Depends on your usage priorities I guess. I much prefer having a clear, transparent, usage cap, but knowing that my traffic is not being throttled, DPI'ed, or otherwise tampered with. If I need a higher cap, I upgrade my plan to one with a higher cap. OTOH I can understand some people simply want to get as much downloaded as possible without worrying about caps, and don't mind a bit of throttling where it's necessary.
It completely depends on what you use your connection for and what your priorities are (do you want as much data as possible over the month, or are you happy to be limited, but for the data you DO request to be guaranteed to come in as fast as possible?). Personally, I can't stand the non-transparent nature of such systems though, where you don't really know what the ISP is or isn't doing with your traffic at a given point in time. But some friends of mine who are massive media downloaders (both P2P and otherwise) would rather have a slower or more inconsistent speed if it meant that at the end of the month, they downloaded a greater total amount.
I find that the divide by 10 thing is still pretty accurate, although YMMV of course. My sync speed according to my DSL modem is 7200 kbps and the max download speed I can achieve is around 730 - 740 kB/s. So pretty close! Depends on a bunch of stuff though like your MTU, how clean your line is (i.e. bit error rate), whether you're using PPPoE or PPPoA to connect blah blah blah.
On top of that: if you do find yourself exceeding your cap on a regular basis, you can always upgrade to a plan with a higher cap for not that much more per month. Off the top of my head Internode also offer 300 GB, 600 GB and 1 TB caps on their (Agile DSLAM'ed) plans.
This is why I honestly don't think caps in Australia and other like countries are much of a big deal anymore: there's a good choice of them so you can get heaps of data if you need it, or save money if you're a light user. On top of that you have dozens upon dozens of ISPs you can choose from in most areas here.
But the American approach is bizarre - it's one-size-fits-all. An ISP will apply a cap (say, 250 GB or whatever) across their entire subscriber base with no regard as to whether or not that cap is suitable for all users. From a quick bit of Googling, I can't see that the major American ISPs offer a choice of plans with different caps, for different prices. It's simply "you're capped at X, and if you need more than that, tough luck". Seems ridiculous to me - why wouldn't they offer plans with higher caps to customers that need it (with a higher monthly fee to reflect the additional burden on the ISPs infrastructure represented by that user)? Furthermore, there's virtually no choice in ISPs in the US compared to here in Australia - in most areas you have the local DSL monopoly, the local cable monopoly... and that's about it. If you're lucky enough to live in the areas covered by FiOS you have that option too... but that's not the majority of people.
Agreed. Private server software does exist for most MMOs but it's usually not as functional or stable as the real thing (unsurprising given that the software was essentially reverse engineered by fans). They should just release the official server software into the public domain.
As an aside I've always wondered about the hardware and OS requirements for major MMO server software. Perhaps they can't release it because the hardware and environment requirements are so specific that the average Joe simply couldn't get a server running if they wanted to...
Oh I understand the ~reasons~ behind the low rate of passport holders in the US. I have lived in the US myself for many years, and when I raised the question, the vacation time problem is the one most often mentioned to me. I do understand this - it simply isn't worth the cost of the airfare to go overseas for only a week or two. I definitely now appreciate having the >4 weeks annual leave that is mandated by law here in Australia. I usually take at least three of those weeks in one hit every year and travel overseas during that time. So do most of my friends and colleagues. I earn a pretty average middle class salary so this is by no means something that's unusual here.
It's a real shame though - so many Americans are missing out on the wonderful experience of travel through no fault of their own. And it's sad that it's simply unaffordable for so many. Without meaning to troll, I admit I was genuinely shocked when I first became aware the sheer number of people in America living near or at the poverty line. I mean, every country has its share of low income earners for whom even housing, food and healthcare is a struggle to afford. But in Australia it is comparatively a very small proportion of the total population. In America it's much, much greater (statistics like 20-25% spring to mind, but don't quote me on it). I never really understood that until I lived in the US myself, having grown up knowing that per capita GDP was higher in the US and assuming that since America is such a rich country, most must live comfortably. What I didn't understand was the huge disparity in incomes - your GDP per capita may be slightly higher but it's skewed by the 1-2% of the population that's ultra-wealthy.
