The article "The truth about tethering: Pay up or you are a thief" [zdnet.com] by James Kendrick implies an expectation among carriers that customers not use the entire monthly data allowance, where carriers price plans based on this expectation. From the article:
Our agreement may state that we must pay an overage fee when we exceed a certain amount of data usage in a given period (the cap), but the carrier is not stating we are paying for the right to use that much data. Most carriers have unspecified "normal usage" parameters that are used to determine when customers exceed the intended usage, even if under the data cap. Carriers have been known to throttle usage, or even cancel, customers who regularly exceed the normal usage parameters, even when they don't exceed a specified cap. We may not like it but that's the way it works.
That is nothing more than shitty business practices. They're not disclosing the full implications of the contract you enter into with them. It's amazing that you just let them screw you over like this.
If a carrier here tried adding a tethering surcharge, it abso-fucking-lutely wouldn't fly at all. See, we have this thing called competition, which keeps the carriers from screwing over their customers, because they know you'll just switch to another carrier that treats you better. Number portability is fully automated, I know people who've had the same cellphone number for 20 years, over 10+ carriers, no issues.
When my plan includes 25GB/month, I get 25GB. No questions asked. They don't care if I tether my laptop, or if share my hotspot with random stranger's devices. They don't care which device I put my SIM in. If I use up my data allowance, I get speeddropped for the rest of the month. Simple, straight-forward, not designed to screw over your customers.
You're getting screwed like crazy in the US, from the ridiculously low data allowances, over bizarre surcharges to actually having to pay to receive text messages. The overage argument simply doesn't fly when you only allow 5GB on a normal plan. They're screwing you over, big-time.
Then let's make some data. 1. How big is your PC monitor diagonally, and how far do you sit from it? 2. How big is your living room TV diagonally, and how far do you sit from it? 3. How big is your phone's screen diagonally, and how far do you hold it? From these figures, I can calculate the apparent density of SD and HD video in pixels per radian and compare them to the human fovea's limit of roughly 3400 pixels per radian.
That's not what I meant, and you know it wasn't.
I am asking for proof of your assertion that people are more likely to watch longer HD content on tethered devices, compared to on their phones.
A desktop user is more likely to plan out good uses for excess data to come in just under the cap, much of it during prime time from 7 PM to 11 PM tower time.
In addition, a desktop user is more likely to watch long high-definition streams, compared to a 5" screen that occupies less of the visual field (in units of steradians or square degrees) than a computer monitor or living room TV.
I assume you have data sources to back up those assertions.
From what I see, most people don't bother to micromanage their data usage like that.
UBlock Origin (in dynamic mode, default-deny on 3rd-party scripts and frames), Privacy Badger, Cookie AutoDelete, Decentraleyes, Link Cleaner, Smart Referer, these are the minimum toolkit needed to reasonably use the web today, and even then some annoying Javascript is present.
Default-deny on all active content is the next step, but with how JS-heavy the web is these days, also hugely aggravating.
My impression is that Germans in general are extremely wary of registration and very privacy-conscious, especially those with family in the former DDR.
It's a stark contrast to Denmark, where we have a shared 2-factor login system for all public services, and to uniquely identify yourself for online banking and other secured services, as well as a unique social security number (CPR -- Central Person Register). All correspondence with public services (and a number of private services, too) goes to an encrypted personal mailbox and all relevant information for banks, hospitals and so on is available through the CPR number. My girlfriend (who's German) is still a bit uncomfortable at this semi-open sharing of information.
In Germany, there is none of that. Everything is still handled over the phone or in person, all mailed correspondence is snail mail, and it takes forever to get even basic things sorted out.
I understand their hesitance (and I think we Danes are way too trusting of each other), but it quickly becomes extremely aggravating to deal with.
For wifi, you can generate a QR code that will let devices easily connect. This lets you use a long randomly-generated passphrase, without the hassle of having to type it in manually.
It's extremely convenient if you have guests over.
Implying that there is such a thing as a "European culture", it's obvious you have no clue. Compare a Swede to an Italian or a Frenchman to a Austrian. Shared culture, my ass.
It all boils down to the telcos absolutely fleecing you in every way possible. Why should they care what you use your allotted data for? 10GB is 10GB is 10GB.
Just give me a ~13" laptop, with a good quality screen (ie. a good TN panel, or preferably IPS, 1080p), fanless, decent build quality, a good keyboard and a good touchpad, and 15+ hours of battery life.
