You may want to try an XO (http://www.laptop.org). The screen is made to be readable under extreme lighting conditions, it's fairly cheap and flips into pretty much what you want.
So..., does this mean they'll sell me the same game x times?
Nothing new, you have to pay their tax everytime you buy a new machine already. It's the continuation of their business model. The new thing is introducing a cloud that, omg, allows you to take your data with you.
... but as posted in an earlier comment: Why don't the Americans stop being the Internet police.
It's true, the Chinese limit the freedom of press and I agree it's bad. But it's their way of government. How can you judge someone living in a so entirely different way than you? (I don't want to rant about human rights in the US now but keep in mind that the death penalty is still a custom measure of law enforcement in some states. Human rights? Sorry, you don't have them either)
Having firewalls filtering news from the outside is their way of keeping the people quiet. Along with some oppression like in: read Slashdot, you die. First of all, we can't do anything about it. Then, it won't help the government one bit to prevent information from the outside reach their people. I don't think it would have helped the people in the former german democratic republic or in Russia one bit if someone ranted about the state of their government. It is the choice of the people living there to change something. I'm sure a turnaround in China will happen sooner or later. But this is something you cannot force.
I finally do want to take the opportunity to rant about something because it is slightly related:
I'm Swiss. I'm being monitored by an american Echelon system in a base in southern Germany. So are millions of Germans and Austrians. WTF does your government think about limiting my rights. In my eyes this is kinda similar to the situation in China because I bet the NSA has a private hookup to the european backbone and they may not be filtering but they sure are listening there. No, it's not only similar, it's worse! And I even can't do anything about it because those silly Germans allowed them to do it.
Employees leaving without telling their managers. Heck, not even telling their teams.
It just happened to me. Came back to work after holidays and my colleague told me that the third guy in the team called him half an hour ago he's not going to come again. WTF!
Well, I don't really care anymore since I'm going to leave too in a week (I told them months ago) but it's kinda hard for the other one having to do the job all alone now.
... not to forget Albert Einstein who worked in Berne in a patent office and basically had the idea for his relativity theory in the swiss mountains.
Also, the swiss federal technical institute truely plays in the major league (alongside the MIT and afaik has an even better reputation in EE, if you need to compare)
Ever programmed in Pascal, Modula or Oberon? Sorry, swiss inventions too. Niklaus Wirth, holder of the ACM award, is a well known person in computer science.
The swiss company Nestle produces I-don't-know-what-percentage of the food for the whole world.
And what about the chemical industry? Novartis and Roche are both swiss companies, too.
So is Logitech, a*holes as they are concerning alternative OSs.
I could go on forever: watches and cars (Swatch), chocolate (Suchard), Radar, missile tracking, spacecraft and satellites (Oerlikon Buehrle), banks (UBS and Credit Suisse, to name just the biggest), Cheese.
If you wanna have true freedom as a citizen go to Switzerland. We have a special form of democracy here where you get your say in every matter affecting the state. Every other month on Sunday you get to vote on a nationwide subject. Also you have your say in the town you live in. There are votes on local stuff every other week where everybody who wants meets in the 'town parliament' to discuss.
The government consists of a 'parliament (Nationalrat) and a 'senate' (Staenderat) both of them are elected by you the people. They elect 7 'presidents' (Bundesrat). These guys take care of the everyday government business and decide what is going to be voted on by the people. But if you want to have something else voted on you just have to collect 100'000 signatures to send them what is called an initiative. So you as a citizen have pretty much to say here.
Note, though that bureaucracy is pretty bad here. Everything is taken care of and people go by the rules. But I guess that's pretty much everywhere the same.
Since you read slashdot I assume you have something to do in the IT business so it should be absolutely no problem to move here since there is an incredible shortage on the market in Switzerland. Salaries are very high, too, but living costs aren't the cheapest, too (we have the highest price for a Big Mac in McDonalds worldwide).
Mind you that you will need to be swiss to vote. It will take up to 5 years until, and that is the drawback, the people of the town you live in can vote to accept you for swiss nationality.
Slashdot Mirror
You may want to try an XO (http://www.laptop.org). The screen is made to be readable under extreme lighting conditions, it's fairly cheap and flips into pretty much what you want.