Anyway I did a bit of Googling and the most recent official figures I could find was a passport ownership rate of around 25% for the US and a little over 50% for Australia. Once you eliminate children, that probably rises to around 1/3rd and 2/3rds respectively, which sounds about right to me from what I've seen in both countries. That discrepancy must be substantially due to the two things you mention: greater annual leave entitlements in Australia, and the flatter income distribution (Australia has less super-wealthy, but also very few living close to poverty - it's a comfortably middle class place). Geographically, Australia is actually more disadvantaged than the US when it come to travel - it's the same size as the lower 48, but much further from most foreign destinations except SE Asia. In the US you are lucky to be only 7 hours or so from Europe. Here it's a full 24 hour flight (and at least 15-18 hours to the US).
Sorry - should have said "first time since the dollar was floated", not "in history". The AUD has historically been higher than the USD before, but only because its value was artificially pegged to the USD. Once it become a freely traded currency, as you alluded to, its value plummeted overnight:)
Most Australians travel internationally quite regularly. Not just to the US. Not every country is like the US where only a tiny proportion of people have a passport.
Yep. I sure want to leave Australia and move back to the US. I'm getting so sick of the higher salaries, greater number of holidays, mandated 4-6 weeks of annual leave, the more casual work-to-live culture, cleaner environment, low crime rate, higher life expectancy, affordable healthcare, booming economy, 1-5% unemployment (depending on State), good food, having decent quality TV news and current affairs (ABC/SBS), stronger consumer protection laws, massively lower poverty rate, having more choice in phone and internet services, not getting nudie-scanned or groped at airports, oh the list goes on. I'm just itching to get out of here!
Ok so that's a bit tongue-in-cheek - I'm a dual American and Australian citizen and still spend a lot of time in both countries. No emi/immigration required for me. And there's still stuff that the US has Australia beat at. The highway system there is better than in Australia (which suffers from having a huge area but not a huge population/tax base to fund things from). The cost of living (particularly housing) is less too (though, wages are lower which offsets some of that advantage). The natural environment is also more diverse (don't get me wrong - Australia is beautiful, but it simply doesn't have the diversity of environments and climates that the US/North America does).
But at this point in time I don't think you'd find to many Australians wanting to emigrate to the US. Perhaps the very wealthy, who would like to take advantage of the lower income tax for high earners. But Australia has been incredibly prosperous for the last decade or two - the middle class along with the rich. The financial crisis didn't even scratch it. Not surprisingly, it consistently ranks as one of the top handful of places to be (both in 'economic' and 'quality of life' indices).
Having said that, there is a HUGE number of Australian tourists in the US in the last year or so. This is because it's now incredibly cheap to do so: the AUD is worth more than the USD for the first time in history (thanks to the US Fed printing USD like it's going out of style). The buying power of the AUD in the US is huge at the moment. Combined with generally higher Aussie wages and the already-low prices of goods in the US, it's a shopping bonanza. I have guys at work ask me to get clothes and running shoes and stuff for them when I visit the US because due to the currency movements it's literally less than half the cost. Hell, for big ticket items, it'd be cheaper to fly to the US, buy it, and fly back, than to buy it locally...
Correct - it's illegal to sell RC games in Australia, but not technically illegal to buy them. Certainly an offence has occurred in such a scenario, but it's the seller who faces the music, not the buyer.
It is not against the law to merely possess or play an RC game (or any other material for that matter) in any State or Territory except for Western Australia. What this essentially means if you can get you hands on an RC game, you aren't breaking the law (but the person who provided it to you might be).
Personally I have a couple of RC games and I didn't even know they were RC! For instance I bought Fallout 3 (US version) while travelling to America a few years back. Returned to Australia, had fun playing it for months and only found out completely by accident that it was actually RC here. That's not an issue though, as in my State it's completely legal to own and play it. The only barrier is that Customs could technically have confiscated it at the border when I returned to Australia but in reality they don't really care about this kind of stuff. They have more important things to worry about (you know, pests, diseases and drugs etc).
