Linked by Howard Fosdick on Tue 2nd Aug 2011 22:18 UTC
Your computer is an important energy consumer in your home. Can you save
energy when using it? This article offers a few tips.
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RE[7]: Saving electricity?
by Bill Shooter of Bul on Wed 3rd Aug 2011 16:01
in reply to "RE[6]: Saving electricity?"
Member since:2006-07-14
Thanks for the citation. It makes everything easier to examine.
For instance: the three year failure rate is not 1/3. Its 1/5. 1/10 people accidentally break their laptop.
Also, there is a bit of potential selection bias going into the study. This looks at laptops covered by a third party warranty. So, more accurately it shows that 1/5 laptops owned by people who think their laptop may fail, fail within three years. Those who don't pay for the warranty may take better care of their laptops ( Ie not storing it in a hot car, not leaving it on 24/7, not using it to level out the kitchen table, not running the battery till death for the fun of it, using an additional cooling pad ect).
Again, I really don't have a dog in this fight, we were saying that laptops break more often or something? I'm just complaining about people's throwing around antidotes and not understanding statistics. Its of minor importance in this case, but we suck just as much when it is important... like economics, politics, and health issues.
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2008-10-23
Here is one citation: www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf
There has been several studies about laptops failure rates. It is confirmed by my experience but I based the numbers I cited on real studies over hundreds of thousands of laptops. Google laptop failure rate for other citations if you need. They all end up with pretty similar numbers.