In Australia, almost every ISP has quite aggressive bandwidth caps (most accounts have a limit of 10GB a month or less, with the most expensive accounts offering ~100GB a month or so), and it's been this way since broadband (ie. faster than dial-up) connections were introduced.
The contract with your ISP simply explains that you are completely responsible for the usage of your connection. It seems to work fine here.
The same thing happened to the article on the University Computer Club, a computer society in Western Australia founded in 1974 which is supposedly the very first 'personal computer' society in the world.
I rarely open more than ten tabs at once, and even when I do, I can generally tell which is which from the favicon or first few characters of the title.
It seems to me that only the most hardcore of web users open 10+ tabs at once; in fact, most of the 'average' users I know tend to have 3 or 4 open at once, max. Sure, side tabs are a useful option if you are such a 'hardcore' user, but most people are not.
Of course, it all comes down to what the law is in the specific place where this occurred -- where I live, the 'intimidation' must be a threat of violence.
I imagine that in this case the offence is more akin to fraud -- the customer is (fraudulently) led to believe that they are required to hand over the hard drive.
The real issue is that after the guy bought a real (presumably) function hard drive, the manager of the store approached the customer, and seized his property. That is robbery.
No, it isn't. Robbery is the crime of seizing property through violence or intimidation.
What do you mean, 'that justifies the expense'?
I use my MacBook for all the same tasks I'd use a normal laptop for. It can do all that I need it to do (write up notes in class, do assignments, code, and browse the web), and it didn't cost any more than an equivalent Windows machine would.
I could probably do all the same tasks under Windows or Linux, too. However, stuff like PPTP support and WiFi support is a pain in the ass to get working in Linux, and I'd rather pay for OS X and get stuff like an operating system that I can image onto a hard disk and boot in an old iBook should my machine fail. OS X already has drivers for every modern Mac, so there's no issue there. As for Windows, the Mac looks nicer, and when I buy it, it doesn't come with copious 'craplets' that I need to spend hours uninstalling.
You are correct about the full-version vs. student-version thing. My mistake.
As for changing interfaces.. perhaps I don't use MS Office as extensively as you, or something. Essentially the only thing I have to do is muck around with formatting and add footnotes and comments. I very rarely find myself doing anything with macros, or drawing things, but on the few occasions that I have had to do that, I've found the tools quickly enough (sure, not as fast as I would have had they been present on the old menu system, but it doesn't take long to adapt to a task you perform infrequently).
QWERTY is different since you're using that the WHOLE time you use a computer, effectively, and also, typing skills are tightly ingrained in muscle memory, versus locations of options on menus, which are memorized and repeated rather than what is almost physical 'instinct' - for example, you won't find yourself losing much productivity when you alter the mouse sensitivity, even though this significantly changes the physical action required to achieve a given (mouse-pointing) task.
The best thing about the Ribbon is that I think it makes some more 'advanced' features in Word (mainly styles and reviewing) more obvious and easier to use for your casual user of Word (who, going from extensive personal experience, usually doesn't even have a grasp of the difference between tabs and spaces, let alone the ability to easily adjust the style of a whole document without manually going through and playing with the Format -> Font dialog..). I look forward to receiving "cleaner" documents from others in the future.
How long did you spend with MS Office '07? Unless you frequently perform some task which is obscenely difficult to do with the Ribbon, which I find hard to believe, I think you gave up too quickly.
PS: Try mousing over the ribbon and spinning the scroll wheel.:-)
I do live in Australia and I'm familiar with the $75 Office campaign. In fact I'm running a copy of Office I got from this campaign.
I will admit however that initially I was using a pirated version. I found the ribbon interface a pain in the ass for the first few hours of use, but after a short 'adjustment' period, I'm finding the new interface makes me more productive than ever. As a result, I bought the $75 student edition.
One of the reasons I upgraded to Vista was because of Office '07.
The UI is really slow under XP, and much more responsive under Vista.
But then again, I really like '07.. and none of the problems with Vista have affected me significantly.
Technically speaking, CO2 is the only product of the combustion of hydrocarbons (except water).
The other pollutants you mentioned are a result of impurities/additives in the fuels burnt.
That depends on your definition of "strong". In a chemical sense, no, HF isn't very strong, as it's not a "strong" acid like HCl - it doesn't ionize completely like HCl does.
