Sorry, device charging doesn't work that way. If it did, you'd just hook your mobile device up directly to your car battery and have it charged in minutes.

The device itself determines how fast it gets charged by drawing a certain amount of current. Based on passive or active measures, it might draw more current (say, 2A max) from e.g. a wall charger than from a computer USB port (say 500mA max), but if you decided to just wire two wall chargers together, the device isn't magically going to draw 4A.

As for your Kindle, depending on the model you have (Kindle Paperwhite or Kindle Fire? big difference), it really should charge in just a few hours to the point where it decides it's charged (based on LiPo voltage levels). Sounds to me like the internal battery in your unit may be worn and either the charge controller is dropping charging current way too early, or the battery's voltage level takes too long to reach the 'charged' state during the voltage phase. If it's within its warranty period, try exchanging it.

Of course the other possibility is that your nights are very short :)

When things hit the fan, at least it will be relatively easy to clean out.

Kudos to them for making the fan semi-easily accessible. You have to remove the entire back panel - but that seems to apply for access to HDD and RAM as well anyway. Hopefully it tilts and slides right away from the fins as well and you don't have to unscrew and lift those off (potentially putting stress on the CPU/GPU).

( Also yay for keeping the speakers away from the top / not using a fine mesh grille that just gets gunked up with dust. )

I'm more partial to Tabs Outliner. It's also a separate window, but it's modeless so it just lives to the left of my browser window.

It's still an ugly work-around, but when stuck with Chrome it's better than nothing.

Seems it's easypeasy for Canucks. I wonder, how easy would it be for you to open a French bank/cc account in order to sign up for Netflix France (under my suggestion of tying the service to the billing address)?

If they're on holiday somewhere they should get the content for where they are

Why?

As I said in the above response, I'd suppose it depends on the actual agreements made with their content partners. Do you have a different argument that makes the case for content having to be tied to physical location, rather than subscription paid for?

How did that process compare to using one of the technological solutions to get around Netflix's IP geolocation?

And then a subscriber goes on holiday with their tablet, and are getting the incorrect content, and breaking licencing agreements

I guess that would depend on the agreement - but if content gets tied to the billing address, they would actually be getting the correct content, no matter where they're on holiday.

Or a pool of people from different countries pay for an account each, and share the details.

Sharing accounts is already against the terms. I don't know if Netflix bothers to police that, though.

Or someone pays for an account on behalf of someone else in a different country...

In that case, under my suggestion, there really wouldn't be a problem - as long as said 'someone' doesn't also use that account.
Of course it would be a bit peculiar if said 'someone' ends up paying for 20 accounts from the same billing address. But that should be a lot easier to deal with than the ip geolocation cat/mouse game.

Change the card's billing address to that address

Have you tried? Which mailbox/scanning service did you use?

People willing to go through ridiculous hoops and pay extra money in order to view content they are paying for are pirates?

Arguments over copyright infringement 'pirates' vs somali thug pirates aside: Yes.

The problem with your question is in the "in order to view content they are paying for" part. They're not paying for that content. They're paying for the content in the country in which they got the subscription. I.e. if you're a Netflix U.K. subscriber, you're paying for content A, B, and C - not for D, and E. If you're a Netflix U.S. subscriber, you're paying for content A, B, D, and E, but not C.
Sure, the U.S. subscriber is probably paying less and getting more content - but that doesn't somehow mean that the U.K. subscriber is 'entitled' to content D and E as well, any more than that the U.S. subscriber is entitled to content B.

If you opened a Netflix U.S. account, traveled to Ireland, and then had to pay for a VPN or whatever in order to get the Netflix U.S. content that you indeed paid for, rather than Netflix Ireland content based on your IP address at that time, then I'd have a hard time suggesting that to be 'piracy' as well. Then again, see other comment on using the address used for payment to solve this particular scenario.

It might always be a cat and mouse game - but there's a relatively simple way to make it a lot harder for the mice; tie content to the address used for payments, rather than tying it to IP geolocation.

