Stupid question, but can I affordably call worldwide cellphones yet, or do they need VoIP?
A VOIP app lets you make calls to regular phones. It works with cellphones too, but it might cost more. E.g. in calling from Taiwan to the UK/US I get these rates
United Kingdom (Landline) $ 0.003 United Kingdom (Main) (Mobile) $ 0.003 United Kingdom (Others) (Mobile) $ 0.120 United Kingdom [084 Rate] $ 0.130 United Kingdom [087 Rate] $ 0.200 United Kingdom [Personal] $ 0.300 United States (Landline) $ 0.003 United States (Mobile) $ 0.003
So in the calling from a VOIP app to a US phone is $0.003 flat rate. Calling a UK phone varies. Though in practice all the UK mobile numbers I call seem to be $0.003.
Calling the UK from the US has the same rates as calling it from Taiwan.
So the answer is yes. You can run a VOIP app on your phone and use that to call worldwide cellphones. The cost varies but it's pretty decent.
And of course there are other VOIP providers. There are various search engines that let you work out the best deal for the countries you call most, but I can't find the one I used to use and the only one I could find is - http://voip-comparison.com/bet... - is terrible.
Unfortunately almost all of the VOIP providers including PowerVoip are owned by Delmont, and so if you pay $5 for a good free calls to a bunch of countries, they might put the rates up! However I've been using PowerVoip for about two years and I'm still paying $0.003 per minute for all my calls whether to mobile or fixed line.
Watch out calling the UK though. Some numbers are expensive. Check the per minute rate when MobileVoip starts the call and cancel it if it's too much!
When you wrote that was it something that you didn't intend people to take as literal incitement, in which case I'm right and that most such statements are hyperbole? Or was it literal incitement, in which case you're a terrible person?
Yeah, I think the FTC is being dishonest with that figure. It's high enough for a casual reader to think there is no problem, and yet once you look into it you start to see someone has made some very careful choices in order to get a figure that high.
It anyone says "95%+ of X" you should look very carefully into their methodology for claiming it. Odds are they're trying to mislead you.
And you can call Taiwan to/from the US or UK for like $0.001-$0.003 per minute. So that $10 will last a long time. And you do it over WiFi so you don't get hit with data charges. MobileVOIP as a callback option if you don't have Wifi. Hell in the when I'm in the US I even used it for domestic calls because my $30 a month T Mobile Walmart Pay As You Go card only had 100 minutes of talk time bundled and I preferred to keep those for incoming calls. Which in the US, unlike anywhere else count in the world against your minutes allowance and start to cost money when that runs out.
So if you need to call people who don't have Skype/Hangouts/Facetime/Messenger/What'sApp/Line/etc you can do it pretty cheaply.
15 years ago the vast majority of desktops ran Microsoft's operating systems. Microsoft Office was dominant and virtually everyone felt obliged to exchange editable documents in its formats.
Today that hasn't actually changed. Microsoft was unable to move its monopoly to the new portable computing markets, but desktops remain the dominant computing platform, and Microsoft continues to dominate it.
I can edit those document formats fine in LibreOffice on my Macbook. My Galaxy S5 running Android came with a viewer for them. LibreOffice runs on "Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Android (Viewer)". Office 365 runs on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. Macs and iOS devices come with iWork which I don't particularly like but does let you edit them too. I'm guessing if you opened one of those documents on an recent Android or iOS device without installing anything you'd be able to view it and possibly edit too, and an application to edit them is usually available for free on pretty much any platform. And of course there's Google Docs.
I.e. the days when you needed Windows and Microsoft Office to be able to edit.doc[x] and.xls[x] files are long gone.
It's funny the UK market was better last time I got an internet connection there.
You've got a competitive DSL market and monopoly fibre and/or monopoly cable if you live in a city. Out of a city you've got 1Mbit DSL only, but you do still have a choice of provider.
I do support the idea of tort reform in principle. It would come down the details of a proposal whether I'd support it in practice.
Most US legislation is extremely disingenuously marketed as fulfilling some abstract principle when in practice both political parties have no principles and simply push legislation which benefits them and screws their opponents.
A documentary is clearly speech, even if it cost money to produce.
And before the CU decision you had the bizarre situation that a documentary produced by Michael Moore's Dog Eat Dog films, a corporation was speech but one by CU, another corporation was money.
That makes no sense. And the SCOTUS ended up ruling that the government had no power to prevent either under campaign finance laws.
People use built-in Metro apps all the time in Windows 10 without realizing it.
Well that's not quite the same thing is it? If I use Windows 10 and the control panel is Metro, of course I'd have to use it. But the apps I install and run on Windows, i.e. the reason I need Windows are all x86 or x64 Win32 or Win64 ones. I don't know any Metro apps I've installed and still use.
Though a private monopoly could do in theory do the same thing. However you could sue a private company, even a monopoly more easily than a government entity which can claim sovereign immunity or an individual politician who could claim official immunity.
I.e. the government can pretty much poison you without fear of a lawsuit
On November 13, 2015, four families filed a federal class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit against Governor Rick Snyder and thirteen other city and state officials, including former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling and ex-emergency financial manager Darnell Earley, who was in charge of the city when the switch to the Flint River was made. The complaint alleges that the officials acted recklessly and negligently, leading to serious injuries from lead poisoning, including autoimmune disorders, skin lesions, and "brain fog."[220][221][222] The complaint says that the officials' conduct was "reckless and outrageous" and "shocks the conscience and was deliberately indifferent to... constitutional rights."[222] The case was dismissed on February 3, 2017, with the judge stating his court has lack of subject-matter jurisdiction in the matter. Their attorneys filed an appeal on February 6.[223][224]
The legal doctrines of sovereign immunity (which protects the state from suit) and official immunity (which in Michigan shields top government officials from personal liability, even in cases of gross negligence) resulted in comparatively few lawsuits being filed in the Flint case, and caused large national plaintiffs' law firms to be reluctant to become involved with the case.[225]
Another problem is they tried to force the new mode onto old users on devices that didn't support it well. Even now most new gaming laptops don't have touch screens. In fact even if I had a device with a touch screen I don't want to use it when keyboard and trackpad are something my muscle memory knows how to use efficiently. If they'd had tablet mode and non tablet mode, picked automagically by device type and allowed the user to override it, they'd have been fine.
