The building I work in was designed/built in 1971, and it's easy to physically secure... there's no actual office space on the ground floor (that's retail space that we rent out), and you need two keycards to actually get anywhere in the building: the building pass which you need to get past security after hours and use the elevators (retail space and elevators shut down from 6pm - 7am and on Sundays), and the office pass, which opens the doorway into your office area. More secure floors have a 2nd security desk in the elevator lobby. For most employees, their office pass will only open the doors on the floor they work on. Beyond the office pass/employee ID, there's secured access to just about everything that isn't public/general work area, as well as to some actual work areas/sections. The security in question varies from needing another swipe, or a coded door lock, an actual physical key, or an entropy token (like an RSA Secure ID, but we replaced those shortly after they got hacked), depending on the type of security needed. The fire stairs do not open unless the alarm is going off (and opening the stairwell from an upper floor will set the alarm off), meaning that there is no way to get to the actual office space without taking the elevator, except during a fire (and if you're going to set a fire to gain access to an office, expect to get caught).
It depends on what the building was intended for, I suppose. Parts of the building I work in have access to shut down the PSTN in this country, and other parts have the ability to shut down the international links on the Internet. As such, it's a secure facility, and the age of the building has nothing to do with how difficult or easy it is to physically lock down.
1. It's a temporary injunction, not a permanent one. 2. It's a preliminary injunction that was issued to stop sales pending an actual hearing. 3. (and most importantly) Samsung's lawyers weren't allowed to look at the submission from Apple prior to the injunction being issued, because the actual hearing hasn't actually started. They also weren't allowed to argue against the injunction... as others have pointed out, that's what an "ex parte" judgement means.
Now that Samsung's lawyers can look at and dissect Apple's case in preparation for the actual hearing, I expect that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things Apple has done wrong on this one.
It's a good thing I'm not a judge, I suppose... if it were me, I'd issue a punitive injunction against Apple selling the iPad 2 under any circumstances, for wasting the court's time, and for submitting falsified evidence in an effort to obtain the same injunction against Samsung.
The justice system in Britain has a completely different focus than the justice system in the US. One, the focus is on punishing teh eebil criminalz. The other, the focus is on preventing the crime from happening again. Capital punishment is rarely required to prevent a crime from happening again.
You actually don't need to reboot at all except for kernel updates, and depending on how you're using it, you may not need to actually install any kernel updates, ever.:)
Current sys hexa-core 3.2GHz, same memory, Ubuntu 64-bit, same HD, average around 1:45. With power saving mode the CPU lets me use three cores for the grid at full speed, the other three idle at 800 MHz. With a TDP of 125 Watts, I dunno what it's pulling, but I rarely load it fully. Reboots for kernel update, physical changes, vacuuming, and fixing stuff I upscrew. Also, reboots to auto-magically fix whatever it is that goes wonky whenever X, Wine, video driver, or Steam updates. Otherwise the beast stays up except for local power failures; I've shut down a few times for an hour or so to let strong thunderstorms pass by.
What the hell are you running to slow it down like that? My ultraportable laptop (Celeron U3600 1.2GHz dual core, 2GB of RAM, and a 5400RPM SATAII hard drive) is about 12s to a usable desktop, including the POST, and maybe another 2 or 3 seconds to connect to wifi. It's running Bodhi Linux, which is essentially Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with most of the preinstalled crap removed. Are you booting Windows Vista inside a virtual machine that's running inside another Windows Vista in another virtual machine or something?
It depends on what you're running, I suppose. My workstation at work takes maybe 5 minutes or so to boot? I reboot it when I leave the night before, and it's up when I get back in the next day... my gaming system at home is a *lot* faster, but my system at home is running a lot less. It isn't running corporate antivirus (Avast! is way faster than Crapafee), it's not running group policies, it's not connecting to as many network hard drives. My system at home also has a much higher end hard drive, significantly more memory, and a Core i7.
When you think about it, it's really not hard to figure out why office computers are slower than our home desktops. And you may be able to afford putting an SSD in your notebook, but at the company I work for, there's more than 150,000 workstations in the company. Even $10 more per PC adds up to a *lot* of money, and it's a lot easier to simply tell people to reboot their system when they leave for the day so they have a fresh system the next day. Most employees don't reboot their computers during the course of their work day, so it really doesn't make a big difference.
A lot of the compounds that drug companies even consider testing get run through simulations on computers long before they're ever actually synthesized in quantities large enough to test. The days when developing drugs meant synthesizing a compound, giving it to a mouse, and if it didn't die, looking deeper into commercializing it are long gone.