Ouch. I have an iPhone 4 on a month-to-month plan (no contract) plan here in Australia with 1.5 GB data and more calls/SMS than I'd ever hope to use for ~$25/month. And this is ~Australia~ we are talking about, with generally one of the highest costs of living in the Western world.
Mind you I bought the phone outright/unlocked, so the initial outlay was more. But over 2-3 years, it works out ~significantly~ cheaper (for my usage patterns at least) to do it that way. Not to mention that, because you aren't on contract, and phone plans are constantly getting revised and becoming better in value, the ability to change to a better plan as soon as a company releases one means that you definitely save money.
Well fair enough then. Wasn't aware that the plan was still the same cost if you brought your own phone (that seems ridiculous to me).
Note that here we have both options. You can buy the phone outright/unlocked from Apple and just pop your existing SIM in it. Or, you can choose to buy a subsidised phone from a carrier for a cheaper up-front cost but a 2 year contracted plan. BUT note that the very same plan is cheaper per month if you bring your own phone than if you are paying a phone off. A portion of the monthly fee is thus a handset repayment (though it isn't usually separately listed on your bill or anything).
Agreed - can't stand the crazy way the Apple US store quotes its prices. The phone does NOT cost $199/$299. It costs significantly more than that, an amount which you pay off over the next 2 years by virtue of the binding service contract you sign with the service provider. That monthly ongoing cost is not just the cost of the plan alone - it also includes a repayment for the handset, though the exact breakdown isn't revealed.
So really for a better idea of the cost of the actual phone itself, it would be better to look at the cost Apple are quoting in countries outside the US where you buy the phone outright, unlocked, and off-contract. For example:
Australia (http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone?mco=MTAyNTQzMjI)
(And wow... never knew how much we got ripped off in Australia - the AUD is worth the same or slightly more than the CAD, but our prices are ~$200 more than in Canada. Argh!)
Interesting. I'm Aussie too, but I think of tyre pressure in metric (kPa). Wouldn't have a clue about PSI (though the recommended pressure range is usually written on the tyre somewhere in both kPa and PSI, so it's not really a big deal).
I pointed out that it wasn't a perfect analogy - but that there were lessons that could be applied. After all, it's another large (physical) country with a Federal-state system similar to the US.
Besides, your population being bigger is in proportion to your economy being bigger. So I don't see the fact that the US population is larger as meaning the comparison with Australia is meaningless. Sure there's a lot more to be done: but you have a lot more people and money to do it with. Everything just gets 'scaled up' by 10-15 times.
No, my GPS tells me that my average speed over a (highway) trip is almost exactly 100 km/h usually. Since you generally sit on 120km/h or so for the straight bits, and that is brought down a bit by corners, slowing to go through towns, and so on. Intersections and pedestrians don't apply here - we are talking about long distance highway driving, generally on controlled access, divided roads with few at-grade crossings.
In English speaking countries like NZ, Australia, South Africa, yes. Sweden may be different - I was just using an example familiar to myself, that's all. (And yes I'm aware that most in Sweden can speak English - however it's not the primary language)
The point is that you quickly come up with short forms of long words, in whatever language, so that in itself is a poor argument against switching to metric.
Well yes of course I'm only referring to English speaking countries, as the OP was discussing the issue of metric unit names that would be used in America, which is a primarily English-speaking country. Drawing upon examples from other languages wouldn't really be relevant.
But yeah - seems that different languages do have different abbreviations. Also I note that different countries use different unit sizes! Many European countries use cL (centilitres). But places in Australia and NZ don't use cL at all. It's ALWAYS mL. E.g. a Coke can is 375 mL, a bottle is 600 mL. Australians would never have even heard of a centilitre (though, due to the metric naming system, it's obvious what it is...). Interesting.
Same situation here: I have the 3G iPad due to a need for the GPS chip. I just use WiFi hotspot on my phone and tether the iPad when needed. The GPS continues to operate fine when not connected to 3G (or indeed, without a SIM in the iPad at all).