Of course Windows 8 wasn't really about tablets - it was an attempt to get people using Metro apps, so people would write Metro apps and thus produce some apps for the failing Windows Phone. It's the reason Windows RT on Arm devices only allowed Metro apps, prohibited Win32 ones and also locked out third party OSs via Secure Boot. Since there weren't many compelling Metro apps the net result that was people found out that Windows RT Arm devices were useless and didn't buy them.
Windows 10 on Arm is actually going to be a very different beast. It allows Win32 Arm applications and even contains an JIT to let you run Win32 x86 ones. Now running Photoshop on a Snapdragon 835 via JIT with no SSE because of the threat of an Intel lawsuit is going to suck compared to running it on an i7, but at least they allow it.
This is a very naive viewpoint. Utilities need right of way to run their lines to each residence throughout the city. You can't have everyone digging everywhere or putting up poles wherever they feel like it. Likewise, you cannot have one homeowner blocking internet access to half the city.
In the UK BT owns the phone lines. However it is forced to sell DSL wholesale packages at a capped price. Those are resold by ISPs. So there's one set of wires for telephone but there is still competition.
If you've only got one DSL provider in each area in the US, the regulations are written wrong. Basically some company has manipulated them via regulatory capture. That's a problem.
Though actually the FCC claims 97% of Americans do have a choice
The real alternative to the light regulatory touch the Internet enjoyed during its first twenty years-one that admittedly left executives at Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T to figure out what consumers wanted-is an Internet experience controlled by unelected government bureaucrats and elderly politicians (the average age of a Representative is 57 and the average of a Senator is 61).
Does that sort of big government control strike anyone as a recipe for unfettered free speech and torrents of innovation? It shouldn't.
Certainly, markets don't deliver everything to everyone perfectly at all times. But as flawed as your broadband provider's customer service or variable connectivity speed can be, it's still better than dealing with the post office or the IRS.
That's largely because, if it gets maddening enough, you can quit your broadband provider and switch to another one. Or at least most of us can: FCC data shows that 97 percent of census blocks had more than one provider offering at minimum 10 Mbps as of 2016. You don't get the option to take your business elsewhere at the DMV.
It's that consumer power in a relatively unfettered marketplace that's driven the striking growth and improvement in broadband speeds and availability. Current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai noted in his 2015 dissent to the Open Internet Order that the United State's light regulatory approach resulted in much faster speeds for consumers and more industry investment in wireline deployment than the utility-style regulation in Europe has produced.
Laying net neutrality regulations and restrictions on this dynamic industry will reduce the rate of returns for these broadband providers and, all else being equal, will lower investment, as Duke University Professor Michelle Connolly recently explained at an economist's roundtable.
tl;dr - if there's not enough competition, then fix that. Net Neutrality won't do that. It doesn't need multiple sets of wires, merely regulation that forces whoever owns the wires to allow multiple companies to operate on them and still be profitable. If you do that you'll get multiple competing services. And if some of those don't fulfill the holy principles of Net Neutrality, you're free to use a different one.
You'll get a load of posts telling you don't understand the principle of 'Net Neutrality'. When in fact you understand it just fine, you just don't agree with it. Or, more accurately, you don't think that 'Net Neutrality' goes far enough because it still allows Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to censor its users and only prevents Facebook's ISP from forcing people to pay more to access FB or to charge FB more to send its packets.
And the thing is that former case is happening but the later case seems to be purely theoretical. And before anyone mentions MEO in Portugal, the situation is nuanced.
I reached out to Meo on what exactly their SmartNet offering entailed. Here's their response (emphasis original):
"MEO complies with the European regulation on net neutrality and there is no distortion of the market caused by its commercial offers. Access and use of any application or service on the Internet is permitted by all MEO Internet access offers, and it is not necessary to adhere to specific packages in order to enjoy certain applications.
The SmartNet offerings correspond only to additional traffic ceilings for certain thematic sets of applications that are no more than the reflection of Portuguese consumer preferences. These offers are beneficial to consumers since it allows them to further customize the packages according to their consumption profiles. MEO is proud to have been a pioneer in launching this type of offer in Portugal, with multiple examples of similar offerings in other countries such as Spain, Germany and Belgium."
So Khanna either doesn't understand Meo's SmartNet is an extra service which could save customers more money, or didn't bother trying to figure out what it meant to serve his own purposes. It should also be pointed out these offerings have nothing to do with Internet access from a computer, but from a mobile phone or tablet. Their top data plan is 30GB. AT&T starts data throttling at 21GB, for what it's worth, even with their "unlimited" data. Verizon has their own version of data throttling, as does Sprint. These are with net neutrality, for the record.
The actual facts reveal that mobile operators appear to be competing to give consumers more, not less, options. And, of course, a quick perusal of the actual service offerings available to consumers confirms that this is exactly what is happening in Portugal. Three facilities-based providers currently operate in Portugal (a country of 10 million people): MEO (a play on "meu" or "mine"), Vodafone, and NOS (a play on "nos" or "us/we").
MEO offers 4 basic mobile plans with some amount of "unlimited" calling, SMS, and/or data use, ranging from the cheapest (about $13/month) to the most expensive ($57/month). The cheapest plan (with voice/SMS) comes with 500mbs of mobile internet service and the most expensive plan offers 30gbs--with which the consumer can use to access the whole internet. But, if a customer only wants mobile internet service, she has the option to purchase 10gbs of service (to the "whole" internet) for about $18.00/month (offer here).
