In general you have to pay for WiFi in chain cafes (Starbucks and the like). However, many of the independents and smaller chains offer it for free.

There's free WiFi and power points in the cafe at the British Library.

The cafe in Foyles bookstore (a geek venue in its own right) on Charing Cross Road is pretty geek friendly. It's handy for the computer section, there's often free live Jazz playing, and (when it works which is not always) there's free WiFi. Oh and the cake is good there.

Tottenham Court Road is the local centre for technology shopping in the area if you find you've forgotten to bring something vital.

The National Film Theatre under the south arches of Waterloo Bridge has the broadest arts cinema coverage in the capital. The Electric Cinema in Notting Hill Gate is the comfiest cinema in the capital.

For non-geeky but interesting things to do while you're here pick up a copy of Time Out. I'd recommend the 100 club on Oxford Street on Monday nights though.

Riiight.

I don't think I'd call fish and chips especially authentic. Sure, we do eat 'em, but curry is more "authentically" British these days. If you want very high quality eating then The Fat Duck is a three Michelin starred restaurant a short trip outside London. It serves some of the best food in the world and has a certain amount of geek cred to go with it.

Irrational?

Couldn't agree more. Witness the fact that a second hand 5mx on eBay still fetches £70 to £80, which isn't bad for an obsolete device. Something like you describe would be very high up my wishlist for gadgets today - there are a very few clamshell devices, but nothing with a comparable keyboard.

As a close second best I'd love Lenovo to do a Netbook (or a "kneetop" as I tend to term them) under the Thinkpad brand with a Trackpoint instead of a touchpad. Ah, wishful thinking...

{quote}Why is he not deemed a flight risk?{quote}

Consult the court documents if you actually care. Since he's not yet fled, shows no signs of fleeing, and is currently under house arrest it seems to have been a reasonable decision.

Get back to me when you can cite the court documents rather than angrily telling me how unjust it is without any supporting evidence. I have more respect for courts than you do.

Because he has not been tried and found guilty of a crime. He is charged with a crime, yes, but that is not the same thing, and he is judged not to be a flight risk, which is the pertinent factor in deciding whether he should be held on remand.

Justice is not about punishing people who you think are probably guilty of a crime, or look guilty of a crime, or that someone told you was guilty of a crime. It's about checking the facts in a court of law and handing out the punishment if and only if the accused is proven beyond reasonable doubt to be guilty of the crime.

Too many people wail about a lack of justice when they actually are complaining that the court is being properly impartial.

Parent AC is correct. They're not common yet, but on the back of Oyster will probably become so.

I'm a programmer and I don't recall ever receiving any royalties for code that I wrote. Most software is bespoke - written to order - to which copyright applies only as a technicality.

Shrink wrap software is a tiny, tiny exception against the general case.

There is a good public interest case for copyright protection as a short term measure, but no good case for protection beyond the "artist's" lifetime - and personally I think anything above a decade or so is excessive.

Good. I don't want to be an asshole about it. Bad spelling/grammar aren't moral failings; they have practical effects that can usually be eliminated with some decent proof reading. As I note, there's no obligation upon anyone to give that kind of attention to a Slashdot post. Nor do I claim complete perfection in this area on my own part.

I wish you could see your post through my eyes though - it's almost physically jarring.

I'm not sure about the "many". I've noticed a strong correlation between "good spelling/writing" and "good engineer" But certainly some good engineers really can't write and you're clearly a good engineer. I don't think that's in question.

But you're not trying to be just a good engineer. You're trying to be a good businessman too. You obviously have some talent for business - your successes even where partial show that - but I wonder if some of the problems you encounter actually arise from deficient soft-skills akin to writing?

This post in the meta-discussion on Hacker News might be insightful.

Good luck with your future endeavours; it certainly sounds like you've earned it!

He's not necessarily giving of his best in a Slashdot post of course - but yes, this was my first thought too.

Rightly or wrongly a lot of people use basic literacy skills as a first pass filter for the quality of their contacts. I can't help wondering if that VC passed on his product because of some deficiencies in the presentation.