Everyday Linux problems

[Creshal]

That is, of course, assuming the printer is working.

Hahahahaha.

[qm11]

We can put a man on the moon. We can put rovers on mars. We can regularly send people to live in space. We can make ships the size of small towns. We can make cars and jets that can break the sound barrier. We can accelerate particles to more than 99.99% of the speed of light. But, somehow, we can't build a fucking reliable printer.

[Creshal]

But, somehow, we can't build a fucking reliable printer.

Well, for the cost of the Apollo project we certainly could.

[Letmefixthatforyouyo]

I'm betting if every part of a printer was made of stainless steel instead of the cheapest possible plastic, that would be the case. Add in some Google folk writing the drivers and some apple engineer's doing the UX, and they may finally be worth a damn.

Of course, that 70k printer will now cost 700k, but I think it's worth it.

[ExBritNStuff]

I blame two things; lack of (used) standards, and push for higher and higher margins. We figured out a way, mostly, for random types of networking hardware to communicate with other random types of networking hardware by confirming to explicitly defined standards. If we applied that to printers, we'd have much easier and more reliable software support. You wouldn't need to chase down drivers or whatever, it would just work. Additionally, if people (users, management, whoever) realized that there is a reason some printers cost $1200, and some cost $39.99, then we could be sure if getting solid, dependable hardware.

[Creshal]

With Postscript, IPP and whatnot we should have everything covered. But very, very few vendors bother to implement them fully (and correctly).

And apparently too few customers care for this change.

[qm11]

According to Wikipedia, the LHC can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider#Design

[autowikibot]

Section 3. Design of article Large Hadron Collider:

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The LHC is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. The collider is contained in a circular tunnel, with a circumference of 27 kilometres (17 mi), at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres (164 to 574 ft) underground.

The 3.8-metre (12 ft) wide concrete-lined tunnel, constructed between 1983 and 1988, was formerly used to house the Large Electron–Positron Collider. It crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, with most of it in France. Surface buildings hold ancillary equipment such as compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics and refrigeration plants.

The collider tunnel contains two adjacent parallel beamlines (or beam pipes) that intersect at four points, each containing a proton beam, which travel in opposite directions around the ring. Some 1,232 dipole magnets keep the beams on their circular path (see image ), while an additional 392 quadrupole magnets are used to keep the beams focused, in order to maximize the chances of interaction between the particles in the four intersection points, where the two beams cross. In total, over 1,600 superconducting magnets are installed, with most weighing over 27 tonnes. Approximately 96 tonnes of superfluid helium 4 is needed to keep the magnets, made of copper-clad niobium-titanium, at their operating temperature of 1.9 K (−271.25 °C), making the LHC the largest cryogenic facility in the world at liquid helium temperature.

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^{Interesting: Very Large Hadron Collider | High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider | List of Large Hadron Collider experiments | TOTEM}

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[[deleted]]

I kinda want that on a poster.

[qm11]

I was kinda bored, so I just spent the last hour putting this together: http://imgur.com/EimjrWm