MEO also offers consumers--with any mobile internet plan--the ability to get "SmartNet" packages with an additional 10gbs of the applications they use most (e.g., video or social networks) for an additional €4.99 ($5.80)/month. In other words, the "tiered" graphic that "scary news" articles are using to show the "cable" apocalypse was finally upon us, is in fact merely a bunch of mini "binging" packages (similar to T-Mobile's popular "binge on" promotion).
What about the other providers? Although none of the other operators offers anything like the "SmartNet" mini-bin
Microsoft appears to have learned *nothing* from its Windows Mobile debacle (where they had the #1 mobile OS with capabilities that were *years* ahead of Apple & Android... then threw it all away and rendered themselves *irrelevant* as a mobile-device OS). Microsoft appears determined to render themselves equally-irrelevant in the non-phone realm (but will probably take most of the market for "real" PCs into their grave with them... the desktop/laptop market can't survive another "Windows 8" debacle).
Yup, that's what convinced me to move from Windows Mobile to Android. Both are kind of klunky in terms of UI but very flexible (custom Roms, replaceable launchers), and have lots of hardware vendors and lots of software companies support them. Meanwhile Windows Phone had a new UI, but didn't run any of the old software. It wasn't flexible and MS had to pay HTC and Samsung to make the devices because they never had an market share and eventually bought Nokia and turned it into their in house Windows Phone vendor.
It never got anything like the support from third party developers that Windows Mobile did - most of the WIndows Mobile ones moved to Android/iOS and never looked back.
And in the end MS killed off Windows Phone. Unfortunately they wrecked Windows 8 trying to get people to use Metro apps in the meantime.
I'm still not 100% convinced that they won't kill desktop Windows in much the way they killed Windows Mobile. Which would be a shame.
Well... Many people, especially the youngsters, are use to using smartphones and tablets, where you usually only see/use one app at a time.
It sounds like MS's attempt to push a tablet/phone UI onto desktop users with Windows 8. They ended up with the odd situation that people who were doing to buy a tablet or phone bought one anyway, and not from Microsoft. Meanwhile people who wanted a desktop machine mostly held off on buying a Windows machine with Windows 8 - they kept their Windows 7 machine, or they bought a Mac.
And people who did buy a Windows 8 machine were often baffled by it
I bet a lot of these machines got returned inside the 30 day period.
I remember my parents who had an liked iPads, iPhones and Android devices, not wanting a machine with anything but 7 on it.
Now personally I didn't like it out of the box, but Windows 8+Classic Shell was fine. I set it up on the machines of people who complained about it, and they were happy. I didn't buy any machines with it on though - I stuck with Windows 7 on my laptop because that still works fine.
I've got Windows 10 in a VM on my Mac and it's fine even without any third party hacks like Classic Shell. So it's probably OK for non technical types - they're not going to return it.
And now it seems like MS have decided to try a new 'bold and innovative' UI. I reckon it will work out for them as well as Windows 8 did.
Say what you like about the Augustus but his feelings represent a change in cultural thought. You seem to associate with ideas from a fading culture. Whether you choose to accept it, this is the direction we are heading.
Pretty much. Now they've gone back to a start menu from a start screen you can tell that the people who pushed the start screen at Microsoft are going to push some new UI innovation which will irritate everyone outside of Microsoft.
Well a few tech reviewers will write articles where they cut and paste phrases from Microsoft's press release and say 'much better than the old Windows way of doing things' in return for a swag bag from a hot girl at Microsoft PR. And then go back to using their Macbooks.
A few people will point out that for people who actually use Windows at work it is vastly inferior. Or for people who use Windows at home and are not that technical it is completely baffling.
Microsoft will ignore this of course and push it out by auto update. And then they'll notice that strangely their share of all devices browsing the net, already level pegging with Android, has dropped a bit more as non technical types flee to Android, iOS, macOS etc. Technical types will figure out hack to revert the changes or head for Mac or Linux. Corporations will pay for downgrade rights to older MS OSs.
Microsoft will insist everything is fine for a while, and then introduce a new OS which claims to roll back the changes but which does not. Amusing comics will be drawn.
Market share will continue to l fall, but technical types who need Windows will stick with their hack. Or rather a newer version, because Microsoft broke the first one with the new OS release. Or move to Mac because they want to be able to build apps for Android and iOS, the only OSs that really matter commercially now that the WIndows ship is sinking even faster than before. If Google were smart at this point they'd offer something which is a bit more capable than a Chromebook, AndroidBook for example, to try to hoover up some of those people fleeing Windows but who don't want a Mac and can't use Linux but they probably aren't. Apple will probably do something stupid to put people off Macs, analogous to their decision to solder in ram and SSD on all new models to stop people upgrading them. What that will be I'm not sure. Switch the whole keyboard to a larger version of the TouchBar for example.
Finally Microsoft will release an OS which really does roll back most of the changes, the way Windows 10 has a start menu with a load of 'tile shit' embedded in it that no one uses but it's sort of OK because it has the Win32 apps people actually use there too. Corporations will still try to pay for downgrade rights, and Microsoft will tell them they can't anymore.
And then the cycle will start anew! It's the circle of life!
IBM used to be a byword for proprietary lock in. Then PC clones took over and IBM's attempt at moving people from them to PS/2s, MCA and OS/2 failed.
And then IBM changed to be a proponent of open systems, The Cloud and so on.
Of course The Cloud gives another kind of lock in because the company that controls your cloud accounts controls all your data. For a long time Google kept people from noticing this because your Gmail data limit grew with time. Now it's stopped growing and because people don't delete their emails in Gmail, eventually they'll need to start paying. And Google have all your data, which means they can monetize it.
Microsoft could offer Office on iOS, Android and Chromebooks and then do what Google did. MS Office after all still has a certain amount of cachet in the mind of the general public.
