Bring a cheapie (or even an old, retired machine).
If they take it away at all, when/if they return it to you, take the machine and hurl it with full force at the wall or ground and stamp on it (lots) as much as possible - in front of them.
If possible, remove the hard drive and repeat....it might make you look slightly maniacal, but all they need to know is that you can no longer trust the device and the moment it left your sight it became useless and/or potentially dangerous to use.
I'm surprised to not see any comments regarding the state of access in India. There are comments regarding the US, Australia and New Zealand, but not India.
A 155Mbits line can cost as much as US$34k/month here, so the prices and speeds of consumer (and business) net connections are pretty horrific: USD$66 including tax will get you a 2mbit unlimited connection. If that provider supplies to your area.
I myself am starting an ISP and we are planning to offer the speeds which are available in Europe and Eastern Asia (read S Korea and Japan), so things like torrents are of great concern to us.
Most people get around the P2P thing by using DC++, but the last-mile ISP market is extremely fragmented (private cable-vendors "own" different suburbs of each city, and some are plainly psychotic, judging by the behaviour they exhibit towards customers - randomly unplugging cables, sabotaging cables of competitors and so forth).
Also, because of this fragmentation, DC++ servers are available only to a limited number of people, so it is really only a partial solution, and if I'm not mistaken, torrents are still king.
Regulations allow maximum contention ratios of 50:1 for consumer broadband. If everyone torrents at 2Mbits, in theory thats ONLY 70 customers to saturate a 155Mbits line.
So far, the most effective answer lies in either throttling or in data-caps. Is there another answer that can benefit the consumer AND allow us to provide an affordable, speedy service AND one that is actually useful to everyone - especially when we're paying for example $30k/month for 155mbits?
I personally would be interested to know (email your thoughts directly to slashdot.comments at-the-rate mathew-carley.com)
I was "let go" from a company in Finland, citing no more projects for me (which put my visa status in a questionable position). Fine.
So I moved to India.
I'm now an on-site consultant who makes more than twice as much as the salaried employees (while I start my own company), and they are very flexible about everything: work timings, listening to music - and I've got the ITS department in a position where they have to do what I want, when I want it (otherwise I will just email the CEO and tell him that I've done what I wanted anyway and without the IT department, but it has just cost the company more).
I am situated next to one of the break-rooms, so constant clinking from tea cups, chatter, the nearby AC closet and flow of traffic would severely impact my productivity were they to tell me I could no longer listen to music.
Since I get the projects that no-one else can work on (some clients sit and wait for months), if I left mid-project, they'd have wasted many thousands of dollars and be in rather a lot of trouble.
I've even been offered a permanent position, but... my own company launches soon, so I've not replied yet - that and being "the only one who can" is a bit of a double edged sword, so I think it would be best to remain a consultant.
This seems to be a phenomenon of the English speaking world... and India (thanks UK nanny state mentality!)
I grew up in New Zealand. My mother is a registered nurse, but as kids my siblings and I always got things like Onions on our ears and Vicks on our chest.
The pills we took everyday were just Garlic Oil and Vitamin C. Yes, I got sick, but that's unavoidable as a child. We lived on a farm for part of my childhood.
My Year 7 (Age 11) at school was completely unmarred: I had exactly 0 days off school that year. The previous year I had had something that they couldn't diagnose (was it Bronchitis? Asthma? Whooping Cough? After 6 months it just went away anyway). The next year I my immune system attacked itself and I got some disease ("Rutilus offa" or something... translated from Latin to English as "Red Lumps"). That too went away by itself.
When I was 15 I worked as a "bottle-boy" at a pharmacy (basic cleaning up, making cups of coffee, running errands etc). I had 1 illness in the 18 months I worked there - which was treated with Vicks in hot water, breathed through a cloth in order to clear up my stuffy nose.
Having lived in France (where I worked in a hotel and most diseases came from people travelling the continent), Finland (didn't really get sick) and now India, actually the worst was India: but that was just my body getting used to the water, food and air.
Now I don't really have any problems, and most food I prepare myself. I occasionally get a stuffy nose but that's about it. The only thing is I mostly drink bottled water (but at US$1.50 for 20 litres, it's a bargain).
