a long time". Since LED bulbs usually have extremely long guarantees (for example, LED stage lighting has a three-year guarantee as opposed to bulb lighting that's only guaranteed for 90 days!), the overwhelming majority of your failures before MTBF will be under warrantee.
I think you're kind of waving your hands, ER, when you talk about "six sigma" and 4 to 6 digits. Any non-dangerous failure rate below 1% is negligible to the consumer; even if you assume it's not under guarantee and the loss to you if it fails early is twice the value of the bulb (the cost of the bulb, plus the cost of your time), a failure rate of 1% adds 2% to the expected cost to you - unnoticeable in the long run.
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LEDs are the future of lighting...
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...though I agree they aren't quite ready for prime-time.
I just got a tiny smart LED lightbulb with a remote. I can set any colours I like with it; I can make it strobe or fade; it'll last for years (but will the remote?! :-D)
Now, none of the colours are really good for reading, nor is it bright enough (but then it consumes almost no electricity).
However, these minor problems will be fixed (are already fixed if you want to spend more money). The prices will come down; and when people realize that a lightbulb is an investment you write off in 6 years and not 6 months, they'll understand that it's worth spending an extra $1 to put some intelligence in the light bulb - you'll just have light when and where you need it and rarely touch a switch. (That's if our technological civilization doesn't come crashing down around our ears, of course.)
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What the hell is wrong with Salon?!
[Read the article: Obama is wrong about the gas tax]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Have you simply lost your senses in your mad desire to see Ms. Clinton elected?!
America is hooked on fossil fuels! I know this, you know this, every rational person knows this.
*Even if we hadn't already raided the treasury*, giving America cheap gasoline is like giving an alcoholic booze to cheer him up.
Anyway, as you concede in the article, this would actually be a tiny effect; which means that this proposal is pointless and just demagoguery.
I really do not understand what has happened to Salon. I'm not actually a supporter of Mr. Obama but you're pushing me that way by publishing these articles supporting Ms. Clinton *that I read and find completely irrational*.
At this point, if I could get Glenn Greenwald elsewhere, I'd cancel my subscription with you, and I've been a dedicated subscriber for three or four years.
Ms. Walsh, I urge you to open your eyes. It seems mathematically impossible that Ms. Clinton will win now; her only hope is the "nuclear option," where she attempts to convince superdelegates to vote against what the "will of the people" have decided.
*If she uses the nuclear option then the Democrats will lose the next election.* I abhor pulling the race card; but you'd have to be a pretty complacent African-American not to think that white money and privilege won (as usual) against the will of the people if this happened. She'd lose the African-American vote, they'd simply stay away in droves.
She'd lose the actual "left", few though we may be. We aren't going to vote for McCain, but we won't campaign for Clinton either.
*Your relentless attempt to push the Clinton talking points, no matter how irrational they may be, isn't just unfair to your paid subscribers, who expect to get a diverse spectrum of opinions from across the "left"; it helps the chances of a Republican victory in 2008 and thus threatens all of us.*
I beg you to reconsider your dangerous and irrational course. The best thing that can come out of it is a serious disappointment for you when Obama wins the convention (and then are you going to snipe at him all the way to the election?! Please, no!); the worst thing is a President McCain.
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Give us some substance, some real issues, not this tabloid crap!
[Read the article: Michael Wolff on sex and the Dems]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do you not understand that writing about tabloid claims like this one is just giving them a soapbox?!
You wasted eight paragraphs to refute trashy junk. Might I suggest some other subjects to write about?
- McCain's most vulnerable points.
- How the Democratic candidate can win the 2008 election.
- Clinton vs. Obama: a realistic evaluation of their chances.
- How could a Democratic President fix our badly-broken government?
- How can we jail the torturers in 2009?
- Preventing this from happening again: how can we stop government from destroying the people.
- Foreign wars: America's hooked, how can we quit?
I just stopped typing because I ran out of time: there are a thousand other issues you could discuss.
Is there a way to impeach an editor?
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Hate this sort of article? Use http://save.salon.googlepages.com/
[Read the article: Michael Wolff on sex and the Dems]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sick of tabloid crap like this?
Post the link http://save.salon.googlepages.com/ into your messages to indicate your displeasure with the way Salon has moved in the last few months.
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It never ceases to amaze me how people want to tell you how to live your life...
[Read the article: Quote of the day: Mildred Loving ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As if there weren't enough real issues in the world, people have to step in and prevent you from doing something that hurts no one and makes you happy.
I keep hoping we're beyond this but I don't see it, when "gay marriage" was the lead issue in 2004 (as opposed to, say, hundreds of thousands dead in a pointless war and the Treasury looted).
RIP, Mildred Loving - she fought the good fight, the world is better for it (though what a tragedy that her husband died so young...)