DNS trickery, proxies, VPN, etc. are all very easy to set up, technologically. Try opening a U.S. bank account tied to a U.S. address as somebody who is not a U.S. resident. Good luck.
Even if you manage to do so - at least you're now 'stuck' with the U.S. library. No vast French movie library for French subscribers, Belgian TV series for Belgian subscribers, etc. Admittedly, that may have been the primary goal for subscribers all along, but it's worth noting that there's no more library-hopping either which way.

o/t re: pink - hasn't it been pink for a very, very long time?

his workplace was harassed until he was fired:

This is an increasingly common tactic used by people who disagree with other people.

You're a racist? Let's get you fired:
http://gettingracistsfired.com...

You're a scumbag who doesn't deliver on a kickstarter? Let's bother your parents:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Sure, this isn't new - the latter is just an extension of small-town "you come around here doing that again and I'll be talking to your mama". But the motive and intent are different. It's not about the parents being the authority figure instilling some sense into the kid, but about harassing the parents so that they, too, will blame the 'kid' for woes.

In the former case, it hinges on when things you say are personal, and when they are things you say as a representative of a company.
Post on company blog - company.
Post on facebook with place of employ listed - apparently, company.
Post on twitter with no place of employ listed but people find out through your name and location anyway - according to that blog, company.
Post on a random forum under a pseudonym but given enough searching around have your place of employ found - if you're thinking this should be personal, you're disagreeing with that site.

Increasingly, "what you do in your personal time is your own business" no longer flies, because whatever you do in your personal time can - thanks to the pressure power of social media - very much become your employer's business... even if they have no issue with you personally, but get negative attention for employing you.

Any outside activity must not interfere with your ability to properly perform your job duties

- From one employee manual, in context about outside employment but easily interpreted to also apply to these cases.

I'm not an expert on British law

Well there's your problem.

Britain - and many other countries - have laws that say you can't DDoS.

The U.S. has similar laws;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

As for the hypothetical McDonald's case - they can most certainly call the cops on you and have the cops escort you away from the premises if you're actually stopping them from entering the store, and not just trying to persuade them not to. This also applies in the U.S. You can picket - but you can't block the entry. UK law is a bit more strict and you can probably easily slip into the "disturbing the peace" clause. It is the UK after all.

Whether or not you feel that you'd be made a spectacle out of is probably dependent on whether or not this would make the headlines around the world; because the arrest of this guy wasn't exactly with a pre-planned media circus to get a bunch of paparazzi try and take pictures while they shot gas grenades through the windows, busted down the doors with semi-automatics and then triumphantly led him outside with a bag over his head proclaiming "ladies and gentlemen, we got him".
Instead, they got a warrant for his arrest, they arrested him, reported on that arrest as they would any other, and oh hey look at that - he's already released on bail. Yawn.

That's going to depend on your definition of "approach".

250 yards away - plenty of distance to come to a stop for a red light, reaction time doesn't even factor into it - and the light turns green? I'm not particularly incline to slow down unless I notice there being a situation that warrants it.

But then there's you, who apparently not only sees traffic light turning red as a "well the other directions will take some time to get moving anyway", but adds an additional "plus there's the delay, so I'll be fine running this lololol", who's going to ruin both our days :)

Now if I approached it still at 55mph at, say, 50 yards thinking it will turn green (based on experience, say), then regardless of whether it will or not - you're right, I'd be the asshole.
( And yes, I do see that in everyday traffic far more often than I'd like, too. )

the very beginning of the red (before traffic the other way starts moving).

If you're approaching an intersection with that mindset, you're already driving unsafely.

It's also making the terrible assumption that all lanes from the next direction to get a green are in fact occupied and standing still, rather than there being open lane with somebody cruising through at 55mph because they got a green and saw no reason to slow down (that reason being you.)

Or you can install a custom lock screen on Android and get the same thing.
Or use an iPhone, which I think shows notifications on the lock screen as well?

This does not prevent the "pulling out your phone" part - especially if it doesn't automatically turn its screen on, requiring further steps - and then the unmentioned "putting your phone back" part.
Unless that phone is already on the desk in front of you, of course.