Comment Re: Yahoo has 22 million .jp users? (Score 1) 28
Have you tried google.com/ncr ?
This will do a no country redirect and you will get google proper no matter where you are.
Comment Is it piracy when I pay the TV tax? (Score 4, Insightful) 447
Here in Sweden, I pay a TV tax. This tax goes to paying for state owned TV channels. They broadcast Game of Thrones without commercials. There are no advertisers being hurt, and my TV tax goes to paying HBO for the syndication rights. The issue is I do not like seeing the subtitles that are burned in. I also like my show at the highest resolution with surround sound.
So is it piracy when I download it rather than watching it directly from syndication?
Submission + - Anonymous Hacks Federal Sentencing Commission website -- Posts Video (cbsnews.com) 2
anagama writes: ""This time there will be change, or there will be chaos." In response to the disproportionate prosecution of Swartz, Anonymous hacked the US. Sentencing Commission website and posted a video. One interesting thing discussed in the video, is an encrypted file that it is hoped will spread far and wide (mirror list — appears to be files related to Supreme Court Justices), the key for which would be released if reforms are not enacted. As for the statement itself, the text is available in the ZDNet article and mirror list linked above, and includes this clearly self-aware statement: "We [who] make this statement do not expect to be negotiated with; we do not desire to be negotiated with. We understand that due to the actions we take we exclude ourselves from the system within which solutions are found. There are others who serve that purpose, people far more respectable than us, people whose voices emerge from the light, and not the shadows. These voices are already making clear the reforms that have been necessary for some time, and are outright required now.""
Comment Re:You can't eliminate them (Score 2) 825
The country I am in now (Sweden) does not round the prices. They still use the obsolete öre (in physical form) in the prices. What they do is round it to the nearest krone. Some times you benefit if less than 50 öre and they round down, otherwise they round up.
Comment Re:You can't eliminate them (Score 3, Interesting) 825
In other countries this is solved by laws demanding that all prices advertised to individuals (as opposed to companies) or where the target customer is clearly an individual include sales tax. So prices including the sales tax are conveniently set to nice round numbers.
Sweden just had an issue where including the tax in the price caused recently reduced taxes to not get passed to the customer.
Restaurants had a tax reduction from 25% to 12.5%. Since the tax was already included in the price, none of the restaurants reduced the prices and just pocketed the profit. If the price shown was pre-tax and the tax added in tally, the customer would have received the tax break.
The only ones that actually reduced their prices was the large food chains. Most likely because watch dog groups were making sure of this.
ACTA To Be Signed This Weekend 277
We've been following the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement for over three years, from its secretive beginnings, to the controversy and debate that followed, and to the document it eventually evolved into. Now, Japan has announced that the agreement will finally be signed on Saturday during a ceremony that follows an anti-piracy symposium on Friday.
"The negotiation has been carried out among Australia, Canada, the European Union and its Member States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States, and reached a general agreement at the negotiation meeting held in Japan in October 2010, followed by the completion of technical and translation work in April 2011. ... The signing ceremony will be attended by the representatives of all the participants in the ACTA negotiations, and those that have completed relevant domestic processes will sign the agreement. The agreement is open for signature until May 1, 2013."
Comment Re:Nobody will take it seriously (Score 4, Insightful) 105
until somebody die from it. sorry, but it's been that way for centuries.
Nobody will take it seriously until an entertainment satellite gets taken out.
Comment Re:I wonder (Score 1) 200
How long it will be till TVs come with Kinects built in, and can't be turned off. It would be an advertiser's wetdream, and then the DHS could use it to monitor those who might be a "threat to national Security" (everyone).
One word: Tape.
Comment Re:Looks (Score 1) 717
they can't install custom firmwares that remove the restriction.
You can install custom firmwares on the mac yourself however that prevent the region change counter from deducting.
http://forum.rpc1.org
Comment Re:Oh, if I could get the hours lost back (Score 3, Informative) 186
Here's a wonderful little piece of trivia about Solar Realms Elite:
The author of SRE, Amit Patel, went on to work at Google, and is one of two people credited with devising their "Don't Be Evil" motto.
and that he lost the source code to SRE due to a hard drive crash.
Comment The Wii started offering Demos (Score 1) 379
Surprisingly, the Nintendo Wii began offering demos of Wiiware titles, and to a limited extent short time demos of Virtual console titles (such as through Super Smash Bros Brawl). The only companies that have something to worry about are the ones releasing horrible games where the demo causes people to test and not purchase the full version.
The movie industry offers demos in the form of Previews. Although comparing the two are like apple and oranges.
Comment Re:Dinosaurs (Score 1) 326
I have a Swedish and an Australian SIM card. Each of which cost less than US$ 10 and included a bunch of minutes and free or nearly-free (international!) texting and cheap and easy-to-get refills. Both of which "just work" every place I've tried to use them.
Except one. The US... where they want 10 times that much just for the SIM and they can't even guarantee that it'll work in both Florida and New Jersey!
When I went to Sweden, I found the first news paper stand I could find, bought a SIM card for US$10 and got US$15 in credit. Yes, they gave me 5 dollars more in credit. And the best part, my pre-pay Swedish SIM card worked Internationally, I tested in Japan and the US. The refill process is simple as getting a code printed receipt from a number of places, you text the code and you get refill confirmation. All your minutes are valid for a year upon refilling, including your previous minutes, even with the cheapest refill amount. They even offer campaigns such as free internet days, 3000 international SMSes if you refill with $25, and etc.
US carriers such as T-Mobile, offer Prepay, but the damn SIM only works in the US, will not register internationally, require a purchase of the SIM at double what I paid in Europe without credit on it, and expires in mere months.
Comment Re:fake. Anyone can make up stickers. (Score 1) 370
I can say that I have made fake stickers for use in bathrooms. You know those hand blow dryers? I made a sticker that said.
1. Push Button.
2. Dispense Bacon.
Since the 3 wave bands in the depiction looked like that.
Microsoft To Exit the Zune Business? 361
thefickler writes "According to Microsoft's quarterly filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Zune platform experienced a revenue drop of 54 percent, or $100 million. This compares to relatively healthy sales of the iPod, which were up 3 percent in the same period (though revenue did drop by 16 percent). Obviously, with the recent job cuts at Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, pundits are wondering how soon until the Zune also gets the chop. As one pundit wrote: 'Microsoft, by now, should be realizing that it's never going to be as "cool" as Apple, so why waste its time with the Zune where it has no competitive advantage?'"
Comment Re:First Save the ones on the verge of extinction (Score 1) 197
Then there was the Passenger Pigeon which didn't die due to loss of habitat, but rather over hunting as cheap meat.
So, um, they'd be hunted back to extinction as cheap meat again?
In that case the mechanism that drove them to extinction is still present.
They were hunted to feed slaves in America. The meat itself wasn't savory, it was just cheap. Plus if you protect it and NOT offer a bounty on quantity, it can thrive.
So, um, they'd be hunted back to extinction as cheap meat again?
In that case the mechanism that drove them to extinction is still present.
