The issuing bank is coded into the credit card number. International transactions could be auto-rejected. Credit Card applications tend to reject any address that isn't a physical residence, so a PO Box wouldn't work - at least not as an initial address, possibly a forwarding address would be fine (at least temporarily).

You'd likely have to travel to the US and open a bank account with proof of address in the US (something like a bill sent to a rental house or a rental agreement would do), then return to your home country and leave the account open - wire money to it and use its DEBIT or CREDIT card for the service. Of course, you'd still have to use a VPN or proxy and stay ahead of Netflix blocking such services.

Interesting concept. How would that work exactly?

Would that be through tariffs, bans on imports, or immigration laws? The US has economic sanctions forbidding business deals with North Korea and others.

I'm sure one could write laws to forbid the purchase of some product or service produced outside the states. We have something similar for the defense industry - certain products must be composed of raw materials (a certain percent at least) produced in the USA, and a certain percentage of the labor (if not all of it) must be done in the USA as well.

To have the "Made in USA" label, products have to adhere to certain labor conditions, too. Like for cars, parts can be from overseas, but if it a certain percentage of assembly was done in the USA, it can have the "Made in USA" designation. (I've read the terms for these designations, and it's really sneaky. Parts can be designated as "Made in USA" even if their components are largely not made in the USA.)

Bittorrent is fantastic, but as PirateBay has shown, it likely won't be around forever. Governments are willing and able to shut down or block every bittorrent tracker site that pops up long enough to have any credibility or usefulness. I've had some friends get cease and desist orders - some even had their ISPs to shut down their service. People are using VPNs to get around such tracking, but even those are getting IP blocks or shut down. Governments are investing a lot of money into hardware, hacking, and spying to help shut down P2P networks. The Hydra theory - lop off one P2P head, and 2 take its place is not going to work when your ISP and your government both are snooping on everything you do - and everything everyone you connect to is doing. Even Tor and other networks are easily breached.

I don't disagree that the region restrictions suck for the end user - especially one that travels. But, that's not the point. The system is the way it is for valid reasons. You're dealing with an entire industry and multiple countries - not just a single corporate entity that can change its mind on a whim. It doesn't help that the EU is largely an economic union and not a political one. I don't know, but it's possible Netflix may have to have additional legal paperwork and/or negotiations for each country involved. There may be things the EU could do to ease such business negotiations within the EU for member countries. I suspect the difficulties have more to do with the various languages and cultures of the regions and trying to cater to each, but additional negotiations and time spent would cost money as well.

You have to ask yourself whether you're willing to pay for the service you describe, and if so, how much? Will it be worth it to all parties involved? If not, then why would they offer it? They're fine with not giving you a service you aren't willing to pay their price for, and you're fine with pirating the content and taking your chances with a fine or lawsuit. TV shows in the states run roughly $2/hr per household per episode from commercial sponsors. To deliver that content to you, you'd have to find a way to pay at least that much either directly or through finding commercial sponsors willing to show ads targeted to your demographic to pay for you to watch them - plus cost of whatever technical and legal hurdles to set it up for you. US series generally run 11 to 13 episodes per season, so you'd be paying between $20 to $25 minimum per season for each tv show unless you are willing to sit through ads and find someone who will pay to run ads just for you (and/or others using the service that fit your demographic. It would scale better with others.) Just selling the advertising in a region for a show can be a full time job. As to why shows are released in the states before the EU - I assume a show created by ABC, for example, would first run on ABC plus a few re-runs, then be packaged for sale to an EU network not owned by ABC for a price based upon the US ratings and EU demand, and then the EU station would set up negotiations for EU sponsors for the content and find a time slot. That negotiation would take time - plus any dubbing and subtitle translation work. If ABC owned the networks in both countries and knew EU demand was such that the show was a hit, they might simulcast, but I doubt it. I've seen the reverse happen with shows like Merlin - made for Britain, then 5 months later air on a different network in the USA. There's no language issue for the show between the UK/Canada and USA, but it still took 5 months or more to air. My guess is Syfy was showing its own programming in a time slot while SkyOne was showing Merlin, and if and when Syfy decided it could free up a slot, it paid to pull in Merlin. SkyOne probably did the same thing with some Syfy programming. So, each plays its own content, then swaps and plays the other network's if it works for them. They have the option of just not picking up a show if it stinks and going with something else.