So..., does this mean they'll sell me the same game x times?
Nothing new, you have to pay their tax everytime you buy a new machine already. It's the continuation of their business model. The new thing is introducing a cloud that, omg, allows you to take your data with you.
... but as posted in an earlier comment: Why don't the Americans stop being the Internet police.
It's true, the Chinese limit the freedom of press and I agree it's bad. But it's their way of government. How can you judge someone living in a so entirely different way than you? (I don't want to rant about human rights in the US now but keep in mind that the death penalty is still a custom measure of law enforcement in some states. Human rights? Sorry, you don't have them either)
Having firewalls filtering news from the outside is their way of keeping the people quiet. Along with some oppression like in: read Slashdot, you die. First of all, we can't do anything about it. Then, it won't help the government one bit to prevent information from the outside reach their people. I don't think it would have helped the people in the former german democratic republic or in Russia one bit if someone ranted about the state of their government. It is the choice of the people living there to change something. I'm sure a turnaround in China will happen sooner or later. But this is something you cannot force.
I finally do want to take the opportunity to rant about something because it is slightly related:
I'm Swiss. I'm being monitored by an american Echelon system in a base in southern Germany. So are millions of Germans and Austrians. WTF does your government think about limiting my rights. In my eyes this is kinda similar to the situation in China because I bet the NSA has a private hookup to the european backbone and they may not be filtering but they sure are listening there. No, it's not only similar, it's worse! And I even can't do anything about it because those silly Germans allowed them to do it.
Sorry, I had to tell someone finally.
Employees leaving without telling their managers. Heck, not even telling their teams.
It just happened to me. Came back to work after holidays and my colleague told me that the third guy in the team called him half an hour ago he's not going to come again. WTF!
Well, I don't really care anymore since I'm going to leave too in a week (I told them months ago) but it's kinda hard for the other one having to do the job all alone now.
My boss is probably going to sue that guy now.
Low taxes? Think again, hehe. oh...er.. DUH!!!
Check out www.admin.ch if you're serious about it, though.
Isn't sending spam a misuse of the ISP's services? Actually is there any ISP still allowing spam?
... not to forget Albert Einstein who worked in Berne in a patent office and basically had the idea for his relativity theory in the swiss mountains.
Also, the swiss federal technical institute truely plays in the major league (alongside the MIT and afaik has an even better reputation in EE, if you need to compare)
Ever programmed in Pascal, Modula or Oberon? Sorry, swiss inventions too. Niklaus Wirth, holder of the ACM award, is a well known person in computer science.
The swiss company Nestle produces I-don't-know-what-percentage of the food for the whole world.
And what about the chemical industry? Novartis and Roche are both swiss companies, too.
So is Logitech, a*holes as they are concerning alternative OSs.
I could go on forever: watches and cars (Swatch), chocolate (Suchard), Radar, missile tracking, spacecraft and satellites (Oerlikon Buehrle), banks (UBS and Credit Suisse, to name just the biggest), Cheese.
Switzerland is indeed an innovative place.
If you wanna have true freedom as a citizen go to Switzerland. We have a special form of democracy here where you get your say in every matter affecting the state. Every other month on Sunday you get to vote on a nationwide subject. Also you have your say in the town you live in. There are votes on local stuff every other week where everybody who wants meets in the 'town parliament' to discuss.
The government consists of a 'parliament (Nationalrat) and a 'senate' (Staenderat) both of them are elected by you the people. They elect 7 'presidents' (Bundesrat). These guys take care of the everyday government business and decide what is going to be voted on by the people. But if you want to have something else voted on you just have to collect 100'000 signatures to send them what is called an initiative. So you as a citizen have pretty much to say here.
Note, though that bureaucracy is pretty bad here. Everything is taken care of and people go by the rules. But I guess that's pretty much everywhere the same.
Since you read slashdot I assume you have something to do in the IT business so it should be absolutely no problem to move here since there is an incredible shortage on the market in Switzerland. Salaries are very high, too, but living costs aren't the cheapest, too (we have the highest price for a Big Mac in McDonalds worldwide).
Mind you that you will need to be swiss to vote. It will take up to 5 years until, and that is the drawback, the people of the town you live in can vote to accept you for swiss nationality.