You were lucky then. I had one of the early Vertex 3's, and it took a whole series of firmware updates before OCZ got it right. They did in the end (it's still working now), but I'd never buy another OCZ. Also, the Vertex 3 advertised read and write speeds were far above what you get in real use: they only apply in tests using long strings of 0 or 1s. Compression creates great test results which in turn sells product. But when the customer finds how much slower the device is in use, they don't become repeat customers.

The new Nokia Lumia's show that Nokia can still make great hardware - e.g 41 megapixel camera. I'd buy one like a shot if it ran Android, to replace my ageing Nokia E71.

I will not buy a Windows phone though. I have to use Windows on the desktop, but I want a more open architecture on my phone, which LOTS of companies support. So I'll probably buy a Samsung or HTC, or maybe the Nexus 5 which I see is now out.

Which you can - look up Raman Amplifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier#Raman_amplifier

Raman amplification is quite widely used in existing fibre networks, both to increase the distance between repeaters, and to increase the bandwidth of existing fibre runs, e.g. to allow 40 Gb/sec over fibre originally laid for 10 or 2.4 Gb/sec use. By increasing the signal strength Raman amplification can reduce the effect of the dispersion which limits the minimum pulse length detectable, and hence allow higher data rates over a given fibre.

It will if it makes sense commercially. At the old STL (later Nortel) lab in Harlow England, where data transmission over fibre was invented back in 1966, we could show rates of up to 64 Tb were possible using DWM over a single fibre at least 12 years ago. But people weren't ready to pay for such data rates back then, and the telecoms market was crashing after the excesses of the late 1990's, so development was stopped.

Lucent-Alcatel is itself a long haul optical fibre manufacturer, Alcatel having bought the Cable Division of STC when Northern Telecom (aka Nortel) bought the rest of STC in 1991. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Telephones_and_Cables

I remember when Italy ran out of small change in the 1970s (I think the coins were worth more than their value as scrap metal, with the obvious result). Shops would give you sweets in place of small change. Seemed to work quite well.

As you say, we have 1G and 10G in use today, so we'll soon need more. But 100G is ALREADY a standard. I'm sure we'll need and get 1T eventually, but 100G should be enough for almost everyone for a few years.

BTW speeds of many Tbit/sec were demonstrated in the lab a good 10 years ago using optical dense wavelength multiplexing, but full product development was too expensive for what the market needed then. Also, it was aimed at large telcos, not as the cheap plug in connection that Ethernet implies, But technology moves on, it will happen.

The important thing is that this is the DRAFT Communications Data Bill. It would have been a normal bill where amendments are possible but usually opposed by the Government (who have the majority). But Nick Clegg and other Lib Dems insisted it be published as a draft, so people can comment on it and so changes can be made. Julian Huppert MP is already working to change it, and has got himself on the committee of MPs who will be considering it - see http://www.libdemvoice.org/julian-huppert-mp-writes-communications-data-we-have-to-get-this-right-28964.html

We MUST have a new bill, if only to replace RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) passed by the previous Government, which introduced state snooping on a grand scale, (did you know that in the past year alone, there were 540,000 data requests under RIPA?). But the proposed bill has many flaws too; jsut to start with, Part 1 gives far too much arbitrary power to the Secretary of State.

So it is up to those who oppose the bill to make their views known and put reasoned arguments and views forward to the Committee considering it. This government has shown it /will/ change its mind if enough people object to things it is doing, and in this case it's easy for them to do so as it's a draft, with changes expected. See also http://carons-musings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/169-days-to-help-julian-huppert-protect.html

Google generally hides duplicate pages on a site. However if you use Advanced Search it finds "About 942,000 results", which is near enough a million, especially as some sites will have started clearing up infected pages by now.