Each content producer does what is in its best interest, each network chooses the content and time slot that works in its best interest, and no one really cares to restructure their business for the convenience of consumers. They want maximum profit. The only way to really get to a consumer-oriented model is for streaming content distributors to make their own content - like Netflix with Orange is the New Black. They know who watches the show, instantaneously know the ratings, and they don't create the content for advertisers - it's straight to consumer, paid for by Netflix subscription only.

I have a feeling that Netflix would be insanely happy to make you personally an individualized package of HD streaming content at high speeds with licenses for all 10 countries you visit and impeccable release times for only 1 Million Euros a month. Why, I bet they'd even come out and dig a trench for fiber optics at each location you visit for an extra 20%. Most of that money will go towards Netflix hiring lawyers and contractors to negotiate licenses for each and every content owner for the individual TV shows and movies you personally want to watch... and then some for the hardware, the digital transfer, and the subtitle creation. I'm sure they'll still turn a tidy profit. I'd love to see the look on the negotiators' faces when they specify the license is for 1 individual for instantaneous global streaming capability. You're half right that most money goes to lawyers. Most lawyers for large corporations are on salary, so at least they aren't paid by the hour. The lawyers wouldn't be necessary if there weren't so many parties involved and/or deals for global distribution were made up-front. Problem is, no one knows whether or not a show will be a hit, so they don't talk money and global distribution rights until a series has proven itself.

If they offered you a service that was even slightly similar to what you describe, Netflix wouldn't offer it cheap. Content owners wouldn't allow Netflix to provide it cheap. If they did, it might cannibalize other distribution channels. Or, alternatively, maybe Netflix just doesn't see why it should waste resources on that particular content for the region when it could instead invest in more profitable content that might benefit many regions.

If it's any consolation, we get the shaft here in the states, too. We're just now getting TV channels like BBC America where we can watch Dr Who as it's released. Still, we get some Aussie and British produced TV months behind their UK and Australian airtimes. Our Syfy Channel often shows series from SkyOne years late - many times after a series has already been cancelled.

I am a bit surprised you'd have to have a separate account for each country if they're all in the EU. The Euro should help with stabilizing the pricing, but I could easily see how different countries with various regulations could cause issues.

That said, I'd love it if moving forward, contracts started to include global streaming rights and Hulu Plus /Netflix/whatever was set up to allow streaming to the EU the same as in the states (even if there's no translation or subtitles ready). I have no idea how Hulu would handle the advertising for EU streaming, but I bet it could work it out as it can create profiles for users to work with. Hulu might even be working on such a plan as we speak, but by offering EU streaming, they risk not being able to sell their programming to EU cable TV - even if it's 5 months late to air. Is the revenue from catering to paying EU Hulu Plus users worth the hassle and the risk of losing the revenue from the EU cable TV networks? I don't know. Maybe.

I'd like to add that media companies are evolving - and I'm extremely excited about HBO allowing people to sign up for HBO GO - even if they don't have an HBO subscription through a cable provider. (even if it may be a limited subscription without the HBO subscription... I don't know all the terms yet)

HBO knows that Game of Thrones and other shows are pirated. They also know that the pirates are very likely to become paying subscribers of HBO GO if they can watch Game of Thrones legally without having to pay for HBO itself (and possibly the cable subscription as well). They're lucky that they're both the creator and distributor for the show, so distribution rights won't be as much of an issue.

I'm also excited that Netflix creates its own content with shows like "Orange is the New Black" and "House of Cards." I love the model where the creators are also the distributors, but I also really like that the consumers can give instant feedback through number of views or individual ratings. It's an evolution to a direct-to-consumer model with great feedback. They know every time you stream a show, so they don't need a separate ratings company to know how many viewers were watching. Netflix even has a ratings system, so they get feedback from the consumer in a great democratic format. I sincerely look forward to HBO GO, Netflix, and Amazon continuing the trend towards that new model (which will probably work well for most TV shows). Movies, however... those are likely still in the realm of Hollywood labyrinthine production and distribution channels for some time to come.

you are most welcome

It's called tiered marketing and discriminatory pricing. I'm not sure which business school you went to, but the AACSB accredited one I went to described this situation pretty well to the undergrads, and it makes perfect sense - it's just complex. They use it because it works best in squeezing the most profit out of each segment. All media companies use it, to a degree. I recall in college, I'd order my MBA texts from India - "International Editions" that were paperback versions of my classmates' books. They were usually full color paperback versions of the exact same textbooks. I was able to buy them for around $20 (including shipping from India) where the course book in the US was hardback and $125.

