Actually saying, "I don't believe you; show me some facts to back-up your claim," is the best place to start. All of modern-day science is based on that premise.
As for Apple's luxury market:
I'm glad they are doing so well, but remember a lot of luxury carmakers went bankrupt during the 1930s depression, and they are going bankrupt now too. When times are hard people turn their back on luxury and go for lower-priced options. Apple may find itself dominating a high-priced over-$1000 market that has few customers left to serve.
Another possibility: Swine Flu will kill 50% of the American population, and energy scarcity or pollution will be a thing of the past. Virtually overnight our energy usage & greenhouse gas would drop by half.
In other words, overpopulation is our primary pollution problem.
>>>The Big Lie is that this modernization supposedly needs to be done in order for green energy technologies (eg grid interactive solar) to work, when in fact, nothing could be further than the truth. >>>
Well that's the first I ever heard of that. I was under the impression the purpose of a SmartGrid was to turn my home's heater on-and-off remotely. i.e. Centralized control of power demand.
It seems to me the best investment would be a solution that requires NO heating. Like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passivhaus - The government could have a program similar to what they are doing with old pollute-mobiles: Offer tax credits to "trade-in" your old inefficient house for a new passivhaus. If everyone converted, then residental power usage would drop somewhere around 75%. This image in particular shows how "leaky" an old home is compared to one of these newer homes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passivhaus_thermogram_gedaemmt_ungedaemmt.png
My own approach to energy savings, rather than use "smart" appliances, is simply to use the brain in my head. I turn-off the heat (or A/C) when I go to bed, heat my bathroom for my morning shower with a small portable, go off to work, and then turn the heat back-on when I get home. So instead of 24 hour heating (or cooling), I'm averaging just 5 hours a day.
Aside-
A lot of people embrace Compact Flourescent Lights as if they are some magic cure to solve our future energy drought. But I have to disagree. I've been using CFL's for almost twenty years, and I've come to the conclusion that they are a worse idea that using Edison's incandescent lighting. Here's why:
- CFLs have a power factor of around 0.5, which means they use twice as much power as rated. For example a 15 watt CFL uses 15 watts in your home, but then it uses another 15 watts at the central power plant due to the need to "rebalance" the power and restore the PF to 1.0. TOTAL == 30 watts burned
- New technologies have allowed folks like GE to build 60 watt incandescants that only use 30 watts while still providing the same brightness. So the net usage is the same as the CFL described above. No need to abandon the old bulbs.
- CFLs *hate* heat. CFLs *hate* cold. CFLs *hate* humidity. CFLs *hate* dimmers. In practical terms this means CFLs can not be used in 80-90% of present fixtures. I used them in my upside-down kitchen lights - they died 2 months later. I used a CFL outside in my porch light - it worked fine until the temperature dropped below zero, and then refused to light. I used them in my bathroom, and after a couple showers the humidity killed half of them (the heat may also have been a factor). I bought a so-called "dimmable CFL" which died 5 minutes after I installed it in my living room dimmer switch. Instead of saving money, I'm wasting it on tons of dead CFLs.
- CFLs hate being turned on and off. Rapid cycling makes them die as quick as an incandescent bulb. So you've spent 5 times as much for a bulb than doesn't last any longer.
- CFLs have a warm-up time. Turn it on to read your paper, and you have to wait 3 minutes before you can see the writing. Turn it on to go down the basement stairs - and you can't see the steps because the bulb is still warming up (i.e too dim - a safety hazard).
I have about 20 CFLs in my home. But I'm gradually phasing them out and replacing them with 25 or 40 watt incandescents.
I tried to do my part to be green over the last two decades, but it's just not working. The CFLs are not the solution to reduced lighting expenses. Perhaps these new half-power incandescents from GE will provide an answer, or the new LED lights, but CFLs are not it.
I don't understand your joke, but the initial $40 was credited to my account and could be used in any fashion I chose. Either direct calling, or texting, or web access. The key point is that the phone was FREE and I am not bound by any kind of contract. I could have signed-up, got my free phone, and then quit a month later.