Microsoft has offered Office free to Android and iOS devices for two years now, with some restrictions for larger devices. Now that Chromebooks are starting to get access to Android apps, those same restrictions will apply for Google's laptops. Just like the iPad Pro, Chromebooks with a screen larger than 10.1 inches will not be able to access Microsoft Office editing free of charge.
This restriction includes most Chromebooks on the market, and it's only devices like ASUS' Chromebook Flip (10.1-inch display) that will be able to use Microsoft Office free of charge. "Google Play on Chrome OS is in beta, we are partnering with Google to deliver the best experience for Chromebook users and plan to make the apps available on all compatible devices by general availability," explains a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to 9to5Google. "On devices larger than 10.1 inches, an Office 365 subscription is required to unlock the ability to create, edit, or print documents."
This isn't a new strategy or policy, and Microsoft isn't unfairly targeting Chromebooks. The software giant revealed last year that it would classify a machine with a 10.1-inch display or below as a "true mobile device." Microsoft applied the same rules to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, while the smaller iPad Pro still retains free access to Microsoft Office. Microsoft currently offers individual Office 365 Personal subscriptions for $6.99 per month, or $69.99 a year.
I.e. it's free on cheap device. It's $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year on expensive ones. Of course in the long run more devices will have screens above 10.1 inches and that means people will need to pay. It's smart, but it's a trap.
After the British surrender, Washington sent Tench Tilghman to report the victory to Congress. After a difficult journey, he arrived in Philadelphia, which celebrated for several days. The British Prime Minister, Lord North, is reported to have exclaimed "Oh God, it's all over" when told of the defeat. Washington moved his army to New Windsor, New York where they remained stationed until the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, formally ending the war.
So they went from losing the US colonies to fighting off the French at home in thirteen years.
If you look thirteen years before Dunkirk (1940) of course, things were pretty good. 1927 was pre Hitler, pre Great Depression, pre 1929 crash.
Probably in 1927 people thought Germany would always be led by people like Stresemann, perpetual peace had been achieved by diplomacy and they didn't need to waste money on arms.
It'd just way to express hyperbolic enthusiasm for something, not a literal call for murder.
For the overly literal out there, please don't shoot anyone. I liked Doctor Who when I was a kid and Tom Baker happened to be Doctor then. I went off it later because I grew up. Tom Baker not being the Doctor didn't cause that.
Also I don't think ESR should be killed or that Kernighan, Ritchie or Stroustrup are prophets or that heresy causes halitosis, despite what I wrote here.
That was also a joke. It's true I like C and a subset of C++ at my choice and dislike ESR and I was expressing that in a humorously extreme way. People in that thread seemed to get that.
Gee, it's going to be hard writing posts which even the autists won't take literally. You know what if any of this post is hard for you to comprehend how about this - Don't kill anyone because of something I, or anyone else, said on the Internet. Or off the Internet for that matter. Don't kill anyone and don't take what they tell you literally.
If someone said they were a Whovian I'd assume they had some sort of autism like disorder. Its literally worse red flag for personality disorders than being a Brony.
The Penman for the US Constitution was One Mr Jacob Shallus, an Immigrant of German Origin. Perhaps he decided that Nouns should be Capitalized in English as they were in his Native Tounge
Incidentally in contemporary British documents I don't believe capitalization of nouns was common. And Jefferson didn't do it in his private correspondence.
Incidentally you can see why the UK didn't deal with the rebellion in the US when you realise they had more pressing problems closer to home
The French landed troops in Ireland in 1796 and 1798
You can see why on balance, having the US run by Washington rather than a Governor General wasn't at the top of British priorities. In fact if you look at Cornwallis's career he was basically fighting rearguard actions all over the place, retreating to avoid a much worse disaster
On 16 June 1795 he was in command of a small squadron that sighted a much larger French fleet. The ensuing action became famously known as "The Retreat of Cornwallis."
Cornwallis was cruising near Brest with five ships of the line, HMS Royal Sovereign, HMS Mars, HMS Triumph, HMS Brunswick, HMS Bellerophon, two frigates and one cutter, HMS Phaeton, HMS Pallas, HMS Kingfisher when a French fleet of twelve sail of the line and fourteen large frigates appeared, commanded by Admiral Villaret Joyeuse. The odds being very greatly against him, he was compelled to order a retreat. But two of his ships were slow and unweatherly and fell behind the rest. The van of the French fleet began to catch the two slower British ships. The rearmost ship, Mars, was caught and suffered severely in her rigging and was in danger of being surrounded by the French. Witnessing this, Cornwallis turned his squadron around to support her. The French admiral made the assumption that Cornwallis must have sighted assistance beyond his own field of vision and had turned to engage the enemy knowing that a superior force was nearby to come to their relief. The French admiral ordered his ships to disengage and Cornwallis and his small squadron retreated in order. The action is remarkable evidence of the moral superiority which the victory of the Glorious First of June, and the known efficiency of the British crews, had given to the Royal Navy. The reputation of Cornwallis was amplified and the praise given him was no doubt the greater because he was personally very popular with officers and men.
I.e. far from being invincible around the time of the American revolution, the UK was in deep shit all over the place and was basically playing a losing hand the best it could.
Slashdot Mirror
Stupid question, but can I affordably call worldwide cellphones yet, or do they need VoIP?
A VOIP app lets you make calls to regular phones. It works with cellphones too, but it might cost more. E.g. in calling from Taiwan to the UK/US I get these rates
https://www.powervoip.com/call...
So in the calling from a VOIP app to a US phone is $0.003 flat rate. Calling a UK phone varies. Though in practice all the UK mobile numbers I call seem to be $0.003.
Calling from the US you'd get these rates
Calling the UK from the US has the same rates as calling it from Taiwan.
So the answer is yes. You can run a VOIP app on your phone and use that to call worldwide cellphones. The cost varies but it's pretty decent.