However, I'd say that at the same concentration, HF can be far more damaging (and thus "strong" in the conventional sense) than any HCl solution.
I wouldn't say it's trivial to find "nasty stuff" in an open-source client, either.
Sure, it may be easier - but how many people out of those who use Azureus are able to comprehend all of the code that goes into it? And how many of those people re-read the code upon every new release?
Apart from what others said (p2p between PCs on the network), I'm still using an old 11Mbit WAP (yes, quite old) and from my bedroom I get shitty signal quality. Even right next to the router, the best I can pull is ~5Mbit. My connection has been 8Mbit down for some time now, and more recently, it's gone up to 24Mbit. My internet speed is severely crippled by wireless.
This pre-N stuff is also very expensive - I'll need to get a new router and a new wireless card for each computer. I'm just going to get my bedroom wired, should keep me up to speed for a while yet.
Yet, you find Linux sysadmins often talking about relatively paranoid security measures when talking about keeping their systems safe.
Because they're sysadmins. They're not just looking after their own PC, and have a lot more to lose if their systems get r00ted (as well as frequently being larger targets for crackers etc).
Argh, I'm on my third. And I made the mistake of only getting a one-year warrantly, so I paid $35 for the third on off eBay. They tend to fail once every six months. Fuck Dell, I'm buying a PC for my next Windows box (Dell are really the best reasonably-priced laptop makers, unfortunately), and a Mac laptop when I need a new laptop... My Dell should suffice for office work until I can afford it.:P
Your iPod does let you download music back to the PC. Copy the iPod_Control folder. It's hidden under Windows. Not sure about Mac.
You want the filenames to make sense? Use PodPlayer's integrated "extract" wizard. This also has the advantage of being able to play your music on-the-fly from a Windows PC without downloading the music first. Excellent tool. I have it set up on the right-click menu for my iPod (in autorun.inf), and I hook up my iPod and run the program whenever I'm at work. Charge and listen at the same time.
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In Australia, almost every ISP has quite aggressive bandwidth caps (most accounts have a limit of 10GB a month or less, with the most expensive accounts offering ~100GB a month or so), and it's been this way since broadband (ie. faster than dial-up) connections were introduced. The contract with your ISP simply explains that you are completely responsible for the usage of your connection. It seems to work fine here.
The same thing happened to the article on the University Computer Club, a computer society in Western Australia founded in 1974 which is supposedly the very first 'personal computer' society in the world.
Some UCC members even met up with Jimmy Wales himself, who agreed that the club is notable enough to warrant an article. Unfortunately, it seems that still wasn't enough to make the club notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article :-)
(I'm the current treasurer of the club.)
I rarely open more than ten tabs at once, and even when I do, I can generally tell which is which from the favicon or first few characters of the title.
It seems to me that only the most hardcore of web users open 10+ tabs at once; in fact, most of the 'average' users I know tend to have 3 or 4 open at once, max. Sure, side tabs are a useful option if you are such a 'hardcore' user, but most people are not.
Of course, it all comes down to what the law is in the specific place where this occurred -- where I live, the 'intimidation' must be a threat of violence. I imagine that in this case the offence is more akin to fraud -- the customer is (fraudulently) led to believe that they are required to hand over the hard drive.
What do you mean, 'that justifies the expense'? I use my MacBook for all the same tasks I'd use a normal laptop for. It can do all that I need it to do (write up notes in class, do assignments, code, and browse the web), and it didn't cost any more than an equivalent Windows machine would. I could probably do all the same tasks under Windows or Linux, too. However, stuff like PPTP support and WiFi support is a pain in the ass to get working in Linux, and I'd rather pay for OS X and get stuff like an operating system that I can image onto a hard disk and boot in an old iBook should my machine fail. OS X already has drivers for every modern Mac, so there's no issue there. As for Windows, the Mac looks nicer, and when I buy it, it doesn't come with copious 'craplets' that I need to spend hours uninstalling.