>>>isn't great if the calls are horribly expensive
18 cents a minute. I only make about 5 dollars a month in calling, so that's much cheaper than $50/month plans. As for your point about printers, that's why I always recommend buyers go with a laserprinter. It costs more initially, but the ink is much cheaper with longer-lasting cartridges, so that after you pass 800 pages the laserprinter is cheaper to operate than an inkjet.
I think in the longterm (circa 2020) the internet will end-up like cable television:
- Content is provided by creative laborers. - Their wages and other overhead is paid-for by advertising. - Users pay a monthly fee for a local company to hook them up. - Some content, similar to today's HBO or Showtime channels, will require a monthly fee to access, but these types of websites will be rare since most users won't want to pay the additional cost.
Get a Commodore 128 emulator, and start programming a game in BASIC. That's how I started, until I realized that BASIC is too slow so then I switched to C.
I almost forgot. I don't do any texting (why pay when email is free and/or voicecalls cheaper), but I do want to thank all of you who do lots of texting. Your addiction has helped subsidize my cheap 10 cent/minute phonecalls. Thanks.:-)
>>>in an effort to continue to entrap and bilk and ass-rape their customers. Vista was supposed to be "the best Windows ever." That has changed to "We feel your pain - Windows 7 will be the best Windows ever." But no refunds for the millions who ended up stuck with crap. >>>
Ya know I've never once purchased Windows off the shelf. I don't understand people who do; it comes free with the PC. If you felt ripped-off buying Vista, it was by your own choice.
The only OSes I've ever bought off-the-shelf were GEOS for the C=64 and Workbench 3.0 for the Commodore Amiga. But then, those were good OSes and worth every penny. I wouldn't walk across the street to get Winshit. (pause) Now that I think about it, the only Mickeysoft product I ever purchased was Office... about 12 years ago. I have made the conscious decision never to buy another MS product, especially now that we have OpenOffice and other free alternatives.
I think a federal law already exists that telemarketers (or bill collectors) are not allowed to call fax or cell numbers, due to the expense being born by the customer. If you've already asked this company to put you on their "Do Not Call List", and they are still calling, then you can file a small claims lawsuit which will result in that company being fined ~$10,000.
In most cases simply saying "I'm taking you to court, which will result in a 10,000 fine" is enough to make them stop.
>>>The phone operators have already reduced the charges once and the EU is trying to get rid of them entirely
Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the effort. Eliminating the interstate charges helps save everyone a couple pennies, but then the citizens turn-around and have to pay the EU ministers and bureaucrats ~$100,000 a year salaries for their labor during that negotiation. Benjamin Franklin had a quote that applies here: "Penny wise; pound foolish." i.e. Thowing away millions of dollars to pay MEP salaries so they can negotiate to save a few pennies each month on your bill.
At the end of the day it makes no difference. You're either going to pay 10 cents calling plus 10 cents on the receiving end, or else pay 20 cents calling. Either way the company gets its twenty pieces.
Aside-
Getting billed for receiving calls is why I often don't answer my phone. I just look at the caller ID and then call the person on a wired phone which is free-of-charge. Or send an email which is also free. Even if it's a long-distance call it's usually cheaper to use the wired phone (about 5 cents/minute) versus cellphone (about 20 c/min).
I must live in an alternate reality United States.
My phone cost $40 upfront, but they gave me 40 dollars of free calls, so essentially the phone was free and I was just paying for my airtime. I have no contract and I'm free to quit whenever I feel like it. You don't "have" to sign a contract if you don't want to, or pay an arm-and-leg for a phone since there are plenty of cheap ones around.
I do think the exclusivity deals need to end. It reminds me of the dark ages of 1970s when the only phone you could get was an expensive AT&T phone. Even modems had to be bought direct from the phone company (or else use an acoustic modem with a phone cradle). But now thanks to government regulation, we can buy any $5-10 phone or $20-30 modem and just plug it directly into the wire. That's the kind of freedom we need with cellphones - no requirement that you "have" to use an AT&T phone with your AT&T service.