And of course there are other VOIP providers. There are various search engines that let you work out the best deal for the countries you call most, but I can't find the one I used to use and the only one I could find is - http://voip-comparison.com/bet... - is terrible.
Unfortunately almost all of the VOIP providers including PowerVoip are owned by Delmont, and so if you pay $5 for a good free calls to a bunch of countries, they might put the rates up! However I've been using PowerVoip for about two years and I'm still paying $0.003 per minute for all my calls whether to mobile or fixed line.
Watch out calling the UK though. Some numbers are expensive. Check the per minute rate when MobileVoip starts the call and cancel it if it's too much!
http://voip-comparison.com/bet...
LibreOffice works fine on the documents I've got. So does OpenOffice. So does Polaris Office on Android, at least as a viewer.
Whoever feels that way should be raped.
When you wrote that was it something that you didn't intend people to take as literal incitement, in which case I'm right and that most such statements are hyperbole? Or was it literal incitement, in which case you're a terrible person?
Yeah, I think the FTC is being dishonest with that figure. It's high enough for a casual reader to think there is no problem, and yet once you look into it you start to see someone has made some very careful choices in order to get a figure that high.
It anyone says "95%+ of X" you should look very carefully into their methodology for claiming it. Odds are they're trying to mislead you.
Actually VOIP works pretty well
Find a VOIP provider, e.g.
https://www.powervoip.com/dash...
Buy $10 credit
Then install a VOIP app on your phone
E.g.
MobileVOIP
And you can call Taiwan to/from the US or UK for like $0.001-$0.003 per minute. So that $10 will last a long time. And you do it over WiFi so you don't get hit with data charges. MobileVOIP as a callback option if you don't have Wifi. Hell in the when I'm in the US I even used it for domestic calls because my $30 a month T Mobile Walmart Pay As You Go card only had 100 minutes of talk time bundled and I preferred to keep those for incoming calls. Which in the US, unlike anywhere else count in the world against your minutes allowance and start to cost money when that runs out.
So if you need to call people who don't have Skype/Hangouts/Facetime/Messenger/What'sApp/Line/etc you can do it pretty cheaply.
15 years ago the vast majority of desktops ran Microsoft's operating systems. Microsoft Office was dominant and virtually everyone felt obliged to exchange editable documents in its formats.
Today that hasn't actually changed. Microsoft was unable to move its monopoly to the new portable computing markets, but desktops remain the dominant computing platform, and Microsoft continues to dominate it.
I can edit those document formats fine in LibreOffice on my Macbook. My Galaxy S5 running Android came with a viewer for them. LibreOffice runs on "Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Android (Viewer)". Office 365 runs on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. Macs and iOS devices come with iWork which I don't particularly like but does let you edit them too. I'm guessing if you opened one of those documents on an recent Android or iOS device without installing anything you'd be able to view it and possibly edit too, and an application to edit them is usually available for free on pretty much any platform. And of course there's Google Docs.
I.e. the days when you needed Windows and Microsoft Office to be able to edit .doc[x] and .xls[x] files are long gone.
It's funny the UK market was better last time I got an internet connection there.
You've got a competitive DSL market and monopoly fibre and/or monopoly cable if you live in a city. Out of a city you've got 1Mbit DSL only, but you do still have a choice of provider.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
I do support the idea of tort reform in principle. It would come down the details of a proposal whether I'd support it in practice.
Most US legislation is extremely disingenuously marketed as fulfilling some abstract principle when in practice both political parties have no principles and simply push legislation which benefits them and screws their opponents.
A documentary is clearly speech, even if it cost money to produce.
And before the CU decision you had the bizarre situation that a documentary produced by Michael Moore's Dog Eat Dog films, a corporation was speech but one by CU, another corporation was money.
That makes no sense. And the SCOTUS ended up ruling that the government had no power to prevent either under campaign finance laws.
Enjoy choosing one group of corrupt, authoritarian politicians over a slightly worse one come election day.
Except you don't get to choose because, like cable companies, US political parties have a regional monopoly.
People use built-in Metro apps all the time in Windows 10 without realizing it.
Well that's not quite the same thing is it? If I use Windows 10 and the control panel is Metro, of course I'd have to use it. But the apps I install and run on Windows, i.e. the reason I need Windows are all x86 or x64 Win32 or Win64 ones. I don't know any Metro apps I've installed and still use.
It doesn't matter who owns the natural monopoly, the point is that the government forces them to allow competitors to use it.
Actually the US has Local Loop Unbundling already
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just like the UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It seems like that only applies to DSL and phone lines though. Then again that's the same as the UK.
Assuming you're in the US how many ISPs can you choose from, including DSL, Cable, FIber and so on?
Isn't the Flint water crisis an example of the government - Flint City Council - poisoning people?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Though a private monopoly could do in theory do the same thing. However you could sue a private company, even a monopoly more easily than a government entity which can claim sovereign immunity or an individual politician who could claim official immunity.
I.e. the government can pretty much poison you without fear of a lawsuit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
On November 13, 2015, four families filed a federal class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit against Governor Rick Snyder and thirteen other city and state officials, including former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling and ex-emergency financial manager Darnell Earley, who was in charge of the city when the switch to the Flint River was made. The complaint alleges that the officials acted recklessly and negligently, leading to serious injuries from lead poisoning, including autoimmune disorders, skin lesions, and "brain fog."[220][221][222] The complaint says that the officials' conduct was "reckless and outrageous" and "shocks the conscience and was deliberately indifferent to ... constitutional rights."[222] The case was dismissed on February 3, 2017, with the judge stating his court has lack of subject-matter jurisdiction in the matter. Their attorneys filed an appeal on February 6.[223][224]
The legal doctrines of sovereign immunity (which protects the state from suit) and official immunity (which in Michigan shields top government officials from personal liability, even in cases of gross negligence) resulted in comparatively few lawsuits being filed in the Flint case, and caused large national plaintiffs' law firms to be reluctant to become involved with the case.[225]
Another problem is they tried to force the new mode onto old users on devices that didn't support it well. Even now most new gaming laptops don't have touch screens. In fact even if I had a device with a touch screen I don't want to use it when keyboard and trackpad are something my muscle memory knows how to use efficiently. If they'd had tablet mode and non tablet mode, picked automagically by device type and allowed the user to override it, they'd have been fine.
