Most popular technologies are popular precisely because of porn! It's a wet dream for any inventor to get noticed by the porn industry

By the way, I'm not sure why you got modded off-topic. I think your question *is* relevant to this story...

True, but from my understanding there are only four bands that cover the majority of the world. So, if the phones are quad-band GSM phones (which is the most likely scenario), you will still have greater potential market than just with a CDMA phone. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad-band). This also means you don't have to fiddle with the onboard radio either.

The business answer to your question is: GSM is used by the rest of the world, CDMA only by America. CDMA = limiting your potential market.

I didn't know Symantec makes a package manager for Linux :)

Maybe you were thinking of Synaptic?

The only reason I dislike apt-get (Synaptic sometimes addresses this, but not always), is that when I get new packages, some dependencies will not install automatically

Word.

Wow sounds exactly like my story. In fact, I still own my Motorola Q with a different number. The dropped calls are exactly the same (I'm on the phone every day on my two-hour-long commute, and sometimes switch phones, but the service drops at exactly the same spots on the freeway).

The exception is that the Motorola Q will randomly decide to reset itself, for no apparent reason (but we can blame that on Windows Mobile).

However, I would like to note that even though I have data plans on both phones, it feels like I use the data plan on the iPhone a heckuva lot more than on the Q. Partly because of AppStore/ITMS, and partly because browsing the internets on the iPhone doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out and throw the phone against the wall. I have no hard evidence (i.e usage numbers), but I can tell you whenever I need to look something up on the internet, drive to a destination, download music, or anything internet related, I reach for the iPhone first.

In a sense, it's the iPhone's fault for all the alleged data usage, because it makes access to the internet easy and intuitive. If increased data usage causes more fees for the iPhone (and less eventual iPhone users), it would be truly ironic.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Companies are concerned with the bottom line. They care NOTHING about the welfare of citizens, whereas the government presumably should. Therefore, things that are of public interest, such as safety (military, FDA), and basic needs (water, power, sewage) SHOULD be controlled by the government, and *are* in a normally functioning society. Because if you privatize these things, safety and basic human needs will ultimately begin to suffer through companies trying to eek out every bit of profit.

Tesla once wanted to deliver free electricity by wireless means. JP Morgan told him he cannot fund it because there is "nowhere to put the meter."

One word: ENRON

That is still not a racket. A racket, back in the gangster Chicago days, meant that you buy "protection" against an "accident" happening to your business. You have no way of avoiding having to buy the protection. With ink cartridges, you have a choice not to buy the printer and their ink. It may be rotten, but it's not racketeering.

There is also no way that printer hardware can be so cheap -- it's called subsidized hardware. I would also urge you to look up racketeering: a racket is a way of (illegally) making money by selling a solution to a problem that the business itself created; however, the problem here is low ink, and the businesses don't have a way of forcing you to use up their ink.

That actually sounds sane. I live in the US, and most banks don't use tokens, as far as I know.

Because you can brute force the file offline.

And you're assuming you memorized your aes encryption password too. So, there's already two memorized passwords. What's worse is that the thief, having stolen your netbook, has all the time in the world to perform a brute force attack against your encrypted file. Wouldn't you do the same if you found an encrypted file called "secrets"?

By the way, forget about changing your passwords too -- remember, the OP is in a foreign country without another reliable/secure connection.

No matter which way you look at it, writing down your passwords is less secure than not.

Well, if he doesn't access his investment account while he's there, he won't know. Problem solved.