>>>And for being free... Apple charges from 10.1 > 10.2, etc. It's the same 'difference' of 0.1
Yeha and they shouldn't. I've come to the conclusion that Apple does this so they can collect an annual payment from Mac users. And it's not as if you have a choice - if you stay with an older version like 10.2, then you can't use the latest software designed for 10.5
Back to Microsoft-
What they are doing with packaging Vista aka V6.1 as "Windows 7" is approximately equivalent to when Sony repackaged the PS1 as PSone, or PS2 as PS2slim, and tried to convince us it was newer and better. It's just a way to pad their pockets with more greenbacks.
Yes I'd be happier if we were getting V7.0 of Windows, rather than Vista V6.1 repackaged in a shiny-new box. This is approximately equivalent to when Sony changed the PS1 to a PSone, or the PS2 to a PS2slim, and tried to convince us it was better simply because it changed cases.
>>>You know, the version number is entirely abritrarily assigned
No not really. When a number increments the whole number, it's because major changes have occured. It is apparent that Microsoft feels they only made made minor changes from Vista to Win7, and that's why the only incremented the number from 6.0 to 6.1. This upgrade is akin to upgrading from Windows 3.0 to 3.1
>>>even a P4 2 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and integrated intel video (a low end machine by todays standards), the menus were far faster with the default settings under Vista than they were under XP >>>
As a strange coincidence, that's exactly what my brother is running (albeit with 1.5GB RAM), but I disagree with your conclusion. Vista runs much, much faster when using the XP/Classic settings simply because there's less graphical demand on the CPU.
BTW:
Vista is a pile of shit with whipped cream on top. Yeah it looks pretty, but it still smells and is horrible to work with, especially with the damn pop-up window constantly asking, "Are you you you want to play a movie? You might endanger something." Vista is clearly not designed for someone like me who has been using PCs for almost 30 years and doesn't need to be asked brain-dead questions. I KNOW what I want to do, now just DO it, without all these stupid popups.
My brother had Vista. I stuck with XP which even though we have identical hardware specs, my XP installation still runs better than his Vista.
>>>prevent millions of your citizens from obtaining medical care
Yeah places like the UK and Canada do this all the time. That's the problem with government-controlled Rationed care (example: telling an 80-something Canadian he's too old to get a pacemaker) (or telling a 20-something British woman she can't get a PAP smear to test for cancer). I've heard it said the bureaucracy that decides who gets care or does not get care is officially called N.I.C.E. but among citizens it's called "nasty". i.e. Worse than dealing with an HMO.
In the U.S. you are welcome to obtain any medical care you need. All you need to do is pay the ~$10,000 bill which should be easy since 299 million Americans have insurance. The only thing you're not entitled to do is rob your neighbor's wallets to pay that bill... unless you're old in which case you get free Medicare/Medicaid.
So overall I'd say we have a, not perfect, but better system that the Rationed "just say no to citizens" Care of europe or canada.
>>>Apparently, someone disagrees with you on that, agreeing that they should be able to mod posts as Troll if they disagree with them:)
Yeah well, although most of the persons here are "adults" they are still stuck in junior hihg mentally. They think it's funny to subtract points from other people, simply because they disagree. i.e. Censorship.
Apparently they disagree with you too, since they modded you "0" and made you invisible. Isn't censorship of free speech fun?
I use dialup when traveling and thanks to text/image compression, it's about the same apparent speed as my 700k DSL (~10 seconds to load most websites). The only real drawback is the inability to use bittorrent or watch streaming videos, but these are not activities that you "need" to have. You really only "need" to be able to access websites, and it is easily doable on dialup.
You're not supposed to subtract points from someone, just because you disagree with them.
If you disagree with someone's opinion, then post a reply that says, "I disagree because....." Don't abuse your mod point privilege by modding someone into invisibility (i.e. a 0 or -1 score). This isn't Iran. Don't censor free speech.