It was indeed the first commercially available printer to implement PostScript, and hit the market in 1985.
Adobe began working on PS itself in 1982, and released it to market in late 1984, so if there was a patent on it, it's expired by now. Ahh, but Apple is talking about doing it bidirectionally over USB, so clearly it's a new technology.... we have stumbled on the reason they got rid of legacy ports!
There's a more permanent fix... set your router to use Google's open DNS servers... Google is helping to redefine evil, but at least their DNS servers actually conform to standards and don't engage in these kinds of shenanigans.
Actually with that in mind, a better hack would be to be able to run a smartphone as a desktop computer, even with limited software.
... you do realize that there's smartphone builds available for some distros? And failing that, you can get access to many full desktop functions running on smartphones, including terminal shell/ssh, word processors, web browsers, spreadsheet programs, etc.. Hell, Android *is* Linux, just with an interface that's designed for a small touchscreen as its main input device. There are smartphones with HDMI out ports that can be hooked up to a TV, and can accept input from bluetooth keyboard/mouse, even. So no, I wouldn't really call that much of a hack. In fact, the Motorola Atrix is designed specifically to function as both phone, and (with the help of a dock built for the purpose) a desktop/laptop replacement for light surfing/email duty.
Now, if you could convince Linux to run on something like a first-generation Palm Treo, I'd call that a hack.:)
No, but if you live in Delft and work in Enschede, you're still an idiot. You don't have to live within walking/biking distance from work when you're in a country that has a decent public transportation system, but it's a good idea to live within distance of commuting, no? I would lay odds that while some of the people in NL have no choice and need to use a car, the overwhelming majority do have a choice in the matter.
Isn't this much easier to achieve -- albeit with less accuracy -- via fuel tax? Every time the government here proposes a mileage tax, I can't help but think we already have one. Added benefit of encouraging people to drive more efficient cars.
That's easier in a larger country. If you're living somewhere that the nearest drive to a different tax structure is 10 hours away, or a ferry ride away, or even a toll crossing away, then you can set your prices appropriately. If you're living somewhere that it's a two-hour drive at most to a different country with a different tax structure, then it becomes more difficult to raise revenues by raising the fuel tax. Especially when there's no toll, and where you don't even need a passport to cross over into that different tax structure.
Even here in Canada, where the fuel prices are much more homogeneous, I still see people from Quebec coming over to Ontario to fill up on gas, because it's usually cheaper on the Ontario side. I also see people crossing from Ontario to Quebec to fill up after a large spike in price, because Quebec is usually slower to react to price hikes like that. People will drive an extra half hour for gas to save $0.03/L... now imagine how far they'll drive to save $0.75 or more per L due to big differences in tax rate.
I'm looking forward to the day where you can not leave your house without being taxed.
In a sense, it's already here. The electricity you use to run your home is taxed, the food you use to run yourself is taxed, the utility connection for your sewage hookup is taxed. Even if you're completely off the grid, growing your own food, running solar/wind generators (we'll ignore the sales tax on buying that equipment in the first place), septic system, well water, don't use a car for transportation, live without telephone or other communications, etc., the property itself is still taxed. It is impossible to live in this day and age without being taxed in some way.
Compared against the possibility of receiving a bill at the end of the year for my mileage, I'd rather pay the tax on the gas. At least that way, it's amortized over the whole year rather than a lump sum. Quite aside from that, cars that don't have NL plates still use the roads, and they wouldn't be taxed at all under the proposed system, which is hardly fair to the locals.
It's not a phrase I've heard in Canada, either, but I am familiar with the concept the GP was trying to convey. Like you say, in most circumstances, lethal force is allowed if your life is in danger. Proving your life is in danger is a much more flexible scale that, among other things, depends on your personal level of training, and what's available to you. Most Canadians don't carry hand guns (they're restricted weapons, meaning most of us can't legally get them in the first place, and for those who can, conceal&carry permits simply don't exist in this country), but the general rule of thumb is that I can respond with +1 to what you're doing, and it'll still be self defense. If you come at me unarmed, I can use a baton or club of some sort to defend myself. If you come at me with a club, I can use a knife. If you come at me with a knife, I can pull a gun on you. If you pull a gun, I can kill you.