With the book analogy, it's a kind of region locking. Yes, if you know how, you can get around it with a bit of time and effort.. even if it's not exactly the same quality. Also, you can just borrow the book from a friend or share as needed... or even use a photocopier for just the excerpts you need. Most people will buy the book, and the one for their region, and that works well enough to not worry about those skirting the system. Like enforcing any system (even the legal/criminal justice system), there's diminishing returns for protecting against cheating it.

Game makers and DVD/ Bluray producers do the same thing with region locking. They don't want you to buy the content for $5 from China when they can get you to pay $30 or $50 here in the states. Media distributors for movies do the same. Their model is set to get cash from theaters first, then pay-per-view and DVDs, then cable movie networks, then Netflix, and then general cable networks with commercial breaks - pretty much in that order. They have all that sliced up by regions, too - mostly because people in different regions are willing to pay different prices for the same things, but also so they can control the length of each phase of distribution for each region independently. It's not easy to untangle because there are so many different companies involved that sell distribution rights to different distribution channels in each region and then reward content-makers as a percentage based upon that distribution. That's before countries get involved with taxes, copyrights, streaming rights, etc. as well. That's not even to mention that some actors get paid a percentage of one distribution channel profits and a different percentage of another distribution channel profits - written into their movie contracts. Other actors get residuals from syndication from TV episodes. It really is licensing "all the way down" as the grandparent post suggests. Netflix follows its licensing agreements, Sony, etc follows the ones it made with producers, directors, actors, etc. Even with Hulu - watch what they do with episodes. Sometimes one episode out of a season will be missing due to licensing - and it'll be because of some obscure part of a contract not allowing the episode to be shown because of a clause for an actor or for the background music.

Netflix would love to have a simpler model. Hulu would, too (well, yes and no b/c they're currently owned by Comcast and others that want to spin it off). Hulu got streaming rights for computers, but didn't think ahead to get the licenses for streaming to any internet device... which is partly why there's Hulu Plus. I don't know about now, but when Hulu Plus first came out, I could watch some things on Hulu on my laptop, others on Hulu Plus on my smart TV, but Hulu Plus wouldn't show all of Hulu's content. I had to switch back and forth between them. Different licenses for different methods of distribution. Negotiating for other methods of distribution after the fact would almost certainly lead to higher charges for content, and then higher pricing for Hulu or Netflix subscribers (unless the subscriber growth was substantial)

Hollywood is a huge industry - and getting them to switch their model is a bit like telling the American public that we should go ahead and switch everything to Metric b/c it's easier and/or better. Literally everything retroactively from Grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe to the highway signs to your car's driver's manual. The current system is deeply ingrained and will take a massive effort on multiple fronts to change - and that is if you can successfully argue that you've got a better system.

Content is mostly going digital with encryption and individual licensing. I see a future where content providers like Steam, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, etc have individualized licenses for every song, book, movie, tv show episode, and game you play. No one will "own" a copy, so there will be no resale value and you can't give or sell your collection to anyone. Totally locked down, but with ways to temporarily share with other accounts (family/friends). Probably even a side program to scan your library for unlicensed material and report any "cracked" files to authorities based off of digital fingerprints. Amazon and others are already toying with individualized pricing. I imagine future pricing will be set at one point, then "discounts" and "sales" offered for individuals at just the right price points to get them to buy. That's the corporate dream - to sell licenses to individuals directly at exactly the highest price they'd be wiling to buy them without creating too much anger from the public when the people discover they're not all paying the same amount for the same product. People think the price they paid is fair until they discover someone paid a different price... so, sellers take into account region, timing, secondary benefits (oooh, special edition packaging!), etc. I'm sure they'll come up with ways to differentiate it enough for those that care enough. Usually coupons/discounts is the way to go - so some people feel they got a deal and others that paid full price don't feel cheated.

