I'm not 100% sure about this but in the UK at least I'm fairly sure most, if not all, ISPs are available everywhere in the country* with the exception of virgin media cable internet (since you need to be in a cabled area, and you can still get virgin broadband via phone-line (ADSL/ADSL2+)). I'm no broadband expert but my understanding is that all equipment is owned by BT and then rented by the smaller ISPs (with the exception of some of the other big ISPs who use their own tech in major telephone exchanges). As such, any ISP is available anywhere that is capable of ADSL*. There aren't the regional monopolies that seem to exist in the US since almost everyone uses ADSL(or 2+) and rely on the same pone system. I don't know if the situation is the same in Eire/ROI, but it I suspect it is and that Eircom is their equivalent of BT.

*some very remote areas with no/very poor phone line are obviously n/a

As mentioned in the other thread, I wasn't talking about the interconnects. Being an adapter, rather than an output device, it isn't quite the same thing. To say that something outputs HDMI is not the same as this connects DVI equipment to HDMI equipment.

HDMI port != HDMI cable. The active hardware has to output audio and be HDCP 1.1 compliant to be HDMI. An HDMI-DVI adapter is not active hardware, but a cable (or dongle; but as far as the tech goes they are the same anyway) so is not subject to the same standards. However, I am fairly certain that such adapters cannot be HDMI certified, therefore cannot display the HDMI logo (but can be labelled as HDMI, since saying that it converts DVI->HDMI or vice versa is not false advertising).

Now I think about it, I don't know if HDMI outputs are required to have audio, but certainly all inputs are required to accept at least stereo LPCM (which is why HDMI equipped monitors have audio-outs), so I may have got a little muddled up there.

Actually, all HDMI ports have HDCP - it's a requirement of the spec. Of course there is nothing to stop companies or individuals from buying HDMI ports and just attaching them to DVI pins, but if they did that they wouldn't be legally allowed to advertise it or label it as HDMI (false advertising etc). Likewise, it also has to be able to output audio or it is technically not HDMI.

I would imagine that the paper example is almost exactly the same as when righties write on the back of a sheet of paper in such a binder or notebook. The only credible differences I see are that a) lefties start the line of text in the awkward position while righties end it in the awkward position (in left-right languages of course) and b) you are slightly more likely to write on on the front side. Both seem like fairly negligible differences to me. Other than that, all the differences that are present are there no matter what you're writing on.

The difference there is that it is generally illegal to possess said drugs, so he would have no right to have them regardless of whether they were on a plane. Then there's smuggling of legal items (i.e. items you are allowed to possess in both countries) which is evasion of taxes, import duty (or whatever it's called in the US) etc. Assuming for a moment that neither is the case, and that it would be legal for the Shurikens to be shipped to the US (which I assume it would be), why should the same not hold for his private transport? If he were going to the UK for example, I could understand it as I'm fairly sure it's illegal to possess them here, but when going to the US, why not?

Just because it is a response to the situation in Russia does not mean or imply that Russia is the only place it will apply. Maybe it applies to all CIS countries, or everywhere that Microsoft deems a similar situation to Russia likely. Also, I didn't say it implied that it applies to all non-US countries, but that it implies that it may apply to all non-US countries.

The New York Times article clearly states (no implication needed) that it doesn't only apply to Russia ("the company indicated that it would apply to other countries as well, though it did not identify them."), while the IT World article makes no implication that it is Russia-only and the part I quoted implies that it would apply worldwide outside of the US (although it's probably just poorly worded).

Ummm, no

From the New Your Times article:

From the IT World article:

Since when does "outside the US" translate to "only if they're in Russia"?

While it may indeed only apply to Russia, there is at least implication that it does not and may apply to everywhere outside of the US.

I don't know if you were simply using it's to spite the troll or not but I'm fairly sure its is correct. Unlike most words the apostrophe is only added when it's a contraction of "it is", "it has" etc, not to indicate "belonging to it" (possessive). The GP was a troll to be sure, but an accurate troll nonetheless.

That is very true, but if "making profit" is a higher priority than "not being a dick", then they will be a dick if it increases profit. It's not that being a dick is required for profit, but if you are willing to do so you will get more.

In almost all situations, being just a little bit of a dick is far more profitable than not being.

The real question is how much of "being a dick" does it take before profit starts to decrease due to customer dissatisfaction? If making a profit is the top priority (which it is for most companies) they will be "dicks" as long as the money saved/gained outweighs the loss caused by dissatisfied customers, like if they can grow a crop they need for a product at a third of the cost by cutting down part of the Amazon, but it loses them a third of their customers. In that example profit is the top priority, but other companies would put the long-term well-being of the planet ahead of profit and so would use sustainable crops etc. What about the law - should it not come above profit? I'm sure we have all heard about companies that have done things illegally to cut costs and later been found out, be it evading taxes, using illegal labour, or simply not conforming to regulations.

Slavery might have been a bit of an extreme example, but it is within the realm of belief that it could happen if the company thought they could keep it hidden from the public. If profit is of the highest priority, then no ethical or legal concerns would override that beyond "How much profit would we lose if we are found out?". I wish it weren't the case, but many companies do this (for lesser things than slavery mind), which is why the rainforest is being destroyed, why millions around the world are paid 50c/hour for 28 hour days in a factory, why farmers who grow crops abroad get 0.1% of the sale cost for their goods and so on.