My Mrs (who is Indian) inherited from her mother an obsession with keeping everything clean and the maid washes down the apartment with Dettol DAILY. I would hate to think what would happen to them if a super-bug comes along. I find the more I make my own maid scrub down my house, the more unhealthy I feel.
To conclude, in a very roundabout way, I'm with George Carlin on this one too - not just because the man is a legend, but because of my own experience.
It would be interesting to see where the company is registered. As a non-US citizen, I don't pay too much concern for your country's taxes, but if it's registered in the US, that's just foolish.
Re:And they couldn't afford a better domain name?
on
eBay For Millionaires
·
· Score: 1
I've been a member of this site for months. I think I was following the owner on Twitter. I found it similarly devoid of content or purpose (as it apparently still is) and haven't logged in in quite a while.
And why do you need a static IP again? And why do you need IPv6? Let's face it: COMMON users don't use that stuff - of course you're going to have to pay extra for it.
I used to have 24Mbits at home (in Kruununhaka) and 100Mbits at my office (in Pasila, then Kamppi). I never had a problem, and people receiving files from me rarely had speeds sufficient to warrant me needing more upload speed.
ADSL2+ is limited in upload speed by the technology itself, as is VDSL2 - hardly the providers fault.
If I got offered a job in Finland (and didn't have to deal with shitty immigration), I'd move back in a heartbeat (I'm THAT desperate for decent Broadband).
Something IS fishy. Consumers in India get shafted.
If you want a 2mbits commercial connection, no problem. It might cost you $500 a month, but you'll get it. If you want 2mbits as a consumer? Good luck with that.
Part of the problem is infrastructure: telephone lines are old, cable networks are quite rubbish, and your average cable provider supplies only one or two neighbourhoods. The national cable ISPs can't even lay their own cables in those areas (the local "cablewalas" have been known to sabotage cables), and are instead forced to supply the cable vendor who in turn supplies the end user (with his commission, of course)... it's a mini war.
So, broadband is actually surprisingly hard to install in India, and even then, the way people put stuff together here, your average cable line installation is not exactly what we would call "professional" - it probably wont even be cut and spliced with a T-connector - more likely that they will cut through the cable shielding, wrap your cable end in to it, then wrap some electrical tape around it - and pray that it works for at least a month (until call the helpdesk and reported that your connection doesn't work, so they send a technician to re-connect the cable and put fresh electrical tape).
Try writing badly about the Ghandi family (or any old-school political family, for that matter), and count the hours until you're hauled away.
Just recently some bloke in Bangalore sued Airtel for 200 million rupees because he was wrongfully jailed due to some comment that had been posted on the internet, and Airtel had not given the correct person based on the IP address.
The papers in India are just as full of the usual shit as they are in the US or UK: Politics and Celebrities. Oh, and rapes, murders, births, deaths, public notices, advertisements... and the matrimonials section (wanted: Groom for pretty 26 year old girl, Brahmin, caste no bar) etcetera.:D
What the hell are you talking about? India's cellphone networks are all rubbish (0.5% dropped call rate is considered "excellent"), although I grant you that calls are relatively cheap (Rs1/minute).
If you want any faster and you will be paying a great deal for it: 1Mbits with 100GB cap is about $35/month and 8Mbits with a 50GB cap is about $60/month (??) - and thats IF you can get it and IF you're lucky. Considering the per capita income, this is NOT cheap. 2mbits unlimited can be had for about $140 per month. (Note: I'm assuming Rs50 to the USD for simplification).
I am personally in the midst of launching an ISP in India to bring proper Broadband (2Mbit to 1Gbit) to the masses, utilizing FTTH and FSO as the main method of distribution, and something else for Wireless Access (probably some form of Wimax or LTE if we can get appropriate licensing).
And to think that I moved from Finland to India for this! (Not a joke, I actually did - On 26/11/2008, no less.)
Side note: I hereby solicit financial and technical assistance from people and organizations in Europe, S Korea, Japan or North America who have built a giant fiber network like this.
...Ohhhh, well, we need to teach some of the people in *this* country (India, but could apply to pretty much anywhere in SE Asia) how to drive: most of the people DON'T follow the rules most of the time, and break them consistently. Which ultimately causes a bottleneck effect and/or an accident, resulting in huge traffic jams.
Well, that and there are on average 6 lanes of vehicles on 3 and 4 lane roads.
> No honestly, do you guys have fat unattractive girls over there that no one photographs?
