In the UK the Eee 900 is offered at exactly the same price with Linux and Windows by at least some retailers, but still with the 8GB difference in amount of flash.
My brother has one, with the screen mounted in the door of a kitchen cabinet (he cut a hole for the LCD), and hid the machine in the cabinet. No idea if he actually uses it for anything..
In fact it just hit me that TPM will actually make it more attractive for large scale pirates. Whereas before they've had to compete with a lot of home users casually copying stuff, the professional for-profit pirate operations will get a boost from this by weeding out a lot of their competition if doing the copying becomes harder in any meaningful way.
I am assuming the lenders did not sign a load agreement directly with you, but with Lending Club, in which case I'd be very surprised if it affected you. I'm not in the US, and not familiar with Lending Club, but I have used Zopa in the UK, and I've never been party to a loan agreement - the load agreement has been between Zopa and the lender. I've just provided capital to Zopa.
No there isn't, because there is no restriction of free-speech to speak of. You get cases like this where idiot overzealous police officers thinks they have a right to restrict things, but most of the time it doesn't get to court (and the Crown Prosecution Service tells the fuckwits to not waste their time like that in the future) and when it does they usually either lose right away or end up with one or more court instances making it clear in no uncertain terms that they're either interpreting the laws wrong or that the law itself can't be upheld based on human rights legislation. Worst case, it goes to the European courts and the British government gets told off again and some MP will whine about how "Europe" is being bad to them.
Generally I don't think people here really care all that much, because they know the checks and balances in place makes it exceedingly hard for the government to pass truly invasive laws - British courts don't in general like parliament dicking around with peoples freedoms, and they're not shy about using their independence to stick it to the government when they feel it's appropriate.
Which the police will ignore, protesting that they are independent of the legislature, and will continue to follow their own agenda.
If they do, they open themselves to investigations resulting in disciplinary action and/or lawsuits for harassment. The government may not do much, but the judiciary in the UK really, really hate it when anyone ignore their opinion on the matter.
And admit that they were wrong, and appear soft on crime? The press would never allow it!
Which is why they'll probably leave it to the courts to sort out the mess and interpret the law in a way that makes this go away and/or strike it down based on human rights legislation, after which the politicians can whine about "activist judges" or "Europe" like they usually do when pretending to be offended the court didn't care for their tripe.
What makes him (and me) so sure it's without legal merit is that even if a judge were to consider calling Scientology a cult, despite the fact that they've been called so by the judiciary in the UK before, "insulting", restricting him from putting it on a sign is almost certainly inconsistent with the Human Rights Act, and British judges have a history of not being afraid to strike down bad legislation (and if they don't, the European Court of Justice seems to have striking down bad UK laws as something of a hobby, to the point where parliament sometimes seem to find it acceptable to vote for bad laws to satisfy their electorate safe in the knowledge they'll never pass a legal test).
And GP is right that this can be brought before a magistrate prior to, or instead of, a jury trial.
To nitpick: This was City of London police. City of London != London.
City of London is just one of 30 boroughs of the city named London. Confusing, I know. To make matters more confusing, City of London have it's police force (the rest of London's policing is done by the Metropolitan Police as pointed out in the article) and City of London has it's own Lord Mayor not to be confused with the Mayor of London.
City of London is the "original" London, where most of the settlements dating back to Roman times can be found. Now it's mainly a financial centre, and not many people live there.
Generally City is under tighter control than the rest of London, and it doesn't surprise me that it was City of London police that acted like idiots.
Making free offers that are contingent on a purchase is illegal in most European countries, both because it's considered false advertising (if the offer is contingent on a purchase, then it's not "free" - you are paying, no matter how much the vendor tries to convince you the price is all for the other part of the product), and because it's tying (bundling without an offer to offer the two products separately at their respective prices). False advertising is considered serious in itself.
False advertising and illegal tying combined is not a way to make people happy - that you can't make offers like that is something people tend to learn very quickly here...
Of course they could do this if they were prepared to offer people free Windows licenses without buying a computer, but somehow I doubt that would work out very well for the.
In fact, many countries in Europe were so concerned about the communist and anarchist influences in Spain that while they did not actively support Franco, many of them tried their best to prevent their own populations from supporting the democratically elected government.
In Norway, for example, it was illegal for Norwegians to go to Spain to fight. The communist and socialist movements sent in excess of 200 volunteers to the international brigades. Interestingly, the largest number of volunteers fighting against Franco came from Germany and Italy - mostly exiles that in many cases had left their homes because of oppression in their home countries.
I find it pretty hilarious if "libertarian-minded" people disapprove of this, though, because these kinds of laws are a cornerstone of a well functioning market. They help ensure open and fair competition by making it much harder for a large company to extend it's market reach by artificially restricting consumers options.
