In most cases you only need 3 years. If you've gotten in trouble with them before they can make you keep it longer. Business fall under different rules. You can also look here:
Individual and Businesses
Actually if you want to create change then you really have to do it with the stick rather than the carrot. To put it in another words I believe we should all download music from wherever we see fit in whatever format we like. It puts the ball in the court to of the music industry to find an effective method of trying to maintain control without being run over by the populace. Currently, at least in other countries outside of the US, they are in a battle with the people. And it's the will of the people that gets laws passed or revoked. They are waging a much better campaign of propaganda, getting people to believe the idea of pirating is bad. They haven't really found a way of formulating why DRM is good too. But they also know that suing too many grandmothers is a quick way of getting all those laws they begged lawmakers to write nullified.
As for MLK, Jr., near the end of the civil rights movement he had a lot of internal politics about whether the marchings and speeches were having any effect at all. More radical groups like the BPP were growing exponentially. Black people were disenfranchised and it looked like the marches weren't working. At the same time the Vietnam War was underway and the US military was drafting young black men to fight there wars but were unwilling to extend the same freedoms to there own people. His speeches were getting more radical, but still peaceful. Finally, while his work in the civil rights certainly contributed greatly to it's success. I believe it was his death that finally got Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the act. It's unfortunate, but his martyrdom was the final sacrifice that got us here today.
While MLK was the carrot, BPP definitely was the stick. They believed in armed revolution if they didn't get what they want. After the collapse of Bautista in Cuba the government certainly didn't want that in their back yard.
No, it's not how it happened. I remember those fingerprinting kits when I was a kid and I had mine done Blockbuster. Your fingerprints weren't put into a massive criminal database. It was a cardboard kit your parents brought you in for. The local police officer or someone qualified to do fingerprints put them on a card with a recent photo of you, basic information (age, hair color, eye color, height) and gave it back to your parents. In case something happened where you went missing they wouldn't need to try to assemble the pieces of information after the fact, everything would be ready to go.
I'm sure if you ask your mom nicely she probably has it in the family safe or something like that.
There is an old saying it is better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. I've seen this work so many times in real life that it flies in the face of everything I was taught at school.
Chances are the court is going to be more forgiving if you did it and then were sued rather than if you asked and did it anyway. It's like speeding tickets, if the judge asked you if you knew the lower limit and you say no, then s/he'll be sympathetic. More so than if you did know but broke the law anyway.
Most likely, the company won't bother going after you (lawyers are expensive no matter who sues/ gets sued) until you become a visible, credible threat. Once you are you'll have a bit of money to mount a defence, offer a settlement, etc.
I write software. There are a lot of companies that write software just like mine. A few are bigger than us, most are a lot smaller than us. We might step on the feet of the big guys from time to time. And them likewise. We never hear from or bother with the small guys.
I guess this is how a friend of mine does it. He has 3 kids by 3 different women and every year he gets dragged into court and swears under oath he is broke. He pays just the basic amount of child support ($250/mo), yet drives a beamer, owns a beachside condo, and a boat in the dock. If asked to borrow money from him he would tell me he's broke. But we'll go out for $200 steaks.
I never got a full answer but somehow I believe he has all the money tied up in some offshore bank accounts. I'm not sure about the car or boat but I know the car isn't in his name.
Somehow I believe he has a setup like the one you described. He has money but you can't get it from him directly.
And this is why pilot unions are one of the most powerful, fiercest unions on the planet. Because most of the professionals have had to deal with this shit on their way up to working in a fleet. They don't get paid until the engine is on but they get paid plenty.
In general this only applies to the mainline and widebodies. It's relatively easy to replace a Twin Otter pilot (no offence), it's quite a trick to find a replacement 757 pilot who is current and has the hours. Most of the airlines try to spin it as the senior pilots calling the strikes ($200k,pensions,etc), generally, it's the juniors (regional pilots) who are trying not to get screwed
I also squat for myself. As soon as I find out about a service or social network that just went online I sign up. Even if I have no plan to ever come back it's handy just in case it gets big. I signed up for facebook when it was only available to select school alums, in 2004. But I really didn't get any use out of it until 2007.
The exact opposite happened to me on slashdot. I was an avid reader since '99. Either never signed up or forgot my account info. But I've been using this login since 2003, 4 years after I found this site.
Seriously, you can be sued at anytime, for anything, with any reason. It's a strategy those with more money than you will use to force you to settle. Even if some states have written anti-SLAPP laws, it's written by lawyers to make sure lawyers always come out on top.