As an Englishman living in Finland, I have to admit, the women here *are* quite attractive, on the whole.
I certainly can't think of anyone who is all of: fat, unattractive, girl, not photographed, *and* over here.
The beach in summer....wow...just WOW....and, remember, the day lasts until 10 or 11 pm in summer.....we don't need no stinkin broadband, 1Mb or otherwise. Oh, right...the winter...yeah, fair enough.
I used to live in Finland, and boy do I miss it (sometimes).
Obviously you have no imagination. I never needed broadband for pornography, it was provided to me in real life, by an actual girl.
Winter is the time for having the women inside (house or sauna, doesn't matter), Summer is the time for having the women outside (boat, park, forest, beach, lake... whatever).
Good luck with that. Immigration is a bitch. I've done it twice (well, actually 4 times, but the last one was only a renewal, and the third was only to re-submit a cancelled application (by them) because I had left the country - still within the EU, but left the country nevertheless.)
Suvi Linden (kokoomus - a bit right leaning party) is a complete and utter idiot, so take a shipload of salt whatever she says.
For example the 75% requirement does not, most likely, mean 0.75 * 1Mbit/s = 8.1Gbytes/day.
Although if I wanted to, I could pull that much down without any problems.
Nor is there (likely) any requirement for international or even inter-ISP traffic. Then there might be no penalties or the penalties are something like "50% of the monthly payment" if the speed is not reached.
I am even more doubtful with the 100M, at the moment even in cities ADSL2+ is often unavailable (I've got 8000/992).
Where do you live? I don't know anywhere in the Helsinki Metro Area (in particular) that would be lacking in ADSL2+ exchanges. If you live somewhere like the outskirts of Tampere, Jyvaskyla, Kokkola, Rovaniemi etc, then, yeah, maybe. But getting Fiber in the middle of the woods isn't too much of an issue...
Oh, one more thing, the 3G actual speed is pathetic. Getting practically any web page through is futile. Downtown in a "major" city.
Again, where do you live? When I lived in Finland I used to pull down ~200Kbytes per second while watching Youtube while riding HKL.
I now live in Mumbai, and oh, the pain of obtaining a decent broadband connection *sob* (to be fixed soon, of course)
All the more reason to do what I did and: 1. Move away from New Zealand (instead try... Europe... Scandinavia. It's nice up there. Or France or Germany or Austria or... you get my drift.) 2. Don't buy an iPhone.
Look, I like Apple products as much as the next guy, but I can do way more with something like a Nokia E, N or XM series device than I can on an iPhone/iPod Touch.
The differences between the two logos are very different, and different as such that in no way will any consumer ever confuse the two.
In addition, Apple and Woolworths are in completely separate, dissimilar, and non-competing businesses.
IANAL but IIRC this is company law - the name and logo of any two companies are allowed to be somewhat similar, so long as they are not in the same field - just look through any companies register in any given country.
I have companies registered in New Zealand (and others), and I am sure that if I looked through the register for names containing words like "Kiwi" or used a logo containing some resemblance of a Kiwi, I would have quite a large number of results.
If the court rules in Apples' favour, I will be extremely surprised.
If that's what you're looking for, you should outsource to India, which seems to have a cultural affinity for precision.
You, sir, have clearly never *been* to India. I am a foreigner presently living in Mumbai, and I can assure you without a doubt, that even half-finished projects are considered a success (whether or not they are delayed or if they came in over budget).
Case in point: The Bandra-Worli sea link was recently opened to the public, even though it is only half completed (one side of the roadway still has chunks missing).
Websites are horrible. Whether it's finding a bus route or booking a train ticket, good luck trying to find the information you need. Oh it's there. Sometimes (graphics are missing from the website which displays the bus route). Other times you simply need to know more information than you can possibly actually know (the number of the train you wish to take).
The "pay my internet bill online" function of the providers website doesn't work.
My house was recently renovated. Poor workmanship means that I have mould problems (thanks monsoon!), and cracks in the new walls and ceilings.
I have a new hot water heater which seems to produce hot water from the shower if I also turn another cold tap on somewhere else in the house.
My brand-new fridge-freezer (a "frost-free" model) needs to be defrosted completely about twice a month.
Some unknown element seems to have caused 3 hard drive failures (all under 2 years old, 1 under 1 year old) and the failure of a (new) USB hub since I arrived in the country in November 2008.