For someone that is the extremely naive libertarian in the sense of "the least number of laws possible" I can see opposing this, but anyone that want a market that is as free as possible really should think twice before coming out against laws like this - history is full of tying arrangements that have created real market barriers. Microsoft's practice of blanket licenses for OEM's being a perfect example. But Microsoft only got slapped down over it because of their extreme dominance - a smaller but still large player could still do a lot of damage with similar tactics.
Did he know it came with XP Pre-Installed?... If he did, I don't agree with this, if he didn't, then I do, provided it wasn't his own negligence.
Completely irrelevant. French law, as in most of Europe, does not allow tying (bundling two or more products and refusing to sell them independently). If someone wants to buy a product by itself and the reseller refuses, then the approach of buying the product and requesting a refund for part of the bundle and suing if they refuse is perfectly reasonable - it's a way of ensuring that there's a real reason to comply with the law, lest they have to deal with a spate of lawsuits.
These laws have been on the book for decades, and they've proven time and time again to be good for consumers and good for competition.
Don't like it? Then don't do business here. Just as you have to comply with a buttload of other laws to do business anywhere, we expect people to adhere to laws to protect consumers and competition.
Ah, but that's wrong. They can't sell or offer any product they like. They are limited by a long list of regulations for health and safety, environmental protection, regulations affecting electric consumer products, regulations about radio emissions and many, many more.
They can choose not to comply, in which case they are not allowed to sell their products to the public.
This is no different - it's just another legal requirement they have to comply with.
I can see now customers going to swap parts in cars, stereo equipments, etc. Hey, the VW bug has those blue-glow dials in the dashboard. I think they are crap and i don't like them - should the dealer be obliged to refund the retail cost of the blue-glowing dashboard? didn't think so
Are they a separate product? Can they be taken out, and can you buy replacement? Are they bought separately so there's an established price for them? Is the car fully functional without it?
If you can answer yes to all of that, then why shouldn't the dealer be obliged to offer the car without them? If you can't answer yes to all of that, then your analogy is irrelevant.
The operating system is a component of the computer, just like the processor, video card, sound card, network card, monitor, keyboard, mouse,... Just because it's not hardware doesn't make it less necessary for using the end product.
But it's NOT necessary for using the end product. LiveCD's are proof of that. And you can generally find models with or without the various add-in components.
To add to it, there is a market for operating systems independent of computers, which further solidified the arguments that they are independent products.
That does not forbid selling them together, but it also under the laws of MOST European countries make it legally questionable to require a customer to buy them together.
It's there for a reason: We actually care about the consumers rights, and companies better accept if they want access to our markets. Experience shows that not only is this good for consumers, but it's also good for the market as it encourages unhindered competition.
Of course most of the French government didn't exactly act bravely with the important exception of Charles de Gaulle. Though I guess some might argue that the Vichy government was better than the alternative of direct German control over all of France.
Certainly the French continued fighting, both with the resistance and the Free French Forces under de Gaulle.
Sweden was neutral, and never under occupation or attack in WW2.
They might have been "gutless" but they didn't surrender. And while certain elements were certainly nazi-friendly (notably the king), a lot of Swedes were actively helping the Norwegian resistance in bringing people who needed to escape over the border. A lot of Norwegian resistance fighters who got close to being captured can thank them for getting a safe haven when the nazis started closing in on them in Norway.
They can hold you for as long as the law allows them to in the hope of making you give up and give them the password. That they can't prove anything only means they won't be able to arrest you for anything, not that they can't detain you for a long time and confiscate your equipment.
I've had the same experience with customs in 15+ trips to the US (Washington Dulles and San Francisco) - I've never once been even asked a single question in customs.
In immigration it's a little bit more annoying, but they've only ever asked fairly simple questions, even when I last year arrived for the 10th or 11th time in less than 18 months.
Knowing the British government it wouldn't be your hd image that would get lost, but a DVD with a summary of all the valuable or embarrassing information present on your and millions of others hd images, nicely formatted and caegorized to make sure whoever gets hold of it doesn't have to do any forensics themselves.
Or have something that would plausibly be worth protecting. I'm sure you could find plenty of specs or requirements documents that aren't sensitive at all, for example, but that you could believably claim are terribly valuable trade secrets.
How is that different from a flying car? Put another way, isn't that also what a flying car is expected to do?
No, a "flying car" is typically expected to be able to fly from anywhere to anywhere, usually with the assumption that there will be vertical or near vertical takeoff and landing, and it is typically expected to be advanced enough that "everyone" can fly it.
This is what I was getting at: the idea of a flying car for the masses is fundamentally flawed, since being a pilot takes a lot more skill than driving a car, and there's a higher risk involved since there's no such thing as a fender-bender in the air.
