My Nokia 6102i works just fine for what I need it for, thanks. I don't even remember when I got it, has to be at least 6 years ago now, and I see no reason to get rid of it (I bought a galaxy S2 test Android programs, but I have no intention of using it as a "phone"). In fact, I have two Nokia "spares" I got on ebay for $10 ea, just in case (cat knocked my last one off the desk and broke the hinge). I don't need the internet strapped to my hip 24/7, I'd rather experience the real world around me.

This applies to a lot of things - a house built in the 1940's for example might have only 2 wire electrical and little insulation, leaky wood windows, etc.

Sure, you can insulate the walls, rewire, all new doors/windows, etc... but it will probably never be as good as a more modernly constructed house can be. Now, the question is, if it's going to cost you $80K for new windows, rewire, etc, vs. $250K to tear it down and build a similarly sized house on the same lot, which is more "cost effective" in the longer term?

Sure, you can get Netflix - but that only comes in a package with 12 sites selling sex toys, 3 sports sites, and 5 online shopping sites (amazon not included, that's another package), for only $125/mo + applicable taxes. All other sites are blocked unless you pay for them, or pay for the $500/mo "unlimited" package that gets you all 300million websites on the internet.

Perhaps, but I'm betting 9 times out of 10 the US based vendor is buying their product from the same place you're buying it from on ebay, and just marking the price up. I've seen numerous ones even just on ebay where a US seller and a China seller have the exact same thing (even to the same packaging), and it's twice as expensive to get it from the US seller. Now, mind you, it might be faster (say a week) than from China (say 2 weeks), but if it's not something you desperately need right away...

... and I can't tell if that's heavy sarcasm or not. Well played. :P

... and tomorrow, once they explain they have secret evidence that's been proven in a secret court, evidence which they can't show to the public but which *proves* that you are a "Gay Terrorist Muslim Pedophile", the public will despise you too and won't have any problem with them taking away your rights either.

It's a slippery slope once you start allowing rights to be taken away.

And that is different than the US, UK, EU, how exactly? How many lobbyists do you have working for you on K-street in DC? How many bankers went to jail after 2008? Where do our Treasury Secretaries, SEC/CFTC heads, etc, come from? Go to after they leave? When exactly was the last time a "poor" person was elected President?

Actually their real problem is with the *state* of Israel, not all people of Jewish descent. Might have something to do with Israel taking land from countries Iran might see as their "neighbors" and constantly threatening them? You might want to read up on the difference between being Jewish and being Zionist, they aren't the same thing.

Iran hasn't actually started a war against any country in 300+ years. The last real war they were in was when Iraq/Saddam *invaded them* in the 80's, which was purely defense on their part. How many countries has the US started wars with or put troops into in the past even 100 years? Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, to mention a few, not counting financing the 'overthrow' (or attempt) of Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and of course "aid" to help put brutal leaders all over South America at various times, and financing death squads, drug lords, etc. I guess since we blow up/kill/coerce/control/overthrow African/Asian/Middle-Eastern/Slavic/etc people with equal prejudice we're not "racist" right?

Well, after the CIA's last involvement with "government reform" in their country (aka - ousting their democratically elected leader and installing the Shah), can you exactly blame them that they aren't interested in "rapid reform" like the CIA/US.Military backed "reform" in Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc?

I've already got a 'smart' home system... a thermostat on the wall with no web interface (just a couple wires to the furnace), a 'fridge with food and beer in it where the only 'connections' are the icemaker water hose and a 110V plug, etc. 'Smart' being there's nothing on the internet or wi-fi enabled so someone can hack it, and it doesn't report back to some vendor intimate details of my life.

1) I have a keyboard and mouse, and I'm a touch typist (any programmer should be, right?) at 80WPM. What exactly does a "touch screen" do for me? I watch enough people swiping around on their phones all day already.
2) I'm not a gamer, and my "GPU" video card has 512M and works just fine for what I need to do.
3) Agreed, but... why wouldn't I just buy a bigger hard drive for my machine if I needed it? (And I don't need an SSD).
4) Dunno, my laptop rarely gets used (and is max 1GB ram), I mostly use my desktop machine.
5) Yeah, I like my 19" LCD on my desktop, far lighter than the 20" CRT I used to have that was just a beast to move around. Of course, even my 19" LCD is old, 1280x1024 max resolution - but good enough for what I need it to do.
6) Tell me again why your average home user needs 64-bit multi-core virtualizable computers that can run multiple OS's at the same time, to browse the internet, check email, etc? ... oh, wait, I know the answer to #6... because every release of the OS they make it use way more CPU & memory than the last version with foo-foo GUI changes and other stuff that doesn't do a damn thing for the average user, but sells lots of new hardware for their partner vendors. Pretty soon they'll just stop supporting 32-bit CPUs entirely because y'know, they're old... and who cares if it still works fine, we live in a disposable society right?

Or no more illegal than me getting his CC info and using it online to go buy things. After all, I'm only using a browser and OS on my own system to access a site with the 'key' (CC info) I got, right? Why should that be illegal?

And he actually had a legal account to access the JSTOR information, which he was accused of 'unlawfully accessing'. (Hint for them, don't give people accounts if you don't want the data accessed :rolleyes:).

It'll only work right if it's set as a 0 or 1 in trinary.

Seriously, if your physical security is so poor that people can tap into your ethernet cabling, then you shouldn't be in charge of any kind of IT security. (And since the POS is probably taking CC data in and sending it to the server for authentication (?), it really should be an encrypted connection to the server anyways). Hell, if your security is that poor why bother with tapping the ethernet cable, you could just pop a couple screws and open the POS register itself and install some hardware/software to wifi the data out. ... though, I do realize that what I just said means most stores I've seen shouldn't be using any IT, since most of the POS registers I've seen have exposed wires hanging off the back. So I really hope the data going to their server is encrypted. :-P