Taxis are often 25 years old, but most cabbies couldn't afford new ones even if they wanted to. Fortunately, they only have like 2 moving parts and are thus a cinch to fix.
Perfection is hardly the word I would use to describe the traits of the people here. Ability to apply patch-ups and band-aids to problems, yes. Many are penny-wise, pound foolish - unfortunately, often out of necessity.
Outside of Venice is fantastic. If you're in for a non-tourist experience, stop in any of the small towns between Milan and Venice.
Don't stop in Pisa unless you plan to stay, they hate tourists (most tourists stop, take that stupid photo of them "holding up" the leaning tower, then leave).
The small towns between Bologna and Rimini are nice, too.
Also any town on the A6 (turn off before Genoa, head towards Turin) - especially in the mountains. Few things are more romantic than eating in a local restaurant where it's just two people, a couple of locals and the owners family.
I don't even remember some of the names of the towns, but I have the memories. These places are the TRUELY romantic places of Italy, and if you know even a few words in Italian, thats all the more impressive to the girl.
I used to live in Nice (not Italy, but nearby), and the amount of people that called up asking "Do you speak English?" was pretty annoying. English is my native language, and I answered the phone in English, goddamnit, but I still speak at last SOME (badly pronounced) French to the people of the city.
Helsinki has free Wifi in a lot of places as well as hot chicks (that aren't fat arsed American tourists). Stockholm and Oslo probably have it also. Oulu also has some kind of citywide Wifi or Wimax or something, I think - plus more hot chicks.
Slashdot Mirror
Combine the three.
Bring a cheapie (or even an old, retired machine).
If they take it away at all, when/if they return it to you, take the machine and hurl it with full force at the wall or ground and stamp on it (lots) as much as possible - in front of them.
If possible, remove the hard drive and repeat. ...it might make you look slightly maniacal, but all they need to know is that you can no longer trust the device and the moment it left your sight it became useless and/or potentially dangerous to use.
I'm surprised to not see any comments regarding the state of access in India. There are comments regarding the US, Australia and New Zealand, but not India.
A 155Mbits line can cost as much as US$34k/month here, so the prices and speeds of consumer (and business) net connections are pretty horrific: USD$66 including tax will get you a 2mbit unlimited connection. If that provider supplies to your area.
I myself am starting an ISP and we are planning to offer the speeds which are available in Europe and Eastern Asia (read S Korea and Japan), so things like torrents are of great concern to us.
Most people get around the P2P thing by using DC++, but the last-mile ISP market is extremely fragmented (private cable-vendors "own" different suburbs of each city, and some are plainly psychotic, judging by the behaviour they exhibit towards customers - randomly unplugging cables, sabotaging cables of competitors and so forth).
Also, because of this fragmentation, DC++ servers are available only to a limited number of people, so it is really only a partial solution, and if I'm not mistaken, torrents are still king.
Regulations allow maximum contention ratios of 50:1 for consumer broadband. If everyone torrents at 2Mbits, in theory thats ONLY 70 customers to saturate a 155Mbits line.
So far, the most effective answer lies in either throttling or in data-caps. Is there another answer that can benefit the consumer AND allow us to provide an affordable, speedy service AND one that is actually useful to everyone - especially when we're paying for example $30k/month for 155mbits?
I personally would be interested to know (email your thoughts directly to slashdot.comments at-the-rate mathew-carley.com)
I am exactly the same way.
I was "let go" from a company in Finland, citing no more projects for me (which put my visa status in a questionable position). Fine.
So I moved to India.
I'm now an on-site consultant who makes more than twice as much as the salaried employees (while I start my own company), and they are very flexible about everything: work timings, listening to music - and I've got the ITS department in a position where they have to do what I want, when I want it (otherwise I will just email the CEO and tell him that I've done what I wanted anyway and without the IT department, but it has just cost the company more).
I am situated next to one of the break-rooms, so constant clinking from tea cups, chatter, the nearby AC closet and flow of traffic would severely impact my productivity were they to tell me I could no longer listen to music.
Since I get the projects that no-one else can work on (some clients sit and wait for months), if I left mid-project, they'd have wasted many thousands of dollars and be in rather a lot of trouble.
