One of the companies, in Florida anyway, that runs a chain of these (Gambling) Internet Cafes, was doing so supposedly to support American veterans. After a thorough audit of their business (which is partly responsible for this bill being drafted in the first place), it was found that out of the (10's of millions of) money the "organization" made that year, only 2% went to their charity, and a larger percentage going to political donations (which, apparently didn't help them much in the long run :> ).

Odd - one laptop is Ubuntu - the other Win7 - and they did not play well until I disabled any (Microsoft released) IPV6 support...Could be the old Netcreer router, but regardless....

*Ubuntu - before some troll jumps on that. :D

If you go back to Win7 - make sure you disable the Microsoft forcibly-installed 6to4 adapter (just google it - there's plenty of posts about it) - because if you don't, and you're running an IPV4 home network, your linux box(es) will do nothing but complain.... I have an iPad, and two laptops - older of which I use primarily as a file server running Ubunti... when I went to Win7, I suddenly got crawling file transfer speeds, despite being on a hardwired full-duplex 100mbit network... once I disabled 6to4, it got happy again...

Personally speaking, I block most ads, mainly because of bandwidth issues. Slashdot is one of the few that I whitelist, because I don't mind supporting them....

There was a point a few years ago, I lost my phone, and was not at a point to replace it immediately, so I bought a cheap Pay-as-you-go phone, and activated it under my contract... Then a friend went "Hey, I still have my Android, since I went to the iPhone, you want it?"... Of course I did. Verizon didn't. They wouldn't let me turn it on for JUST phone service. DEMANDED I had to have a data plan for it.

me: "but I'm not going to use it for data..."
them: "but you could"
me: "only if I had a data plan"
them: "which is why we insist you have a data plan"
me: "so you make people buy a service they're not going to use just because they have the capability to use it?"
them: "Yes, you have a device that uses data."
me: "but I'm not going to use data."
them: "But you can."
me: "No, I cannot, without a data plan."
them: "Which is why we insist you have a data plan."
me: "Your logic would therefore dictate castrating ALL catholic priests, since they have balls, and the capability to use them, but they don't..." (and hung up)

Demanding a data plan on phones JUST because they have data capabilities is just an absolutely stupid idea, and we should probably start a White House petition to stop it. I'll get started on the draft immediately...

The fact that I found out - the hard way - that Seagate's warranty starts when their product(s) leave the factory - NOT when you actually purchase is. I purchased a Seagate drive, which failed two years later, and I attempted to call upon the "Five Year Warranty" - but oh, apparently NewEgg had said drive sitting on their shelves for three years (NOT knocking NewEgg - I love NewEgg and will for many more decades) - but Seagate considers THEIR warranty to start when it walks out the door, as opposed to when it was purchased. BOYCOTT Seagate, until they stop this silly warranty concept - it's the only major manufacturer that I know of that considers their warranty to start when their product leaves the factory, as opposed to when it is SOLD....

I used to travel a LOT, on business - I bought these over-the-ear earphones for about $10 at Hel*Mart - they had about 40% better frequency response than the Sony ones that cost twice as much... Unfortunately, lost the last pair, and haven't been able to find the exact same ones again - but check out Panasonic headphones, definitely.

Smart enough to hack into an international company's network, but not smart enough to realize that an extortion attempt wouldn't have someone getting him arrested. Where is Darwin when we need him? :|

Oh puhleeze - if you were a true IT person, you wouldn't have a partner (that, or s/he would be on call too, so the point would be moot. :> )

Not one comment regarding the "Oscillation Overthruster"? That was basically a laser that blasted it's way into the 8th dimension, taking our hero Buckaroo Bonzai along for the ride :)

All the more reason for the mandatory aluminum foil hat :)

When one steps upon the soap-box, one should know the distinction between "have" and "half".

Everything I delete gets shredded, once you click OK there is no going back...

This is CLASSIC literature, it should not be censored in any way! I was shocked when a few weeks ago I saw the early version of "Huckleberry Finn" on THiS-TV network, and they BLEEPED the word "nigger" from the character's name "Nigger Jim" when Huckleberry Finn said it. Inexcusable and should almost certainly be protected by the First Amendment (at least here in the USA).