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Comment Re: I never thought I'd say this... (Score 1) 353

For your grandfather, would he have been allowed to install it himself the final 500 feet and if so what would have the telco cost been to establish the connection?

For the rural community, what sort of housing density are we talking about?

One thing that I would like to see it community networks that are then leased out to ISPs, with non-exclusive agreements. I would hope that in this scenario the ISPs and telco could not argue unfair competition and therefore be unable to block this.

Comment Re:Not just one mobo (Score 1) 102

Or you need better warranty laws: the time they need to replace it doesn't count, each replacement (attempt) increases warranty by 6 months, if they fail 3 times they have to refund the money. That's e.g. (more or less) the rules in Germany.

One company I know will attempt to repair three times. If it still fails they replace, but the replacement part starts with a new warranty. I think that is the way it should be. The warranty should be on the part, so any replacement would effectively reset the effective purchase date.

That may get expensive for some companies, but maybe they should be rethinking their business model?

Comment Proposal (Score 2) 819

Two things come out of this:
    - IATA needs to regulate this.
    - Leg spacing and seat size should be mandatory provided information in any booking.

On one hand you can argue that the passengers are getting what they pay for, but on the other hand you can also argue that customers don't have this information, at time of booking, to make an informed purchase choice.

At the same time if fights break out often enough, requiring forced landings, then I think people will start realising this cost saving is actually getting expensive (extra cost due to unplanned landings, time and reputation).

Comment Safe Buffer? (Score 3) 65

Given the number of security issues related to buffer over-runs, I wonder whether C/C++ should provide a safe buffer that would help alleviate these issues? Sure it might compromise performance slightly, though it might be acceptable when faced with the alternative of unexpected issues due to an unforeseen buffer overrun.

Comment Re:Anti-competitive (Score 1) 238

It does, but you should never under-estimate the ability of people to bother reading or paying attention to such details.

Apple does have a way to deactivate iMessage, but when you leave the Apple eco-system people don't realise that something that they were taking for granted suddenly gets in the way.

BTW the knowledge page for deactivating iMessage (never tried it): http://support.apple.com/kb/TS...

Comment Re:Funny how (Score 2) 123

Civil expenditure vs military expenditure. It's sad that it takes a military budget to do stuff, when a civilian space agency could do just as well.

The reality is that when asked the question 'why are you doing this?', the answer in one case will be a fuzzy 'important defence stuff' and people will stop asking questions, while in the other "researching technology for future manned space flight" and then people will start questioning it even more and each want to be a stake holder in the budget.

Comment Re:Crying wolf? (Score 1) 230

Not quite the same thing. Nature works at its own pace, but when you have geological evidence you should take heed of it. Geology can only help so much, because the exact time element is where things are fuzzy. On the flip side there are geologists who are more cautious about announcements and then get put in jail (case in Italy) - it's hard to win when everyone wants a scape goat.

For me it's like buildings or bridges that were built badly. You know they will fail, but not when. You know when the failure happens it won't be a pretty sight.

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