I've even been offered a permanent position, but... my own company launches soon, so I've not replied yet - that and being "the only one who can" is a bit of a double edged sword, so I think it would be best to remain a consultant.
This seems to be a phenomenon of the English speaking world... and India (thanks UK nanny state mentality!)
I grew up in New Zealand. My mother is a registered nurse, but as kids my siblings and I always got things like Onions on our ears and Vicks on our chest.
The pills we took everyday were just Garlic Oil and Vitamin C. Yes, I got sick, but that's unavoidable as a child. We lived on a farm for part of my childhood.
My Year 7 (Age 11) at school was completely unmarred: I had exactly 0 days off school that year. The previous year I had had something that they couldn't diagnose (was it Bronchitis? Asthma? Whooping Cough? After 6 months it just went away anyway). The next year I my immune system attacked itself and I got some disease ("Rutilus offa" or something... translated from Latin to English as "Red Lumps"). That too went away by itself.
When I was 15 I worked as a "bottle-boy" at a pharmacy (basic cleaning up, making cups of coffee, running errands etc). I had 1 illness in the 18 months I worked there - which was treated with Vicks in hot water, breathed through a cloth in order to clear up my stuffy nose.
Having lived in France (where I worked in a hotel and most diseases came from people travelling the continent), Finland (didn't really get sick) and now India, actually the worst was India: but that was just my body getting used to the water, food and air.
Now I don't really have any problems, and most food I prepare myself. I occasionally get a stuffy nose but that's about it. The only thing is I mostly drink bottled water (but at US$1.50 for 20 litres, it's a bargain).
My Mrs (who is Indian) inherited from her mother an obsession with keeping everything clean and the maid washes down the apartment with Dettol DAILY. I would hate to think what would happen to them if a super-bug comes along. I find the more I make my own maid scrub down my house, the more unhealthy I feel.
To conclude, in a very roundabout way, I'm with George Carlin on this one too - not just because the man is a legend, but because of my own experience.
It would be interesting to see where the company is registered. As a non-US citizen, I don't pay too much concern for your country's taxes, but if it's registered in the US, that's just foolish.
I've been a member of this site for months. I think I was following the owner on Twitter. I found it similarly devoid of content or purpose (as it apparently still is) and haven't logged in in quite a while.
Why is this news?
And why do you need a static IP again? And why do you need IPv6? Let's face it: COMMON users don't use that stuff - of course you're going to have to pay extra for it.
I used to have 24Mbits at home (in Kruununhaka) and 100Mbits at my office (in Pasila, then Kamppi). I never had a problem, and people receiving files from me rarely had speeds sufficient to warrant me needing more upload speed.
ADSL2+ is limited in upload speed by the technology itself, as is VDSL2 - hardly the providers fault.
If I got offered a job in Finland (and didn't have to deal with shitty immigration), I'd move back in a heartbeat (I'm THAT desperate for decent Broadband).
And that's why we're starting with an all-fiber network :)
Something IS fishy. Consumers in India get shafted.
If you want a 2mbits commercial connection, no problem. It might cost you $500 a month, but you'll get it. If you want 2mbits as a consumer? Good luck with that.
Part of the problem is infrastructure: telephone lines are old, cable networks are quite rubbish, and your average cable provider supplies only one or two neighbourhoods. The national cable ISPs can't even lay their own cables in those areas (the local "cablewalas" have been known to sabotage cables), and are instead forced to supply the cable vendor who in turn supplies the end user (with his commission, of course)... it's a mini war.
So, broadband is actually surprisingly hard to install in India, and even then, the way people put stuff together here, your average cable line installation is not exactly what we would call "professional" - it probably wont even be cut and spliced with a T-connector - more likely that they will cut through the cable shielding, wrap your cable end in to it, then wrap some electrical tape around it - and pray that it works for at least a month (until call the helpdesk and reported that your connection doesn't work, so they send a technician to re-connect the cable and put fresh electrical tape).
Ahhh for dodgyness and lack of standards :)
India? Free Press? When was this, 1912?
Try writing badly about the Ghandi family (or any old-school political family, for that matter), and count the hours until you're hauled away.
Just recently some bloke in Bangalore sued Airtel for 200 million rupees because he was wrongfully jailed due to some comment that had been posted on the internet, and Airtel had not given the correct person based on the IP address.