s. :(
You are correct about the full-version vs. student-version thing. My mistake. As for changing interfaces.. perhaps I don't use MS Office as extensively as you, or something. Essentially the only thing I have to do is muck around with formatting and add footnotes and comments. I very rarely find myself doing anything with macros, or drawing things, but on the few occasions that I have had to do that, I've found the tools quickly enough (sure, not as fast as I would have had they been present on the old menu system, but it doesn't take long to adapt to a task you perform infrequently). QWERTY is different since you're using that the WHOLE time you use a computer, effectively, and also, typing skills are tightly ingrained in muscle memory, versus locations of options on menus, which are memorized and repeated rather than what is almost physical 'instinct' - for example, you won't find yourself losing much productivity when you alter the mouse sensitivity, even though this significantly changes the physical action required to achieve a given (mouse-pointing) task. The best thing about the Ribbon is that I think it makes some more 'advanced' features in Word (mainly styles and reviewing) more obvious and easier to use for your casual user of Word (who, going from extensive personal experience, usually doesn't even have a grasp of the difference between tabs and spaces, let alone the ability to easily adjust the style of a whole document without manually going through and playing with the Format -> Font dialog..). I look forward to receiving "cleaner" documents from others in the future. How long did you spend with MS Office '07? Unless you frequently perform some task which is obscenely difficult to do with the Ribbon, which I find hard to believe, I think you gave up too quickly. PS: Try mousing over the ribbon and spinning the scroll wheel. :-)
I do live in Australia and I'm familiar with the $75 Office campaign. In fact I'm running a copy of Office I got from this campaign. I will admit however that initially I was using a pirated version. I found the ribbon interface a pain in the ass for the first few hours of use, but after a short 'adjustment' period, I'm finding the new interface makes me more productive than ever. As a result, I bought the $75 student edition.
One of the reasons I upgraded to Vista was because of Office '07. The UI is really slow under XP, and much more responsive under Vista. But then again, I really like '07.. and none of the problems with Vista have affected me significantly.
Technically speaking, CO2 is the only product of the combustion of hydrocarbons (except water). The other pollutants you mentioned are a result of impurities/additives in the fuels burnt.
That depends on your definition of "strong". In a chemical sense, no, HF isn't very strong, as it's not a "strong" acid like HCl - it doesn't ionize completely like HCl does. However, I'd say that at the same concentration, HF can be far more damaging (and thus "strong" in the conventional sense) than any HCl solution.
Uh, what? You mean like taking a shit? I'm pretty sure that "passing" is a euphemism for that, too.
The gas is only hydrogen. As far as I know, it's harmless at those concentrations.
I wouldn't say it's trivial to find "nasty stuff" in an open-source client, either.
Sure, it may be easier - but how many people out of those who use Azureus are able to comprehend all of the code that goes into it? And how many of those people re-read the code upon every new release?
Apart from what others said (p2p between PCs on the network), I'm still using an old 11Mbit WAP (yes, quite old) and from my bedroom I get shitty signal quality. Even right next to the router, the best I can pull is ~5Mbit. My connection has been 8Mbit down for some time now, and more recently, it's gone up to 24Mbit. My internet speed is severely crippled by wireless. This pre-N stuff is also very expensive - I'll need to get a new router and a new wireless card for each computer. I'm just going to get my bedroom wired, should keep me up to speed for a while yet.
Engadget had the 'scoop' on the mini three a long time ago, too - practically since the "Coming on Feb 1st" message apppeared on the site.
What the fuck is with you people making duct tape wallets? :-/
Because they're sysadmins. They're not just looking after their own PC, and have a lot more to lose if their systems get r00ted (as well as frequently being larger targets for crackers etc).
Wow, you should be a "market analyst"!
Argh, I'm on my third. And I made the mistake of only getting a one-year warrantly, so I paid $35 for the third on off eBay. They tend to fail once every six months. Fuck Dell, I'm buying a PC for my next Windows box (Dell are really the best reasonably-priced laptop makers, unfortunately), and a Mac laptop when I need a new laptop... My Dell should suffice for office work until I can afford it. :P
It is here in Australia. We have no "fair use" with regard to music and can't rip CDs legally.
Yep, even if you have to film it off your monitor with a video camera.
Hey, people do that now with movies and it gets downloaded, if there is no other way to get the content I'm sure people will download it.
Too bad the chemical symbol for arsenic is As, not Ar. :)
Your iPod does let you download music back to the PC. Copy the iPod_Control folder. It's hidden under Windows. Not sure about Mac.
You want the filenames to make sense? Use PodPlayer's integrated "extract" wizard. This also has the advantage of being able to play your music on-the-fly from a Windows PC without downloading the music first. Excellent tool. I have it set up on the right-click menu for my iPod (in autorun.inf), and I hook up my iPod and run the program whenever I'm at work. Charge and listen at the same time.