>>>And you tolerade adware being on your computer longer than the time it takes to find a removal tool?
I already spent a full day trying to remove the adware, but nothing I've tried works. Some websites say the only cure is to go-in and edit the registry while in Safe Mode, which I did make an attempt to do, but it still came back.
So I'll just avoid IE as much as possible, and use Firefox instead which is immune to the software. At some point I'll probably remove IE completely.
Forcing your iPod to sync with iTunes is a pretty serious flaw, but it's not something you were forced into. Apple didn't give everyone a free iPod and thereby create a unfair advantage over the competition, like MS did when they drove Netscape into bankrupcty.
On the contrary, iPod is a choice you make amongst hundreds of other players. Which is why I have an Insignia player instead (with FM radio builtin).
>>>People already have free browser choice. They just chose not to make use of it.
Many people are unaware they have a choice. As example my brother always thought he HAD to use Comcast cable until I told him about Dish option. Being an "entrenched" company gives an unfair advantage - at least in the opinion of the EU.
As evidence to backup that claim the point to Netscape:
- Netscape was the dominant browser with 90% market - Then two years later they only had about 10%. What changed? - Microsoft installed IE on the desktop and it gained 90% of the market virtually overnight
Therefore the EU regulators argued that IE had an unfair advantage due to Windows virtual monopoly status, and that's what put Netscape out of dominance and eventually out-of=business. They argue that in a fair market it would have been closer to a 50-50 share. Their goal is to restore that 50-50 competition by leaving the browser part of the OS "empty" until the user decides for himself.
The goal wasn't to break the local monopoly, which in the 1970s was considered necessary, but to break-up the long distance monopoly and give people a choice when calling outside their home area code. i.e. Breaking-up AT&T so people could have a choice for their long-distance provider.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually saying, "I don't believe you; show me some facts to back-up your claim," is the best place to start. All of modern-day science is based on that premise.
As for Apple's luxury market:
I'm glad they are doing so well, but remember a lot of luxury carmakers went bankrupt during the 1930s depression, and they are going bankrupt now too. When times are hard people turn their back on luxury and go for lower-priced options. Apple may find itself dominating a high-priced over-$1000 market that has few customers left to serve.
Another possibility: Swine Flu will kill 50% of the American population, and energy scarcity or pollution will be a thing of the past. Virtually overnight our energy usage & greenhouse gas would drop by half.
In other words, overpopulation is our primary pollution problem.
>>>The Big Lie is that this modernization supposedly needs to be done in order for green energy technologies (eg grid interactive solar) to work, when in fact, nothing could be further than the truth.
>>>
Well that's the first I ever heard of that. I was under the impression the purpose of a SmartGrid was to turn my home's heater on-and-off remotely. i.e. Centralized control of power demand.
It seems to me the best investment would be a solution that requires NO heating. Like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passivhaus - The government could have a program similar to what they are doing with old pollute-mobiles: Offer tax credits to "trade-in" your old inefficient house for a new passivhaus. If everyone converted, then residental power usage would drop somewhere around 75%. This image in particular shows how "leaky" an old home is compared to one of these newer homes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passivhaus_thermogram_gedaemmt_ungedaemmt.png
My own approach to energy savings, rather than use "smart" appliances, is simply to use the brain in my head. I turn-off the heat (or A/C) when I go to bed, heat my bathroom for my morning shower with a small portable, go off to work, and then turn the heat back-on when I get home. So instead of 24 hour heating (or cooling), I'm averaging just 5 hours a day.
Aside-
A lot of people embrace Compact Flourescent Lights as if they are some magic cure to solve our future energy drought. But I have to disagree. I've been using CFL's for almost twenty years, and I've come to the conclusion that they are a worse idea that using Edison's incandescent lighting. Here's why:
- CFLs have a power factor of around 0.5, which means they use twice as much power as rated. For example a 15 watt CFL uses 15 watts in your home, but then it uses another 15 watts at the central power plant due to the need to "rebalance" the power and restore the PF to 1.0. TOTAL == 30 watts burned
- New technologies have allowed folks like GE to build 60 watt incandescants that only use 30 watts while still providing the same brightness. So the net usage is the same as the CFL described above. No need to abandon the old bulbs.