So in other words, give me my old Acer Chromebook 13, but replace the horribly low-performance Nvidia Tegra K1 for something with actual usable desktop performance, upgrade the battery and ditch ChromeOS for actual Linux. As a bonus, give me a dock connector, or at least full docking (USB+Displayport+charging) over USB-C.
If I really need connectivity, I'll tether the phone.
At how much extra per month? (If "none", then what carrier in what country? US cell carriers tend to add a surcharge for tethering.)
No extra charge. Denmark. Any carrier, pick one. I'm on Telmore (part of TDC Group, the former public monopoly telco, think Bell/AT&T), I get 25GB and unlimited minutes for ~$21/month.
The fact that US carriers are brazen enough to charge you extra based on how you how you use your allotted data is insane. As is charging you to receive text messages.
The resampler in Opus is more than good enough to not have any audible artifacts. The entirety of Opus is built around the 48KHz sample rate, so it's best to just go with the default. You can force it into 44.1KHz mode, but it's not recommended.
Calorie for calorie, it's several times more efficient to eat plants directly than feed it to cows and harvest the meat.
However, livestock can consume and digest fibrous cellulose-heavy plant matter than humans cannot digest, nor reasonably process into food fit for humans. These plants grow wild and require very little in the way of resources, they can grow on land where plants fit for human consumption cannot grow.
Hence a certain level of livestock are beneficial to keep, to process plant matter that is inedible for humans, into meat and milk that is fit for human consumption.
Do we need the massive amount of cattle that we have to day in the western world? Hell no, especially since cattle are usually fed manufactured feed, instead of relying on natural fibrous plant matter. Some amount of livestock is needed, though. Personally I think we should move to less resource-intensive alternative, such as more goats and chickens.
Google is trying to tie you to a platform. Not to a hardware or OS platform, but to their web platform, ie. Google services through a Google browser. While they do not tie you to a specific platform, their apps and services work best on Android phones, connecting to Google devices such as Chromecast and their various other devices.
They're not forcing you, they are making you take the easy way, "voluntarily" do everything in the Google ecosystem, to increase their data gathering.
Google profits from Chrome domination by intensive tracking data gathering, which they convert to ad revenue. So no, they're not profiting directly from Chrome, but they are profiting indirectly, through ad revenue and Chrome-only products (Chrome is the only browser compatible with Chromecast, for instance).
IMO, America can easily move to liter for liquid measurements -- most Americans already are familiar with 1 and 2 liter beverage sizes.
A US liquid quart is 0.95 liters, close enough that most people probably wouldn't notice a difference in everyday use.
Celsius gets everything wrong. 0C is too high -- you have to deal with negative numbers a lot more often. 100C is way too high and also pointless -- you can see water boil. And the result is that temperatures you care about are in a narrow range.
I disagree. Celsius has plenty of precision for everyday use, the difference between 25C and 26C matters just the same to normal people as the difference between 77F and 78F. If you do actually need more precision, you use decimals like you would in Fahrenheit, because I sure as hell hope you don't use fractions for temperature.
0C also makes a lot more sense than 32F for the freezing point of water, as it has a big correlation with weather. If the temperature in Celsius on the forecast is negative, I can probably expect my car to be frozen and the roads to possibly be slippery. If it's -2C, it's probably not too bad, if it's -10C or below, it's probably going to be more severe. 0C makes for a very nice and convenient delineation.
IIRC, it's actually called a Royal burger without reference to the weight in countries that use SI units.
It's a Quarter Pounder in most of Europe, because it's simply seen as a name, not a measurement (the amount of meat is usually mentioned in the fine print of a menu somewhere, but nobody cares).
Slashdot Mirror
The article "The truth about tethering: Pay up or you are a thief" [zdnet.com] by James Kendrick implies an expectation among carriers that customers not use the entire monthly data allowance, where carriers price plans based on this expectation. From the article:
Our agreement may state that we must pay an overage fee when we exceed a certain amount of data usage in a given period (the cap), but the carrier is not stating we are paying for the right to use that much data. Most carriers have unspecified "normal usage" parameters that are used to determine when customers exceed the intended usage, even if under the data cap. Carriers have been known to throttle usage, or even cancel, customers who regularly exceed the normal usage parameters, even when they don't exceed a specified cap. We may not like it but that's the way it works.
