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The surrealist painted the concrete antelope.
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It's bad for business, all the sheep in the area are nervous!
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I was trying to be discrete! 
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Wasn't there a discussion why Griff stopped drinking a few days ago (Can't find the thread, though)?
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... The missus can't stand that much attention.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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They reply, "Are you amphibian?"
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You might impose a tax on me....
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That's OK, we're only here to observe the mating rituals of the local fauna.
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"Why not?" ask the zoologists, handing him a small dog.
"Because it's a shitzu"
MVVM # - I did it My Way
___________________________________________
Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Pardon me I must be having a thick moment - please explain.
We can’t stop here, this is bat country - Hunter S Thompson RIP
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Why do we still need a separate charge for line rental nowadays (well in the UK with BT at least)?
It should be just built into the cost of the contract. And BT putting this line rental charge up to 15.99 a month, which in my opinion is just a rip off. Ok, so you can get it for 11.75 if you pay a year in advance.
Sounds more like BT are saying "Regulator screwing us for call charges, let make money instead via the line rental".
How does Line rental compare in other countries? If it even exists that is!
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I think it's because the price is set by BT - it's the amount they figure covers maintenance of the line, exchange hardware and (of course) enormous annual profits. The other telecoms companies (generally, there is at least one exception in the UK) do not supply and maintain their own physical network, so they have to pay BT for use of theirs. And they pass that cost on to us as a separate item in case BT hike the price on them.
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
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I'll bet its like norway, it was publicly build, sold and now privatly owned? Even though it was build with public money?
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Spot on!
Same with the railways, electricity distribution, gas supply, bus services, post delivery, ...
The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.
English doesn't borrow from other languages.
English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.
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Its more fun in Norway. We actually managed to produce more electricity than we need, so naturally we sell it abroad, thereby increasing the price here, and most of it is own by the local municipalities i.a. the people. Even more funny, the government has increased its support for wind mill power supplies, even though we have a surplus, which mean that the municipalities will get a lower price for the electricity. The logic? Well, I dont know...
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We have that in Norway as well, but it is hidden in the price. Nearly all the physical phone lines actually own by a partly state run (35% i think) company Telenor, and they rent out the line capacity to other companies within Norway, and it is overseen by a department.
It was fully state own before, meaning that the state own all the phone lines, but they decided to sell away most of it to develop the company abroad.
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I don't even know what's a line rental. There's a fixed price that I pay every month, and I get internet. The bill amount may increase based on telephone usage though.
"Real men drive manual transmission" - Rajesh.
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You can rent the line in my sig for a mere EUR 2.50 a month.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I've never heard of anything called a line rental charge, but all utilities charge a fixed per customer or per connection charge. This is intended to recoup the fixed, recurring cost of maintaining a system capable of serving a customer, whether the customer uses the service or not. Variable costs are recovered using service charges that vary by usage. Here in the colonies, most of these charges have to be approved by some sort of regulatory body, which varies by jurisdiction. Here on the Indian Reservation, we set our rates with the approval of the Tribal Utilities Commission; off-reservation, charges are regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission, unless they delegate that duty to the Tribal Commission. In most states, there is a Public Utilities Commission, sometimes appointed, sometimes elected, and usually comprised of member from both the utility industry and the public in order to attempt a balanced view of rates. It doesn't always work out...
In every case I know of, it's the utility that gets screwed, never the consumer. We recently watched the demise of a major generating plant in our area. It was ordered to make environmental improvements by EPA, via a court case which was settled, but later proved to be a false accusation. The company had the money to make the improvements, but had to get permission from the California PUC to spend the money because the majority owner was a CA company. The PUC denied the request, forcing the plant to be closed and destroyed, along with all of the well paid jobs in our area. Brilliant...
The closest I can think of to your evil "line charge" is the $10 a month charge Sprint is allowed by the FCC to bill me for a service they have never provided, nor intend ever to provide, simply because the phone I own is capable of using that service.
Will Rogers never met me.
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We pay line rental in Aus too. Although it sounds like a rip off, I think it is there for two reasons.
Telstra (national ex-nationalised telco) are 100% responsible for the infrastructure - regardless as to who your supplier is - so the rental goes toward the physical connection.
the maintenance of the physical infrastructure doesn't change depending on your use - so if you have a phone but rarely or never use it, the telco would be making a loss on your connection.
I must admit i don't know what happens here if you go naked DSL - I believe you no longer pay the line rental, so if there is a problem I don't know if it still gets fixed by Telstra, or your naked ISP.
MVVM # - I did it My Way
___________________________________________
Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
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Here, we still have to pay line rental if you just wanted broadband.
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I recently downloaded Bitdefender's 30-day AV evaluation. Upto now I've been using MSE. The first thing I noticed once I installed Bitdefender is how my machine's performance nose-dived. I don't mind losing some performance as it's a small cost for the protection it offers but what I experienced was a significant hit. I uninstalled it and, voila!, performance was back to normal. Opening Outlook and Fox took a long time and loading pages was painfully slow.
I'm prepared to give Bitdefender another chance but has anyone else used it and could comment or should look at another pay-for-use AV app like Kaspersky or something else?
Please don't suggest MacAfee. Please... 
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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