So, what kind of performance hit are we talking about here, that being that the PC in question is a gaming PC and needs every cycle I can squeeze out of it, should I even bother? I rarely surf on that specific PC and I don't read mail on it either (Have a real OS for those things.)

A 2 month GTC will cost you around 600-650M isk. With a proper setup and the right skills you can easily make this within 12-15 hours (2-3 days of semi casual playing.) - The way I look at it is that basically you're working for 12-15 hours and the pay you get is $30, which isn't exactly impressive if you compare it with other jobs (i.e. if you take a weekend job every other week and use that money to buy play time.)

Still, if you don't have the money and you do want to play the game, it's a nice way to keep your account(s) running. I definitely think that the GTC trade has made things less interesting for gold miners and that's a good thing. The Eve economy is good, in fact better than most other MMORPGs I've been playing.

This really makes me remember Virtual Light by William Gibson. YAY! Finally we have telepresence!

I tried searching for "Why is windows so expencive?" using firefox in Linux and got these results:

"Why I use Windows? | Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft virtualization ..."
"Why Windows Isn't Hell Or Why Linux Isn't Bliss, Part II > Comments"
"The Firefox 3.5 fiasco - Frans Bouma's blog"

at the 3 top. I think it's safe to say that I'll stay with Google.

I would sure hate to be in the control group for that experiment.

Oh, there are a lot of strange ways this could play out:

[ knock, knock ]
-Do you have the WLAN with the SSID MonkeyTails?
-The what, Sir?
-Wireless Network?
-Oh, for the computer Internet? No, I think ours is called captaincrook.
-Okay, that one is safe.
-Safe?
-Yeah, we are driving around checking for insecure WLANs. Do you know who MonkeyTails are?
-I think it's my neighbour.
-Ok, thank you.
[ knock, knock ]
- Hello.
- Hello, are you the owner of the WLAN MonkeyTails?
- Yes?
- It's insecure.
- I know.
- Well, you should secure it.
- No, I don't want to secure it.
- You should secure it or pedophiles could use it.
- It is an old router that doesn't support encryption.
- Well, let us know if you see any pedophiles.
- Bye.

When you code, at least when you do things like I do, that is, you are using vim and a lot of xterms, it's best to have something that enables you to move your pointer without you having to move your hand a lot. What I have at work is a Thinkpad keyboard (Lenovo/IBM make those) which has a pointing stick in the middle. It's not made for accuracy (for that I have a separate mouse next to the keyboard. Which is a simple Razer Copperhead gaming mouse. The point is, you shouldn't have to move your hands too much when you code. Especially when all you do is changing xterm.

For those that use other development environments the answer may be different.

So, this is how RIAA is going to combat piracy? It's the same with Spotify, if you're not UK or Swedish bound you can still register through a proxy, but the problem is, after using it for a while from your native country it starts whining.

I guess the only solution is to obtain and constantly use proxy servers in order to route around this?

I always find that when I start working on something, it's fun, it's a challenge. When I'm almost done with a project things slow down, get boring and getting things done is quite painful. The only solution is to force yourself into continuing, sometimes I tell myself that I'll just get this or this done, then I'll take a break or do something else. Other ways to speed up the process is trying to make it into a challenge again, but that is quite hard.

In some aspects I think you can compare it to riding on a ride in a park. The first times it's fun, but after 100 times on the same ride the fun wears off.

Grats to the pirate party!

Now, I wonder how they'll vote in not related cases? I mean, when things like economical issues or education or other stuff comes up, are they just going to abstain or are we going to see real politics being performed?