Yes it works. I have the 3G iPad 2. I bought the 3G version solely cause I wanted the GPS. It has never been connected to a cellular network and in fact I haven't bought a SIM card for it.
The only thing to note is that what you'll get is a 'standard GPS' rather than 'assisted GPS' (which uses cell towers in combination with GPS to more rapidly fix your position). So it might take somewhat longer to get an initial fix than if you were connected to 3G. But in practice I haven't found that to be an issue: like any GPS once it downloads the almanac from the satellites, it's pretty fast to get a fix unless you turn it off, move it a huge distance, then turn it on again.
Not necessarily... you're forgetting prepaid. I have a 3G tablet, but it's only very rarely taken somewhere where WiFi isn't available (i.e. most of the time it's at home or work).
But I did put $100 of credit on the SIM card in it a while back (which gave me... 12 GB or something, can't quite remember). That'll last me ages (probably a year or more). And it means that when I'm travelling I still have net access. There's no ongoing charges so it's not 'expensive'... I just use the credit when I need it. Obviously different countries have different options available in terms of data plans, so YMMV. But the blanket statement that "internet over 3G is too expensive" isn't necessarily true.
Oh and people that live in remote areas where they can't get traditional wired broadband (cable, DSL): 3G or satellite is sometimes the only option (and frankly, 3G is better than satellite at any price!)
Most of the major airports in America. LAX doesn't (at least not the terminals I frequent). ORD doesn't. It sucks! I travel all around the world for work and in most countries, WiFi at airports is almost always free. Some in America have it too... but it's the exception rather than the norm it seems.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahh good point! Didn't think about that.
So yeah they couldn't really do that in this case.
Depends on your usage priorities I guess. I much prefer having a clear, transparent, usage cap, but knowing that my traffic is not being throttled, DPI'ed, or otherwise tampered with. If I need a higher cap, I upgrade my plan to one with a higher cap. OTOH I can understand some people simply want to get as much downloaded as possible without worrying about caps, and don't mind a bit of throttling where it's necessary.
It completely depends on what you use your connection for and what your priorities are (do you want as much data as possible over the month, or are you happy to be limited, but for the data you DO request to be guaranteed to come in as fast as possible?). Personally, I can't stand the non-transparent nature of such systems though, where you don't really know what the ISP is or isn't doing with your traffic at a given point in time. But some friends of mine who are massive media downloaders (both P2P and otherwise) would rather have a slower or more inconsistent speed if it meant that at the end of the month, they downloaded a greater total amount.
I find that the divide by 10 thing is still pretty accurate, although YMMV of course. My sync speed according to my DSL modem is 7200 kbps and the max download speed I can achieve is around 730 - 740 kB/s. So pretty close! Depends on a bunch of stuff though like your MTU, how clean your line is (i.e. bit error rate), whether you're using PPPoE or PPPoA to connect blah blah blah.
On top of that: if you do find yourself exceeding your cap on a regular basis, you can always upgrade to a plan with a higher cap for not that much more per month. Off the top of my head Internode also offer 300 GB, 600 GB and 1 TB caps on their (Agile DSLAM'ed) plans.
This is why I honestly don't think caps in Australia and other like countries are much of a big deal anymore: there's a good choice of them so you can get heaps of data if you need it, or save money if you're a light user. On top of that you have dozens upon dozens of ISPs you can choose from in most areas here.
But the American approach is bizarre - it's one-size-fits-all. An ISP will apply a cap (say, 250 GB or whatever) across their entire subscriber base with no regard as to whether or not that cap is suitable for all users. From a quick bit of Googling, I can't see that the major American ISPs offer a choice of plans with different caps, for different prices. It's simply "you're capped at X, and if you need more than that, tough luck". Seems ridiculous to me - why wouldn't they offer plans with higher caps to customers that need it (with a higher monthly fee to reflect the additional burden on the ISPs infrastructure represented by that user)? Furthermore, there's virtually no choice in ISPs in the US compared to here in Australia - in most areas you have the local DSL monopoly, the local cable monopoly ... and that's about it. If you're lucky enough to live in the areas covered by FiOS you have that option too ... but that's not the majority of people.
