Your points are valid but I assume they don't apply, yet... I'm basing that on the fact that companies like The Warehouse are curreently doing grey market imports and they are too high profile not to have checked where they stand legally.

I don't know about the license on the DVD or the related legality under US law to export them but I do know that to bring in 10,000 to NZ would be perfectly legal as long was they were not pirated copies. Of course TPPA will like force a law change to ensure Kiwis pay way more than they do now.

It is a pity this didn't reach court and had a judgement made. I think NZ law is pretty clear and the media companies would have lost. That would have been good as it would have put them on notice to shut up and rethink their business model in view of global communications. As it is they will take this as a victory and will now act as if it was actually illegal to bypass geo-locks, using this result to hassle the next company to offer such a service.

If I travel to the USA, buy a legal DVD, fly back to NZ and watch it here it is all legal. So how is that different from having my Internet connect travel to the USA, purchasing a media file and bringing it back to NZ to watch. Both cost time and money but offer more choice. Morally and/or legally is there any difference?

I'm a Kiwi who has travel to the USA a few times and has a few US friends. I have learnt that they have a fundamentally different view to guns than people from every other country I have meet. From the outside looking in the USA is hard to believe. Talking with people from the USA it is clear they are passionate about their rights to bear arms and I have accepted they are different from the rest of the world and they think the price they pay for that freedom is acceptable. However the quote from the article ""I should be able to have a howitzer or a bazooka if I want one." has me wondering. From US TV shows it would appear that individuals are not permitted to own nuclear bombs. First correct me if I am wrong, the right to bear arms does not extend to nuclear weapons? If not then where is the limit? Are you permitted a howitzer or bazooka? What limits do people consider ok?

I have been using Amlogic based players recently as they run Kodi directly on Linux builds and seem to have good codec support. I was looking other options to ensure I was keeping up with the state of the art features and the Fire TV was one I looked at. I put it on my B list since they currently don't ship outside the USA, which find weird given they will export books to me. While I could get around the shipping restriction, it makes it less price competitive. With this negative Kodi attitude they are now dropped from my list completely. Yes I could sideload Kodi, but this could be sign of more aggressive restrictions to come, why take the risk?

Sounds similar to the situation here. While legally I think NZ HF and UHF CB service should on be on type approved (RTA) devices I doubt many of the Chinese imports have been through this process. I have dealt with local governement body and they seem to have adopted a fairly pragmatic approach, focusing mainly on stopping the sales of devices on commerical frequencies and addressing interference issues as they arise. I doubt they are worried about hams also operating on other public bands, such as CB and marine, provided you are using the correct modes, appropriate power levels and following the correct etiquite for that service.

I have done some cycling in Auckland for exercise but the hills make it hard going and the helmet law is annoying for a pushbike.

However I love riding my motorcycle in Auckland when the roads are dry, but not so much fun in the wet as it has too much power then. Looking forward to high power electric motorcycles where software could eliminate wheelies and wheel spin during commutes but turn them back on when you feel like a bit of fun in the weekend.

It was intersting to read that part of the design will be locked down, to meet FCC requirements. The celluar band lock out has never been a requirement in many countries, such as here in New Zealand. While I dont care about those bands I do wonder if it will lock out out other non-amature band uses in the name of FCC compliance, that we don't need?

For example us hams who are also like 4WD outings find that some UHF ham rigs can serve a dual role as a UHF CB, saving one extra transciever in the vehicle. In that case we are transmitting at 477MHz with a 5W limit, which while legal here would be illegal in the USA. Actully we have the reverse problem, imports from China on the USA FRS/GMRS channel being offered localy dispite being commerical frequencies here. Also it's nice to be abe to listern to commerical channels. The cheap Boefeng is great in a vehicle as it can replace 5 other radios (2M, 70cm, UHF CB, Marine and a scanner). That may not be a big deal if you have a huge Jeep but we typically use smaller 4WD such as the Suzuki Jinmy were 2 transceivers as about all you can fit.

