This "let's have as few useful things as we can" idea is rubbish (Apple!)

The sole Apple device I own is a Macbook Pro, and that only because it was inherited with a broken screen and too expensive to fix (it runs Linux BTW, and I haven't booted OSX once since I got that up and running). But, because of said broken screen, it gets used as a pseudo-desktop, so consequently mouse, keyboard, and the invariable "something else" (USB drive, phone, sometimes multiples thereof) require more than the given two ports, and thus a hub - which is stupid, when that's just for my basic setup. In my opinion, two ports (or worse, one) is bad design, because it's only catering to the "most people, most of the time" crowd, leaving no space for the slightly more unusual cases, which invariably happen. And, as someone noted, this doesn't consider the failure and/or destruction of a USB port (we had this happen with a previous laptop when its power cable got tripped over - for anyone with kids, a broken USB port is only a matter of time).

Also, if you are not thinking about mouse+keyboard+external monitor as a standard setup, then you don't care about your users' posture or the health of their backs. I rarely use any laptop for an extended period without this configuration, and then only because I don't have much option (e.g. in bed, on a bus) - and I usually regret the hunching posture pretty soon after.

Fewer ports on an ultra-portable (ultrabook or *cough* netbook) makes some sense, but I would still say 3 is my minimum expectation, although I might settle at 2 in those cases. Considering that the Macbook was definitely not in the ultra-portable category (previous user was a graphic designer), I see 2 ports as very poor - especially considering the original price tag!

What a lot of people don't seem to realise is that wireless tech, while constantly improving, is fundamentally going to be worse performance than a physical, wired connection. I notice this with our wireless mouses (just that tiniest bit of responsiveness glitch). When I want to transfer files, it's still faster for me to use a naff old UTP cable than it is to use the 802.11n wireless (of course, for bigger files, an external USB drive still seems to be quicker than both, especially if it's all USB3 or eSATA). Yes, wireless is nice for convenience, but not for performance or reliability.

Let's just say that next time someone mentions they are thinking of buying a Mac with it's single failure point port, I'll have a really simple answer: "No, don't."

Maybe I'm just strange because I actually want to use a computer to be productive? (Also why I loathe touchpads).

I've always thought that a better option than "must have at least 1 upper case and 1 lower case letter, 1 number, 1 symbol, and 1 untypeable character" kind of rules, is to match the passwords users are attempting to set up against a rainbow table (i.e. approach it in the same way that hackers do). "P@ssw0rd1" is a crap password, but will be accepted by almost any site as "strong". Instead, match against a dictionary, against known common passwords, and against a general sanity filter (e.g. 3 characters is too short, perhaps even display the results of an entropy calculation if you're feeling really snazzy). beaglemayhemsenselessaurevoir would be an excellent password - but a lot of algorithms wouldn't think so.

This works fine... as long as the browser (or the HDD it's stored on) doesn't crash. The reason we use passwords is that we need something we can take with us anywhere, which pretty much limits it to "something you know" (as "something you are" - i.e. biometrics - isn't implemented for this sort of thing yet, and we tend to lose the "something we have").

Best kind of password though: the nonsense phrase. Easy to remember, hard to guess. I read "Beagles twirl whiddershins up my saxophone" in a magazine article about passwords some 10 - 15 years ago and have never had trouble remembering it since. The "acronym" nonsense phrase is about as good (e.g. "I like eating ten elephants" = "ile10e").

You mean this? (Obligatory XKCD).

You know, I think I should change my work password to "Correcthorsebatterystaple1" (2, 3, 4...) just because of the idiot policies. :-)

Yes, this. I think that the "levels" idea is probably the best way to manage passwords, as it strikes a balance between uniqueness where it matters and not having to remember too many passwords.

Also, I would add one comment: not all sites that ask for personal information actually need it (e.g. why should Facebook know - and advertise!? - my real birth date; if people know me well enough, they'll know my real birthday. If not, tough; the site has no need for being given enough information to fake my identity when calling my bank...!)

I do reuse the same password in places, but only on sites where I don't care if it gets hacked (and it amazes me how many times I've had to use it). What annoys me though is that I can't always use it as sometimes it's too long (?!), and I've had to adapt to having a version that includes digits and mixed-case (despite the fact that even the basic all-lowercase version is pretty much unhackable - hint: it's more than one word, it makes no sense, and it's not even English). But for important sites (banks, even email) I use completely different passwords. What reusing one password does do though is save me ever having to write down passwords: is it an important site? Then I can probably remember the password. Is it some site I can't even remember signing up to? Then I'll know it's my "throwaway" password.

Although, a smarter version would probably be to adapt the "throwaway" password with some arbitrary variation based on the name of the site or whatever (e.g. add the third letter of the site name as the second-to-last character, or something similarly obfuscated but easy to remember).