- CFLs *hate* heat. CFLs *hate* cold. CFLs *hate* humidity. CFLs *hate* dimmers. In practical terms this means CFLs can not be used in 80-90% of present fixtures. I used them in my upside-down kitchen lights - they died 2 months later. I used a CFL outside in my porch light - it worked fine until the temperature dropped below zero, and then refused to light. I used them in my bathroom, and after a couple showers the humidity killed half of them (the heat may also have been a factor). I bought a so-called "dimmable CFL" which died 5 minutes after I installed it in my living room dimmer switch. Instead of saving money, I'm wasting it on tons of dead CFLs.
- CFLs hate being turned on and off. Rapid cycling makes them die as quick as an incandescent bulb. So you've spent 5 times as much for a bulb than doesn't last any longer.
- CFLs have a warm-up time. Turn it on to read your paper, and you have to wait 3 minutes before you can see the writing. Turn it on to go down the basement stairs - and you can't see the steps because the bulb is still warming up (i.e too dim - a safety hazard).
I have about 20 CFLs in my home.
But I'm gradually phasing them out and
replacing them with 25 or 40 watt incandescents.
I tried to do my part to be green over the last two decades, but it's just not working. The CFLs are not the solution to reduced lighting expenses. Perhaps these new half-power incandescents from GE will provide an answer, or the new LED lights, but CFLs are not it.
No because I don't get billed if I don't use the phone. So using it as a "pager" is basically free-of-charge.
I don't understand your joke, but the initial $40 was credited to my account and could be used in any fashion I chose. Either direct calling, or texting, or web access. The key point is that the phone was FREE and I am not bound by any kind of contract. I could have signed-up, got my free phone, and then quit a month later.
>>>isn't great if the calls are horribly expensive
18 cents a minute. I only make about 5 dollars a month in calling, so that's much cheaper than $50/month plans. As for your point about printers, that's why I always recommend buyers go with a laserprinter. It costs more initially, but the ink is much cheaper with longer-lasting cartridges, so that after you pass 800 pages the laserprinter is cheaper to operate than an inkjet.
I think in the longterm (circa 2020) the internet will end-up like cable television:
- Content is provided by creative laborers.
- Their wages and other overhead is paid-for by advertising.
- Users pay a monthly fee for a local company to hook them up.
- Some content, similar to today's HBO or Showtime channels, will require a monthly fee to access, but these types of websites will be rare since most users won't want to pay the additional cost.
>>>We learned to bake our code tablets in the sun..... This was before lawns were invented.
Nonsense. They had lawns in Ancient Egypt, thanks to the flooding Nile dumping its fertile soil in the frontyard.
Get a Commodore 128 emulator, and start programming a game in BASIC. That's how I started, until I realized that BASIC is too slow so then I switched to C.
P.S.
I almost forgot. I don't do any texting (why pay when email is free and/or voicecalls cheaper), but I do want to thank all of you who do lots of texting. Your addiction has helped subsidize my cheap 10 cent/minute phonecalls. Thanks. :-)
>>>in an effort to continue to entrap and bilk and ass-rape their customers. Vista was supposed to be "the best Windows ever." That has changed to "We feel your pain - Windows 7 will be the best Windows ever." But no refunds for the millions who ended up stuck with crap.
>>>
Ya know I've never once purchased Windows off the shelf.
I don't understand people who do; it comes free with the PC.
If you felt ripped-off buying Vista, it was by your own choice.
The only OSes I've ever bought off-the-shelf were GEOS for the C=64 and Workbench 3.0 for the Commodore Amiga. But then, those were good OSes and worth every penny. I wouldn't walk across the street to get Winshit. (pause) Now that I think about it, the only Mickeysoft product I ever purchased was Office... about 12 years ago. I have made the conscious decision never to buy another MS product, especially now that we have OpenOffice and other free alternatives.