I think an SDR such as this would be great in such an enviroment, if it could get down to 26MHz it could replace the NZ and USA HF CB rig as well allowing one box to do everything, feed it to the car stereo aux input and control it with the same Android tablet used for naviagation. It would make the ultimate communictions solution for a smaller vehicle. I really like the possiblities it opens for new modes or just embeddeding a bit of digital data in the current modes, such as the location of the transmitting station and a call sign etc.

Even as currently defined it seems like a great peice of gear, hope it goes well for Bruce.

To get a feel for what it would be like try living in a major Chinese city. I did for 2 years, most nights you would only see 2 or 3 stars. I was a bit depressing to look up at night and I wonder if it was a factor in my having "had enough of it" and coming home to New Zealand. First night home and I could not get over how beautiful a night sky full of stars is.

The plan sounds like a bad idea on too many levels...

For me one of the most effective things was to let them know that was monitoring what sites they were visiting. When you first let them online you need to supervise them closely and explain what they should avoid and why. Once they understand what is expected/allowed then give then free access but let then know you are monitoring what sites they are visiting. Knowing that they will self censor.

From a technical point of view I put their machines on a separate subnet with a transparent proxy to monitor access and cron jobs/iptables to block any access when it was time for them to be sleeping.

It is also worth remembering they don't magically change from children to adults on a particular birthday, as they mature yet then know they are allow a wider range of access. For example as young children I did not allow them to play violent games but as preteens I allowed moderately violent games and as teens I didn't really limit games because they had demonstrated they had maturity separate to rules of real life from games. Likewise trying to stop teen boys from view porn is a waste of time, best to let them know that what they see on the Internet should generally not be consider real in terms dealing with the opposite sex.

If want real geek points make one. Take a conventional wireless wheel mouse, remove the wheel, and print a new 3D case what has the shape and button layout you want.

Bonus points, put a howto up on Hackaday.

Looking at those traits I can help but think the system would class your typical programmer as a large security risk and lock the system down so tight that writing code was not an option...

As someone who recently lived in China for a couple of years I can tell you it is a complete waste of time. The Internet in China is so badly broken it is an open joke and it must be holding back the development of China. When you dig into the problem you quickly discover ALL your traffic passes through a single IP address, which I assume is the Great Firewall of China. This IP address not only makes your routes longer and traffic flow slower it also breaks different traffic types in different way depending on the service you want to use and the destination IP.

Adding more bandwidth to the country will have zero effect while all traffic is filter through a single bottle neck, their firewall. If they really wanted to improve performance they need to take the firewall out of the route, that would be far more effective than more fibre.

There is a lot to like about living in China but somethings, over time, drive you nuts. The biggest one for me was not having a reliable Internet connection, after two years of fighting for every packet I had had enough. It was so good to be back home where the Internet works as intended.

Firstly I assume you have the normal 40+ age related close focus problem. If so first by 10 pairs of $2 reading glasses and put them in every room of your home, your work desk and your jacket pockets. Only wear them when you need them.

If you need them to read your desktop computer monitor then you need to fixed the problem so you see your monitors without them. I'm 52 years old so I can see monitors clearly if they are about 60cm (2ft) away, or further. At that distance 19" is too small, and who would even consider acceptable 19" these days? In my case a 23" monitor is the smallest I would consider and I currently use a pair 24" monitors at home and work. If I find the minimum distance increases with age then I will simply get bigger monitors and place then further away. I can work a 8 hour day in front of the monitors with no ill effects with this set up, but more than 30 mins with reading glasses on a small screen, such as a tablet, and my eyes are definitely tired.

The key here is wearing glasses is bad idea if better set up can fix the problem. You need to be able to focus, unaided, on your monitor without effort if you want to be free of eye strain and related discomfort.

Did I miss-read the specs? I don't see wireless charging on the Nexus 6. It was one of the best features of the Nexus 4 and 5. Well I guess I will save money by skipping this one.