Agreed. Private server software does exist for most MMOs but it's usually not as functional or stable as the real thing (unsurprising given that the software was essentially reverse engineered by fans). They should just release the official server software into the public domain.
As an aside I've always wondered about the hardware and OS requirements for major MMO server software. Perhaps they can't release it because the hardware and environment requirements are so specific that the average Joe simply couldn't get a server running if they wanted to...
Apparently not, since they're shutting down the servers. Still thirteen years is not a bad run for a pay-to-play online game!
I still have an active Lineage II account myself, but almost never log in. Never played the original Lineage though (the one they are shutting down).
Oh I understand the ~reasons~ behind the low rate of passport holders in the US. I have lived in the US myself for many years, and when I raised the question, the vacation time problem is the one most often mentioned to me. I do understand this - it simply isn't worth the cost of the airfare to go overseas for only a week or two. I definitely now appreciate having the >4 weeks annual leave that is mandated by law here in Australia. I usually take at least three of those weeks in one hit every year and travel overseas during that time. So do most of my friends and colleagues. I earn a pretty average middle class salary so this is by no means something that's unusual here.
It's a real shame though - so many Americans are missing out on the wonderful experience of travel through no fault of their own. And it's sad that it's simply unaffordable for so many. Without meaning to troll, I admit I was genuinely shocked when I first became aware the sheer number of people in America living near or at the poverty line. I mean, every country has its share of low income earners for whom even housing, food and healthcare is a struggle to afford. But in Australia it is comparatively a very small proportion of the total population. In America it's much, much greater (statistics like 20-25% spring to mind, but don't quote me on it). I never really understood that until I lived in the US myself, having grown up knowing that per capita GDP was higher in the US and assuming that since America is such a rich country, most must live comfortably. What I didn't understand was the huge disparity in incomes - your GDP per capita may be slightly higher but it's skewed by the 1-2% of the population that's ultra-wealthy.
Anyway I did a bit of Googling and the most recent official figures I could find was a passport ownership rate of around 25% for the US and a little over 50% for Australia. Once you eliminate children, that probably rises to around 1/3rd and 2/3rds respectively, which sounds about right to me from what I've seen in both countries. That discrepancy must be substantially due to the two things you mention: greater annual leave entitlements in Australia, and the flatter income distribution (Australia has less super-wealthy, but also very few living close to poverty - it's a comfortably middle class place). Geographically, Australia is actually more disadvantaged than the US when it come to travel - it's the same size as the lower 48, but much further from most foreign destinations except SE Asia. In the US you are lucky to be only 7 hours or so from Europe. Here it's a full 24 hour flight (and at least 15-18 hours to the US).
Sorry - should have said "first time since the dollar was floated", not "in history". The AUD has historically been higher than the USD before, but only because its value was artificially pegged to the USD. Once it become a freely traded currency, as you alluded to, its value plummeted overnight :)
Most Australians travel internationally quite regularly. Not just to the US. Not every country is like the US where only a tiny proportion of people have a passport.
Ooo can I reply to the troll?
Yep. I sure want to leave Australia and move back to the US. I'm getting so sick of the higher salaries, greater number of holidays, mandated 4-6 weeks of annual leave, the more casual work-to-live culture, cleaner environment, low crime rate, higher life expectancy, affordable healthcare, booming economy, 1-5% unemployment (depending on State), good food, having decent quality TV news and current affairs (ABC/SBS), stronger consumer protection laws, massively lower poverty rate, having more choice in phone and internet services, not getting nudie-scanned or groped at airports, oh the list goes on. I'm just itching to get out of here!
Ok so that's a bit tongue-in-cheek - I'm a dual American and Australian citizen and still spend a lot of time in both countries. No emi/immigration required for me. And there's still stuff that the US has Australia beat at. The highway system there is better than in Australia (which suffers from having a huge area but not a huge population/tax base to fund things from). The cost of living (particularly housing) is less too (though, wages are lower which offsets some of that advantage). The natural environment is also more diverse (don't get me wrong - Australia is beautiful, but it simply doesn't have the diversity of environments and climates that the US/North America does).