I think a federal law already exists that telemarketers (or bill collectors) are not allowed to call fax or cell numbers, due to the expense being born by the customer. If you've already asked this company to put you on their "Do Not Call List", and they are still calling, then you can file a small claims lawsuit which will result in that company being fined ~$10,000.
In most cases simply saying "I'm taking you to court, which will result in a 10,000 fine" is enough to make them stop.
>>>The phone operators have already reduced the charges once and the EU is trying to get rid of them entirely
Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the effort. Eliminating the interstate charges helps save everyone a couple pennies, but then the citizens turn-around and have to pay the EU ministers and bureaucrats ~$100,000 a year salaries for their labor during that negotiation. Benjamin Franklin had a quote that applies here: "Penny wise; pound foolish." i.e. Thowing away millions of dollars to pay MEP salaries so they can negotiate to save a few pennies each month on your bill.
At the end of the day it makes no difference. You're either going to pay 10 cents calling plus 10 cents on the receiving end, or else pay 20 cents calling. Either way the company gets its twenty pieces.
Aside-
Getting billed for receiving calls is why I often don't answer my phone. I just look at the caller ID and then call the person on a wired phone which is free-of-charge. Or send an email which is also free. Even if it's a long-distance call it's usually cheaper to use the wired phone (about 5 cents/minute) versus cellphone (about 20 c/min).
I must live in an alternate reality United States.
My phone cost $40 upfront, but they gave me 40 dollars of free calls, so essentially the phone was free and I was just paying for my airtime. I have no contract and I'm free to quit whenever I feel like it. You don't "have" to sign a contract if you don't want to, or pay an arm-and-leg for a phone since there are plenty of cheap ones around.
I do think the exclusivity deals need to end. It reminds me of the dark ages of 1970s when the only phone you could get was an expensive AT&T phone. Even modems had to be bought direct from the phone company (or else use an acoustic modem with a phone cradle). But now thanks to government regulation, we can buy any $5-10 phone or $20-30 modem and just plug it directly into the wire. That's the kind of freedom we need with cellphones - no requirement that you "have" to use an AT&T phone with your AT&T service.
>>>And for being free... Apple charges from 10.1 > 10.2, etc. It's the same 'difference' of 0.1
Yeha and they shouldn't. I've come to the conclusion that Apple does this so they can collect an annual payment from Mac users. And it's not as if you have a choice - if you stay with an older version like 10.2, then you can't use the latest software designed for 10.5
Back to Microsoft-
What they are doing with packaging Vista aka V6.1 as "Windows 7" is approximately equivalent to when Sony repackaged the PS1 as PSone, or PS2 as PS2slim, and tried to convince us it was newer and better. It's just a way to pad their pockets with more greenbacks.
Yes I'd be happier if we were getting V7.0 of Windows, rather than Vista V6.1 repackaged in a shiny-new box. This is approximately equivalent to when Sony changed the PS1 to a PSone, or the PS2 to a PS2slim, and tried to convince us it was better simply because it changed cases.
>>>You know, the version number is entirely abritrarily assigned
No not really. When a number increments the whole number, it's because major changes have occured. It is apparent that Microsoft feels they only made made minor changes from Vista to Win7, and that's why the only incremented the number from 6.0 to 6.1. This upgrade is akin to upgrading from Windows 3.0 to 3.1
>>>even a P4 2 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and integrated intel video (a low end machine by todays standards), the menus were far faster with the default settings under Vista than they were under XP
>>>
As a strange coincidence, that's exactly what my brother is running (albeit with 1.5GB RAM), but I disagree with your conclusion. Vista runs much, much faster when using the XP/Classic settings simply because there's less graphical demand on the CPU.
