All my calls cost 1 euro cent per minute. In order to rake up a 900â phone bill, i would have to talk 90000 minutes. To reach that, i would have to talk for 62,5 days. In a month. I usually talk less.

I live in Europe.

First of all - the networks were not built after the technology was mature. We REPLACED the old network (NMT) with a newer network (GSM) which has been steadily evolving since then (3G, 4G). The 4G is basically a new network again, but as the phones are backwards compatible, the coverage is not such a big issue - if 4G stations cannot be reached, the phone uses 3G or older stations seamlessly.

Also - socialism or regulation is not the root cause. I think the root cause is that all our networks use the same standard and you have always been able to slap your SIM card into any phone you buy since 1995 or so. At the same time US phones were tied to a carrier - they did not work in another network - therefore you bought your phone from your carrier. In Europe you always bought your phone from an electronics shop and SIM from a carrier.

The main regulatory trick that further fueled competition was when you could switch networks without changing your number. After that the competition went insane and prices went clise to zero. I pay for "unlimited" data (they start to cap speeds at some point if you torrent with it which i don't know exactly as i haven't hit the trigger) and calls by the minute - which amounts to around 6-7euros a month ($8-9ish). Paying 40-60$ a month sounds like a pure insanity - my mobile bills were that high in the nineties.

I have unlimited nothing. I pay for 3TB of data and for calls by the minute. Which amounts to about 10$ a month. Paying for unlimited generally means you are paying for something you don't use.

The roaming fees are still there, but they are forced down by European Commission every year, so they are not that big any more. Also - as i have an unlocked phone I usually buy a local prepaid data SIM when i go abroad - 10â gives me usually 3-5GB data (depending on a country) which is enough for a week or two.

The point is that they pay twice the price of the phone this way. If you find it convenient to pay double for phone as well as contract - by all means, do that.

Let us say this together - is is an Advertisement. I usually do not find myself in awe of how much research time advertisements "save" me.

Also - it is crazy complicated. I have a "bio" outhouse in my summer house that is in essence just a plastic container. You fill the bottom and a filtering compartment with sawdust. Liquids go through sawdust and seep under a bush. Every time you take a dump you throw a bit of sawdust on it. It does not smell (actually, as i use juniper sawdust, it smells quite pleasantly like gin). The end result i put under another bush in autumn and use as a fertilizer next spring. Why would i use a complex system of solar power and fiber and lord knows how many dollars to achieve the same end result?

Yes, but 0,5A was an extreme example. Most of thema are 1-2A which is good enough for all practical purposes (overnight charging or power-assisted use+slow charging).

I don't get the need for higher charging Amperages. My experience is that the power usage has gone way down recently despite higher resolution screens and more powerful processors, etc. for instance - i have a crappy USB car charger (i think its around 0.5A, but its noname chinese so nobody actually knows) and i use my phone to navigate. Couple of years ago i used it regurarly with iphone 3GS - it made the phone battery *drain slower* while navigating - just enough so that i could make it. During the years it has become better as phones evolve - iphone5s acutally charges while connected to it and navigating.

First of all - Apple's is not a 30 pin for quite some time. Its 8+ground (i think). Also it can be inserted into the phone blindly in either orientation and it os much more rugged than microusb.

Secondly - all the current chargers i know are USB at different amp level. I use the same chargers for charging my old ipad (30 pin), nook (miniusb), iphone (lightning) and headset (microusb) - its just the cables that are different.

Third of all - which people in the US might not realize - is that what the EU government institutions love to do, is regulating stuff. They do it mainly to justify their existence. For instance a couple of years ago some of them decided that home electronic devices had to have an on/off switch. This resulted in the good ole Linksys WRT54G being packaged with a small "switch adapter" that can be connected on the 12V line between tha wall plug and router. Which travelled into the trash on everey single occation. So more e-waste directly because of their regulations.

Just for the fun of it my data - from Estonia:
- i pay ~$5 for "unlimited" data (Actually my speed will be capped to EDGE speeds after 5GB - but i never use that much)
- i have chosen to pay by the minute (~$0.02/min). That rarely exceeds another $5 as most my calls are free (family+coworkers)

So all in all about 10$ a month.

Also - i practically never use SMS/MMS, but jabber/facetime/fb chat/hangouts instead.

Here's an idea - you can NOT put 1password db on dropbox and still use 1password

Are you saying that any salt water freezes at 0F!? It depends thoroughly on the salt content in water. Where i live, sea freezes at around -5C. I have been driving a car over the sea in temperatures warmer than 0F...

The trouble with the imperial system is that people have no clue of the different units relations to each other. How many badger's kidneys are ther in a gallon? The most recent example i stumbled upon is that Runkeeper that i use to track my runs, tells me that i spend ~100 "CALORIES" per 1 km. I was about to file a bug report that they have forgotten kilo- in front of it - but after a wikipedia search it appeared that a thousandfold difference between kCal and Cal for the users of imperial system is peanuts - both are "commonly" called "calories"...

Actually, nature is base 2. Not that this would in any way justify imperial units.

How is it easier to divide a foot by three than a meter? You get 1/3rd of a foot. Or you get one 1/3rd of a meter. You can't divide an inch by ten very easily - but you have millimeters and micrometers.

Anyway, the topic wasn't meters here. It was Celsius vs Fahrenheit - and while you may be able to argue that foot is somehow more "natural", then you can't make the same argument to remain the only country dealing with F. Because Celsius is more natural (water freezing=0 and water boiling=100 AND easier to calculate.