We can safely assume that everyone wanting a Ubuntu Edge, knowing about it, and with the money for it already donated. There will be no geeks pledging for the phone at the last minute. So, either at the end someone with lots of funds (and possibly connected to Canonical) just orders around 30 thousand of these phones so that the goal is met, or this campaign will fail.

Well, I just tried to get in on this, but after arguing with the site for an hour I finally had to boot a special VM with no network security of any kind before it would even let me try to send money.

Then I am confronted with PayPal.

No toy, no matter how cool, is worth that. I wonder how much that has cost them?

Unfortunately, at some point the artist decided that his art was not colored well enough for the books he was publishing, so a number of strips have been re-colored, and you miss part of the evolution of his art because he has removed the originals and left only the re-done strips. (At least according to his plans, I never bothered to check if he carried through.) The early stuff was still original last I looked, but I can't tell you if there is any original art left as I haven't been bothering to check. This sort of web revisionism is one of my annoyance triggers, with the result that I dropped the strip a while back. Apparently this sort of thing is generally acceptable, as I only remember reading one complaint on his blog, everyone else supported the move.

All in all, I just continue to use the system correctly, because base 10 does not make sense in the context. I have been known to use the suffix MKB (for Marketing) when the defenders of deception are on the prowl, to stress that the onus is on them to invent a new unit marker. We currently now have two unit markers for the same meaning and no marker exists for the way people wish to mis-state capacities.

So I take it that you also do not support the powers-of-ten redefinition of KB, MB, GB and so forth?

Exactly. As implemented, caller ID is not a legitimate function. Apart from reverse charge numbers and emergency service numbers, there is no reason, ever, to transmit the number of the calling line. If you look at how it is implemented, it becomes clear that Caller ID was created for the primary purpose of allowing business to capture phone numbers of callers without consent. For most large businesses, this is also an additional reason for reverse-charge numbers.

If privacy is a concern, require that caller information be accurate, with criminal penalties for failure, and send ONLY THE NAME of the person/organization as a text string. I would not have a problem with my name coming up, but my reasons for keeping my number secret trump your reasons for wanting it, period. If you don't want to talk to me, don't answer if my name shows.

Unless Caller ID is modified to operate this way, everyone complaining about blocked calls is out of order, and should simply drop phone service entirely.

You get your money back, like a regular credit card, but it may take some time. Happened to a friend of mine - had his bank account drained and it took about 3-4 weeks to get everything straigtened out and get his money back. Sucked for him - living for about a month with zero money in the bank...

This will likely get me groused at, but if you are stupid enough to have a debit card on the same account you write important checks on, you are not so much asking for trouble as kidnapping it. The indirect penalties for card compromise are so large that I can't comprehend why anyone would take the risk. My debit card is on a dedicated checking account that exists solely to support the card. I write a few small checks a year (the odd magazine subscription or such) to keep that function from inactivity issues. If scammed, the damage is limited to the balance in the account plus having to contact the 4 companies that I have card payment set up with. My regular account, and all the really important bills, are immune to this particular line of attack. I just make sure that I have my next few weeks planned debit card expenditures on deposit in the card account and I'm good to go.