Of course Windows 8 wasn't really about tablets - it was an attempt to get people using Metro apps, so people would write Metro apps and thus produce some apps for the failing Windows Phone. It's the reason Windows RT on Arm devices only allowed Metro apps, prohibited Win32 ones and also locked out third party OSs via Secure Boot. Since there weren't many compelling Metro apps the net result that was people found out that Windows RT Arm devices were useless and didn't buy them.
Windows 10 on Arm is actually going to be a very different beast. It allows Win32 Arm applications and even contains an JIT to let you run Win32 x86 ones. Now running Photoshop on a Snapdragon 835 via JIT with no SSE because of the threat of an Intel lawsuit is going to suck compared to running it on an i7, but at least they allow it.
This is a very naive viewpoint. Utilities need right of way to run their lines to each residence throughout the city. You can't have everyone digging everywhere or putting up poles wherever they feel like it. Likewise, you cannot have one homeowner blocking internet access to half the city.
In the UK BT owns the phone lines. However it is forced to sell DSL wholesale packages at a capped price. Those are resold by ISPs. So there's one set of wires for telephone but there is still competition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If you've only got one DSL provider in each area in the US, the regulations are written wrong. Basically some company has manipulated them via regulatory capture. That's a problem.
Though actually the FCC claims 97% of Americans do have a choice
https://cei.org/blog/net-neutr...
The real alternative to the light regulatory touch the Internet enjoyed during its first twenty years-one that admittedly left executives at Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T to figure out what consumers wanted-is an Internet experience controlled by unelected government bureaucrats and elderly politicians (the average age of a Representative is 57 and the average of a Senator is 61).
Does that sort of big government control strike anyone as a recipe for unfettered free speech and torrents of innovation? It shouldn't.
Certainly, markets don't deliver everything to everyone perfectly at all times. But as flawed as your broadband provider's customer service or variable connectivity speed can be, it's still better than dealing with the post office or the IRS.
That's largely because, if it gets maddening enough, you can quit your broadband provider and switch to another one. Or at least most of us can: FCC data shows that 97 percent of census blocks had more than one provider offering at minimum 10 Mbps as of 2016. You don't get the option to take your business elsewhere at the DMV.
It's that consumer power in a relatively unfettered marketplace that's driven the striking growth and improvement in broadband speeds and availability. Current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai noted in his 2015 dissent to the Open Internet Order that the United State's light regulatory approach resulted in much faster speeds for consumers and more industry investment in wireline deployment than the utility-style regulation in Europe has produced.
Laying net neutrality regulations and restrictions on this dynamic industry will reduce the rate of returns for these broadband providers and, all else being equal, will lower investment, as Duke University Professor Michelle Connolly recently explained at an economist's roundtable.
tl;dr - if there's not enough competition, then fix that. Net Neutrality won't do that. It doesn't need multiple sets of wires, merely regulation that forces whoever owns the wires to allow multiple companies to operate on them and still be profitable. If you do that you'll get multiple competing services. And if some of those don't fulfill the holy principles of Net Neutrality, you're free to use a different one.
You'll get a load of posts telling you don't understand the principle of 'Net Neutrality'. When in fact you understand it just fine, you just don't agree with it. Or, more accurately, you don't think that 'Net Neutrality' goes far enough because it still allows Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to censor its users and only prevents Facebook's ISP from forcing people to pay more to access FB or to charge FB more to send its packets.
And the thing is that former case is happening but the later case seems to be purely theoretical. And before anyone mentions MEO in Portugal, the situation is nuanced.
https://hotair.com/archives/20...
I reached out to Meo on what exactly their SmartNet offering entailed. Here's their response (emphasis original):
"MEO complies with the European regulation on net neutrality and there is no distortion of the market caused by its commercial offers. Access and use of any application or service on the Internet is permitted by all MEO Internet access offers, and it is not necessary to adhere to specific packages in order to enjoy certain applications.
The SmartNet offerings correspond only to additional traffic ceilings for certain thematic sets of applications that are no more than the reflection of Portuguese consumer preferences. These offers are beneficial to consumers since it allows them to further customize the packages according to their consumption profiles. MEO is proud to have been a pioneer in launching this type of offer in Portugal, with multiple examples of similar offerings in other countries such as Spain, Germany and Belgium."
So Khanna either doesn't understand Meo's SmartNet is an extra service which could save customers more money, or didn't bother trying to figure out what it meant to serve his own purposes. It should also be pointed out these offerings have nothing to do with Internet access from a computer, but from a mobile phone or tablet. Their top data plan is 30GB. AT&T starts data throttling at 21GB, for what it's worth, even with their "unlimited" data. Verizon has their own version of data throttling, as does Sprint. These are with net neutrality, for the record.
Or look here
http://www.telecomsense.com/20...
The actual facts reveal that mobile operators appear to be competing to give consumers more, not less, options. And, of course, a quick perusal of the actual service offerings available to consumers confirms that this is exactly what is happening in Portugal. Three facilities-based providers currently operate in Portugal (a country of 10 million people): MEO (a play on "meu" or "mine"), Vodafone, and NOS (a play on "nos" or "us/we").
MEO offers 4 basic mobile plans with some amount of "unlimited" calling, SMS, and/or data use, ranging from the cheapest (about $13/month) to the most expensive ($57/month). The cheapest plan (with voice/SMS) comes with 500mbs of mobile internet service and the most expensive plan offers 30gbs--with which the consumer can use to access the whole internet. But, if a customer only wants mobile internet service, she has the option to purchase 10gbs of service (to the "whole" internet) for about $18.00/month (offer here).