As you said, "it's all in how you go about it" - that really should be the priority, not the amount of profit made, or at the very least they should be equal, balancing concerns (make as much profit as possible AND be ethical/not a dick), which changes "make as much profit as possible" form the top priority to a top priority.

That simply isn't true. We are a unitary state, not a federation. It is a similar concept in some respects, but certainly not the same. While it would be possible to have an English parliament or assembly, it is unlikely to happen simply because the majority of the commons is representing England, therefore that is who is represented the most by the laws made. That is why devolution happens - because the interests of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England tend to be different, and generally laws represent the English due to the large number of seats. Of the 650 constituencies in the UK, Scotland has 59, Wales has 40 and Northern Ireland has 18. England has a whopping 533 and to put it even more in perspective, London has 73. As a result, UK law represents the English vs. everybody else by more than 4.5:1

Back on point though, it isn't possible to have a federal offence in the UK, as it is not a federation. In a federation, a federal offence is basically an offence that applies in all member states of the federation, so the closest equivalent would simply be a law for which appropriate powers haven't been devolved or said devolved powers have not been utilised (i.e. most laws).

In regards to the actual article, the concept is absolutely ridiculous. The Digital Economy Bill is evil/wrong when it comes to suspected piracy, punishment for other peoples crimes, guilty until proven innocent etc, but this is just plain stupid. You might as well fine the electricity companies for facilitating piracy as well - after all, you can't download things if you don't have power; it makes about as much sense.

What do you mean the window size? If you mean the box on the page, it shouldn't stay the same size.

In a lot of cases it does seem that way; that is not YouTube's fault though. A lot of cameras that will save in HD resolutions don't have HD sensors so use interpolation and various tricks to increase the res. Even those that do have HD sensors often don't look HD due to poor focusing etc. I'm also pretty sure some people who capture in SD upscale before uploading. I have seen some really good HD uploads onto YouTube, be it in 1080p or 720p, but most of them, as you say look little different than 480p (or sometimes even 360p)

I'm fairly sure that's not what munzli meant, but when the discussion is about video quality from consoles it makes no difference anyway - the signal used is the same so the phrase "which is as good as HDMI for me." is pretty moot; they have the same video signal so of course it's as good. Support for things like 12-bit is only available on HDMI 1.3 (not all HDMI 1.3 devices though, such as the PS3, which doesn't utilise it)*, but since all consoles use 8-bit colour it is irrelevant. YCbCr offers no improvement in quality or colour depth, it is simply a different way of encoding the picture. Besides, the only console that supports it is the PS3 and that's only when video files are natively encoded in YCbCr.

In a nut shell, when talking within the context of consoles, DVI and HDMI are the same (assuming the DVI connector used supports HDCP) other than the audio capabilities, as munzli said.

*Just to be clear, just in case you are under the misconception, the "full range RGB" used by the PS3 and 360 refers to using the full 0-255 range of bits instead of 16-235 used by many TVs, not 12-bit.

What SDTV has DVI?

As for the expense of high-quality analogue cables, it's usually not that high unless you go ridiculous quality or Monster cables. The VGA cable that was included with my monitor (READ: cheap) is almost indistinguishable from DVI and my setup is right next to my Wi-Fi router, so there's quite a lot of interference. More expensive cables (maybe £10 or so for 2m) are even better. There is no inherent difference between analogue and digital in terms of quality.

P.S. Generally speaking even the highest quality cables for consoles are not up to par with much cheaper non-console equivalents - you are paying for the unique connector (which raises costs due to lack of ability to mass-produce to the same level) and with official cables the badge as well. As a side note the best console component cable I've used is the GameCube one. It is a fairly chunky cable so presumably is well shielded and shows no visible interference almost all the time. The one I use for the PS2 on the other hand (official PS3 one) certainly has evidence of it, being less well shielded.

Well that's just plain false. If you are comparing a specific analogue signal to a specific digital one then sure, it's valid, but to say there is an inherent difference (presumably in quality) between analogue and digital is false. Comparing the Wii's component output to the PS3's or 360's HDMI would certainly put the PS3 or 360 ahead, but in general it is possible to get just as good a signal from analogue as digital if you are using the right standard - VGA for example. VGA is capable of the same depth of colour, refresh rates, resolutions etc as DVI/HDMI. AFAIK the only real differences to the user are it's lack of 12-bit colour (which consoles don't even use anyway) and the fact that interference can cause noise in the signal. With a properly shielded cable, VGA will give an identical picture to DVI/HDMI at 1080p (1920x1080@60Hz, 8-Bit colour). The main reasons component is beaten by HDMI is that a) most TVs don't support 1080p over component; this is due to the movie studios wanting the DRM available on HDMI for 1080p video and b) component outputs in a range equivalent to 16-235 or something in that vicinity and often the resolution of the colour components (Pb and Pr) is lower resolution than the luma (Y). This is not because it is analogue, but because due to the specific YPbPr standard.

Besides when using an SDTV as the GP said, I'd like to see you find a HDMI port. The PS3 and 360 may be better overall solutions, but if you have an SDTV the best you will get is component (YPbPr) or RGB SCART, depending on your location, so the quality should be identical, or at least pretty close (depending on the cable quality and the software).