Sigh. But this is not about a "flying car for the masses". it's about a plane that can be driven on a road to/from the airport. Why you keep bringing up flying cars when this thing targets an entirely different type of market is beyond me, unless you're just trolling.
The point here is that light aircraft are highly dependent on weather, and hangar costs also adds up. Being able to land if weather gets bad and continue on ground, and/or take your plane home with you both makes light aircraft a lot more practical and cost effective for those who already use them or might be interested in using them, and that have or are prepared to get a pilots license.
In other words: They target pilots, damn it, not drivers.
At Heathrow it really depends _where_ you do it. In the regular waiting areas nobody cares.
Out towards the piers they do care, in particular because they have no real separation of the streams of passengers arriving and departing, and they clearly do not trust that arriving passengers have been properly checked on departured. I was once forced to go out through security and back in again because I went out to the pier too early, was told to go back and took a wrong turn that brought me about 20 meters down a corridor where I had supposedly had a chance to mingle with "dirty passengers" (never mind I could've done that on the pier itself) before realizing my mistake and going back out to find the right corridor...
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In the UK the Eee 900 is offered at exactly the same price with Linux and Windows by at least some retailers, but still with the 8GB difference in amount of flash.
My brother has one, with the screen mounted in the door of a kitchen cabinet (he cut a hole for the LCD), and hid the machine in the cabinet. No idea if he actually uses it for anything..
In fact it just hit me that TPM will actually make it more attractive for large scale pirates. Whereas before they've had to compete with a lot of home users casually copying stuff, the professional for-profit pirate operations will get a boost from this by weeding out a lot of their competition if doing the copying becomes harder in any meaningful way.
I am assuming the lenders did not sign a load agreement directly with you, but with Lending Club, in which case I'd be very surprised if it affected you. I'm not in the US, and not familiar with Lending Club, but I have used Zopa in the UK, and I've never been party to a loan agreement - the load agreement has been between Zopa and the lender. I've just provided capital to Zopa.
Generally I don't think people here really care all that much, because they know the checks and balances in place makes it exceedingly hard for the government to pass truly invasive laws - British courts don't in general like parliament dicking around with peoples freedoms, and they're not shy about using their independence to stick it to the government when they feel it's appropriate.
If they do, they open themselves to investigations resulting in disciplinary action and/or lawsuits for harassment. The government may not do much, but the judiciary in the UK really, really hate it when anyone ignore their opinion on the matter.
And admit that they were wrong, and appear soft on crime? The press would never allow it!Which is why they'll probably leave it to the courts to sort out the mess and interpret the law in a way that makes this go away and/or strike it down based on human rights legislation, after which the politicians can whine about "activist judges" or "Europe" like they usually do when pretending to be offended the court didn't care for their tripe.
And GP is right that this can be brought before a magistrate prior to, or instead of, a jury trial.
City of London is just one of 30 boroughs of the city named London. Confusing, I know. To make matters more confusing, City of London have it's police force (the rest of London's policing is done by the Metropolitan Police as pointed out in the article) and City of London has it's own Lord Mayor not to be confused with the Mayor of London.
City of London is the "original" London, where most of the settlements dating back to Roman times can be found. Now it's mainly a financial centre, and not many people live there.
Generally City is under tighter control than the rest of London, and it doesn't surprise me that it was City of London police that acted like idiots.
Making free offers that are contingent on a purchase is illegal in most European countries, both because it's considered false advertising (if the offer is contingent on a purchase, then it's not "free" - you are paying, no matter how much the vendor tries to convince you the price is all for the other part of the product), and because it's tying (bundling without an offer to offer the two products separately at their respective prices). False advertising is considered serious in itself.
False advertising and illegal tying combined is not a way to make people happy - that you can't make offers like that is something people tend to learn very quickly here...
Of course they could do this if they were prepared to offer people free Windows licenses without buying a computer, but somehow I doubt that would work out very well for the.
In Norway, for example, it was illegal for Norwegians to go to Spain to fight. The communist and socialist movements sent in excess of 200 volunteers to the international brigades. Interestingly, the largest number of volunteers fighting against Franco came from Germany and Italy - mostly exiles that in many cases had left their homes because of oppression in their home countries.
For someone that is the extremely naive libertarian in the sense of "the least number of laws possible" I can see opposing this, but anyone that want a market that is as free as possible really should think twice before coming out against laws like this - history is full of tying arrangements that have created real market barriers. Microsoft's practice of blanket licenses for OEM's being a perfect example. But Microsoft only got slapped down over it because of their extreme dominance - a smaller but still large player could still do a lot of damage with similar tactics.