Like all "general" rules, it's a guideline, it's not actually written down anywhere, and you don't need to look very hard to find an exception to the rule. For example, as a trained martial artist, the rules for the amount of force I can get away with are much more stringent, particularly when it comes to escalating the level of force you come after me with. That said, if the police determine you responded with excessive force in a self-defense situation, you can be charged with assault or manslaughter, even if you're not the aggressor. AFAIK, there's no specific offense for using excessive force, though, because it's a flexible definition that can't really be codified.
At home, perhaps. But for business? There's no way a tablet or a phone could suit the needs of a business user, putting together things like presentations, spreadsheets, etc. Let alone working with tools that keep everything going.
And as long as people still have that kind of stuff on their desk at work, they're going to ask why they have to make do with a tiny screen to do that stuff at home. Perhaps the PC as we know it is going the way of the dodo, but a screen with an operating system and some kind of input device (keyboard/mouse/etc.) is not going anywhere. For one, it's really not possible to type at a decent speed using a touch screen like on an ipad... no tacticle response. Bluetooth keyboards are well and good, but there's an input lag that will screw with anybody who types faster than 80wpm or so.
So yes, perhaps the PC as we know it is going the way of the dodo. But I doubt very much that things like laptops, particularly portable light-weight laptops, are going anywhere any time soon. Perhaps when we see more devices like the Asus eee transformer in larger more usable screen sizes, we'll start to see a traditional PC disappearing, but I doubt we'll ever see a transformer like that with a 15" or 16" screen, because it kind of defeats the point of having a tablet.
You can get it for 1/3 the cost of an equivalent MacBook Air, and it's about the same weight, and the screen's the same size. The battery doesn't last quite as long (I get about 4h on mine), but if cost is an issue, then it's definitely an option. And to make it germane to the discussion at hand: you can get it with Linux preinstalled.
I found that one. If it's a complete list of what comes preinstalled in Edubuntu, then I really don't see a point in installing it, do you? They'd have overlooked a *lot* of software, and I'd be better off just downloading/installing a minimalist distro and installing what I actually want....
Most charities that accept computers (at least in this city) will wipe the hard drive and install their own anyway... they need to make sure they aren't being presented with pirated software or viruses, and that's the easiest way to do it. The licenses that MS offers to charities are dirt cheap (in some cases free), so it just makes sense for them to install their own.
That's a very good question. One that they don't seem to be willing to answer on their website. Even googling for "list of software installed in edubuntu" came up with nothing, and I'll be damned if I'm going to download a LiveCD just to boot up and actually *check* what's installed.
What I do know about are programs like Stellarium, Inkscape, and LibreOffice. Notice that those are all available for Windows? Even the KDE Education Project is available for Windows. That's to say nothing of the wealth of programs out there that are available for Windows and not Linux.
So tell me again why they should throw a legal license for Windows XP out the window in favour of Linux?
They can recommend that the bar association reexamine the lawyer's membership, but they can't directly disbar them. They could, of course, charge them with contempt and throw them in jail, which will usually get a lawyer disbarred, but there has to actually be a case for contempt for it to work.
Not true. All other consumer-writeable optical discs have a crystal dye layer that the laser records to. All factory-produced optical discs use a die press to produce the ridges/valleys that the laser reads.
How cute. You actually think they'd use gemstones for something like this.
Industrial diamonds are *cheap*. A quarter (yes, $0.25) will buy you several grams of industrial diamonds. Don't expect sparkle sparkle from them, but for anything that needs the hardness, like say a diamond-tipped drill bit or saw blade, they're quite adequate. For something like a transistor, they need the chemical properties of a diamond, not the optical properties.
I do hope you meant "excluding" Canada, not "example: Canada". In Canada, the absolute cheapest broadband I've seen is a 3meg/256kbit cable connection for $27.95/mo, and that'll still cost you $50 for the installation, and more for the modem purchase. If you already have other services, you can get cheaper (a 512/512 DSL for $24.95, for example... band rate for dry loop makes that one cost more than the cable option above). There's even a cellular provider who will provide you with HSPA for $20/mo if you already have cellular service with them... but that's the caveat: if you already have cellular service with them. That's a minimum $25/mo on top of that (or $20 if you can pay for the whole year in advance). To be fair, that particular provider will sell you unlimited local calling, and no bandwidth limit on the cellular connection for that price, but it's still nowhere near the pricing mentionned in TFA.
As far as I know, there's nobody who will sell you just a broadband Internet connection for anything approaching $10/mo in this country. If somebody can prove me wrong, I would be very interested to hear about it, but Internet is almost as much of a rip-off in Canada as the US.
