Lucky I'm on XP and don't have to worry. It's been 100% stable for months now.

Hooray for the Job Creators!

> They drill this into us all the time in martial arts. When fighting, you don't have time to sit and think about your next move, it just has to come naturally, like some kind of instinct.

You're talking about "reflex", not "muscle memory". I've done martial arts too, and found the problem with this approach is that, if someone has very reflexive, "automatic" defensive moves, it's very easy for an attacker to take advantage of that by baulking. Making the defender expect an attack in one place, then attacking somewhere else instead. Reflexes don't deal with that very well.

Not really, it depends what you mean by "illegal". Bear with me... Personally think illegality sends a good signal for kids - drugs are bad, m'key? - but the *punishment* is the question. Allowing police to arrest a user means these things:

1. For young people, parents get to know what their child is doing
2. Police can get the name of the *dealer* from the user
3. The user can be placed in mandatory rehab as "punishment".
4. If rehab isn't necessary, then the only punishment is a small fine.

User gets a slap on the wrist (or rehab) but police get the info they need. What's wrong with that?

If it's not illegal, it makes finding the dealers more difficult for police. PLUS - and I think this is the worst aspect of making them legal - drugs suddenly become a *legitimate business*. And we all know how ethically business behaves once they can deal in an addictive product.

I find an easy solution is to make sure those sorts of emails all go to a single internal address which is then forwarded to *2 or 3 other people*. That way the IT manager gets it, the individual responsible for actually doing it gets it, and someone else as a backup.

This reminds everyone how important it is, and people communicate to make sure it happens. The manager or backup person gets it and goes "ah, that guy isn't here anymore, we'd better sort that out".

Already attempted. Try PaleMoon. http://www.palemoon.org/

If you're responding to an American, it seems they're becoming less and less interested in "collective endeavours". I'm just waiting for someone to start calling mandatory immunisation "Socialism". The U.S. seems to have an enormous and growing number of people with an innate mistrust of science. Very different from the past, and very weird for a country who (briefly, it seems) became the technological powerhouse of the world.

Maybe you're a troll, I don't know. Others here have pointed out your misunderstanding of everything to do with 'flu, viruses and vaccinations. I'd like to point out why you're a hypocrite.

You're telling us we're "sheep" - for what? Following mainstream science which has given you everything you enjoy in the world, like TV, mobile phones, computers, the clothes you wear and the food you eat. You're criticising us for that? You don't see anything wrong with that mindset at all?

And secondly, following on from that, you're accusing us of having our heads in the sand - not seeing "the truth" as you see it. The problem with that attitude, is that you get your information from where - web sites, anecdotal stories from other people, heresay... and you obviously don't bother to fact-check any of it, otherwise you would very soon see the flaws in their logic, and yours.

So face the truth - people like you say you know "the truth", but in reality you DON'T CARE about the truth. You only care about what you WANT to be true. Real science, real facts, don't have attitudes or preferred opinions. Before you can even begin to understand facts and "The Truth", you need to shed your opinions and preferences. You have to stop wanting this or that to be true. Look at what you are being told, from all sides, with ZERO bias, and *check things for yourself*. That is what science is all about. Sure sometimes it is wrong, but the point is it's *self-correcting* because anyone who respects the process only wants to know what *is* true, not what they want to be true.

For your own benefit, for the sake of simple common sense... take a breath, leave your opinions at the door, and start really listening, reading and trying to *understand* what the issues are and what the truth is. Mindlessly repeating other people's opinions is not even letting yourself have your own opinion. Don't you want your opinions to at least be guided by your own thought and reasoning?

It comes down to what you want for yourself. A life lived in the shadow of bias and misinformation, like back in the dark ages; or a life where you're not afraid to question what you *want* to be true, and see the difference between unproven claims and proven claims. Demand proof from *both* sides of any debate.

Not at all. I have physical copies of all my music and movies, although the physical media - my hard drive - is far more space-efficient than an optical disk. In fact, even 2 hard drives (one as a backup) is still far more space-efficient and, protected as they are in the computer case, I never have to worry about scratches.

Physical media is definitely not going away, even if those shiny coaster things do.

That's a complete contradiction. If someone had "100% proof", it would be seen as such, by definition. That's what "proof" is - the ability to prove something, beyond any reasonable person's doubt. To say anything important, which can be completely, irrevocably proven will be ignored, is simply ridiculous in modern times.

Strange you should say that, as I just heard about it.

I always smile when people say, "no-one ever talks about this, but..."

Thanks for including me in the incredibly small cabal of individuals this has been mentioned to. I feel so special. :)

> It proves that if you can give a corporation tax breaks and throw off the shackles of regulation, they will do better and want to hire more people. Oh...wait.

I was actually doing an Excel thingy the other day, simply looking at how company profits actually relate to employment. This information is freely available from companies' annual reports. For example:

Woolworths Limited (annual reports) graph: http://i.imgur.com/iNagiLN.gif

For companies like Woolworths, whose operations are fairly labour-intensive, profits do relate to employment though, as you can see, profits rise far more quickly than employment does.

Then take Comm Bank (I'm Australian): (annual Reports) graph: http://i.imgur.com/w6orwfi.gif

For Comm Bank, profits rise confidently, however the effect on employment is comparatively modest. Employment even drops for a period. Over the long term, the relationship between profit and employment is minor.

From the few I looked at, profits of major companies rise far more sharply than does employment, and sometimes there is little relation at all. I imagine there is a closer relationship between profit and employment in small to medium businesses. IMO, large companies should be more highly regulated (also so they can't off-shore their tax) while small-medium businesses are the ones who should be encouraged more.

True. I bought a HP 8510p, 5 years ago, and it's still my main work laptop. As a web developer, I use Visual Studio, Photoshop, etc. and have SQL Server, IIS and a bunch of dev tools running continually. It also plays Dishonored and Metro Last Light reasonably well. Amazing little machine, easy to open up and maintain. Not a single dead pixel, not single failed part. The only down-side is a limit of 4GB RAM, but even that's not too much of an issue.. on XP. :)

It was probably one of the first "good enough" laptops that didn't need to be discarded for something faster, but it also happened to never break down (crazily easy to open up and de-dust). My deep satisfaction, however, doesn't make a computer manufacturer any money. Which is another reason for pushing tablets and "laptop-replacements" like the Surface Pro - they're an emerging tech, which means the good-old, lucrative "upgrade cycle" starts all over again for these companies.

You forgot to mention the ever so popular UI changes to Visual Studio 2012/13. An utter UI train-wreck from MS, far worse in implication than Metro, as it is serious productivity s/ware used by Windows developers. And they haven't even backed down from using all-CAPS in the menus.

But none of the people who see you in the pub are the same who see you in a shop and the same who see you walking down any other street every day. There's a BIG difference between being "in public" - where nobody knows you beyond the immediate space - and your life "being public knowledge", which is what it would be if everyone knew all your movements throughout the city.

Comparing public surveillance to "being in public" is a false equivalence. They're nothing like each other.