Mah I considered the x1 but the super small laptop isn't for me I need a full sized keyboard and no num pad throwing off the alignment of the keyboard with the screen.. Lights instead of back lit keyboard that just sounds annoying.

Especially when they are in the middle of the news feed later.

Haha. So true. Tofu has to have one of the most nasty look and texture of tofu. It combines rubbery with slimy in one go.

I'd have to see the artist's contracts but it is pretty scary if the label has all the power to negotiate something like that. The songwriters, artists etc are supposed to get royalties having the label decide to give away free samples is insane. I want the movie industry to do the same thing: I'll pay them the second time I watch their movie.

Oh also: one thing once this thing is out in the wild for a while I guess then the number of new subscribers tapers off. But it would suck to be a new artist that just happens to have their album coming out the week that this goes live. All your prime time on the chart gets sucked up by Apple and not paid for. Probably screws your billboard list too since you aren't selling copies.

I don't get it how did Apple get away with saying they won't pay royalties? Everyone else has to. What they just say "well we aren't making money so we don't have to pay"? Can I use that when I seed my torrents?

I don't. Because our bandwidth caps are so low on our phones netflix dossn't make a lot of sense (also a much smaller selection than in the US, talking maybe 10 new movies a month, most 6mths-years old). So you "acquire" things in different ways.

I suspect there is the huge jump because they need to stay on a standard for a few years to get back the cost of the infrastructure. If we got a 2x bump every 18mths or whatever they'd be constantly having to replace all their equipment so they could market themselves as capable of the new hotness that the next iDevice supports. Similarly you have most people on 2-3 year terms for their devices so even if you updated your network every year it would be 1.5yeas or so on average before your users saw the improvement.

I think if they actually delivered 4G ie 1Gbps that would be more than enough fo rmost people. That is after all what pretty much every office network is using. If the internet is as fast as your office's fileserver that is "good enough" IMO. That is about 2X the speed of USB 2 which is itself more than fast enough to push 4k content.

Exactly and at least at the moment your flash can't write the data anywhere's near that fast (though it will be faster in 5 years to be sure). So you can't consume it, and you can' store it: what good is it? Also, I realize things are different in different countries but very few people where I live stream content on their phones. We have no unlimited data plans and the best you can do is about 5GB a month and ~$10 per GB afterwards. Streaming netflix say for an hour a day: that would cost you hundreds of dollars a month. Instead you use your home internet and save the content to your device. I don't see the need for these extreme speeds on cellular networks other than if they want to start offering in home internet and a price that is competitive with dsl/cable but if they do that they'll have an even harder time justifying the gang rape that is their overages charges for the mobile plans.

How about all the pirates that wouldn't have bought the album in the first place? I think both of you can be right. Pirating increases the total "market" (people experiencing the music) and potentially the total market (people buying the music, or going to your concerts). There is an opportunity cost associated with finding/trying new music. Especially if you are into stuff a bit off mainstream (progressive death metal anyone?) you often have to special order albums. Special ordering an album for $25 and then coming back to the store to pick it up in a week so I can tryout a band my friend said is cool isn't happening. Paying money for bits I download isn't happening either. I've gone to concerts and bought merch from bands I originally discovered because I was referred to them by a friend and then acquired their albums.

If I had to find them online and order it then deal with receiving the package in the mail or whatever ... no thanks. mp3 has become the "have you heard that song on the radio" or modern society: get over it. They have to make money in different ways because media on a disc is indistinguishable from media on a torrent. Also, I don't think because you are good with a guitar you deserve 10M a year but if you are good with a keyboard you get 100k is fair either. Merch/concerts is a better way to go: I think distributes the money to artists in a more balanced way, saves the waste of printing CDs, removes the justification for music label control ("we need 80% of the revenue because we have the production costs to pay for") etc.

I've never had a German pils that was anything better than ok. But I lived in east Germany so if you wanted a pils you got something Czech. At least in Dresden and admittedly a very international crowd I hung out with (worked with 300 people from 150 nations) Weissen was about even with pils for amount drunk. But Schwartz, or even Radler if driving was popular too.

IMO you need to step away from the german pils/lagers. Weisse both Heifen and Kristal are just magical. The problem is typically tourists come over and expect to order something that "looks like it does back home" and get Becks or a local equivalent and it is just okay. That said if you like to drink Bud or similar style piss you can get it in Germany for around 30 cents a pint.

German Pils are kind of middle of the road. I stick to wheat beers and the occasional Dunkle/Schwartz (darker beers). The problem is most people when they experience German imported beer it is usually Becks or Warsteiner neither of which are very good. The good thing in Germany is the prices too. You can get a decent Czech beer if you don't like German for around $1 a 0.5L ~pint (not a "bottle" like they call them over here), bottle of vodka for about $7, nice French wine for about 10 (pisses the French off their wine is cheaper in Germany) etc.

The article: food cost is being optimistic. It all depends on how much like a student you want to live. Meat is much more expensive as is fruit (when I was living there 7 years ago it was a euro for a grapefruit (~1.50 back then). Meat is about the same price in euros as it is in dollars over here (going by canadian prices which is expensive by US standards so probably more like 1.25X USD price in euros ~2X). Gas is about 2/3 the cost in euros per L as it is in the US per gallon. So if you are a student sure hope you don't want to drive.

People create necessities from themselves. In my experience people in his pay bracket "must pay" for their kids to have private educations at 20-40k a pop per kid, must have luxury cars less than 3 years old etc. Money goes quick if you insist on creating expenses like that for yourself.

and: what is the chances you can send say 5 people and not one of them will have a condition that requires hospital attention in 2 years? I love how scientists (and I have a physics degree) love to suggest very expensive projects and they always claim it will save humanity. Heck I worked in a genetics laboratory and everyone would be doing stupid (but interesting) things like figuring out how lizards grow their tails back. When grant time rolled around it was always: we could grow our own organs, we could cure cancer, we could cure paralysis etc. Heck they literally had whole conferences devoted to people studying one particular type of worm. Sure those things could happen but all the scientist's cared about was getting their PhD so they could land a good post doc. Cancer landed on the grant proposal because that was the circus you had to run to impress the granting committees and or tick boxes to be considered for different government sources of funds.

Anyone thinking the guys at big science facilities are completely working for the benefit of humanity and their own fame and fortune doesn't come into play are smoking crack. Science has as much snobbery as any military or private organization I ever worked about. Getting the best funds, grad students, lab equipment, lab location (EMBL, CERN, Harvard etc), getting your papers in the best journals etc.is 90% of the work senior researchers concern themselves with in my experience.