I don't know any statistics but I certainly think people find them very useful where they are in London, (Holborn for one).
It gives people a chance to rethink dashing over the road at the last moment, as they can really see how long that last moment is going to be (though there will be a slight delay after the timer has finished I'm sure.
They show a numeric countdown (15 seconds if I remember correctly)

Still it doesn't help stop all the London drivers who seem to think that it's the slower party who should always get out of the way, rather than they that should slow down or even stop for an obstruction that is right in front of them.

But overall I think they've probably prevented a lot of accidents.

I'm pretty sure the reason Quake is more addictive than Pong despite the learning curve is down to more than just fancier graphics.

Maybe they realized they actually wanted to sell a few. Certainly I believe there is a huge market who only buy because they think they'll sell the product on again later to get some money back, even if they never get actually round to it.
And those that do... many re-invest what they make back into buying newer games.
Thinking a £40+ item may be a dud that can never be resold is seriously going to put people off.
Those that are happy to wait months to years to buy second hand because a title is too expensive, will STILL wait months to years to buy the title when it's in the bargain bin instead of paying more for something they don't think is worth it to them.

I don't believe they'll ever stop piracy, and killing second hand sales would push those less well off to either forgo entirely and look to other forms of entertainment, or consider piracy. Either way, reducing sales.

If you unlock your phone that gives you freedom to use another network.
But it doesn't magically remove you from the contract you agreed to, so you still have to pay, and would be chased by whatever debt collection system they use.

You obviously would still have to pay for using the new carrier also if you swapped SIM.

Skipping the early termination fee may save you a big one off payment but doesn't negate the above.

This issues should solely be if you fail to pay your contracted fee's, and I fail to see why that should have anything other than normal contract law cover it.

it does most of the time, I can't find a way of causing it, it just happens a few times a day at least.

x64 pro Microsoft Windows [Version 6.2.9200] from msdna

I've been using it for maybe a month since trying it and being really impressed with the startup times. I've finished installing everything I used on win7 and more (vs2012 for example) and it's retaining it's impressive speed.

I haven't tried multi monitor yet, but I had thought about that problem, metro really is pretty awful, I don't mind it when I tap the windows key and start typing to find the program I want, but I don't use it for anything else, and it annoys me if something causes it to come up.

The only real problem I've had is sometimes that search box doesn't clear.
so
[winkey] ecl (enter) (eclipse)
[winkey] note (enter) (notepad++)

and it ends up with "eclnote" which doesn't hit any search results.

how the hell did that get through beta testing?? admittedly it's sporadic, but seriously why is the search box not cleared every time metro pops up?

The announcement of the cancellation of Firefly.

Barclays made a big thing about introducing this in the UK with the advert with a guy sliding down a near endless water slide buying things as he went.
I was livid as soon as I saw it, I had less than zero faith in it's security, I did NOT want it on my cards.

Even back then I realised it meant a stolen card was instantly usable even if only for the small daily limit before it was reported, I still did not want it. But over the air cloning was what I was expecting.

This is all part and parcel of a well known pr/media issue known as the Streisand Effect - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

I think they were the same ones that were turned into the full colour graphic novel set that I had, they were great until about the 4th or 5th one.
The foot soldiers were people not robots, and using swords and daggers on them had obviously graphic results... they were not exactly little kids comics.

WARNING: Exposure to X has been linked to aggressive behavior.'

x ==

movies
TV
playgrounds
school
religious texts
alcohol
relationships
capitalism
life

Indeed the first thing I said to him WAS "did you back it up"? I made it clear in the first post that was an obvious thing, as stated most of his stuff was on Dropbox as mentioned in the original post.

Where I contracted briefly eight years ago if the customers data was at risk we would contact them and offer to image the disk before any further work was undertaken (at a charge), as we recognised that that data was likely more valuable to them than the disk itself.

TBH irrespective of him attempting to restore his data, what about his right to see to the destruction of his personal data in a manner he saw fit?

Yes, legally he would not have much of a leg to stand on, and clearly YOU think that that is just a-ok,
his only options then would come if his disk turned up somewhere or his data turned up online as it so often has done in several cases from various companies.

Putting aside the legal net it's probably tied up in, do you honestly feel this situation is fair? if it was a disk you'd lost and then learned the next day that your credit card details / medical records / SSN whatever might still be recovered from it would you really not have any questions about your recourse?

Personally I find that you "trying to smear people who acted normally as if they had some aberrant behavior is offensive." All you have done here is state what you believe the legal rights are with regard to the contract, and then fall to ad hominem.

So I have found it now myself.

http://www.apple.com/r/store/applecare/APPTermsConditions.pdf

" APPLE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ....THE FAILURE TO MAINTAIN THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF DATA....Apple specifically does not warrant that it will be able to ....(ii) maintain the confidentiality of data."

So they've covered their asses in their contract, and specifically state if your data confidentially is lost then... they won't be held responsible.

This is why I take the disk out of any machine I have before sending the machine anywhere, but I did not know their specific policy.
As much as I would love everyone to do this for their own sakes, I'm not going to be offensive about them for not being so aware, and some people are not able to remove their drive anyway.

So asking asking technically/legally competent people for their opinion is an offence now?

I had no involvement with this at all bar posting this after hearing what happened from my friend, and thinking he'd been very poorly dealt with. The fact it was Applecare was essentially incidental, it could have been anywhere and I would still have questioned it, but I did actually expect to hear of better handling of a customer from them.

  I have no direct access to anyone else that may have dealt with them under remotely similar circumstances other than asking the internet.
If this was an attempt at a smear campaign I would be posting elsewhere as well.

In some ways I found how he'd been treated similar to the (illegal) practice of garages fixing things and charging for them the customer hadn't actually approved yet that used to be quite common. He was held over a barrel with a situation he didn't understand his legal standing on, and had no way at the time to find out what his rights actually were.

I'm aware of what such a contract likely states in that regard, I was after opinions as I thought how they handled it was poor.

(I have also worked in some shops when I was much younger that treated customers the same way but there were no signed papers when machines changed hands, so I thought it would be interesting to discuss generally)