Tax-Free IT Repairs Proposed For the UK 102
judgecorp writes "Removing tax from computer repairs could have a real impact on the IT industry's carbon footprint, according to a petition of the UK government. Old computer equipment often ends up in landfill, or in toxic illegal re-cycling centers in developing countries, because users think it is not cost-effective to repair it. Making repairs tax free could be a simple bit of financial engineering to encourage skilled jobs and keep electronics out of the waste stream, says the author of the campaign."
"Proposed" doesn't mean what you may think (Score:5, Informative)
In this context, "Proposed" means someone's set up an online petition to ask the government to do something.
Seeing as there's a government-sponsored website where you can set up petitions asking for literally anything, this doesn't really mean a great deal. Some petitions which have been submitted include:
Force TV newsreaders to wear their underpants on their head. [number10.gov.uk]
Stop treating Charles Darwin with any form of respect [number10.gov.uk]
Introduce suitability tests for all supporters of Tottenham Hotspur who want to work with children [number10.gov.uk]
Re:But it isn't cost effective! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Abused (Score:3, Informative)
The faster we can replace the old stuff, the better.
That's true, but for the foreseeable future, it's still a cycle. I think the point here is: The less frequently we replace the old stuff, the better.
Re:But it isn't cost effective! (Score:5, Informative)
The few times I had computers from unknown origin at which I actually looked at the content of the disk, it was usually pirated movies, personal documents like letters and recipes
pirated software, homework essays/term papers, music, and possibly homemade pr0n
The "elite" types like to think only other "elite" types have access to pirated s/w, but trust me, from researching the contents of "goodwill harddrives" the unwashed masses somehow have access to virtually every warez we have. Also the same people that claim they can't be bothered to figure out how to change their background picture and could we do it for them, seem to easily have the motivation and technical ability to install warez. I think feigned ignorance is more a matter of pride, at least for the average loser, so I don't feel so bad about carefully structuring so I can't / won't help. It never fails that the village idiot, despite proudly stating he knows nothing about computers, somehow has the worlds most complicated cracked warez installed and working. WTF?
Homework is uniformly bad. Not only is grade inflation increasing over the decades, but writing ability seems to be plummeting at the same time. So, what was a good "C" is now an "A" from the bell curve declining pushing it to a "B" and then some inflation pushing it to the "A". It is true that there are very few misspelled words, and the gross grammatical errors that word can find are fixed, but the essays are usually filled with homonym substitution and terrible paragraph construction. Most people are, for all intents and purposes, illiterate, and can't write because they have no experience of reading good writing. I read it for the LOLs.
The music I find is usually pretty interesting. I'll listen at least once. Rarely is it stuff I actually want to keep, but its interesting to hear one time. I've noticed that on average the great unwashed seem to be moving away from discographies and albums. You'll just find that "one good song" from a musician. Much more like a "stream ripper listening to commercial FM radio" than the traditional computer dude attitude of mirroring a complete directory because its no harder than copying a single file.
As for the Pr0n its surprisingly hard to tell if they just downloaded a collection of one person or if it was genuinely homemade. Unlike home decorating, most people have good taste in Pr0n selection so you can't strictly go on subject matter. If they're chubby its homemade as "most americans are now fat". Also homemade stuff has ridiculous hoarded junk in the background or terrible lighting, that no pro photographer would put up with. Also the homemade stuff has bad hair/makeup. Other than that, its difficult to tell... needs more research, much more.
Anyway, thats what I find on hard drives, rarely this "movies, letters and recipe" stuff you refer to.
I don't have the patience to wait for a borked OS to load (if it ever loads).
External USB hard drive enclosure. Plugged into a machine not running that O/S to prevent any contagion. Stereotypical windoze drive, in a $25 USB external enclosure, plugged into a Linux box. No problemo.
Re:Old parts cost more (Score:2, Informative)
Have you tried Kahlon [kahlon.com]? (Not affiliated, just a happy customer) A few years ago I had a multiprocessor system that required Registred ECC RAM. It could hold a total of 4GB RAM, but only had 1GB. When I wanted to upgrade the system to 4GB (so I needed 3x1GB), the stores in Europe asked around 300€ per stick. At Kahlon, I got three sticks of that price even after the horribly high import taxes. Now, I just checked and I could get those same RAM sticks for around 40$ each.
I do admit it was a pain to get them to trust me because they didn't take a credit card from my country (which is very small). I called them, said I would do a wire transfer and send them proof. A bit of a hassle, but it worked and I had my RAM.
I also used them ever longer ago when I needed 256Meg SIMMS (not DIMMS) for an old Pentium Pro 200 System.
It's the first place I go and look if I need "weird RAM".
I should check their RD-Ram prices.. I have a nice P-IV with 512Meg RAM with RD-Ram. Upping it to 1GB or more might make it desktop-usable again.