The real question is -- What method of distribution do you propose, and how do you expect it to make the industry more money than the current system? Is that amount worth renegotiating every contract for every actor, musician, writer, director, photographer, etc etc for each and every piece of media as well as breaking all the current long term contracts with the present media distributors? I'm betting not. This will be a slow evolution ending in corporations maximizing their profits, but at the same time, maximizing their distribution to those that want their products through more creative price discrimination. You won't see one price for global distribution ever -- the economics just don't support it. You also won't see all Netflix content available everywhere even at various prices for Netflix subscriptions - because content providers will be negotiating for various amounts per view or percentages per region and won't agree to a deal if they think they can make more money on an alternative distribution channel for a region.

You're not wrong to say that there are inefficiencies in an entrenched system, but it's not fair to say they're dinosaurs holding on to a dying business model either as some suggest. Cable companies now offer free time-shifting with DVRs, some Pay Per View options are available same-day as DVD releases. Hollywood has a lot of work to do in transitioning from a theater, DVD, HBO, and Cable highly segmented model to a more modern Theater + anywhere/anytime/anydevice individualized model, but they'll get there eventually. If Internet companies were classified as Tier 2 utilities, I think it'd happen a lot faster. Cable channels could easily all become streaming channels, Cable Companies simply ISPs... then eventually cable channels themselves could simply become content providers for streaming services like Netflix. I'd rather have a Netflix service with massive, indexed ready-to-play content than a cable company with 1,200 channels of random content spewed constantly with no regard to my preferences or schedule. I say give it another 20 to 30 years.

This is the crux of the "intelligent life out there" argument. We literally have no idea how probable intelligent, industrialized life is to develop - even on planets proven to have life and what time scale or necessary events must take place for it to arise. Apes likely became intelligent on Earth because of extreme changes in habitats and multiple near-extinction events which forced survivors to adapt and adopt tool use to compete and thrive. Maybe such evolutionary pressures are rare, and maybe species that endure them find other survival methods or simply go extinct. Animals only need to be "smart enough" to survive and breed. It may take extraordinary events to push them into an arms race for intelligence to better control and shape their environment.

I personally think life is common - as its components are common, and many chemical reactions necessary for life can happen with a solvent (water) and energy (sunlight) without life. I think intelligent life capable of spaceflight is exceedingly rare. Dolphins, dinosaurs, parrots, and octopus rarely dreamed of space flight, I think.

Life may exist nearly everywhere that conditions allow - as it likely spontaneously came from natural chemical reactions on Earth (or was seeded from another world where it spontaneously came into being), there's no reason to believe it's not a natural event itself which is likely to occur wherever it can given enough time. To say that such life would evolve into an intelligent, tool-using being capable of interstellar communication or even interplanetary flight is quite another issue entirely.

From an evolutionary perspective, intelligence may be highly overrated.

No. The electricity is certainly wasted if it's being spent to turn electrical resistance into heat. Any HVAC guy can tell you that electric heat strips are a terribly inefficient way to produce electricity and that it's actually FAR, FAR more efficient to suck heat out of the freezing air outside using a heat pump than it is to generate heat using electrical current through a metal filament or even heat strips designed to generate heat (as backup or extra heat for use in addition to a heat pump to heat things up quickly).

I think you're missing the point. Index funds follow the market which has always trended upward at that rate over time -- even including the great depression. It's considered a safe bet to earn 10% per year in an index fund (like the S&P 500) on average over at least a period of 10 years (gives time for full recovery of any economic downturn).

"everyone says" -- really, Everyone?!?!?

I don't know what polls and sales figures you were looking at, but Win95, WinXP, and Win7 were all winners from the get-go. Win98, Win98SE were OK, WinME was crap, Vista was crap (SPs fixed that, so it's basically Win7 now)... and Win8 is crap without a start menu shell utility. (Win2000 was also loved in businesses, but XP added much needed media features while increasing some bugginess. XP SP2 and SP3 were welcome upgrades).

The fact is that touch-tech is useful on small devices that lack keyboards but is mostly useless on a desktop, projector, or TV, so it was asinine for Microsoft to make it the primary interface for Windows 8. The Start Screen is also poorly designed for he same setting, so equally asinine to have it replace the start menu. These are real problems that need to be addressed for usability - including workplace safety and disabled user's ease of workflow.