But at this point in time I don't think you'd find to many Australians wanting to emigrate to the US. Perhaps the very wealthy, who would like to take advantage of the lower income tax for high earners. But Australia has been incredibly prosperous for the last decade or two - the middle class along with the rich. The financial crisis didn't even scratch it. Not surprisingly, it consistently ranks as one of the top handful of places to be (both in 'economic' and 'quality of life' indices).
Having said that, there is a HUGE number of Australian tourists in the US in the last year or so. This is because it's now incredibly cheap to do so: the AUD is worth more than the USD for the first time in history (thanks to the US Fed printing USD like it's going out of style). The buying power of the AUD in the US is huge at the moment. Combined with generally higher Aussie wages and the already-low prices of goods in the US, it's a shopping bonanza. I have guys at work ask me to get clothes and running shoes and stuff for them when I visit the US because due to the currency movements it's literally less than half the cost. Hell, for big ticket items, it'd be cheaper to fly to the US, buy it, and fly back, than to buy it locally...
Correct - it's illegal to sell RC games in Australia, but not technically illegal to buy them. Certainly an offence has occurred in such a scenario, but it's the seller who faces the music, not the buyer.
It is not against the law to merely possess or play an RC game (or any other material for that matter) in any State or Territory except for Western Australia. What this essentially means if you can get you hands on an RC game, you aren't breaking the law (but the person who provided it to you might be).
Personally I have a couple of RC games and I didn't even know they were RC! For instance I bought Fallout 3 (US version) while travelling to America a few years back. Returned to Australia, had fun playing it for months and only found out completely by accident that it was actually RC here. That's not an issue though, as in my State it's completely legal to own and play it. The only barrier is that Customs could technically have confiscated it at the border when I returned to Australia but in reality they don't really care about this kind of stuff. They have more important things to worry about (you know, pests, diseases and drugs etc).
Ouch. I have an iPhone 4 on a month-to-month plan (no contract) plan here in Australia with 1.5 GB data and more calls/SMS than I'd ever hope to use for ~$25/month. And this is ~Australia~ we are talking about, with generally one of the highest costs of living in the Western world.
Mind you I bought the phone outright/unlocked, so the initial outlay was more. But over 2-3 years, it works out ~significantly~ cheaper (for my usage patterns at least) to do it that way. Not to mention that, because you aren't on contract, and phone plans are constantly getting revised and becoming better in value, the ability to change to a better plan as soon as a company releases one means that you definitely save money.
Actually it's even sadder - the AUD is quite a bit above 'on par' with the USD now. 1 AUD = 109.3 US cents right this minute.
Well fair enough then. Wasn't aware that the plan was still the same cost if you brought your own phone (that seems ridiculous to me).
Note that here we have both options. You can buy the phone outright/unlocked from Apple and just pop your existing SIM in it. Or, you can choose to buy a subsidised phone from a carrier for a cheaper up-front cost but a 2 year contracted plan. BUT note that the very same plan is cheaper per month if you bring your own phone than if you are paying a phone off. A portion of the monthly fee is thus a handset repayment (though it isn't usually separately listed on your bill or anything).
Agreed - can't stand the crazy way the Apple US store quotes its prices. The phone does NOT cost $199/$299. It costs significantly more than that, an amount which you pay off over the next 2 years by virtue of the binding service contract you sign with the service provider. That monthly ongoing cost is not just the cost of the plan alone - it also includes a repayment for the handset, though the exact breakdown isn't revealed.
So really for a better idea of the cost of the actual phone itself, it would be better to look at the cost Apple are quoting in countries outside the US where you buy the phone outright, unlocked, and off-contract. For example:
Australia (http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone?mco=MTAyNTQzMjI)
16GB: $859
32GB: $999
Canada (http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone?mco=MTAyNTQzMjI)
16GB: $659
32GB: $779
(And wow ... never knew how much we got ripped off in Australia - the AUD is worth the same or slightly more than the CAD, but our prices are ~$200 more than in Canada. Argh!)
