Anecdotally I've been hearing TVs die much quicker these days - like in four or so years.

eta: Almost forgot - I had a cheap (for its day) off-brand LCD tv die after only a year and a half or so. Plus the audio had a hum the whole time.

That's depressing. Although it makes me happy I've never bought one.

It's really the off brand TV's that tend to have a bad track record for longevity. I've had Samsungs, NEC, Sony, and Panasonic in installations where flatscreens are running 7 days a week for at least 12 hours a day and they have lasted for years.

I've done the same with Insignia, Vizio, Westinghouse, and a few others and had a very high failure rate. Unfortunately it does tend to be a case of you get what you pay for.

How is LG doing for longevity, now?

I've had my Toshiba CRT since September 2004 or so. 2005? I just know that the TV I had shorted out or something right before the fall television season started, so I had to go out to Best Buy, like, that very night to get a new one. And I bought the extended warranty and everything, which I never had to use. But since I'd only had the TV that died for a year or two (it died riiiight after the warranty expired), I was playing it safe.

According to today's spam, my automated newsletter-request form email address is dating. Do I need to call Turing? Is my mail handling bot achieving sentience?

Vidding related question: in my transition between computers, I lost my link to a tutorial for converting vob files to viddable avi files. I don't know if I got that link from here or elsewhere, but it's worth a shot. The software I have now keeps crashing with the files I give it, and I'm afraid that if I spend the additional 50 bucks for the more familiar software that I'll still be stuck with the crashing issue because I'm ripping the files wrong. the LJ community is no help on this matter.

Vidding related question: in my transition between computers, I lost my link to a tutorial for converting vob files to viddable avi files. I don't know if I got that link from here or elsewhere, but it's worth a shot. The software I have now keeps crashing with the files I give it, and I'm afraid that if I spend the additional 50 bucks for the more familiar software that I'll still be stuck with the crashing issue because I'm ripping the files wrong. the LJ community is no help on this matter.

I was just being told by someone he'd hacked his Canon camera firmware by loading it onto the memory card. This included useful things like extending exposure time, and adding an intervalometer, but now he also has games on his camera (point and shoot).

Anyone here ever done this?

Anyone here ever done this?

No and I would like to right now. (Does this crazy business work on video cameras as well as still cameras?)