This is just a case of adding an unnecessary middleman. If your customer's customer is the general public, then that's still where the money comes from, and they are still the ultimate customer. The reality of the modern internet-accessing world is that there is only one market. If you're dumb enough to sign a multi-million-dollar deal for something that is fundamentally unenforceable, then both parties deserve to lose money.

Ergo, they're still abusing their customers. They still don't have a right to complain when someone circumvents their artificially-engineered restrictions.

(And yes, I do realise that with most television media, the paying customer is actually the advertisers, not the general populace - however, advertisers are paying to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible, so it's still in the provider's best interest to make it as widely available as possible, with the ads included - which it won't be on a torrented copy). Smart people wouldn't region limit, but would have regionally-targeted ads.

Yes, this is basically what it comes down to. One company, who have been fairly used to having a stranglehold on paid content in NZ, don't like that, and oh, there might be this scary thing called competition, so rather than adapt, they get out the lawyers. There is no legitimate reason for Sky to have a stranglehold,* so as far as I'm concerned, this just needs to get chucked out of court to make a clear demonstration that it is not ok to abuse your customers and complain when someone undercuts you.

* I'm not a hardcore capitalist, so I do see that there are places where legislation or government intervention are needed to protect a market in order for it to stay free and fair. Of course, one of those places is protecting against abusive monopolies...

Unless the ISP covers the VPN part itself (which is the case here). I'm in New Zealand and have friends who do pay for a VPN and the US version of Netflix. Netflix just launched in NZ, but from what I hear, the content choice is a lot more limited. I haven't dived into subscribing to either yet because (a) the NZ version of Netflix isn't guaranteed to have what I want, and (b) the overseas version isn't guaranteed to stay accessible (I'm a customer of one of the ISPs involved in this). If you gave me a service that would have current product (i.e. not more than about 2 hours after original airing) and a complete collection (i.e. all the shows, not just some, and more than just the most recent 3 episodes), I'd happily sign up. That's not an option here though, so I am prevented from paying.

I live in New Zealand and am a customer of one of the ISPs involved in this.

The thing is, the media companies seem to miss that we're now in an international community, so if the people in Burgerland realise that they can import a disk at $10, rather than pay for a local copy at $50, they're going to do that. And, trying to prevent this is going to hurt their sales. Some years back, when I visited the USA, I thought I'd pick up a couple of DVDs as they were cheaper, but in the end I didn't, because they were the wrong region. I was more than happy to spend money on their product, but was prevented by the region locking.

As for the case in question though, we never bothered updating our TV when NZ terrestrial broadcasting went digital as we just didn't have any interest in the lame TV on offer and/or stupid schedules for stuff we did want. We get pretty much all of our media online now (with the occasional rare visit to the local DVD store). If it's online in a format that's legal and easy (and of a decent quality and DRM free), then we'll get it that way, but that's rarely easy. What I think the media companies miss is that if you block access to the original sites, people are going to go elsewhere - choose your favourite TV show and see how long it takes you to find a reasonable streaming version of it using Google (e.g. "Watch Game of Thrones online"). (Interestingly, if my understanding of NZ law is correct - although IANAL - I don't think watching a streaming copy of something is illegal/punishable, but sharing one is).

The more they make legitimate (or borderline-legitimate, like the present case) copies hard to get to, the more they (a) give people reason to hunt down illegal copies, and (b) give people reason to rip them off, because they're being nasty to us (I would be quite happy for the MPAA and RIAA to just die off, to be honest).

I would be more than happy to have somewhere that I can pay a small fee per episode (say ~$1) to be able to download a DRM-free copy of my favourite shows. I don't want the only way to get something to be of questionable legality. I'd even be happy to watch a streaming version with ads, if I had to, and if the ads weren't too annoying (most I've seen so far that do this play the same ad 6 times in one show...) We have worked this out with music, why not with TV and movies?

The media supply chain is competing with a (black) market with zero costs. The tighter they grip, the more they will lose. They need to open up and adapt, or they'll die off. At some point, someone is going to work out how to monetize torrent- or YouTube-distributed shows (maybe paid product placement, maybe Kickstarter), and by that point, it will be too late for the big boys to try and adapt. If they were smart, they would already be there. Apparently they're not smart.

Gives me a lot of reason to like my ISP though - they're out to offer a useful service for their customers, and willing to fight for it. That kind of company I can support.

I bow to your superior geekery. I still don't like capitals in the middle of words though. :-)

"outside observer of American politics" (I've only been there once). I had no idea I had that wrong, sorry. Though, my post was a deliberate attempt to be an amusing, slightly-trolling response to an obviously stupid GP comment (although, in thinking about it, that GP's comment about how click-bait works on Republicans was in itself a sort of comment-bait...) To my amusement however, my comment has been modded +1 Insightful.

Or this?

Does this help? (Amusingly, found using a non-advanced Google search...!)

Like this one? Now that would be hard to break into.