That is nothing more than shitty business practices. They're not disclosing the full implications of the contract you enter into with them. It's amazing that you just let them screw you over like this.
If a carrier here tried adding a tethering surcharge, it abso-fucking-lutely wouldn't fly at all. See, we have this thing called competition, which keeps the carriers from screwing over their customers, because they know you'll just switch to another carrier that treats you better. Number portability is fully automated, I know people who've had the same cellphone number for 20 years, over 10+ carriers, no issues.
When my plan includes 25GB/month, I get 25GB. No questions asked. They don't care if I tether my laptop, or if share my hotspot with random stranger's devices. They don't care which device I put my SIM in. If I use up my data allowance, I get speeddropped for the rest of the month. Simple, straight-forward, not designed to screw over your customers.
You're getting screwed like crazy in the US, from the ridiculously low data allowances, over bizarre surcharges to actually having to pay to receive text messages. The overage argument simply doesn't fly when you only allow 5GB on a normal plan. They're screwing you over, big-time.
Then let's make some data.
1. How big is your PC monitor diagonally, and how far do you sit from it?
2. How big is your living room TV diagonally, and how far do you sit from it?
3. How big is your phone's screen diagonally, and how far do you hold it?
From these figures, I can calculate the apparent density of SD and HD video in pixels per radian and compare them to the human fovea's limit of roughly 3400 pixels per radian.
That's not what I meant, and you know it wasn't.
I am asking for proof of your assertion that people are more likely to watch longer HD content on tethered devices, compared to on their phones.
A desktop user is more likely to plan out good uses for excess data to come in just under the cap, much of it during prime time from 7 PM to 11 PM tower time.
In addition, a desktop user is more likely to watch long high-definition streams, compared to a 5" screen that occupies less of the visual field (in units of steradians or square degrees) than a computer monitor or living room TV.
I assume you have data sources to back up those assertions.
From what I see, most people don't bother to micromanage their data usage like that.
The world does not revolve around you.
Sorry, my desktop is an 8-core/16GB RAM unit with several TB of attached storage and two fairly big displays attached.
You are not a typical user. The typical user needs a browser, email, a selection of streaming apps and some casual games.
Any smartphone on the market will easily fulfill those requirements.
UBlock Origin (in dynamic mode, default-deny on 3rd-party scripts and frames), Privacy Badger, Cookie AutoDelete, Decentraleyes, Link Cleaner, Smart Referer, these are the minimum toolkit needed to reasonably use the web today, and even then some annoying Javascript is present.
Default-deny on all active content is the next step, but with how JS-heavy the web is these days, also hugely aggravating.
Yeah, the KRACK Attack (love that name).
Most major vendors have patched their software and devices by now, but that still leaves a bunch of legacy devices in harm's way.
As always, don't trust wireless with sensitive data, use additional encryption everywhere you can, and you really should use a VPN when using wifi.
My impression is that Germans in general are extremely wary of registration and very privacy-conscious, especially those with family in the former DDR.
It's a stark contrast to Denmark, where we have a shared 2-factor login system for all public services, and to uniquely identify yourself for online banking and other secured services, as well as a unique social security number (CPR -- Central Person Register). All correspondence with public services (and a number of private services, too) goes to an encrypted personal mailbox and all relevant information for banks, hospitals and so on is available through the CPR number. My girlfriend (who's German) is still a bit uncomfortable at this semi-open sharing of information.
In Germany, there is none of that. Everything is still handled over the phone or in person, all mailed correspondence is snail mail, and it takes forever to get even basic things sorted out.
I understand their hesitance (and I think we Danes are way too trusting of each other), but it quickly becomes extremely aggravating to deal with.
That does not hold up in court, an IP address does not uniquely identify a person.
For wifi, you can generate a QR code that will let devices easily connect. This lets you use a long randomly-generated passphrase, without the hassle of having to type it in manually.
It's extremely convenient if you have guests over.
Implying that there is such a thing as a "European culture", it's obvious you have no clue. Compare a Swede to an Italian or a Frenchman to a Austrian. Shared culture, my ass.
It all boils down to the telcos absolutely fleecing you in every way possible. Why should they care what you use your allotted data for? 10GB is 10GB is 10GB.
Just give me a ~13" laptop, with a good quality screen (ie. a good TN panel, or preferably IPS, 1080p), fanless, decent build quality, a good keyboard and a good touchpad, and 15+ hours of battery life.