That said, Win 8 has some great tech under the hood & I like using it with Classic Shell as my start menu w/ the charms crap turned off.

Makes me wonder why they don't have a test for how many on/off cycles one can handle. Incandescent bulbs can go for nearly 100 years if their power source isn't disrupted or turned off. It's always the power spikes that blow a bulb -- usually when you turn one on.

I don't disagree with any of your points save for the "End of Facebook" bit.

I use Facebook for a lot more than what you describe. Perhaps it would be the end of twitter - assuming there was an easy way for others to subscribe to your posts?

Obviously, there are gravitational distortions in space-time that current theories cannot explain. The idea that there is some sort of exotic matter creating those gravitational distortions is an untestable hypothesis (unless you know of a way to go out and collect the dark matter which may exist in these regions to run experiments on it).

It is equally likely that those regions of space are experiencing distortions due to some unknown natural distortion in space-time's structure itself or are caused by an interaction with another universe in the multiverse. It's also possible that our current model of how gravity works is incorrect at large scales due to other factors we don't yet understand. In any case, the distortions are at such a large scale and at such great distance from us that any hypothesis will be difficult to test.

"Dark Matter" is just a word for "something out there we can't see is causing gravitational distortions we can't account for." There's no reason the cause has to be some form of matter we haven't seen yet. Particle physicists haven't a clue what kind of a particle would have mass, but no interaction with light. People assume the distortions are caused by mass because all known distortions our theories work for are caused by mass, but all known normal mass particles also interact with light or emit light. So, people simply make up hypothetical particles with mass, but no interaction with light -- because they NEED for them to exist to fit their assumption that mass in our universe is causing the distortion.

I think it's far more likely we don't yet understand some aspect of gravity on galactic scales than there is some sort of magic form of matter that makes our current equations make sense in the areas that currently make no sense to us whatsoever.

Maybe the area far from the center could carry luggage & cargo

Exactly where do firefox devs get their marketing research from that tells them what features their users would like to keep and which they'd like to remove or change? I'm sincerely curious because I never voted for this, never got a pop-up questionnaire even on a beta version that does marketing research and has Feedback capabilities (What you like and don't like), and yet the status bar was simply GONE with an update. Who makes these decisions and based on what data? The devs personal feelings or actual responses from users?!?!?

I now have an extension to replace the status bar (status4ever or some such thing) and another extension to replace the capability to set my minimum tab width -- which was also removed unceremoniously so one couldn't go to about:config and set it anymore. The devs received this as a BUG and replied with "It was never a feature... just a setting we removed and don't intend to put back." So, if there weren't an extension for me, I'd be scrolling forever to see my 40+ tabs open (on just one set of Tab Panorama tabs on a wide-screen monitor).

Why are features removed rather than made optional??? Extensions to get old functionality back are inferior b/c they aren't maintained by FF and could contain buggy or insecure code -- or end development suddenly.

Honestly, it's changes like these that send loyal users to Chrome. Chrome is minimalist + extensions to do what you want. Firefox has always been defaults for most users + lots of customizations + extensions if you need/want them. Firefox and Chrome target different market segments. If you strip out features and require people to get an extension to add the utility back... those people may as well switch to Chrome.

I'm already running Chrome half the time -- I'm testing it out preparing for what may be an inevitable transition to it from Firefox. Most of my friends, family, and co-workers use Chrome exclusively now.

In my opinion, Firefox can't hope to compete head-to-head with Chrome on speed, bug fixes, release dates, etc. etc. Google has far more resources. Firefox should instead target features (especially for power users), flexibility, and security while Google targets the average person that rarely has more than a few tabs open at a time. I'm not saying Firefox shouldn't stay competitive... but when someone asks "Why should I use Firefox instead of Chrome," one of my answers used to be that Firefox was very customizable... with lots of options and you could do about anything in about:config... it's just not true now. I'm still using an about:config option to let my "close tab" button remain on the far right rather than on each individual tab. When that option goes away forever (as I'm sure it will at this rate), I'll switch to Chrome -- unless I find another extension to add that back, too.