Rewrite history much? The Coalition won 90 seats; Labor won 55. It wasn't only most definitively not a narrow margin, it was one of the most decisive elections in recent history. Preferences deals aren't even relevant in the lower house, which is what determines who forms government; preference deals only happen with the Senate, and all the squawking about preferences this election wasn't to do with the coalition; it was to do with the minor parties, who finally got around to exploiting the preferential system the way the major parties have for years, and won a handful of seats, such that they hold the balance of power in the Senate (as long as the Greens vote in a bloc with Labor, which so far, they have).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

They didn't even need to do that. The Labor party self-destructed - they couldn't even keep the same prime minister for a whole term during the last six years. It was the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd backstabbing powerplay that won the Coalition the election.

Right back at you buddy.

I know it sounds vain but it does also have practical applications for people with muscular deficiencies owing to immobility. From what I've gathered, no one really knows what happens, precisely, to cause muscles to "grow". Sure, there's a hundred different theories tossed around on body building forums, but a lot of sounds more like pseudo-biological nonsense rather than real science. There's precious little experiment in the field and my lay understanding is that it is because the only method of looking at muscles is biopsy.

These laws are toothless. "Must answer within 20 days"... or what? With no one held immediately culpable, the law is precisely meaningless.

Heard of anyone going to jail for this?

Heard of anyone paying a fine for this?

Even heard of anyone losing their job for this?

Compare: If you don't do something the government desires you to do, there will be consequences.

This is just like the constitution: "Highest law in the land" -- violate it -- as SCOTUS and congress have done over and over -- and the consequences? Nothing.

Just so you taxpayers know your place. The laws aren't for the government. Those are just laws "for show." The real laws are just for you. Because, you know, they care about you.

Or given that it has to be connected to a TV, the security pairing code can be displayed on the TV as well and the user enters that code in.

Anything the Chromecast can connect to is at least 720p - plenty for a QR code with a fairly beefy key.

Yeah. Having an Emplant board. I've owned several Amigas, and hung out with several other Amiga owners. Blow it out your arse sideways.

Landmines...

Whatever price Verizon says it'll give you for FIOS, add $5/mo for the router rental that's forced on you, for absolutely no reason.

He and his cronies will get what's coming to them.

You don't watch Game of Thrones, do you?

Hint: The worse guy almost always wins.

FiOS is 1/8th mile away from my house but they won't bring it the last couple hundred feet.

Sounds like you need to strike up a deal with one of your neighbors, to sign-up for FIOS and host a WiFi AP aimed towards your house for you. Give them free internet access (throttled when you're maxing it out) or just a few dollars more than the bill, and you'll both come out ahead.

For me, a real sign of the death of Slashdot is the predictability of the trolls.

This statement just reeks of "noob".

The trolling (and gaming of mod and m2) was VASTLY higher in the early /. days. At certain points, it really was crushing any legitimate discussions. You have no idea how good you've got it, on that account.

Slashdot is dying because of Dice, nothing else.

So your solution for providing poor people with the Internet is to suggest that they go to Starbucks and McDonalds?

I guess that's a solution. I guess we could also say that poor people don't need indoor plumbing because they can just use the toilet at their local gas station. It seems to me like it's a silly, inefficient solution that will be unpleasant for everyone involved, so I'd need more of a justification before I would agree.

At this point, it's pretty clear that if you don't already have it, you won't be getting it.

Not true here. It was quite a while after their announced buildout freeze that FIOS became available here. A neighboring city had it for a while, and since then, it has expanded a few cities away, and filled-in all the coverage gaps, too.

Frankly, I hate FIOS, because they immediately take away nice cheap DSL as an option. Why the hell does my mother need to pay $65/month for the slowest FIOS package, when she's never watched an online video in her life, still has no interest in Netflix, and wouldn't care whether it came in 480i or 4k? But nice cheap DSL is no longer an option for her, because we have FIOS.

Time Warner is awesome, offering a $15/month basic internet access plan even though they've got no competition in that space anymore, but if they get bought out by Comcast, we're screwed.

Yes, but alas, the situation is much more complicated than fishing.

There are more things to consider than simply the cost of the hardware. Do the iPads have any specific features that are required for their plans? Are there specific apps that they want to use? What platforms are those applications available for? What kind of administrative tools are available for each platform, and have they already invested in any of those tools? Is their IT staff more familiar and skilled in managing a specific platform? What kinds of price cuts and support are offered by the manufacturer?

Saving even a couple of hundred dollars per unit might be a drop in the bucket when compared with the peripheral costs. Yes, IT departments everywhere might be able to save a little money on the purchase of each computer by buying all of their parts from NewEgg and installing Linux on the computer that they cobble together from parts. Still, it ends up being cheaper, when you add up all the peripheral costs, to buy ready-made computers from Dell with Windows pre-installed.

Not everyone who buys Apple products is an idiot.