If people can't afford things I would say it's a result of a lot of things and you can't blame social security for it. Social security has taken in more than it pays out. It's supposed to work this way until it reaches an equilibrium. I believe it's already there. One thing you can't fault them for is having the fed borrow the money. The administrators' boss is the guy you selected to sit in the House and Senate. If they want to dip into all they have have to do is write a bill authorizing the borrowing of funds for government use.
As for private investment. Aren't you glad Bush didn't get to privatize Social security like he was pushing for. If you think people were pissed when Enron and Fannie Mae got into the shit imagine the debate we would be having if they took social security with them. Hell privatizing it doesn't even come up in debates anymore because even the politicians can see this would have been a bad idea.
Anyway a lot of people are mistaken about what social security is and what it can do for you. It's not a full blown retirement pension. You are not going to cash that check move to Miami and buy a condo. It's there to prevent you from having to eat dog food or dig through the trash for a meal. Every year people get a statement saying how much money they've put into social security and how much they can expect to get each month upon retirement. Can you honestly look at one of those statements and think to yourself, "this is going to be plenty when I retire" ? If not put some funds into some other schemes.
And remember there are a lot of people that got burned because of companies like Enron.
American living in France here. If you are under 30 you are eligible for a 1 year holiday work visa. It most likely won't get you a job in IT but as long as you have a little money in the bank (you won't be eligible for the public funds, but as soon as you find work your good for the health care) you shouldn't have a problem getting it. As soon as you arrive sign up for some language courses and get a job (any job). The one year limit means a company looking for knowledgeable people won't be knocking down your door, but you will get a chance to interview. And the right job could land you a permanent "carte de sejour".
As for me, it was either she move to the US or I move to France. Since my entire worth could fit in a suitcase I found it easier (physically) to move here, but not knowing the language (2 years of Spanish and 1 year of Mandarin is what I have) made it difficult mentally. I would fall asleep at the dinner table because I would be mentally exhausted from trying to keep up with the conversation. I worked in a few pubs and nightclubs before landing fully in software development. It was a really humbling experience. I really like my job and colleagues. Plus I write software that ships!
I've tried the bill pay in the past and it ended up costing me more money than it saved. At the time I was a student so saving money by any means necessary was how we operate. I had set up a few accounts and set the date I would like to send the money. You would think if there isn't enough money on the 1st the account would try on the 2nd or 3rd day. Nope, it was a one off check account at 12:00AM. No money is sent ever, no notice is sent, just nothing. After using this for a few months the late fees and randomness of the whole deal just clinched it.
Another time I had Sprint do direct withdrawal. One billing error and I'm dinged on all my other bills. Rent was the worse since the late fee was $75 and the bank can only reverse their own fees, not the fees of others. Since then I don't touch automatic anything unless it's an absolute set amount with set schedule (insurance and mortgage for example).
Upon moving to Europe my wife introduced me to the French TIP sheets. The first few months I refused to fill in one for the ISP. After watching her easily reverse a charge with Orange and wait for the resulting phone call I thought it should be this easy. It's been relatively trouble free and a lot easier than checks. Too bad the US won't have anything like this, unless the banks are forced to do so by an act of congress.
As someone that has rolled their own hackintosh I can tell you what goes into a hackintosh. And if they are really able to modify the hardware without modifying the software than I find that truly amazing.
In short here is what goes into a a HackMac.
1 OS X retail CD.
modified boot loader (the darwin bootloader actually)
modified SMBIOS.kext
modified AppleACPI.kext
modified AppleAHCI.kext
sometimes, modified IONetworkingFamily.kext
There are a few other things I'm missing or don't apply to my machine (patched kernel for AMDs); but basically the software on a Psystar is most definitely modified.
The windscreen is what we call the mesh things in front of the windows that keep the bugs. And the mesh door in front of the frontdoor...screendoor.
The more you know.
I'm not sure which country you are in but my wife and I (she working in a different EU country than I) see national healthcare as a line item on our paychecks. I have tons of taxable items (unemployment, pensions, continuing education, etc.) The only ones paying for national insurance are the people getting it. My employer doesn't pay for national insurance, but they pay plenty of a lot of other things.
And unlike the US (barring charities of course) businesses don't get taxed for the sake of doing business. VAT is deducted in most cases and only the end purchaser has to pay it. Could you imagine what the price would really be if you paid 20% on raw materials, 20% on assemly, 20% on assembly machines, 20% to ship it, 20% to put it in the store.
