In the US, it costs just a little bit of money to have unlimited local and incoming calls on a land-line, plus it never has an error, ever, of any sort.
I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but in the UK that sort of deal exists as well: all telecom companies offer a fixed monthly charge on local calls (and we've never had to pay to receive calls on any medium). As for the quality of the land calls, the only thing that would affect this is the telephone equipment being used - the lines are near perfect.
The reason for the greater uptake in Europe is more likely to be a combination of fashion (nobody wants to be seen without a mobile, even elderly people and children), and convenience. Most of my friends have broadband for net access and a mobile for talking, without bothering getting a land line installed.
You're not being very fair to Genghis Khan. Although he was very violent in the way that he dealt with his political opponents and enemies, he was actually a very enlightened leader when it came to the people he already ruled.
This extract is taken from Wikipedia.org:
"He outlawed all forms of torture and humiliation throughout the empire, especially declaring that there was to be no stealing of livestock, no adultery, and taking other people's property without their permission. He valued the importance of art and sciences by exempting teachers, doctors and intellects from taxes and integrated other people from China to the Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan never persecuted anyone on religous grounds and believed in the political and military power resulting from freedom of religion throughout his empire."
It's not that straightforward to catch someone skimming like that. I don't know about the US, but in the UK banking system a Visa transaction typically takes two days to hit an account, after which it can be drawn as cash. Most people get their statements monthly, so you could do this to thousands of people, and as long as you moved quickly, you could make a fortune - the only risky part would be collecting the money, but I'm sure someone resourceful could figure that out.
I know that the police could trace an account, but that doesn't matter if you don't use your own account. You'd be surprised how easy it is to gain control of someone else's account, and almost undetectable if it's dormant (I have a low-paid clerical job in a bank, and could provide you with a list of hundreds of dormant account numbers if I wanted to).
Yes. Just like they could all knock the earth off it's orbit by jumping, they're using the combined strength of 1 billion people to improvise a cellphone-based railgun. Them pesky commies are trying to shoot down the moon!
It's an ideological thing. Peer review means 100% no edited posts - which includes deletion and even moving. I know it sounds silly but that's how the 'purity' is maintained. We should be grateful that, when they do make mistakes, they're more interested in upholding the ideal instead of covering their arses.
The only solutions are prevention (see numerous posts about CVS trees, keyword searches, firing editors etc), or indicators to let people know that they are reading, or posting to, a dupe story.
I think it's a slightly different case with Unix etc, and used to be with Windows.
What with all the different window managers out for nix systems, programmers can get all creative in the GUI while maintaining a constant, unchanging operating environment: the command shell. This used to be the case with Windows before they changed to a GUI- rather than DOS-centric approach.
Well, I can see that sort of thing being commonplace between parents and children - after all, most parents buy their kids mobile phones to keep track of them.
"No Mom, I'm at the mall with Josie and Kim" "Prove it..."
If you are worried about he FBI, NSA or CIA using an aircraft to spy on you then you are definitely doing something very very bad or very very suspicious.
Fair enough, but who decides what's bad? In any case, it's dangerous to allow precedents to be set in regard to what equipment/methods can be used, because you don't know how they will be used in the future. Freedom is removed by degrees, and it's little "advancements" like this that send a cold shiver up my spine.
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I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but in the UK that sort of deal exists as well: all telecom companies offer a fixed monthly charge on local calls (and we've never had to pay to receive calls on any medium). As for the quality of the land calls, the only thing that would affect this is the telephone equipment being used - the lines are near perfect.
The reason for the greater uptake in Europe is more likely to be a combination of fashion (nobody wants to be seen without a mobile, even elderly people and children), and convenience. Most of my friends have broadband for net access and a mobile for talking, without bothering getting a land line installed.
You're not being very fair to Genghis Khan. Although he was very violent in the way that he dealt with his political opponents and enemies, he was actually a very enlightened leader when it came to the people he already ruled.
This extract is taken from Wikipedia.org:
"He outlawed all forms of torture and humiliation throughout the empire, especially declaring that there was to be no stealing of livestock, no adultery, and taking other people's property without their permission. He valued the importance of art and sciences by exempting teachers, doctors and intellects from taxes and integrated other people from China to the Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan never persecuted anyone on religous grounds and believed in the political and military power resulting from freedom of religion throughout his empire."
It's not that straightforward to catch someone skimming like that. I don't know about the US, but in the UK banking system a Visa transaction typically takes two days to hit an account, after which it can be drawn as cash. Most people get their statements monthly, so you could do this to thousands of people, and as long as you moved quickly, you could make a fortune - the only risky part would be collecting the money, but I'm sure someone resourceful could figure that out.
I know that the police could trace an account, but that doesn't matter if you don't use your own account. You'd be surprised how easy it is to gain control of someone else's account, and almost undetectable if it's dormant (I have a low-paid clerical job in a bank, and could provide you with a list of hundreds of dormant account numbers if I wanted to).
That address doesn't work. It must have been slashdotted!
What the hell are you talking about? Street Fighter was great!
I'm off down the park to send some obscene messages to children.
That's what "Author" means.
Or they could use "Currently between offices".
The only cure is to live a completely shameless life.
And who benefits the world by supplying the medicine cheap or free to 3rd world countries?
Yes. Just like they could all knock the earth off it's orbit by jumping, they're using the combined strength of 1 billion people to improvise a cellphone-based railgun. Them pesky commies are trying to shoot down the moon!
It's an ideological thing. Peer review means 100% no edited posts - which includes deletion and even moving. I know it sounds silly but that's how the 'purity' is maintained. We should be grateful that, when they do make mistakes, they're more interested in upholding the ideal instead of covering their arses.
The only solutions are prevention (see numerous posts about CVS trees, keyword searches, firing editors etc), or indicators to let people know that they are reading, or posting to, a dupe story.
I wouldn't say that the Zip disk was a failure. I know many people in the music and design industries that still make extensive use of them.
I think it's a slightly different case with Unix etc, and used to be with Windows.
What with all the different window managers out for nix systems, programmers can get all creative in the GUI while maintaining a constant, unchanging operating environment: the command shell. This used to be the case with Windows before they changed to a GUI- rather than DOS-centric approach.
Well, I can see that sort of thing being commonplace between parents and children - after all, most parents buy their kids mobile phones to keep track of them.
"No Mom, I'm at the mall with Josie and Kim"
"Prove it..."
If I was 15, I certainly wouldn't want one.
If you are worried about he FBI, NSA or CIA using an aircraft to spy on you then you are definitely doing something very very bad or very very suspicious. Fair enough, but who decides what's bad? In any case, it's dangerous to allow precedents to be set in regard to what equipment/methods can be used, because you don't know how they will be used in the future. Freedom is removed by degrees, and it's little "advancements" like this that send a cold shiver up my spine.
Yet another reason to chop MS into bits - it would be liberating the few good departments that exist.
It's just natural selection. I don't like to see the recording industry score another point, but this will help stimulate peer-to-peer development.