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Comment Re:Not to be the different guy, but... (Score 1) 93

No, I'm in agreement with you here. As much as I don't buy from ThinkGeek anymore (unless they have a really, really wantable T-shirt on sale*...because I'm cheap as hell), having something akin to an Amazon Locker is a boon and a win for them.

It's a heck of a smart business strategy and it's going to be interesting (to me at least) to see how successful it is.

*I have a "Fhloston Paradise" t-shirt, and alas, no one ever recognizes the reference. That causes me to be bummed in almost unreasonable amounts.

Supergreen.

Comment Re:Soon (Score 1) 138

How would an ISP block them, however? The only mechanism I know about would be DNS blocking, whenthe DNS server is supplied by the ISP.. Is there some new British trick where pages of certain sites could be selectively blocked? If so, how long before "politically sensitive" human rights pages would be blocked, or whistle blower pages?

CleanFeed, built by British Telecom to block access to child abuse imagery, sold to other ISPs, then inevitably abused as a blunt instrument to enforce copyrights. It's a two-stage filtering system: a list of IP addresses gets loaded into the ISP core routers, which diverts all access to those addresses through a proxy server; that server checks against a (secret!) list of prohibited URLs and lets the rest through. It has already blocked part of Wikipedia by mistake or misjudgement, and the government has already announced plans to filter "extremist" websites too.

TalkTalk, another of the named ISPs, bought a more elaborate setup from the People's Republic of China for millions of pounds, and push their "adult" content censorship system on all customers who don't specifically opt out. It's been a big political issue lately, with the current government wanting to force all ISPs down that route so you'd have to ask your ISP specifically to stop filtering your connection.

Comment WARNING: WOT still flags SF as "Trusted" (Score 2) 384

This behavior should get SourceForge blacklisted as both cyber-squatters and adware, possibly malware vendor.

I agree 100%. 10 years ago sourceforge was a great site. Now it's basically a malware haven. Unfortunately, plugins like Web of Trust (WoT) seem to have been slow to catch up ... WoT is still marking sourceforge as green ("trusted"). Perhaps blackholing the site in DNS really is the best answer...

Comment Re: Um...210k? And 3 months? (Score 1) 227

See that's the thing, you chose to live in London. You could have taken a job somewhere with cheaper housing, but for you, being in London was more important than having more space. It's a tradeoff. For me, having more space is more important, because many of the things I do (both for fun and to make money) require a lot of space on an ongoing basis. This is why I don't live in a city that's so big that a postage-stamp-sized piece of land costs ten thousand bucks. :-)

Either way, you kind of missed my point, which is that it isn't necessarily true that a family of 5 can't derive significant usability benefits from having 5,000 square feet. Whether the extra space is wasted or not depends highly on what sorts of activities the family wants to do when they aren't at work/school, and whether they can readily achieve those goals in less space.

Comment Re:Um...210k? And 3 months? (Score 1) 227

The industrial printer because I have a side business doing book publishing. I've found no print shops in the area that can handle one-off large-format printing for doing proofs of hardcover dust jackets, hence the only way to usefully get books out the door was to buy a giant beast.

As for the exercise equipment, most days of the week, I work until the early evening, then have musical rehearsals that keep me up for several more hours. Having that equipment in my house is the only way I have a prayer of getting any exercise at all.

Comment Re:Um...210k? And 3 months? (Score 1) 227

I'm not complaining. I'm simply saying that you shouldn't assume that everyone's space needs are the same. Could I survive without the drum kit? Sure. The piano? Probably not for very long. For me, music is a crucial emotional outlet that I do, in fact, very much need. I'd probably sell one of my legs before I'd sell my piano. I've owned it for two decades, and it is very much a part of me.

But the more important question is whether that space could somehow be converted to another use that would fulfill one of my other desires. The answer, of course, is no. There's no practical way to turn my living room into a wood shop, because that pretty much requires a dust-proof floor, which carpeting is not. And it is highly incompatible with any other use of the room because of the dust involved.

I try to do the dustiest work outside, but with me being at work all day, I have very limited daylight hours in which to do so. As a result, the lack of a dedicated wood shop triples or quadruples the number of days that any given project requires, because I basically get to a point where I can't go any further without making some major wood cut, and then I'm stuck waiting until the next day that I get home before dark, which may be two or three days away.

What makes me uncomfortable is when those projects cause me to either lose the use of my main bathroom or kitchen for weeks at a time. Yes, it is, strictly speaking, a want, in that I want to be able to do woodworking projects, and that my survival is not dependent upon my ability to do them. However, because I am unable to do these things usably in the space available, I do need more space if I hope to do these things in any non-insane manner. And that was my point—that one should not assume that other people don't have valid reasons for wanting more space merely because you don't. :-)

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