You really think that these huge megacompanies hire law firms and don't have their own legal staff?

Legal is mostly a fixed expense at this level.

Shut up, Topper.

...is no longer included in Windows 8.

Earlier this week, I thought I'd upgrade my HTPC to Windows 8. I've been using WMC on W7 now for a couple of years and it has been working great using HDHomeRUn tuners for local broadcast reception and recording/time shifting.

Imagine my surprise. No WMC. It's a paid upgrade. Ok, I'll bite. Where to I upgrade it? Clicky linky. Sorry, the licensing server is not available.

So I said to myself, Self... Let's see what else this WIndows 8 has to offer. This user interface is a total abortion. After fumbling around for an hour and feeling like a fool, I eventually clicked some of the colored boxes on the screen. Not a single thing would launch with the exception of IE9. Reason? My TV is 720 lines of resolution, not 1080. Every stinkin' app said I didn't have the required resolution.

My HTPC is now running Windows 7 again. And will be for a long time to come. It's way too good of a television to discard for a new operating system.

High SWR does not cause the finals to heat up. High SWR causes excessive voltage on the output device and at some point will cause catastrophic failure. It's generally not gradual.

I believe the failure mode for tin whiskers is generally catastrophic and not gradual.

And yes, there's plenty of evidence that tin whiskers are killing our electronics.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/toyota-sudden-acceleration-tin-whiskers_n_1221076.html

Sure it is. You just need to get your Amateur Radio license.

I wish I was as young as you think I am...

Are you saying the French would cut off their nose to spite their face over power or that Google would?

What does Google have to lose by cutting off the French? In my opinion, nothing. Quite the opposite. Google would soon have a perfect example why a foreign government shouldn't do insipid things like that. Useful for parading in front of the next would be power grabber.

What does the French have to gain by invoking a new law and Google cutting them off? They lose power because they were seen as inconsequential. The newssites lose readers which means they lose profit. I'm not seeing the real win here for the French politicians or the newssites. Oh, they can stand on principal. They've done that before. But that won't stop the huge internal pressures for the French politicians to redact the law. It would be a hell fire for the politicians that plunged their population into the internet stone age.

There's power and there's wanna be power. Guess who has which?

Google isn't reading the newssites. The general public is reading the newssites.

Google is helping them by sending more readers. They really think that they get that service for free?

Are they really that dense?

I expect Google to flip that switch off when the law is passed.

Not true. Your digestive system senses volume and density. It's just not very good at sensing density of highly processed (condensed) food.

The FIRST thing I would do would be to find some POS software where the terminals switch to standalone mode WHEN the server/network goes down (not IF). Then I would work on getting the server and network to a point where that is necessary less often.

With the right searches, a determined public could keep the authorities so busy that they would eventually abandon the system.

Just like it's been proven time and again that I can tell you when there's a speed trap ahead on the road, I can tell you when a commercial is about to begin.

That and me telling you when the coast is clear or the commercial has ended completes the loop, but the conveyance of all that type of information is protected by Freedom of Speech under the US Constitution.

And that's the way I would defend it in court.

And that would make you a bad Conductor. Hence the problem.