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The building I work in was designed/built in 1971, and it's easy to physically secure... there's no actual office space on the ground floor (that's retail space that we rent out), and you need two keycards to actually get anywhere in the building: the building pass which you need to get past security after hours and use the elevators (retail space and elevators shut down from 6pm - 7am and on Sundays), and the office pass, which opens the doorway into your office area. More secure floors have a 2nd security desk in the elevator lobby. For most employees, their office pass will only open the doors on the floor they work on. Beyond the office pass/employee ID, there's secured access to just about everything that isn't public/general work area, as well as to some actual work areas/sections. The security in question varies from needing another swipe, or a coded door lock, an actual physical key, or an entropy token (like an RSA Secure ID, but we replaced those shortly after they got hacked), depending on the type of security needed. The fire stairs do not open unless the alarm is going off (and opening the stairwell from an upper floor will set the alarm off), meaning that there is no way to get to the actual office space without taking the elevator, except during a fire (and if you're going to set a fire to gain access to an office, expect to get caught).
It depends on what the building was intended for, I suppose. Parts of the building I work in have access to shut down the PSTN in this country, and other parts have the ability to shut down the international links on the Internet. As such, it's a secure facility, and the age of the building has nothing to do with how difficult or easy it is to physically lock down.
Le sigh... points for reading, really. :)
1. It's a temporary injunction, not a permanent one.
2. It's a preliminary injunction that was issued to stop sales pending an actual hearing.
3. (and most importantly) Samsung's lawyers weren't allowed to look at the submission from Apple prior to the injunction being issued, because the actual hearing hasn't actually started. They also weren't allowed to argue against the injunction... as others have pointed out, that's what an "ex parte" judgement means.
Now that Samsung's lawyers can look at and dissect Apple's case in preparation for the actual hearing, I expect that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things Apple has done wrong on this one.
It's a good thing I'm not a judge, I suppose... if it were me, I'd issue a punitive injunction against Apple selling the iPad 2 under any circumstances, for wasting the court's time, and for submitting falsified evidence in an effort to obtain the same injunction against Samsung.
The justice system in Britain has a completely different focus than the justice system in the US. One, the focus is on punishing teh eebil criminalz. The other, the focus is on preventing the crime from happening again. Capital punishment is rarely required to prevent a crime from happening again.
You actually don't need to reboot at all except for kernel updates, and depending on how you're using it, you may not need to actually install any kernel updates, ever. :)
Current sys hexa-core 3.2GHz, same memory, Ubuntu 64-bit, same HD, average around 1:45. With power saving mode the CPU lets me use three cores for the grid at full speed, the other three idle at 800 MHz. With a TDP of 125 Watts, I dunno what it's pulling, but I rarely load it fully. Reboots for kernel update, physical changes, vacuuming, and fixing stuff I upscrew. Also, reboots to auto-magically fix whatever it is that goes wonky whenever X, Wine, video driver, or Steam updates. Otherwise the beast stays up except for local power failures; I've shut down a few times for an hour or so to let strong thunderstorms pass by.
What the hell are you running to slow it down like that? My ultraportable laptop (Celeron U3600 1.2GHz dual core, 2GB of RAM, and a 5400RPM SATAII hard drive) is about 12s to a usable desktop, including the POST, and maybe another 2 or 3 seconds to connect to wifi. It's running Bodhi Linux, which is essentially Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with most of the preinstalled crap removed. Are you booting Windows Vista inside a virtual machine that's running inside another Windows Vista in another virtual machine or something?
It depends on what you're running, I suppose. My workstation at work takes maybe 5 minutes or so to boot? I reboot it when I leave the night before, and it's up when I get back in the next day... my gaming system at home is a *lot* faster, but my system at home is running a lot less. It isn't running corporate antivirus (Avast! is way faster than Crapafee), it's not running group policies, it's not connecting to as many network hard drives. My system at home also has a much higher end hard drive, significantly more memory, and a Core i7.
When you think about it, it's really not hard to figure out why office computers are slower than our home desktops. And you may be able to afford putting an SSD in your notebook, but at the company I work for, there's more than 150,000 workstations in the company. Even $10 more per PC adds up to a *lot* of money, and it's a lot easier to simply tell people to reboot their system when they leave for the day so they have a fresh system the next day. Most employees don't reboot their computers during the course of their work day, so it really doesn't make a big difference.
A lot of the compounds that drug companies even consider testing get run through simulations on computers long before they're ever actually synthesized in quantities large enough to test. The days when developing drugs meant synthesizing a compound, giving it to a mouse, and if it didn't die, looking deeper into commercializing it are long gone.