It appears the entire business plan of this company rests on the fact that the user knows what they are doing. These are the same users that buy from dell and have trouble figuring out where the color coded cables should be connected.
But at the same time the users that could do this would not pay for an overpriced Pentium D (do they even make Pentium Ds anymore?) not the overpriced quad. I spent a week combing through all the suggestions for supported hardware on the site. I could have gone with the first suggestion and had my shopping cart full in 15 minutes.
The fact is you buy this and then you are completely out of luck if a problem happens. Apple won't support you at all. I don't know if they do this anymore, but I remember them taking credit card information and serial numbers before you could even ask them a question. How many people are going to get dinged on their credit cards before they realize they could have bought the real deal for the amount of money the are paying to keep this thing running.
-- Typed from Quad Core Hackintosh
I think it really depends on the policy of the airline. Like if they are going to need the extra space for cargo or something. I've only seen this on smaller regional flights where the flights are frequent. Most likely if your bags aren't on board with you it's because they left on the flight after, but rarely on the flight before.
When I was in highschool I was in the top percentile of the school. The some of the smartest kids were just as bad as the dumbest kids. Instead of resorting to physical violence they went on verbal diatribes and basically were just being douches. My school was an inner city school with a nationally recognized magnet program (to boost the grades).
I grew up with these guys and they weren't necessarily bullies but they could smell fresh blood in the water. If you were meek you were an easy target. A lot of them have been told they were dumb or remedial their entire life and some douchebag that likes to remind them by insulting their intelligence only drives the knife deeper. My friends came from all walks of life and I respected their opinions and helped them when I could (homework, food, money). Because of the company I kept no one tried to fight me because I was smart and had good grades. I never resorted to calling anyone stupid. And you learn there is a lot of different smart. Some were great musicians and composers, rappers, poets, and negotiators.
I've had to intervene on a few occasions where a friend in the smart class just didn't have the "street smarts" to avoid a bad situation.
I do believe the No Child Left Behind Act is doing a great disservice to everyone. It strips the schools of their ability to educate and reduces them to diploma mills. I was their when the last woodshop class came to an end. There were no plans made to replace it with any options. Just get the kids to take and pass the test.
I read that Ranger sales have actually picked up. People that need a truck but don't want the gas guzzling expense have come to their senses.
Re:This is how economics is supposed to work!
on
The SUV Is Dethroned
·
· Score: 1
Trust me, they are. My 'rents work in the banking industry. That soccer mom is probably on her second HELOC. And one financial disaster away from filing for bankruptcy.
But they won't suffer any real consequences. In the end they'll manage to get it written off.
I also live in Europe, France. So far there isn't a standard. As far as I know only the BBC in the UK has a "standard" They transmit HDTV in MPEG4 for some channels. You can't buy a HDTV with HD tuner anywhere in europe because their is no standard. The US standardized on MPEG2 over 10 years ago. The only place you can get high definition is through satellite, xDSL, or fibre. And that's using a decoder box from the provider. You can't go into a store and buy an MPEG4 decoder for your TV.
The only places that have a "standard that's actually transmitting in the majority is US, Canada, Taiwan?, Japan, and South Korea.
For the bank it is bad news. If you're trying to wire money to another bank. Or use your ATM card in another banks machine. They can and will deny the transaction if the bank is known to be a money laundering front.
There was an article in wired about vanuatu. It's getting harder for the little island to do business because US banks refuse to accept their transactions. A lot of criminals opened banks down there to launder money. They were warned by the State department to clean it up. Now any money that goes through gets a big flag. They can't stop them from doing business but theUS gov't can make it plenty difficult.
Display I can agree with, the removable battery: most people by ultralights so they don't have to schlep around another battery, you did lose me on the processor seeing as the Lenovo has 1.2GHz ULV Core Duo versus the Airs 1.8GHz. it also weighs slightly more, and laptop speakers are a shame no matter where you put them. The air has a microphone 2 in fact, right there next to the camera.
You are partially correct. The mach kernel is one of the first implementations of microkernels. OS X is derived from this as well as the mklinux experiment of the late 90s. But just like the difference between CISC and RISC processors has been on a collision course, monolithic and microkernels have picked the best features of the other.
OS X is based on the XNU kernel. A mach/monolithic hybrid. The performance of pure microkernels was just never up to the task.
Slashdot Mirror
RBFH - is that "Really Big F**king Hammer?"
