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Old 01-06-2010, 10:15 PM
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old_tv_nut old_tv_nut is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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By the way, reliability of electronic devices is often described by a "bathtub curve" having a component of infant mortality (decreasing with time), a component of constant random failure rate, and a component of wear-out (increasing with time).
Someone once explained to me that vacuum tubes start their life in the wear-out mode (due to constant depletion of the cathode).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
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