Interesting. I'm Aussie too, but I think of tyre pressure in metric (kPa). Wouldn't have a clue about PSI (though the recommended pressure range is usually written on the tyre somewhere in both kPa and PSI, so it's not really a big deal).
Not if you encrypt the iPhone backup on the PC. Which you should.
I pointed out that it wasn't a perfect analogy - but that there were lessons that could be applied. After all, it's another large (physical) country with a Federal-state system similar to the US.
Besides, your population being bigger is in proportion to your economy being bigger. So I don't see the fact that the US population is larger as meaning the comparison with Australia is meaningless. Sure there's a lot more to be done: but you have a lot more people and money to do it with. Everything just gets 'scaled up' by 10-15 times.
No, my GPS tells me that my average speed over a (highway) trip is almost exactly 100 km/h usually. Since you generally sit on 120km/h or so for the straight bits, and that is brought down a bit by corners, slowing to go through towns, and so on. Intersections and pedestrians don't apply here - we are talking about long distance highway driving, generally on controlled access, divided roads with few at-grade crossings.
In English speaking countries like NZ, Australia, South Africa, yes. Sweden may be different - I was just using an example familiar to myself, that's all. (And yes I'm aware that most in Sweden can speak English - however it's not the primary language)
The point is that you quickly come up with short forms of long words, in whatever language, so that in itself is a poor argument against switching to metric.
Well yes of course I'm only referring to English speaking countries, as the OP was discussing the issue of metric unit names that would be used in America, which is a primarily English-speaking country. Drawing upon examples from other languages wouldn't really be relevant.
But yeah - seems that different languages do have different abbreviations. Also I note that different countries use different unit sizes! Many European countries use cL (centilitres). But places in Australia and NZ don't use cL at all. It's ALWAYS mL. E.g. a Coke can is 375 mL, a bottle is 600 mL. Australians would never have even heard of a centilitre (though, due to the metric naming system, it's obvious what it is...). Interesting.
Same situation here: I have the 3G iPad due to a need for the GPS chip. I just use WiFi hotspot on my phone and tether the iPad when needed. The GPS continues to operate fine when not connected to 3G (or indeed, without a SIM in the iPad at all).
$150 for 12 Gb ... Telstra eh? :)
Yes it works. I have the 3G iPad 2. I bought the 3G version solely cause I wanted the GPS. It has never been connected to a cellular network and in fact I haven't bought a SIM card for it.
The only thing to note is that what you'll get is a 'standard GPS' rather than 'assisted GPS' (which uses cell towers in combination with GPS to more rapidly fix your position). So it might take somewhat longer to get an initial fix than if you were connected to 3G. But in practice I haven't found that to be an issue: like any GPS once it downloads the almanac from the satellites, it's pretty fast to get a fix unless you turn it off, move it a huge distance, then turn it on again.
Not necessarily ... you're forgetting prepaid. I have a 3G tablet, but it's only very rarely taken somewhere where WiFi isn't available (i.e. most of the time it's at home or work).
But I did put $100 of credit on the SIM card in it a while back (which gave me ... 12 GB or something, can't quite remember). That'll last me ages (probably a year or more). And it means that when I'm travelling I still have net access. There's no ongoing charges so it's not 'expensive' ... I just use the credit when I need it. Obviously different countries have different options available in terms of data plans, so YMMV. But the blanket statement that "internet over 3G is too expensive" isn't necessarily true.
Oh and people that live in remote areas where they can't get traditional wired broadband (cable, DSL): 3G or satellite is sometimes the only option (and frankly, 3G is better than satellite at any price!)
Most of the major airports in America. LAX doesn't (at least not the terminals I frequent). ORD doesn't. It sucks! I travel all around the world for work and in most countries, WiFi at airports is almost always free. Some in America have it too ... but it's the exception rather than the norm it seems.