It was indeed the first commercially available printer to implement PostScript, and hit the market in 1985.
Adobe began working on PS itself in 1982, and released it to market in late 1984, so if there was a patent on it, it's expired by now. Ahh, but Apple is talking about doing it bidirectionally over USB, so clearly it's a new technology.... we have stumbled on the reason they got rid of legacy ports!
There's a more permanent fix... set your router to use Google's open DNS servers... Google is helping to redefine evil, but at least their DNS servers actually conform to standards and don't engage in these kinds of shenanigans.
Actually with that in mind, a better hack would be to be able to run a smartphone as a desktop computer, even with limited software.
... you do realize that there's smartphone builds available for some distros? And failing that, you can get access to many full desktop functions running on smartphones, including terminal shell/ssh, word processors, web browsers, spreadsheet programs, etc.. Hell, Android *is* Linux, just with an interface that's designed for a small touchscreen as its main input device. There are smartphones with HDMI out ports that can be hooked up to a TV, and can accept input from bluetooth keyboard/mouse, even. So no, I wouldn't really call that much of a hack. In fact, the Motorola Atrix is designed specifically to function as both phone, and (with the help of a dock built for the purpose) a desktop/laptop replacement for light surfing/email duty.
Now, if you could convince Linux to run on something like a first-generation Palm Treo, I'd call that a hack. :)
No, but if you live in Delft and work in Enschede, you're still an idiot. You don't have to live within walking/biking distance from work when you're in a country that has a decent public transportation system, but it's a good idea to live within distance of commuting, no? I would lay odds that while some of the people in NL have no choice and need to use a car, the overwhelming majority do have a choice in the matter.
Isn't this much easier to achieve -- albeit with less accuracy -- via fuel tax? Every time the government here proposes a mileage tax, I can't help but think we already have one. Added benefit of encouraging people to drive more efficient cars.
That's easier in a larger country. If you're living somewhere that the nearest drive to a different tax structure is 10 hours away, or a ferry ride away, or even a toll crossing away, then you can set your prices appropriately. If you're living somewhere that it's a two-hour drive at most to a different country with a different tax structure, then it becomes more difficult to raise revenues by raising the fuel tax. Especially when there's no toll, and where you don't even need a passport to cross over into that different tax structure.
Even here in Canada, where the fuel prices are much more homogeneous, I still see people from Quebec coming over to Ontario to fill up on gas, because it's usually cheaper on the Ontario side. I also see people crossing from Ontario to Quebec to fill up after a large spike in price, because Quebec is usually slower to react to price hikes like that. People will drive an extra half hour for gas to save $0.03/L... now imagine how far they'll drive to save $0.75 or more per L due to big differences in tax rate.
I'm looking forward to the day where you can not leave your house without being taxed.
In a sense, it's already here. The electricity you use to run your home is taxed, the food you use to run yourself is taxed, the utility connection for your sewage hookup is taxed. Even if you're completely off the grid, growing your own food, running solar/wind generators (we'll ignore the sales tax on buying that equipment in the first place), septic system, well water, don't use a car for transportation, live without telephone or other communications, etc., the property itself is still taxed. It is impossible to live in this day and age without being taxed in some way.
Compared against the possibility of receiving a bill at the end of the year for my mileage, I'd rather pay the tax on the gas. At least that way, it's amortized over the whole year rather than a lump sum. Quite aside from that, cars that don't have NL plates still use the roads, and they wouldn't be taxed at all under the proposed system, which is hardly fair to the locals.
It's not a phrase I've heard in Canada, either, but I am familiar with the concept the GP was trying to convey. Like you say, in most circumstances, lethal force is allowed if your life is in danger. Proving your life is in danger is a much more flexible scale that, among other things, depends on your personal level of training, and what's available to you. Most Canadians don't carry hand guns (they're restricted weapons, meaning most of us can't legally get them in the first place, and for those who can, conceal&carry permits simply don't exist in this country), but the general rule of thumb is that I can respond with +1 to what you're doing, and it'll still be self defense. If you come at me unarmed, I can use a baton or club of some sort to defend myself. If you come at me with a club, I can use a knife. If you come at me with a knife, I can pull a gun on you. If you pull a gun, I can kill you.
Like all "general" rules, it's a guideline, it's not actually written down anywhere, and you don't need to look very hard to find an exception to the rule. For example, as a trained martial artist, the rules for the amount of force I can get away with are much more stringent, particularly when it comes to escalating the level of force you come after me with. That said, if the police determine you responded with excessive force in a self-defense situation, you can be charged with assault or manslaughter, even if you're not the aggressor. AFAIK, there's no specific offense for using excessive force, though, because it's a flexible definition that can't really be codified.