Completely irrelevant. French law, as in most of Europe, does not allow tying (bundling two or more products and refusing to sell them independently). If someone wants to buy a product by itself and the reseller refuses, then the approach of buying the product and requesting a refund for part of the bundle and suing if they refuse is perfectly reasonable - it's a way of ensuring that there's a real reason to comply with the law, lest they have to deal with a spate of lawsuits.
These laws have been on the book for decades, and they've proven time and time again to be good for consumers and good for competition.
Don't like it? Then don't do business here. Just as you have to comply with a buttload of other laws to do business anywhere, we expect people to adhere to laws to protect consumers and competition.
Ah, but that's wrong. They can't sell or offer any product they like. They are limited by a long list of regulations for health and safety, environmental protection, regulations affecting electric consumer products, regulations about radio emissions and many, many more.
They can choose not to comply, in which case they are not allowed to sell their products to the public.
This is no different - it's just another legal requirement they have to comply with.
I can see now customers going to swap parts in cars, stereo equipments, etc. Hey, the VW bug has those blue-glow dials in the dashboard. I think they are crap and i don't like them - should the dealer be obliged to refund the retail cost of the blue-glowing dashboard? didn't think soAre they a separate product? Can they be taken out, and can you buy replacement? Are they bought separately so there's an established price for them? Is the car fully functional without it?
If you can answer yes to all of that, then why shouldn't the dealer be obliged to offer the car without them? If you can't answer yes to all of that, then your analogy is irrelevant.
But it's NOT necessary for using the end product. LiveCD's are proof of that. And you can generally find models with or without the various add-in components.
To add to it, there is a market for operating systems independent of computers, which further solidified the arguments that they are independent products.
That does not forbid selling them together, but it also under the laws of MOST European countries make it legally questionable to require a customer to buy them together.
It's there for a reason: We actually care about the consumers rights, and companies better accept if they want access to our markets. Experience shows that not only is this good for consumers, but it's also good for the market as it encourages unhindered competition.
Certainly the French continued fighting, both with the resistance and the Free French Forces under de Gaulle.
They might have been "gutless" but they didn't surrender. And while certain elements were certainly nazi-friendly (notably the king), a lot of Swedes were actively helping the Norwegian resistance in bringing people who needed to escape over the border. A lot of Norwegian resistance fighters who got close to being captured can thank them for getting a safe haven when the nazis started closing in on them in Norway.
That's blatantly wrong. A lot of Norwegian jews were shipped to concentration camps.
They can hold you for as long as the law allows them to in the hope of making you give up and give them the password. That they can't prove anything only means they won't be able to arrest you for anything, not that they can't detain you for a long time and confiscate your equipment.
In immigration it's a little bit more annoying, but they've only ever asked fairly simple questions, even when I last year arrived for the 10th or 11th time in less than 18 months.
Knowing the British government it wouldn't be your hd image that would get lost, but a DVD with a summary of all the valuable or embarrassing information present on your and millions of others hd images, nicely formatted and caegorized to make sure whoever gets hold of it doesn't have to do any forensics themselves.
Or have something that would plausibly be worth protecting. I'm sure you could find plenty of specs or requirements documents that aren't sensitive at all, for example, but that you could believably claim are terribly valuable trade secrets.
Apparently most flags are a bitch to get to burn, so someone who starts selling flags that are meant to be highly flammable might be on to a winner ;)
No, a "flying car" is typically expected to be able to fly from anywhere to anywhere, usually with the assumption that there will be vertical or near vertical takeoff and landing, and it is typically expected to be advanced enough that "everyone" can fly it.
This is what I was getting at: the idea of a flying car for the masses is fundamentally flawed, since being a pilot takes a lot more skill than driving a car, and there's a higher risk involved since there's no such thing as a fender-bender in the air.Sigh. But this is not about a "flying car for the masses". it's about a plane that can be driven on a road to/from the airport. Why you keep bringing up flying cars when this thing targets an entirely different type of market is beyond me, unless you're just trolling.
The point here is that light aircraft are highly dependent on weather, and hangar costs also adds up. Being able to land if weather gets bad and continue on ground, and/or take your plane home with you both makes light aircraft a lot more practical and cost effective for those who already use them or might be interested in using them, and that have or are prepared to get a pilots license.
In other words: They target pilots, damn it, not drivers.
I really don't want to ever meet you.
Out towards the piers they do care, in particular because they have no real separation of the streams of passengers arriving and departing, and they clearly do not trust that arriving passengers have been properly checked on departured. I was once forced to go out through security and back in again because I went out to the pier too early, was told to go back and took a wrong turn that brought me about 20 meters down a corridor where I had supposedly had a chance to mingle with "dirty passengers" (never mind I could've done that on the pier itself) before realizing my mistake and going back out to find the right corridor...
Yeah, they are clueless.