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Comment Current variable rate is 2.48% (Score 1) 1259

I have 6 loans over 2003-2007. 5 are variable and are currently at 2.48%. One is not variable and is at 6.8%. The variable are before 2007. The fixed higher one was in 2007. So basically congress helped the banks by switching loans to fixed rate loans and allows them to collect absurd interest rates on what is essentially a no risk loan.
Hardware Hacking

Getting a Classic PC Working After 25 Years? 533

tunersedge writes "Yesterday I dug out of my parents' basement a PC they had bought brand new in 1984: Epson Equity I personal computer; 512K RAM; 82-key keyboard; 2 (count 'em!, 2) 5.25" floppy disk drives; 13' RGB monitor (with contrast/brightness knobs); handy on/off switch; healthy 25-year-old yellowed plastic; absolutely no software. (My mom ran a pre-school, and they used it to keep records and payroll. I cut my programming teeth on this thing. GW-Basic was my friend. Kings Quest screens took 2 minutes to load when you walked into a new one.) When I resurrected this machine I pulled the case off, dusted out a little, and plugged it in. It actually fired up! I'm stoked, except the disks we had are missing. What I'm looking to do is either buy some old working disks with whatever I can find (MS-DOS 3.22, GW-Basic, whatever), or try and recreate some using a USB-based floppy drive and some modern software. Has anyone tried to resurrect a PC this old before?"

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 313

I guess it depends on the code base and how well things are tracked. If you can identify all the people who contributed and what they contributed, then I guess you could track them all down and trying to get them to agree to issue a one time license. But if at least one person can't be found or says no, then you are screwed. Because you are working after the fact. The code can't be coded around and replaced since it's already being used. Personally I think the settlement is a little bogus and I don't see how it really can protect Atari. As anyone with code in that project could start their own suit. The only real way to fix this would be a class action suit with all the developers being the class. And then a settlement or a judgment of damages where all people are by default in the class and have to speak up before a deadline to reserve their right to sue separately. Then have the settlement or damages divided up among the people in the class. If anyone declined to be part of the class they can then do their own suits. But beyond that, I fail to see how Atari is protected by settling with two developers.

Comment Completely wrong (Score 1) 159



You are saying net neutrality doesn't apply if ISPs fully disclose limitations. So by your logic if a person is in an area with one high-speed ISP or an apartment that limits them to one ISP and that one ISP decides to only sell filtered internet that charges 15 dollars a gb, it's totally acceptable. Net Neutrally is equal access to the internet. It means no filtering, no bandwidth throttling, and no charging for the gigabyte if the reasons for doing any of these is to block competing services or anything the ISP doesn't like.

Such as charging a per GB fee not because it costs the ISP significantly more per each GB you use, but because by charging per GB they get to make competing video services more expensive. Or blocking hulu.com because it cuts down on cable tv revenue. These are exactly the same things.

That facts are that most broadband ISPs have existed up until now without any filtering or bandwidth limits. They've existed and have been profitable for over 10 years. There is no justification for any of these tactics today, since bandwidth and network capacities have only got cheaper and larger. If ISPs needed to do these scummy tactics to be profitable, they would have implemented throttling and metered billing 10 years ago.

These billing tactics have nothing to do with increased costs and everything to do with video competition and profit gouging. They are a net neutrality issue. We have 10 years of history to prove ISPs are fine with current unlimited services. It makes perfect sense to require open unlimited connections in net neutrality. It preserves the internet as a medium of commerce. You will not see one ISP be hurt or any new ones decide not to get in the market because this is the way the business currently is. Net Neutrality means the internet stays like it is and doesn't change because of the stock market.

As a side note, the only reason dial-up was charging by the minute was because the number of lines were limited. So they had to encourage people not to stay connected for long periods of time. That model died as soon as modem capacity increased and never existed on broadband because everyone has their own dedicated connection. This bill per the byte model was an invention of the cellphone companies and satellite companies dealing with last mile limitations where your byte usage is basically your time usage(You only use network time while transferring data and not just for being connected). Landline ISPs do not have that problem and don't need the model.

Comment Not a chance. (Score 1) 148

Their argument isn't grounds for a mistrial. If the lawyers didn't want anyone with an audience or anyone that tweets they should have asked questions about it during jury selection and denied jurors they did not like. They are basically saying that if they had allowed someone like Rush Limbaugh on the jury that means they automatically get a mistrial because Rush Limbaugh will rule in a way that makes him popular with his audience. A failure in jury selection is not grounds for a mistrial.

Comment Step one: install the apps on windows machines. (Score 1) 497

Right from the start you should be able to install all the cross platform apps you are thinking about on all university PCs. This allows people to use them and give feedback. You will most likely need to create faqs on how to save in cross compatible formats. Let the students decide if they can use the non-windows apps. Definitely find out if teachers are teaching with an app, since if they are you will probably lose no matter what. Since they won't want to alter there course to teach open source(plus what would be the point since schools should be teaching what is used in industry, not what saves money). Teaching OO over Word isn't going to help the student much when they get jobs.

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