Ideally, we need a standard for placing advertisements inside the music files themselves, basically a codec that controls the album artwork display. Bands could overlay the album artwork with links to their website, to make donations, tour information, etc. All controlled by whoever uploaded the mp3, which the band can always do first.

I fixed one fan in the machine myself after it went off warranty. It destroyed batteries and external power supplies too, albeit slower. I therefore believe the power system caused the problems. Apple replace many parts but never the internal power supply, probably cost them over $500 plus labor by not fixing it. I donno if they could realistically diagnose the power supply issue though, assuming it had one.

In Apple's defense, I travel lots and commonly got the machine repaired by Apple certified retailers, not Apple themselves. It's entirely possible they occasionally missed warning signs for power system issues that Apple's own diagnostic systems might pick up.

There are parts like hard drives, batteries, and power adapters that die faster than the warranty. My old MacBook Pro killed six hard drives over four years, mostly while AppleCare still applied. I recall my previous MacBook killing numerous drives as well. My almost two year old MacBook Air has killed the cable on 3 power supplies. I've had my top case replaced on all three machines as well.

If you use your equipment heavily, then you should expect that ordinary wear destroys some components before the warranty expires.

Yes, ordinary libertarians oppose oppose corporate welfare, etc., but so do most ordinary people, be they republicans, democrats, NRA members, union members, environmentalists, Keynesian economists, etc. at least most instances. In practice, an electable libertarian would support an awful lot of corporate welfare because that's how you win elections in the U.S. Ron Paul differs somewhat but he is anomalous.

The real question is what kind of campaign finance reform do they support? Will it be effective? etc.

Omg wow! Yeah that product already exists. I've seen em' used in profesional landscaping, although not at houses, well you only need wheels if the sprinkler is heavy. It's a trivial invention, but an old patent application form 1977 does exactly the same thing. I suppose the telescoping business might be new, but what the hell is the point in making it telescoping?

Thank you for reminding us about TEPCO as well as posting that specific link.

After Fukushima, the Japanese government lied about the radiation until a hacker space started building GPS radiation sensor devices. They gave an excellent talk from 29c3 :
Safecast: DIY and citizen-sensing of radiation [29c3]

Did I mention they used Open Street Map? Open Street Map rocks! It's basically the wikipedia of maps, blows away google maps.

Truth is no defense against libel in the U.K.

An interesting attack on U.K. libel law might be for foreigners to sue various MPs for things they've said.

Anyone remember the IRS claiming they could read your email without a warrant? Yeah well, that's obviously debatable at present, especially if they want to just pay yahoo to scann everyone's email for signs of tax evasion. Yet, CISPA legalizes precisely that!

So that's what all these Republican and Democrat senators are really voting for here : To let the IRS scan everyone's email for signs of tax evasion.

Open a new retirement account with a couple different institutions? Bing, you're flagged for further investigation. etc.

Also, CISPA does nothing for real cybersecurity concerns because the NSA and CIA would already read your mail without a warrant.

They've no fixed value like $100k, but must prove they're paying more than the average pay for that job. It works extremely well, a shockingly huge proportion of Swiss residents are foreigners. In effect, if a Swiss company wants anybody in the world they know exactly what they need to do to hire them, no bullshit, just prove you want them by paying them more.

Amusingly, the Swiss immigration law exists at three levels, federal, canton, and local, so theoretically you might encounter really messy local immigration laws, but the Swiss are sensible about it.

Jeez, Schmidt is really one to talk about private organizations spying. It's almost as if he wants a wall of regulation that prevents others from fully exploiting computerized cameras.

You know, OpenStreetMaps already creams Google Maps' data. Just like wikipedia creams Quara, etc. I'm serious, if I pull up any random locate street, I'll find much better information on OpenStreetMaps. Can anyone say Open Street View?

I'd imagine Tor and VPNs work much better over Google Fiber than most U.S. ISPs.

At present, I block most google services and urls except search and certain tools everyone uses like Google's jquery.js from my default browser, Chrome. FireFox allows google services, but forbids remembering cookies, local storage, etc.

.. in that you take what you can through bribery and manipulation.

If you don't mind me trying to get the first thread back on track, the results quoted here apply to Sweden, not necessarily the U.S.

Sweden has a multi-party parliamentary system. Parliamentary system do create inequality that favors established parties, especially first-past-the-post ones like the U.K. Yet, their process of government formation means electing small parties isn't automatic pork suicide for districts. So at least some small parties get in and influence the direction for future changes.

In other words, Swedes change their mind because they've some choice. American parties more resemble sports teams. Yes, one plays nastier than the other, but fundamentally Americans might not change their minds because neither party represents much meaningful change.

Bertrand Russell computed that nobody should work more than 4 hours per day when he wrote In Praise of Idleness. That was over 80 years ago, before computers. Today, there is basically no reason anybody should be working more than a couple hours per week. Except..

We're consuming a fair bit more with two cars instead of one car, longer distance vacations, etc. All that warrants an extra couple hours per week, but it'd never cost more than that.

So where does the money go? You claim some things grow more expensive? Actually no, almost everything has grown massively cheaper, excluding a few commodities and maybe social security. You claim healthcare got more expensive? Again no, healthcare got massively cheaper :
http://truecostofhealthcare.org/video_presentation

You remind me that unnecessary law enforcement caused over 12% of the total increase in federal spending over the last 30 years? Fair enough, but law enforcement has grown massively more efficient too, partially to information technology, but.. We don't even bother holding trials now, if you're accused, you just negotiate your punishment with the prosecutor. If you stand up for your right to a trial, you get locked away for decades.

Really, anything you might mention, I can prove the actual costs declined. Even military costs declined.

So why does stuff still cost so much? It's many reasons, market forces, corruption, graft, exploitation, etc., but the fancy summary word is rent seeking, meaning insiders manipulating the economy to extract non-value added benefits.

Righties blame the government for this. Lefties blame the corporations for this. Both are completely correct, but corruption a fundamental feature of human nature.

We're perfectly able to create a society where almost nobody works more than they want to and everybody works on stuff they consider fun. We choose not do create this society so that rich and powerful people can become more rich and powerful.

"Because work is unnecessary except to those whose power it secures, workers are shifted from relatively useful to relatively useless occupations as a measure to assure public order." -- The Abolition Of Work by Bob Black

Additional links here : http://www.metafilter.com/124387/Workers-of-the-world-Relax

And just how do you imagine they handle promotions?