jaclaz

I have found a very usable phone (for what I do, which is not much) in low cost Chinese "mini rugged phones" namely I had (until I broke the screen and battery was not in very good condition) a "king kong mini" and then I got the (slightly larger) "king kong mini 3" (the 4 is the latest model, I believe). They are slightly heavier than you would expect, but have very long autonomy and fit nicely in a shirt's pocket.

>The fact that you had to find an article from three decades ago for an instance of killing with a keyboard is telling

Yeah, is telling that modern keyboards weight a lot less nowadays, and nobody would use one as a weapon to hit someone else. ;)

The original IBM Model M was 2.3 Kg.

D@mn, I believed you were thinking that no one (not noone) could be more pedantic than you.

Not that they couldn't reserve on the ads screens a narrow (let's say 100-200 pixels tall) band at the bottom of the screen to show the path with the green and red lights like the (good) ol' system.

Europe may be too wide a categorization, I am pretty sure that different countries have different ways to deal with the matter.

My (thankfully very little) experience in Italy is for civil litigations at least (where it is rare that one of the two parties get 100% reason) expenses are usually compensated (i.e. every party pays their own ones), in the more rare case where all expenses are paid by the succumbing party, what is liquidated is not really what has been paid, but rather what the expenses would be along some sort of tariff.

If your solicitor/lawyer is a famous (presumably very good as you won) one, it is likely that the amount you spend is much higher than what the judge condemned the other party to reimburse you.

NT 4.0 was not for the masses, it was costly (the OS license) and needed higher specs than the almost contemporary Windows 95 (which was largely sold with license included with the new PC). As well, Windows 2000 was a "professional" OS. Both were way ahead in stability when compared to the Win9x/Me counterparts, but in terms of number of users, they were a fraction of the 9x ones, so it is not surprising that you can find much more nostalgic people about the latter.

XP somehow "unified" the professional and home market, bringing the (unneeded) Fisher Price look that the professionals hated and the (unneeded) complexities of authorizations/NTFS that the home users were not prepared for.

I can testify for the stability of NT 4.0, I have run a machine for some 15 years, roughly from 2001 to 2016, running NT 4.00, on 24/7, and only reboots were once a year or so for cleaning or occasionally for replacing the (failed) PSU or hard disk (not as a server, as a desktop running a specific DOS based accounting software). I remember initially I had a few BSOD's because for some reasons there was a counter of some kind in the mouse driver that caused them, but once that was fixed, if I recall correctly by a change in the Registry, it was really rock solid.

The best (IMHO) ode/obituary for floppy disks:

A:las poor floppy, I knew you well.

Done: ""

Everyone have their own favourite, for me it is: "Well, I've got good gnus and I've got bad gnus."

I may add that there is an additional (lesser known) issue.

The "typical" contract is 3 kW, due to air conditioners becoming more common, many people upgraded to 4.5 kW (it was also possible, cannot say if it still possible now, to make a 3 kW contract with an upgrade only during three or four months in the summer).

Very few people (and very large houses) have a 6 kW contract.

The "fixed" part ("potenza impegnata" translatable to "committed power capacity") is a non thrifling part of the monthly (or every two month) electricity bill, so eveyone historically used the smallest possible contract (usually there is a 10% or 20% more allowed for peaks).

The electrical plant needs to be made (and certified) by a licensed electrician BUT (and here is the catch) only up to 6kW the electrician can make (and certify it) without the need of a project by an authorized technician, which adds some costs.

Additionally (of course it depends on the specific area) up to 6 kW it is considered "normal" and it is rare that the distributors asks for compensation (besides the increase in the bill, and an initial "fixed amount" ) whilst when you go up, it is not uncommon that you are asked a sum as a contribution for the works needed to upgrade the distribution lines.

For increasing from 3 kW to 6 kW it would be around 70 € x 3= 210 € + around 50 € + VAT and then around 22 € x 3= 66 €/year (again + VAT).

Stepping up from 6 to 10 (besides needing the project and re-certification) is not unlikely to cost several hundreds or a few thousands Euro.

Anyway, before the issues with the power needed for re-charging, few people have the "luxury" of a parking space or garage, I would presume that this is a bigger obstacle for electric car adoption.