So in other words, give me my old Acer Chromebook 13, but replace the horribly low-performance Nvidia Tegra K1 for something with actual usable desktop performance, upgrade the battery and ditch ChromeOS for actual Linux. As a bonus, give me a dock connector, or at least full docking (USB+Displayport+charging) over USB-C.
If I really need connectivity, I'll tether the phone.
At how much extra per month? (If "none", then what carrier in what country? US cell carriers tend to add a surcharge for tethering.)
No extra charge. Denmark. Any carrier, pick one. I'm on Telmore (part of TDC Group, the former public monopoly telco, think Bell/AT&T), I get 25GB and unlimited minutes for ~$21/month.
The fact that US carriers are brazen enough to charge you extra based on how you how you use your allotted data is insane. As is charging you to receive text messages.
The resampler in Opus is more than good enough to not have any audible artifacts. The entirety of Opus is built around the 48KHz sample rate, so it's best to just go with the default. You can force it into 44.1KHz mode, but it's not recommended.
Calorie for calorie, it's several times more efficient to eat plants directly than feed it to cows and harvest the meat.
However, livestock can consume and digest fibrous cellulose-heavy plant matter than humans cannot digest, nor reasonably process into food fit for humans. These plants grow wild and require very little in the way of resources, they can grow on land where plants fit for human consumption cannot grow.
Hence a certain level of livestock are beneficial to keep, to process plant matter that is inedible for humans, into meat and milk that is fit for human consumption.
Do we need the massive amount of cattle that we have to day in the western world? Hell no, especially since cattle are usually fed manufactured feed, instead of relying on natural fibrous plant matter. Some amount of livestock is needed, though. Personally I think we should move to less resource-intensive alternative, such as more goats and chickens.
I'd love to see FB shut down for just 24 hours, and see what would happen.
On the whole, I'm sure it would be a net positive.
Google is trying to tie you to a platform. Not to a hardware or OS platform, but to their web platform, ie. Google services through a Google browser. While they do not tie you to a specific platform, their apps and services work best on Android phones, connecting to Google devices such as Chromecast and their various other devices.
They're not forcing you, they are making you take the easy way, "voluntarily" do everything in the Google ecosystem, to increase their data gathering.
Google profits from Chrome domination by intensive tracking data gathering, which they convert to ad revenue. So no, they're not profiting directly from Chrome, but they are profiting indirectly, through ad revenue and Chrome-only products (Chrome is the only browser compatible with Chromecast, for instance).
I'm on a 6-core Phenom 2 1100T of roughly the same vintage, also with 16GB of RAM, and an SSD. Mint absolutely flies on it, no worries at all.
Who cares about karma on some random past-its-prime "news" site?
But you're like to need 250g or 500g or 375g of something. Always cook by weight, never by volume.
Metric is appropriate everywhere. It is based on powers of ten, just like the decimal system you use every single day.
IMO, America can easily move to liter for liquid measurements -- most Americans already are familiar with 1 and 2 liter beverage sizes.
A US liquid quart is 0.95 liters, close enough that most people probably wouldn't notice a difference in everyday use.
Celsius gets everything wrong. 0C is too high -- you have to deal with negative numbers a lot more often. 100C is way too high and also pointless -- you can see water boil. And the result is that temperatures you care about are in a narrow range.
I disagree. Celsius has plenty of precision for everyday use, the difference between 25C and 26C matters just the same to normal people as the difference between 77F and 78F. If you do actually need more precision, you use decimals like you would in Fahrenheit, because I sure as hell hope you don't use fractions for temperature.
0C also makes a lot more sense than 32F for the freezing point of water, as it has a big correlation with weather. If the temperature in Celsius on the forecast is negative, I can probably expect my car to be frozen and the roads to possibly be slippery. If it's -2C, it's probably not too bad, if it's -10C or below, it's probably going to be more severe. 0C makes for a very nice and convenient delineation.
And "a litre is a kilogram". So why not just use metric?
And a Quarter Pounder would be a 100 Grammer.
IIRC, it's actually called a Royal burger without reference to the weight in countries that use SI units.
It's a Quarter Pounder in most of Europe, because it's simply seen as a name, not a measurement (the amount of meat is usually mentioned in the fine print of a menu somewhere, but nobody cares).