MEO also offers consumers--with any mobile internet plan--the ability to get "SmartNet" packages with an additional 10gbs of the applications they use most (e.g., video or social networks) for an additional €4.99 ($5.80)/month. In other words, the "tiered" graphic that "scary news" articles are using to show the "cable" apocalypse was finally upon us, is in fact merely a bunch of mini "binging" packages (similar to T-Mobile's popular "binge on" promotion).
What about the other providers? Although none of the other operators offers anything like the "SmartNet" mini-bin
Microsoft appears to have learned *nothing* from its Windows Mobile debacle (where they had the #1 mobile OS with capabilities that were *years* ahead of Apple & Android... then threw it all away and rendered themselves *irrelevant* as a mobile-device OS). Microsoft appears determined to render themselves equally-irrelevant in the non-phone realm (but will probably take most of the market for "real" PCs into their grave with them... the desktop/laptop market can't survive another "Windows 8" debacle).
Yup, that's what convinced me to move from Windows Mobile to Android. Both are kind of klunky in terms of UI but very flexible (custom Roms, replaceable launchers), and have lots of hardware vendors and lots of software companies support them. Meanwhile Windows Phone had a new UI, but didn't run any of the old software. It wasn't flexible and MS had to pay HTC and Samsung to make the devices because they never had an market share and eventually bought Nokia and turned it into their in house Windows Phone vendor.
It never got anything like the support from third party developers that Windows Mobile did - most of the WIndows Mobile ones moved to Android/iOS and never looked back.
And in the end MS killed off Windows Phone. Unfortunately they wrecked Windows 8 trying to get people to use Metro apps in the meantime.
I'm still not 100% convinced that they won't kill desktop Windows in much the way they killed Windows Mobile. Which would be a shame.
Well... Many people, especially the youngsters, are use to using smartphones and tablets, where you usually only see/use one app at a time.
It sounds like MS's attempt to push a tablet/phone UI onto desktop users with Windows 8. They ended up with the odd situation that people who were doing to buy a tablet or phone bought one anyway, and not from Microsoft. Meanwhile people who wanted a desktop machine mostly held off on buying a Windows machine with Windows 8 - they kept their Windows 7 machine, or they bought a Mac.
And people who did buy a Windows 8 machine were often baffled by it
How Real People Will Use Windows 8
I bet a lot of these machines got returned inside the 30 day period.
I remember my parents who had an liked iPads, iPhones and Android devices, not wanting a machine with anything but 7 on it.
Now personally I didn't like it out of the box, but Windows 8+Classic Shell was fine. I set it up on the machines of people who complained about it, and they were happy. I didn't buy any machines with it on though - I stuck with Windows 7 on my laptop because that still works fine.
I've got Windows 10 in a VM on my Mac and it's fine even without any third party hacks like Classic Shell. So it's probably OK for non technical types - they're not going to return it.
And now it seems like MS have decided to try a new 'bold and innovative' UI. I reckon it will work out for them as well as Windows 8 did.
Say what you like about the Augustus but his feelings represent a change in cultural thought. You seem to associate with ideas from a fading culture. Whether you choose to accept it, this is the direction we are heading.
Pretty much. Now they've gone back to a start menu from a start screen you can tell that the people who pushed the start screen at Microsoft are going to push some new UI innovation which will irritate everyone outside of Microsoft.
Well a few tech reviewers will write articles where they cut and paste phrases from Microsoft's press release and say 'much better than the old Windows way of doing things' in return for a swag bag from a hot girl at Microsoft PR. And then go back to using their Macbooks.
A few people will point out that for people who actually use Windows at work it is vastly inferior. Or for people who use Windows at home and are not that technical it is completely baffling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Microsoft will ignore this of course and push it out by auto update. And then they'll notice that strangely their share of all devices browsing the net, already level pegging with Android, has dropped a bit more as non technical types flee to Android, iOS, macOS etc. Technical types will figure out hack to revert the changes or head for Mac or Linux. Corporations will pay for downgrade rights to older MS OSs.
Microsoft will insist everything is fine for a while, and then introduce a new OS which claims to roll back the changes but which does not. Amusing comics will be drawn.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/c...
Market share will continue to l fall, but technical types who need Windows will stick with their hack. Or rather a newer version, because Microsoft broke the first one with the new OS release. Or move to Mac because they want to be able to build apps for Android and iOS, the only OSs that really matter commercially now that the WIndows ship is sinking even faster than before. If Google were smart at this point they'd offer something which is a bit more capable than a Chromebook, AndroidBook for example, to try to hoover up some of those people fleeing Windows but who don't want a Mac and can't use Linux but they probably aren't. Apple will probably do something stupid to put people off Macs, analogous to their decision to solder in ram and SSD on all new models to stop people upgrading them. What that will be I'm not sure. Switch the whole keyboard to a larger version of the TouchBar for example.
Finally Microsoft will release an OS which really does roll back most of the changes, the way Windows 10 has a start menu with a load of 'tile shit' embedded in it that no one uses but it's sort of OK because it has the Win32 apps people actually use there too. Corporations will still try to pay for downgrade rights, and Microsoft will tell them they can't anymore.
And then the cycle will start anew! It's the circle of life!
IBM used to be a byword for proprietary lock in. Then PC clones took over and IBM's attempt at moving people from them to PS/2s, MCA and OS/2 failed.
And then IBM changed to be a proponent of open systems, The Cloud and so on.
Of course The Cloud gives another kind of lock in because the company that controls your cloud accounts controls all your data. For a long time Google kept people from noticing this because your Gmail data limit grew with time. Now it's stopped growing and because people don't delete their emails in Gmail, eventually they'll need to start paying. And Google have all your data, which means they can monetize it.