The papers in India are just as full of the usual shit as they are in the US or UK: Politics and Celebrities. Oh, and rapes, murders, births, deaths, public notices, advertisements... and the matrimonials section (wanted: Groom for pretty 26 year old girl, Brahmin, caste no bar) etcetera. :D
Yes. Free Press indeed.
To Amartya Sen: Really? Are you sure? I hope you weren't a history major.
Yes, but as mentioned in a previous post, India's Broadband situation still sucks.
What the hell are you talking about? India's cellphone networks are all rubbish (0.5% dropped call rate is considered "excellent"), although I grant you that calls are relatively cheap (Rs1/minute).
Broadband access basically does not exist: most people have 128k or 256k... MAYBE 512k at best, and it is extremely unreliable by international standards. http://broadbandforum.in/hayai-broadband/47079-2009-and-we-still-stuck-256kbps-broadband/
If you want any faster and you will be paying a great deal for it: 1Mbits with 100GB cap is about $35/month and 8Mbits with a 50GB cap is about $60/month (??) - and thats IF you can get it and IF you're lucky. Considering the per capita income, this is NOT cheap. 2mbits unlimited can be had for about $140 per month. (Note: I'm assuming Rs50 to the USD for simplification).
I am personally in the midst of launching an ISP in India to bring proper Broadband (2Mbit to 1Gbit) to the masses, utilizing FTTH and FSO as the main method of distribution, and something else for Wireless Access (probably some form of Wimax or LTE if we can get appropriate licensing).
And to think that I moved from Finland to India for this! (Not a joke, I actually did - On 26/11/2008, no less.)
Side note: I hereby solicit financial and technical assistance from people and organizations in Europe, S Korea, Japan or North America who have built a giant fiber network like this.
...Ohhhh, well, we need to teach some of the people in *this* country (India, but could apply to pretty much anywhere in SE Asia) how to drive: most of the people DON'T follow the rules most of the time, and break them consistently. Which ultimately causes a bottleneck effect and/or an accident, resulting in huge traffic jams.
Well, that and there are on average 6 lanes of vehicles on 3 and 4 lane roads.
What I don't get is why they are suing the computer manufacturers and not the actual component makers - Realtek, Broadcom etc.
Oh yeah, cause China/Taiwan will tell the troll to fsck off.
But we do have nicer weather than Finland and the rum is way cheaper here.
Unless, like myself and many other slashdotters, you are "allergic" to sun, and prefer cold, dark days.
> No honestly, do you guys have fat unattractive girls over there that no one photographs?
As an Englishman living in Finland, I have to admit, the women here *are* quite attractive, on the whole.
I certainly can't think of anyone who is all of: fat, unattractive, girl, not photographed, *and* over here.
The beach in summer....wow...just WOW....and, remember, the day lasts until 10 or 11 pm in summer.....we don't need no stinkin broadband, 1Mb or otherwise. Oh, right...the winter...yeah, fair enough.
I used to live in Finland, and boy do I miss it (sometimes).
Obviously you have no imagination. I never needed broadband for pornography, it was provided to me in real life, by an actual girl.
Winter is the time for having the women inside (house or sauna, doesn't matter), Summer is the time for having the women outside (boat, park, forest, beach, lake... whatever).
Right. I'm off to Finland.
Good luck with that. Immigration is a bitch. I've done it twice (well, actually 4 times, but the last one was only a renewal, and the third was only to re-submit a cancelled application (by them) because I had left the country - still within the EU, but left the country nevertheless.)
If you want to see people who have extremely limited access to a whole host of shit you've never even imagined could be limited, go to Africa.
Or India. Or anywhere in the rural parts of Asia. Some of those folks have barely even heard of the Internet (if at all)!
Suvi Linden (kokoomus - a bit right leaning party) is a complete and utter idiot, so take a shipload of salt whatever she says.
For example the 75% requirement does not, most likely, mean 0.75 * 1Mbit/s = 8.1Gbytes/day.
Although if I wanted to, I could pull that much down without any problems.
Nor is there (likely) any requirement for international or even inter-ISP traffic.
Then there might be no penalties or the penalties are something like "50% of the monthly payment" if the speed is not reached.
I am even more doubtful with the 100M, at the moment even in cities ADSL2+ is often unavailable (I've got 8000/992).