Damn, I just bought a BFH to smash some walls. I wonder if I can upgrade with a serial number?
In most cases you only need 3 years. If you've gotten in trouble with them before they can make you keep it longer. Business fall under different rules. You can also look here:
Individual and Businesses
Actually if you want to create change then you really have to do it with the stick rather than the carrot. To put it in another words I believe we should all download music from wherever we see fit in whatever format we like. It puts the ball in the court to of the music industry to find an effective method of trying to maintain control without being run over by the populace. Currently, at least in other countries outside of the US, they are in a battle with the people. And it's the will of the people that gets laws passed or revoked. They are waging a much better campaign of propaganda, getting people to believe the idea of pirating is bad. They haven't really found a way of formulating why DRM is good too. But they also know that suing too many grandmothers is a quick way of getting all those laws they begged lawmakers to write nullified.
As for MLK, Jr., near the end of the civil rights movement he had a lot of internal politics about whether the marchings and speeches were having any effect at all. More radical groups like the BPP were growing exponentially. Black people were disenfranchised and it looked like the marches weren't working. At the same time the Vietnam War was underway and the US military was drafting young black men to fight there wars but were unwilling to extend the same freedoms to there own people. His speeches were getting more radical, but still peaceful. Finally, while his work in the civil rights certainly contributed greatly to it's success. I believe it was his death that finally got Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the act. It's unfortunate, but his martyrdom was the final sacrifice that got us here today.
While MLK was the carrot, BPP definitely was the stick. They believed in armed revolution if they didn't get what they want. After the collapse of Bautista in Cuba the government certainly didn't want that in their back yard.
No, it's not how it happened. I remember those fingerprinting kits when I was a kid and I had mine done Blockbuster. Your fingerprints weren't put into a massive criminal database. It was a cardboard kit your parents brought you in for. The local police officer or someone qualified to do fingerprints put them on a card with a recent photo of you, basic information (age, hair color, eye color, height) and gave it back to your parents. In case something happened where you went missing they wouldn't need to try to assemble the pieces of information after the fact, everything would be ready to go. I'm sure if you ask your mom nicely she probably has it in the family safe or something like that.
Yes, he is and makes no apologies about it. But assholes need love to which is why he impregnated 3 different women.
There is an old saying it is better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. I've seen this work so many times in real life that it flies in the face of everything I was taught at school. Chances are the court is going to be more forgiving if you did it and then were sued rather than if you asked and did it anyway. It's like speeding tickets, if the judge asked you if you knew the lower limit and you say no, then s/he'll be sympathetic. More so than if you did know but broke the law anyway. Most likely, the company won't bother going after you (lawyers are expensive no matter who sues/ gets sued) until you become a visible, credible threat. Once you are you'll have a bit of money to mount a defence, offer a settlement, etc. I write software. There are a lot of companies that write software just like mine. A few are bigger than us, most are a lot smaller than us. We might step on the feet of the big guys from time to time. And them likewise. We never hear from or bother with the small guys.
I guess this is how a friend of mine does it. He has 3 kids by 3 different women and every year he gets dragged into court and swears under oath he is broke. He pays just the basic amount of child support ($250/mo), yet drives a beamer, owns a beachside condo, and a boat in the dock. If asked to borrow money from him he would tell me he's broke. But we'll go out for $200 steaks. I never got a full answer but somehow I believe he has all the money tied up in some offshore bank accounts. I'm not sure about the car or boat but I know the car isn't in his name. Somehow I believe he has a setup like the one you described. He has money but you can't get it from him directly.
And this is why pilot unions are one of the most powerful, fiercest unions on the planet. Because most of the professionals have had to deal with this shit on their way up to working in a fleet. They don't get paid until the engine is on but they get paid plenty. In general this only applies to the mainline and widebodies. It's relatively easy to replace a Twin Otter pilot (no offence), it's quite a trick to find a replacement 757 pilot who is current and has the hours. Most of the airlines try to spin it as the senior pilots calling the strikes ($200k,pensions,etc), generally, it's the juniors (regional pilots) who are trying not to get screwed
I also squat for myself. As soon as I find out about a service or social network that just went online I sign up. Even if I have no plan to ever come back it's handy just in case it gets big. I signed up for facebook when it was only available to select school alums, in 2004. But I really didn't get any use out of it until 2007. The exact opposite happened to me on slashdot. I was an avid reader since '99. Either never signed up or forgot my account info. But I've been using this login since 2003, 4 years after I found this site.