At home, perhaps. But for business? There's no way a tablet or a phone could suit the needs of a business user, putting together things like presentations, spreadsheets, etc. Let alone working with tools that keep everything going.
And as long as people still have that kind of stuff on their desk at work, they're going to ask why they have to make do with a tiny screen to do that stuff at home. Perhaps the PC as we know it is going the way of the dodo, but a screen with an operating system and some kind of input device (keyboard/mouse/etc.) is not going anywhere. For one, it's really not possible to type at a decent speed using a touch screen like on an ipad... no tacticle response. Bluetooth keyboards are well and good, but there's an input lag that will screw with anybody who types faster than 80wpm or so.
So yes, perhaps the PC as we know it is going the way of the dodo. But I doubt very much that things like laptops, particularly portable light-weight laptops, are going anywhere any time soon. Perhaps when we see more devices like the Asus eee transformer in larger more usable screen sizes, we'll start to see a traditional PC disappearing, but I doubt we'll ever see a transformer like that with a 15" or 16" screen, because it kind of defeats the point of having a tablet.
If I had the funds, I would just get a Mac Book Air, or a Lenovo X1 and be done with it.
http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/vostro-v130/pd
You can get it for 1/3 the cost of an equivalent MacBook Air, and it's about the same weight, and the screen's the same size. The battery doesn't last quite as long (I get about 4h on mine), but if cost is an issue, then it's definitely an option. And to make it germane to the discussion at hand: you can get it with Linux preinstalled.
I found that one. If it's a complete list of what comes preinstalled in Edubuntu, then I really don't see a point in installing it, do you? They'd have overlooked a *lot* of software, and I'd be better off just downloading/installing a minimalist distro and installing what I actually want....
Most charities that accept computers (at least in this city) will wipe the hard drive and install their own anyway... they need to make sure they aren't being presented with pirated software or viruses, and that's the easiest way to do it. The licenses that MS offers to charities are dirt cheap (in some cases free), so it just makes sense for them to install their own.
That's a very good question. One that they don't seem to be willing to answer on their website. Even googling for "list of software installed in edubuntu" came up with nothing, and I'll be damned if I'm going to download a LiveCD just to boot up and actually *check* what's installed.
What I do know about are programs like Stellarium, Inkscape, and LibreOffice. Notice that those are all available for Windows? Even the KDE Education Project is available for Windows. That's to say nothing of the wealth of programs out there that are available for Windows and not Linux.
So tell me again why they should throw a legal license for Windows XP out the window in favour of Linux?
They can recommend that the bar association reexamine the lawyer's membership, but they can't directly disbar them. They could, of course, charge them with contempt and throw them in jail, which will usually get a lawyer disbarred, but there has to actually be a case for contempt for it to work.
Not true. All other consumer-writeable optical discs have a crystal dye layer that the laser records to. All factory-produced optical discs use a die press to produce the ridges/valleys that the laser reads.
How cute. You actually think they'd use gemstones for something like this.
Industrial diamonds are *cheap*. A quarter (yes, $0.25) will buy you several grams of industrial diamonds. Don't expect sparkle sparkle from them, but for anything that needs the hardness, like say a diamond-tipped drill bit or saw blade, they're quite adequate. For something like a transistor, they need the chemical properties of a diamond, not the optical properties.
I do hope you meant "excluding" Canada, not "example: Canada". In Canada, the absolute cheapest broadband I've seen is a 3meg/256kbit cable connection for $27.95/mo, and that'll still cost you $50 for the installation, and more for the modem purchase. If you already have other services, you can get cheaper (a 512/512 DSL for $24.95, for example... band rate for dry loop makes that one cost more than the cable option above). There's even a cellular provider who will provide you with HSPA for $20/mo if you already have cellular service with them... but that's the caveat: if you already have cellular service with them. That's a minimum $25/mo on top of that (or $20 if you can pay for the whole year in advance). To be fair, that particular provider will sell you unlimited local calling, and no bandwidth limit on the cellular connection for that price, but it's still nowhere near the pricing mentionned in TFA.
As far as I know, there's nobody who will sell you just a broadband Internet connection for anything approaching $10/mo in this country. If somebody can prove me wrong, I would be very interested to hear about it, but Internet is almost as much of a rip-off in Canada as the US.