Microsoft could offer Office on iOS, Android and Chromebooks and then do what Google did. MS Office after all still has a certain amount of cachet in the mind of the general public.
Interesting thing is their pricing model
https://www.theverge.com/2016/...
Microsoft has offered Office free to Android and iOS devices for two years now, with some restrictions for larger devices. Now that Chromebooks are starting to get access to Android apps, those same restrictions will apply for Google's laptops. Just like the iPad Pro, Chromebooks with a screen larger than 10.1 inches will not be able to access Microsoft Office editing free of charge.
This restriction includes most Chromebooks on the market, and it's only devices like ASUS' Chromebook Flip (10.1-inch display) that will be able to use Microsoft Office free of charge. "Google Play on Chrome OS is in beta, we are partnering with Google to deliver the best experience for Chromebook users and plan to make the apps available on all compatible devices by general availability," explains a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to 9to5Google. "On devices larger than 10.1 inches, an Office 365 subscription is required to unlock the ability to create, edit, or print documents."
This isn't a new strategy or policy, and Microsoft isn't unfairly targeting Chromebooks. The software giant revealed last year that it would classify a machine with a 10.1-inch display or below as a "true mobile device." Microsoft applied the same rules to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, while the smaller iPad Pro still retains free access to Microsoft Office. Microsoft currently offers individual Office 365 Personal subscriptions for $6.99 per month, or $69.99 a year.
I.e. it's free on cheap device. It's $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year on expensive ones. Of course in the long run more devices will have screens above 10.1 inches and that means people will need to pay. It's smart, but it's a trap.
Yorktown was in September 28 - October 19, 1781 and the UK signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
After the British surrender, Washington sent Tench Tilghman to report the victory to Congress. After a difficult journey, he arrived in Philadelphia, which celebrated for several days. The British Prime Minister, Lord North, is reported to have exclaimed "Oh God, it's all over" when told of the defeat. Washington moved his army to New Windsor, New York where they remained stationed until the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, formally ending the war.
So they went from losing the US colonies to fighting off the French at home in thirteen years.
If you look thirteen years before Dunkirk (1940) of course, things were pretty good. 1927 was pre Hitler, pre Great Depression, pre 1929 crash.
Probably in 1927 people thought Germany would always be led by people like Stresemann, perpetual peace had been achieved by diplomacy and they didn't need to waste money on arms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I.e. it shows how fast the geopolitical situation can go from "You're 99% fine" to "You're at least 90% fucked. You might be 100% fucked"
I was joking. "People who don't like X should be shot" is a snowclone that originated here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It'd just way to express hyperbolic enthusiasm for something, not a literal call for murder.
For the overly literal out there, please don't shoot anyone. I liked Doctor Who when I was a kid and Tom Baker happened to be Doctor then. I went off it later because I grew up. Tom Baker not being the Doctor didn't cause that.
Also I don't think ESR should be killed or that Kernighan, Ritchie or Stroustrup are prophets or that heresy causes halitosis, despite what I wrote here.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
That was also a joke. It's true I like C and a subset of C++ at my choice and dislike ESR and I was expressing that in a humorously extreme way. People in that thread seemed to get that.
Gee, it's going to be hard writing posts which even the autists won't take literally. You know what if any of this post is hard for you to comprehend how about this - Don't kill anyone because of something I, or anyone else, said on the Internet. Or off the Internet for that matter. Don't kill anyone and don't take what they tell you literally.
Maybe go live with ESR, up in the mountains.
If someone said they were a Whovian I'd assume they had some sort of autism like disorder. Its literally worse red flag for personality disorders than being a Brony.
The Penman for the US Constitution was One Mr Jacob Shallus, an Immigrant of German Origin. Perhaps he decided that Nouns should be Capitalized in English as they were in his Native Tounge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Incidentally in contemporary British documents I don't believe capitalization of nouns was common. And Jefferson didn't do it in his private correspondence.
Incidentally you can see why the UK didn't deal with the rebellion in the US when you realise they had more pressing problems closer to home
The French landed troops in Ireland in 1796 and 1798
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And planned a full on invasion. The British command was William Cornwallis who lost to Washington at Yorktown in 1781.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You can see why on balance, having the US run by Washington rather than a Governor General wasn't at the top of British priorities. In fact if you look at Cornwallis's career he was basically fighting rearguard actions all over the place, retreating to avoid a much worse disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
On 16 June 1795 he was in command of a small squadron that sighted a much larger French fleet. The ensuing action became famously known as "The Retreat of Cornwallis."
Cornwallis was cruising near Brest with five ships of the line, HMS Royal Sovereign, HMS Mars, HMS Triumph, HMS Brunswick, HMS Bellerophon, two frigates and one cutter, HMS Phaeton, HMS Pallas, HMS Kingfisher when a French fleet of twelve sail of the line and fourteen large frigates appeared, commanded by Admiral Villaret Joyeuse. The odds being very greatly against him, he was compelled to order a retreat. But two of his ships were slow and unweatherly and fell behind the rest. The van of the French fleet began to catch the two slower British ships. The rearmost ship, Mars, was caught and suffered severely in her rigging and was in danger of being surrounded by the French. Witnessing this, Cornwallis turned his squadron around to support her. The French admiral made the assumption that Cornwallis must have sighted assistance beyond his own field of vision and had turned to engage the enemy knowing that a superior force was nearby to come to their relief. The French admiral ordered his ships to disengage and Cornwallis and his small squadron retreated in order. The action is remarkable evidence of the moral superiority which the victory of the Glorious First of June, and the known efficiency of the British crews, had given to the Royal Navy. The reputation of Cornwallis was amplified and the praise given him was no doubt the greater because he was personally very popular with officers and men.
I.e. far from being invincible around the time of the American revolution, the UK was in deep shit all over the place and was basically playing a losing hand the best it could.