Embrace the world of pr0nified IT with wide open, er, arms Would you like to play with me? I’ll show you how to do the moves. Sure, everyone will be watching us online but I promise to take you to the next level. Oh, and I’m well fit. Great, that’s all I need: another personal trainer. After last week’s confessions of a fitness-band wearer, I had rather hoped that the whole sports …
since it shows Greg's "stuff" in Ann*, admittedly as a line drawing but Mary Whitehouse wouldn't like kids seeing it.
Also, it says it can count the calories burned by both people - how can it count the ladies calories burnt if the blokes on top doing all the work?
* Greg and Ann are the picture 'people' according the screen image on the app.
Consumer printers start by promising you loads of things, later on you find out they're high maintenance and they cost you a fortune, and when it comes down to it last hardly any time at all. You just end up disappointed and after trying a few experience tells you to look elsewhere.
at least with the last one I bought if you read the small print carefully it did say it was supplied with a "sample" set of toner cartridges which they admitted wouldn't last very long, they weren't lying, the cyan one lasted about 1 month before complaining it was nearly finished, so they aren't quite lying bastards.
I did say quite. I'll admit they weren't technically lying.
But you'd need to know where to look in the small print to know and you need to be expecting it to be there.
One of the printers I looked was about £300 but it looked like a set of toner was going to be close to a grand!
Ouch!
at least with the last one I bought if you read the small print carefully it did say it was supplied with a "sample" set of toner cartridges which they admitted wouldn't last very long
I have been told that in the early days of laser printer there was a potential problem in that if they printer was stored with the cartridges in place the toner clumped somewhat and the gears could get a bit sticky, so there was a possibility that when the printer first turned on the paddle rotation motor that keeps the toner free flowing didn't have enough torque to overcome the friction and the motor burned out.
So some genius had the idea of starter cartridges which had less toner, thus ensuring that the motor could start up. Once everything was running, of course, lubricant got spread around and when new cartridges were put in the agitation of unpacking etc. was enough to unclump the toner.
Then another genius, in marketing, saw how this could be translated into $ signs and before long it was even being applied to inkjet printers which, of course, don't have a motor and paddle.
And nowadays toner doesn't clump.
when it comes down to it last hardly
Err... Beg to differ there. The inkjet I used to use as home office printer is now nearly 7 years old, still running and surviving its 5th < -20C winters at my summer house. It is retired there after being replaced by a similarly home office grade laser printer which is now 5+ years old, probably past 100K pages (severely abused by the SWMBO to print exam preparation materials) and still running OK.
You just need to chose very carefully - same as with any IT equipment. Cheaper today is not always cheapest in the long term once you have calculated its running costs over its full depreciation period (around 7 years in our house).
You just need to chose very carefully
I'd be interested to hear specifics - makes and models - although I suppose they're long since out of production.
Personally until recently I would never even consider buying another inkjet. My Epson LX80 (poor man's FX80) dot matrix was a tank and still working over ten years later when I gave it away, despite heavy abuse printing Gestetner stencils. Might still be working for all I know.
Replaced with a Canon LBP-4 which was just rebadged HPLJ4 (IIRC). Again, built like a tank, toner lasted at least as long as it said on the tin, used remanufactured cartridges after the first few years and apart from a longstanding reluctance to pick paper, still running when I retired it after well over ten years heavy (in domestic terms) use.
Current printer (now around ten years old itself) is a Xerox Phaser solid ink jobbie. In all bar one respect it is the best printer I've ever owned. That respect is that it's costing me a lot more than either previous printer in terms of ink, which definitely doesn't last as long as it says on the tin, though I suspect that has more to do with the fact that I now have a flock of homework-printing children, covering every inch of the paper with great gobs of colour, than any misdirection on the part of Xerox.
In that time I have also owned three (I think) inkjet printers, all of which were a right royal pain in the wallet what with ink seeming to evaporate overnight and heads deliberately gunking themselves up if they didn't like what I was printing. The only reason I'm looking at an inkjet again now is that I need a cheap(ish) second printer to use away from the house for a while, and it would be extremely useful if it could handle A3. Cheap A3 lasers are still a little way off I think, though it is confusing me that the cheapest A3 inkjets seem to come with scanners and fax facilities attached, which I definitely don't want.
Sorry, somewhat off topic there. I'll get back down to business now...
M.
I spotted that too, but I figured it was a Freudian slip* as it was nicely in context.
* which represents either:
- an accidental expression borne from a psychological issue
- something you say when you really mean your mother
- something that Freud wore, in which case we've come (sorry) full circle (sorry) to some form of pornification (and some deeper psychology :) ).
That said, knowing how well Mr Dabbs plays (sorry) with words I can't help a sneaking suspicion this wasn't a mistake at all :)
BTW, IMHO it's called auto-incorrect :)
Isn't Lara Croft usually standing facing away from us? So, her hair, I would see that.
I haven't played that game.
"Gamification" can work, but it has to be more than calling what you're already doing a game.
A cyber exercise bike that plays "Luke Skywalker Spaceship Fights" would qualify as the thing to peddle.
Considering that the remakes (Tomb Raider and Rise of the Tomb Raider) both feature a younger version of the heroine with more realistic proportions and the first of the two introduced new hair physics with a lot of aplomb and hype, it's definitely the hair that they want you looking at these days.
Having tried and failed several times over the years to keep up an exercise regime to do something about my increasing lardiness, I finally found a solution that works for me, a year ago - roller derby. No Fitbit required. Lardiness decreased, health improved, much fun had in the process.
ISTR there's a Francophone derby player somewehre with a name that translates as 'Eat my arse!'. God, I love this sport...
@Alastair - (laughing) 'my group'?! Ehehe. Check out the WFTDA (Women's Flat Track Derby Association) website and their YouTube channel. It's proper quad skates only. Anything else would be unsafe, derby being a full-contact sport on roller-skates. And if you've heard of roller derby before but haven't seen it in the last ten years, this is not the derby your mother knew; the sport was created a little over a decade ago.
Reckoned to be the fastest growing sport for women worldwide, it's a real grassroots movement, and is just starting to be covered on TV (ESPN covers the tail end of the international finals. In the UK, there's been occasional feature articles by local TV but I'm hoping that one day Aunty Beeb will wake up to how many women are hacked off at the lack of coverage of sport played by women and start covering notable games)
If you watch only one game on WFTDA's YouTube website, watch the 2015 final, Gotham vs Rose City for a demonstration of derby at its very best (sadly, the 2016 final was a bit scrappy IMHO).
Yes, it's true that even the high end lasers have gone all-in-one these days.
Back in the day, the business ones had separate toner, drum and fuser packs. Often the toner came in a tube or long box with a seal and required you to unseal it[1], ram it in a hole, jiggle it vigorously until all the gunk fell out and then withdraw the spent box for disposal.
[1] Carefully, or you could empty it prematurely and end up with sticky stuff sprayed everywhere.
Great 80s synth riffs, the band Mi-sex have jumped on the re-union train down here in antipodean land lately, despite their lead singer dying in the 90s in a car crash (the bands Dragon and The Angels suffer the same problem but have still re-formed). Though they all lack the budget to bring them back via avatar a-la Tupac. Maybe they will just prop a photo up on the stage.
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