$Bignum will appease the gods.

Secret technology aside, wouldn't it make a great toy?

Why doesn't Apple offer to pay the royalties for the 3-month trial period?

Consumers get their free trial, and many, if not most will sign up for the service.

Labels/artists will get their royalties, and maybe even see an increase in income afterwards when the service really takes off (assuming that it follows the success of iTunes music). Ditto Apple's income.

After all, who paid U2 for the free copies on everyone's iTunes?

The toshiba laptops in my supplier's catalogue nearly all come with "Windows 7 32/64bit pre-installed. Also supplied with Windows 8/8.1 media"

Now, why would Toshiba go to the extra effort to pre-install what is effectively a downgrade, unless 1. customers are demanding it and 2. it's a selling point - "you don't have to downgrade, we've already done it for you!"

Well, if it serves to improve the signal-to-noise ratio here, yes, it is a good thing.

If I was interviewing someone for a job, and they were able to show me examples of their work that were superior to any of the other interviewees, but executed in a different toolset, e.g. we use Adobe, but the applicant used Final Cut Pro, Vegas, or even ffmpeg, I would offer that person both the job and training.

It's not about the tools, it's about the result.

Tried soylentnews for a while, and it seemed to be a concentrated form of linux fanboys/windows haters, i.e. some of the worst from /.

My storage tanks are also the settling tanks - the pickup for household supply is about 5cm above the floor of the tank, all the dust and bird poop just settle to the bottom, and I have that cleared out every couple of years. No other treatment. It sounds icky, but I prefer to think of it as keeping my immune system active and healthy, plus I'm getting lots of minerals. My last blood test showed all mineral levels good, except for slightly low calcium - so I have to east more cheese, dammit.

Seriously, though - we don't tend to get sick, and we HATE the taste of treated town water when we've had to buy it in.

I understand there's different rules in different states about rainwater harvesting, but surely if you have a "dry" cabin, i.e. no piped water supply from the local mains, you'd want to catch the water falling on your roof?

If you're in a rural area, and not near any other major source of air pollution, surely the rainwater is potable?

I've been living on rainwater for almost 20 years, we only buy a truckload when the dry season lasts longer than usual. We could overcome that with another tank or two (currently have almost 50K litres of storage).

But do they use ROT-13 as well?

"Other option is the system just does a reset every x days."

Makes sense - reset at 9am on a Saturday (few or no students or staff around) , and you'll know by midday if the reset failed, giving you the rest of the weekend to get started on a fix.

That reminds me of:

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/...

Only getting fixed wireless to your house, huh?

I'm in the same boat, only I've too many trees in the way, and I'm not about to cut them down.

OTOH, I saw a fiber conduit being installed only a few streets away - for FTTN/VDSL. I'll still get high-speed internet, it just won't be FTTH, or fixed wireless.

BTW, Malcolm Turnbull is just about the only politician in the current lot with even an ounce of brains. Yes, he's toeing the party line, but he's the only one that understands even the basics of the technology.

Maybe, but not mine. We've only had a 2K projector for 2 years....

Yep. People overlook bitrate when talking about resolution, colour depth, etc.

That's one reason why a blu-ray and a DCP look different, even though they're both 2K.