BTW:
Vista is a pile of shit with whipped cream on top. Yeah it looks pretty, but it still smells and is horrible to work with, especially with the damn pop-up window constantly asking, "Are you you you want to play a movie? You might endanger something." Vista is clearly not designed for someone like me who has been using PCs for almost 30 years and doesn't need to be asked brain-dead questions. I KNOW what I want to do, now just DO it, without all these stupid popups.
My brother had Vista. I stuck with XP which even though we have identical hardware specs, my XP installation still runs better than his Vista.
>>>prevent millions of your citizens from obtaining medical care
Yeah places like the UK and Canada do this all the time. That's the problem with government-controlled Rationed care (example: telling an 80-something Canadian he's too old to get a pacemaker) (or telling a 20-something British woman she can't get a PAP smear to test for cancer). I've heard it said the bureaucracy that decides who gets care or does not get care is officially called N.I.C.E. but among citizens it's called "nasty". i.e. Worse than dealing with an HMO.
In the U.S. you are welcome to obtain any medical care you need. All you need to do is pay the ~$10,000 bill which should be easy since 299 million Americans have insurance. The only thing you're not entitled to do is rob your neighbor's wallets to pay that bill... unless you're old in which case you get free Medicare/Medicaid.
So overall I'd say we have a, not perfect, but better system that the Rationed "just say no to citizens" Care of europe or canada.
>>>Apparently, someone disagrees with you on that, agreeing that they should be able to mod posts as Troll if they disagree with them :)
Yeah well, although most of the persons here are "adults" they are still stuck in junior hihg mentally. They think it's funny to subtract points from other people, simply because they disagree. i.e. Censorship.
Apparently they disagree with you too, since they modded you "0" and made you invisible. Isn't censorship of free speech fun?
I feel like in Soviet Union I am.
I use dialup when traveling and thanks to text/image compression, it's about the same apparent speed as my 700k DSL (~10 seconds to load most websites). The only real drawback is the inability to use bittorrent or watch streaming videos, but these are not activities that you "need" to have. You really only "need" to be able to access websites, and it is easily doable on dialup.
You're not supposed to subtract points from someone, just because you disagree with them.
If you disagree with someone's opinion, then post a reply that says, "I disagree because ....." Don't abuse your mod point privilege by modding someone into invisibility (i.e. a 0 or -1 score). This isn't Iran. Don't censor free speech.
>>>And you tolerade adware being on your computer longer than the time it takes to find a removal tool?
I already spent a full day trying to remove the adware, but nothing I've tried works. Some websites say the only cure is to go-in and edit the registry while in Safe Mode, which I did make an attempt to do, but it still came back.
So I'll just avoid IE as much as possible, and use Firefox instead which is immune to the software. At some point I'll probably remove IE completely.
Forcing your iPod to sync with iTunes is a pretty serious flaw, but it's not something you were forced into. Apple didn't give everyone a free iPod and thereby create a unfair advantage over the competition, like MS did when they drove Netscape into bankrupcty.
On the contrary, iPod is a choice you make amongst hundreds of other players. Which is why I have an Insignia player instead (with FM radio builtin).
>>>People already have free browser choice. They just chose not to make use of it.
Many people are unaware they have a choice. As example my brother always thought he HAD to use Comcast cable until I told him about Dish option. Being an "entrenched" company gives an unfair advantage - at least in the opinion of the EU.
As evidence to backup that claim the point to Netscape:
- Netscape was the dominant browser with 90% market
- Then two years later they only had about 10%. What changed?
- Microsoft installed IE on the desktop and it gained 90% of the market virtually overnight
Therefore the EU regulators argued that IE had an unfair advantage due to Windows virtual monopoly status, and that's what put Netscape out of dominance and eventually out-of=business. They argue that in a fair market it would have been closer to a 50-50 share. Their goal is to restore that 50-50 competition by leaving the browser part of the OS "empty" until the user decides for himself.
>>>creating smaller monopolies, yes.
The goal wasn't to break the local monopoly, which in the 1970s was considered necessary, but to break-up the long distance monopoly and give people a choice when calling outside their home area code. i.e. Breaking-up AT&T so people could have a choice for their long-distance provider.