Exactly, don't expose yourself to licensing grief. Once the computers are out of your hands the recipients can do what they like with them, including pirating Windows 7 or XP if that's what they want. But that will be Not Your Problem.
Free Geek in Vancouver, BC does this. I don't know if they've ever done a survey where they follow up 6 months later and see what OS the computer is running now. Would be interesting.
They've failed from a marketing perspective in the North American market. Partnering with a large US corporation which seems to know a thing or two about marketing could work out for them. Though it would be more reassuring if they partnered with someone who didn't define 'partner' as 'someone you work with until you eat them'.
abebooks.com is a front end for used bookstores around the world. Because most of them charge shipping and handling, it can be cheaper to buy new from an online retailer who offers free shipping if you buy over a certain amount, but it's definitely worth checking out. Some books you can find cheaper even including s/h. If cost wasn't a factor, I'd buy via abebooks exclusively to support small business.
As for ebooks, they've been around for awhile, but still waiting for a reader not associated with a retailer who can nip in and delete stuff off it, which supports multiple non-drmed formats, and costs under $100.
nothing stops them from inserted advertisements
That would be very annoying on a 911 call. Could be popular with insurance companies. "When disaster strikes, are you covered?"
This is truly sad, and it means American laws have been totally taken over by corporate interests.
Totally? I don't think so. Maybe 80%. You'll know it has reached 'totally' when the creeping corporatism that's been going on for a long time finally morphs into its even more evil sister, fascism. That's not an inevitability, just the current trajectory.
Remember, citizen, opposition to the opinions of the educated is anti-intellectualism.
Oh! That's why the intellectuals are always first against the wall when the revolution comes. I learned something today.
Or a legacy support group (if a 3 month old browser is going to be considered 'legacy'). There's a lot I like about firefox, but 3 months then EOL suggests that they're either unable or unwilling to do something which needs doing. It wouldn't be as glamorous as a fork with new name, new vision, new blah, but I'll bet it would be appreciated by a shitload of people.
My understanding is that the US does indeed have $1 coins, but no one ever uses them. I guess it will take the government ditching the bill altogether to get people to switch.
That's it exactly. We might still be using ones (not twos, they're considered bad luck for some reason) if we had been given a choice. We weren't. Now we're used to the coins, though I like one dollar bills when visiting the states. More of my money is in my wallet, rather than in pockets and on dressers and various other surfaces where they accumulate.
Maybe they should have a policy of easy to remember pass phrases -- lots of characters but no need to write them down. I was at a bank today where there was what appeared to be a new hire. She was having trouble with something, consulted her notes right there in front of me, points to a word and asks another worker, "is it this password?". I averted my eyes politely, but I should probably have stared pointedly at it and spoken it out loud a character at a time, just to make the point.
Unless the average citizen of Western states wants to either drastically reduce their power consumption or accept foreign energy hegemony over their economies, nuclear power is essential at least in the interim.
If Germany can pull it off, the interim could be very short -- nuclear replaced by sustainable energy by 2022.
You said it. Compared to the magnitude of the rip off that is copyright term extension, piracy is trivial. Copyright in its original form was a good deal for everyone, but that deal is now very much broken. Act according to your own conscience, keeping in mind that artists have to eat, and few are raking in what the top names get.
Thanks for the link. Drawbacks would appear to be display size, and copyright. His source document is public domain, and for those you could have deep linkage back to source. But in a copyright crazy world the sourcing aspect would have some annoying limits. Still, I can imagine it being useful for all manner of other things. I would like to see a demo of what he described with regard to multimedia editing.
What if a parent had named their kid Myspace some years ago. I wonder if the kid will be perpetually explaining internet history when she's older. "When I was born, social networking was controlled by private companies. One in particular was very influential."
Nokia is facing heat at both ends of the price spectrum.
Although it continues to rank number one among handheld producers, it holds on primarily because of its dominance at the low end, where it faces significant challenges from Chinese competitors who make smaller, lighter, quicker, more capable phones at competitive prices.
http://nowtnews.com/05805/nokia-and-hp-get-back-in-the-game/
Fortunately the new CEO seems to get it. Unfortunately, he seems to believe that the answer is to team up with Microsoft. The market isn't impressed.
No horses! It moves, but there are no horses! I don't think I'll ever get used to that (note, if you think there might be small horses under the hood, open it up and prepare to be amazed.)
Neutrinos have bad breadth.