Where do you live? I don't know anywhere in the Helsinki Metro Area (in particular) that would be lacking in ADSL2+ exchanges. If you live somewhere like the outskirts of Tampere, Jyvaskyla, Kokkola, Rovaniemi etc, then, yeah, maybe. But getting Fiber in the middle of the woods isn't too much of an issue...
Oh, one more thing, the 3G actual speed is pathetic. Getting practically any web page through is futile. Downtown in a "major" city.
Again, where do you live? When I lived in Finland I used to pull down ~200Kbytes per second while watching Youtube while riding HKL.
I now live in Mumbai, and oh, the pain of obtaining a decent broadband connection *sob* (to be fixed soon, of course)
All the more reason to do what I did and:
1. Move away from New Zealand (instead try... Europe... Scandinavia. It's nice up there. Or France or Germany or Austria or... you get my drift.)
2. Don't buy an iPhone.
Look, I like Apple products as much as the next guy, but I can do way more with something like a Nokia E, N or XM series device than I can on an iPhone/iPod Touch.
The differences between the two logos are very different, and different as such that in no way will any consumer ever confuse the two.
In addition, Apple and Woolworths are in completely separate, dissimilar, and non-competing businesses.
IANAL but IIRC this is company law - the name and logo of any two companies are allowed to be somewhat similar, so long as they are not in the same field - just look through any companies register in any given country.
I have companies registered in New Zealand (and others), and I am sure that if I looked through the register for names containing words like "Kiwi" or used a logo containing some resemblance of a Kiwi, I would have quite a large number of results.
If the court rules in Apples' favour, I will be extremely surprised.
If that's what you're looking for, you should outsource to India, which seems to have a cultural affinity for precision.
You, sir, have clearly never *been* to India. I am a foreigner presently living in Mumbai, and I can assure you without a doubt, that even half-finished projects are considered a success (whether or not they are delayed or if they came in over budget).
Case in point: The Bandra-Worli sea link was recently opened to the public, even though it is only half completed (one side of the roadway still has chunks missing).
Websites are horrible. Whether it's finding a bus route or booking a train ticket, good luck trying to find the information you need. Oh it's there. Sometimes (graphics are missing from the website which displays the bus route). Other times you simply need to know more information than you can possibly actually know (the number of the train you wish to take).
The "pay my internet bill online" function of the providers website doesn't work.
My house was recently renovated. Poor workmanship means that I have mould problems (thanks monsoon!), and cracks in the new walls and ceilings.
I have a new hot water heater which seems to produce hot water from the shower if I also turn another cold tap on somewhere else in the house.
My brand-new fridge-freezer (a "frost-free" model) needs to be defrosted completely about twice a month.
Some unknown element seems to have caused 3 hard drive failures (all under 2 years old, 1 under 1 year old) and the failure of a (new) USB hub since I arrived in the country in November 2008.
Taxis are often 25 years old, but most cabbies couldn't afford new ones even if they wanted to. Fortunately, they only have like 2 moving parts and are thus a cinch to fix.
Perfection is hardly the word I would use to describe the traits of the people here. Ability to apply patch-ups and band-aids to problems, yes. Many are penny-wise, pound foolish - unfortunately, often out of necessity.
Outside of Venice is fantastic. If you're in for a non-tourist experience, stop in any of the small towns between Milan and Venice.
Don't stop in Pisa unless you plan to stay, they hate tourists (most tourists stop, take that stupid photo of them "holding up" the leaning tower, then leave).
The small towns between Bologna and Rimini are nice, too.
Also any town on the A6 (turn off before Genoa, head towards Turin) - especially in the mountains. Few things are more romantic than eating in a local restaurant where it's just two people, a couple of locals and the owners family.
I don't even remember some of the names of the towns, but I have the memories. These places are the TRUELY romantic places of Italy, and if you know even a few words in Italian, thats all the more impressive to the girl.
I used to live in Nice (not Italy, but nearby), and the amount of people that called up asking "Do you speak English?" was pretty annoying. English is my native language, and I answered the phone in English, goddamnit, but I still speak at last SOME (badly pronounced) French to the people of the city.
Helsinki has free Wifi in a lot of places as well as hot chicks (that aren't fat arsed American tourists). Stockholm and Oslo probably have it also. Oulu also has some kind of citywide Wifi or Wimax or something, I think - plus more hot chicks.
Beat that!