Seriously, you can be sued at anytime, for anything, with any reason. It's a strategy those with more money than you will use to force you to settle. Even if some states have written anti-SLAPP laws, it's written by lawyers to make sure lawyers always come out on top.
If people can't afford things I would say it's a result of a lot of things and you can't blame social security for it. Social security has taken in more than it pays out. It's supposed to work this way until it reaches an equilibrium. I believe it's already there. One thing you can't fault them for is having the fed borrow the money. The administrators' boss is the guy you selected to sit in the House and Senate. If they want to dip into all they have have to do is write a bill authorizing the borrowing of funds for government use. As for private investment. Aren't you glad Bush didn't get to privatize Social security like he was pushing for. If you think people were pissed when Enron and Fannie Mae got into the shit imagine the debate we would be having if they took social security with them. Hell privatizing it doesn't even come up in debates anymore because even the politicians can see this would have been a bad idea. Anyway a lot of people are mistaken about what social security is and what it can do for you. It's not a full blown retirement pension. You are not going to cash that check move to Miami and buy a condo. It's there to prevent you from having to eat dog food or dig through the trash for a meal. Every year people get a statement saying how much money they've put into social security and how much they can expect to get each month upon retirement. Can you honestly look at one of those statements and think to yourself, "this is going to be plenty when I retire" ? If not put some funds into some other schemes. And remember there are a lot of people that got burned because of companies like Enron.
American living in France here. If you are under 30 you are eligible for a 1 year holiday work visa. It most likely won't get you a job in IT but as long as you have a little money in the bank (you won't be eligible for the public funds, but as soon as you find work your good for the health care) you shouldn't have a problem getting it. As soon as you arrive sign up for some language courses and get a job (any job). The one year limit means a company looking for knowledgeable people won't be knocking down your door, but you will get a chance to interview. And the right job could land you a permanent "carte de sejour".
As for me, it was either she move to the US or I move to France. Since my entire worth could fit in a suitcase I found it easier (physically) to move here, but not knowing the language (2 years of Spanish and 1 year of Mandarin is what I have) made it difficult mentally. I would fall asleep at the dinner table because I would be mentally exhausted from trying to keep up with the conversation. I worked in a few pubs and nightclubs before landing fully in software development. It was a really humbling experience. I really like my job and colleagues. Plus I write software that ships!
I've tried the bill pay in the past and it ended up costing me more money than it saved. At the time I was a student so saving money by any means necessary was how we operate. I had set up a few accounts and set the date I would like to send the money. You would think if there isn't enough money on the 1st the account would try on the 2nd or 3rd day. Nope, it was a one off check account at 12:00AM. No money is sent ever, no notice is sent, just nothing. After using this for a few months the late fees and randomness of the whole deal just clinched it. Another time I had Sprint do direct withdrawal. One billing error and I'm dinged on all my other bills. Rent was the worse since the late fee was $75 and the bank can only reverse their own fees, not the fees of others. Since then I don't touch automatic anything unless it's an absolute set amount with set schedule (insurance and mortgage for example). Upon moving to Europe my wife introduced me to the French TIP sheets. The first few months I refused to fill in one for the ISP. After watching her easily reverse a charge with Orange and wait for the resulting phone call I thought it should be this easy. It's been relatively trouble free and a lot easier than checks. Too bad the US won't have anything like this, unless the banks are forced to do so by an act of congress.
As someone that has rolled their own hackintosh I can tell you what goes into a hackintosh. And if they are really able to modify the hardware without modifying the software than I find that truly amazing. In short here is what goes into a a HackMac. 1 OS X retail CD. modified boot loader (the darwin bootloader actually) modified SMBIOS.kext modified AppleACPI.kext modified AppleAHCI.kext sometimes, modified IONetworkingFamily.kext There are a few other things I'm missing or don't apply to my machine (patched kernel for AMDs); but basically the software on a Psystar is most definitely modified.
The windscreen is what we call the mesh things in front of the windows that keep the bugs. And the mesh door in front of the frontdoor...screendoor. The more you know.
I'm not sure which country you are in but my wife and I (she working in a different EU country than I) see national healthcare as a line item on our paychecks. I have tons of taxable items (unemployment, pensions, continuing education, etc.) The only ones paying for national insurance are the people getting it. My employer doesn't pay for national insurance, but they pay plenty of a lot of other things. And unlike the US (barring charities of course) businesses don't get taxed for the sake of doing business. VAT is deducted in most cases and only the end purchaser has to pay it. Could you imagine what the price would really be if you paid 20% on raw materials, 20% on assemly, 20% on assembly machines, 20% to ship it, 20% to put it in the store.
