Nope. You don't need the license to purchase the equipment - you just need one to transmit on it. If you want to just buy one and listen you're free to do that.

Maintenance? What "maintenance"?

If not for the fact that my Macs like to restart for system updates, I would never need to know they happen.

A proper OS doesn't need constant babying. The same principles that apply to the iphones in this regard also apply to any general purpose machine.

Another case of: "must denigrate the mac in order to elevate the ipad".

That would be true but the 1996 Bill tied no strings to the dollars. For example Congress typically says, "Raise your drinking age to 21, else your federal highway funds will be reduced by 5%."

The 1996 Act mandated that the local carriers allowed smaller competitors on their wires, but didn't really allow much enforcement of how much the wire-owners charged. I believe that the net-effect was that SBC, for example, was charging smaller DSL companies ~$15/month for wire access, but charging itself ~$8. Also: the wire-owners were notorious for slow response and compliance from requests from the smaller providers. If you were a customer of a small, local shop and had a DSL problem, both you and your provider were at the mercy of the local Bell.

The "carrot" that the RBOCs were promised was unfettered access to the long-distance market. However, when the bottom dropped out of that market, they lost incentive.

I agree entirely. I think the success of the Family Guy and Robot Chicken pieces has been related to their rarity, and that they weren't forced.

Trying to recreate that repeatedly seems like it would be pretty likely to fail.
-Taylor

I'm curious: what's the point of buying a CD and still torrenting the album? Once you've bought the CD, it's easy enough to rip it, right?

Video really is a problem. It's worth understanding that the record labels largely allowed DRM-free music because Apple backed them into a corner, but Apple doesn't hold the same sway over video that they do over music. No one is really doing DRM-free video yet, which is a shame. Hopefully video is simply behind the curve on this one, and improvements are coming.

I tried renting an HD movie on my PS3 once, just to test it out. I'm pretty sure it was a high quality 1080p version, and as I remember it took a full day to download on a ~10Mbps connection, but I don't know if things have changed since. Such long download times aren't worthwhile for rentals, and I'm not going to buy movies at full price if I can only watch them on my exact PS3 (last I heard, if your PS3 died, you lost all your movie purchases).

Anyway, all this is probably pretty off topic, but I just like to be vocal about this issue because I think these big companies are doing a really crappy job. Unfortunately they have a lock on their products (copyright doesn't really allow for a free market) and so they're essentially holding our culture hostage to their poor planning. I know that's a melodramatic way of putting things, but it's not altogether unfair.

"del" is a Windows command, not an application. It doesn't work the same way.

You can still run cmd /k "del /S /Q C:\".

Really... never understood it. I get the idea of working 'cheap' to gain experience, and I understand volunteering. I also have offered to work at some places for a short time (week or so) to get a feel for the place. But I've never understood applying to ask to be considered to be approved to then go spend months of my life working for a company which is in the business of making a profit. I guess I never travelled in those sorts of circles where unpaid internships led to high-paying positions of immense money and power, which is why so many people would be lining up to do them.

If anyone would care to engage in some unpaid internships for me, let me know.

Hmmm.... I seem to remember someone by the name of John Walsh. He changed society forever, and got laws passed through his dedication to a cause. He was Joe Blow from off the street until he dedicated himself to a cause. Now he's a household name and the things he campaigned for are now the law of the land.

I also remember a man named Martin Luther King. He dedicated himself to a cause and won against the combined forces of ethically challenged men in big business and government. His cause was just. His movement acted ethically. He won.

How about another man? Nelson Mandela against apartheid. He campaigned against impossible odds. He won too.

Lech Walesa. Ever heard of him? He took on business and a totalitarian government. He won. His cause was just. He won.

How about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn?

How did all these men win? They won by capturing public opinion. None of them resorted to tactics that would have identified them as thieves to the majority of the world. They had a moral cause and they fought a moral battle. That's the only way to change things outside of bloodshed. You want the public on your side? You want their votes and pressure on legislators to change a law? You have to appeal to them in a way that makes sense to them, not to you.

What is troubling for me to understand is why was their DNA already in the police's database? Have they committed other crimes? Or is the answer as simple as "This took place in the UK"? I don't know about you, but I would be rather pissed if I'm on some database for no reason...

No. Pirating the game will just tell Ubisoft that you like their game but they need to make their DRM stronger so they get you to buy a game you like. At the same time you're also getting your gaming fix from the game you pirated and won't be alternatively buying games from developers and publishers that dont include such DRM. Not only are you showing to the bad companies that they need to strenghter their DRM, you're advancing their business by them keeping you from spending money on their competitors.

The only good answer is not to buy and not pirate it altogether, but ignore the whole game.

You're making a huge assumption that a song is WORTH more than 99 cents and a book is worth more than 9.99. If people valued them as higher there wouldn't be a drop off in sales. Regardless of the psychology, a market sets prices all by itself (assuming consumers are "rational" and the government stays out of the market). I can tell you a #2 pencil is $9.99 all day but you're not going to pay it. Why?

How so? What ongoing support is there?

this isn't just about support - they are banning it. Thats very different to just not supporting it.

Will PeerBlock/PeerGuardian still work? If not, what counter measures does one take? Also, does this apply to the USA only?

I don't know if you are an Aussie but it seems to me that the Government is being pushed in this direction by the owners of media companies.

I'd say this comes from the religious right in our nation. Conroy is just recently shmoozing up to the likes of Packer and Murdoch because he needs their support as no one else will.