It appears the entire business plan of this company rests on the fact that the user knows what they are doing. These are the same users that buy from dell and have trouble figuring out where the color coded cables should be connected. But at the same time the users that could do this would not pay for an overpriced Pentium D (do they even make Pentium Ds anymore?) not the overpriced quad. I spent a week combing through all the suggestions for supported hardware on the site. I could have gone with the first suggestion and had my shopping cart full in 15 minutes. The fact is you buy this and then you are completely out of luck if a problem happens. Apple won't support you at all. I don't know if they do this anymore, but I remember them taking credit card information and serial numbers before you could even ask them a question. How many people are going to get dinged on their credit cards before they realize they could have bought the real deal for the amount of money the are paying to keep this thing running. -- Typed from Quad Core Hackintosh
I think it really depends on the policy of the airline. Like if they are going to need the extra space for cargo or something. I've only seen this on smaller regional flights where the flights are frequent. Most likely if your bags aren't on board with you it's because they left on the flight after, but rarely on the flight before.
When I was in highschool I was in the top percentile of the school. The some of the smartest kids were just as bad as the dumbest kids. Instead of resorting to physical violence they went on verbal diatribes and basically were just being douches. My school was an inner city school with a nationally recognized magnet program (to boost the grades). I grew up with these guys and they weren't necessarily bullies but they could smell fresh blood in the water. If you were meek you were an easy target. A lot of them have been told they were dumb or remedial their entire life and some douchebag that likes to remind them by insulting their intelligence only drives the knife deeper. My friends came from all walks of life and I respected their opinions and helped them when I could (homework, food, money). Because of the company I kept no one tried to fight me because I was smart and had good grades. I never resorted to calling anyone stupid. And you learn there is a lot of different smart. Some were great musicians and composers, rappers, poets, and negotiators. I've had to intervene on a few occasions where a friend in the smart class just didn't have the "street smarts" to avoid a bad situation. I do believe the No Child Left Behind Act is doing a great disservice to everyone. It strips the schools of their ability to educate and reduces them to diploma mills. I was their when the last woodshop class came to an end. There were no plans made to replace it with any options. Just get the kids to take and pass the test.
I read that Ranger sales have actually picked up. People that need a truck but don't want the gas guzzling expense have come to their senses.
Trust me, they are. My 'rents work in the banking industry. That soccer mom is probably on her second HELOC. And one financial disaster away from filing for bankruptcy. But they won't suffer any real consequences. In the end they'll manage to get it written off.
I also live in Europe, France. So far there isn't a standard. As far as I know only the BBC in the UK has a "standard" They transmit HDTV in MPEG4 for some channels. You can't buy a HDTV with HD tuner anywhere in europe because their is no standard. The US standardized on MPEG2 over 10 years ago. The only place you can get high definition is through satellite, xDSL, or fibre. And that's using a decoder box from the provider. You can't go into a store and buy an MPEG4 decoder for your TV.
The only places that have a "standard that's actually transmitting in the majority is US, Canada, Taiwan?, Japan, and South Korea.
For the bank it is bad news. If you're trying to wire money to another bank. Or use your ATM card in another banks machine. They can and will deny the transaction if the bank is known to be a money laundering front. There was an article in wired about vanuatu. It's getting harder for the little island to do business because US banks refuse to accept their transactions. A lot of criminals opened banks down there to launder money. They were warned by the State department to clean it up. Now any money that goes through gets a big flag. They can't stop them from doing business but theUS gov't can make it plenty difficult.
Display I can agree with, the removable battery: most people by ultralights so they don't have to schlep around another battery, you did lose me on the processor seeing as the Lenovo has 1.2GHz ULV Core Duo versus the Airs 1.8GHz. it also weighs slightly more, and laptop speakers are a shame no matter where you put them. The air has a microphone 2 in fact, right there next to the camera.
You are partially correct. The mach kernel is one of the first implementations of microkernels. OS X is derived from this as well as the mklinux experiment of the late 90s. But just like the difference between CISC and RISC processors has been on a collision course, monolithic and microkernels have picked the best features of the other. OS X is based on the XNU kernel. A mach/monolithic hybrid. The performance of pure microkernels was just never up to the task.