In Norway, the tax department actually have people employed to surf the popular sites like Finn and QXL (auction/trading sites), and even blogs, to try to uncover tax evasion. One of the most popular bloggers in our country, which is a 14 year old girl nicknamed Voe, probably has to pay taxes because she recieves so many free products from vendors (who hope to get get free advertising).

If you say anonymous communications, I agree that drugs would not be the top reason. This is anonymous prepaid cellphones we are talking about, and I was referring to the situation in my own country, where neither being a witness to a crime nor a wistleblower would require a anonymous prepaid phone card. Perhaps thats what you get in a country that is percieved as very little corrupt, with a government that is (for now) considered friendly at most levels.

A few years back, you could buy prepaid phones in Norway without any ID, but then they made a law so that all prepaid cards had to be registered with social security number. It is now harder for most mindless criminals to call anonymously, so they use their own names and get caught easily. The more clever ones simply use other peoples social security numbers when they want anonymous (for them) prepaid numbers.
Because of the latter, I am concerned about the consequences. Maybe they should legalize drugs and get rid of the top reason why people would want a anonymous phone in the first place, but I can only dream.

There, fixed my own post with corrent quotes.

Another thing is that civilian ownership of such devices is not allowed here in Norway. I know that many people from other countries have another view on the right to defend themselves, but coming from this cold country with only five million inhabitants, I'd say "defend yourself from what?" We probably have some of the worlds highest rates of civilian firearm ownership, but having a police force that generally don't carry guns send a strong signal to the population that their government does not condone violence. Oh, and the life sentence here is 21 years, and you get parole after 16. This is why the police can even arrest murderers (most murders here are affection murders (in lack of a good translation), with a 98-99% rate of getting solved) without using weapons.

Although I think the technology is a bit interesting, I shrug every time I hear about these so-called non lethal weapons. In my head that translates into it is not lethal, so there is less of a barrier before it gets used (and from what I can hear these electroshock weapons are pretty dangerous after all anyway). I know culture is different in the USA, where the police carry guns. I live in Norway though, where law enforcement officers generally don't carry guns (!), except when they move out on criminals that are known to be armed. In the rare cases where they do use pepper spray, it sparks up debate in the newspapers. If they shoot someone, that definitily gets some attention. Electroshock weapons are not used here. The net result seems to be a non-violent society, where people feel they can walk amongst law enorcement officers without feeling alienated because they carry weapons of some sort.

You hit the nail on the head here, and speed cameras is a technical "solution" to a human problem. I live in Norway where speed cameras are common as well as other measures to try to prevent people from doing something not desirable. You can't purchase beer after 20:00 in weekdays and 18:00 on Saturdays in food stores for instance. The thing is, in the example with the beer, it reduces drinking because alcohol is less available. The problem as I see it though, is that you still have a rotten society full of heavy drinkers, it is just that they didn't make it to the store in time that particular day. The same goes for the speed cameras, if a electronic gadget is what keeping (some) people from speeding, what does it say about us as a society? What we need is driving education that actually teaches people a thing or two about the actual dangers of speeding, and do something about the roads that have an unproportionally high rate of accidents. Also, make sure the roads are safe enough for what most people consider a sensible speed limit for that road.

Depends on how you are looking at it. If you do comparisons based on hardware alone, you can always find a cheaper PC from Acer or other brands. I write for a local computer magazine, and review a good amount of laptops every year. My conclusion is that Apple is pretty much top of the line when it comes to construction and finish. Magnetic cord for the charger, very thin design (even for 15 and 17 inch), not particularily noisy, a multitouch trackpad that actually works without being a nuisance, resumes almost instantly and a unibody chassis (the aluminium one is really great, it really does not wear down in the same way that other laptops tend to do). There are of course some flaws as well (like not having SD reader on the MacBook 13), but they are generally worth the extra $$$ for the extra quality on the build. If you are just after the fastest hardware for your money, you can always find something from a manufacturer that does have the same priority list.

Yes, after a second look at the issue I must agree. What I was originally thinking about in the first post was basically how it turned out: You have a fair share that uses their own social security number, because they don't have other peoples info for some reason. Then you have the other gang that uses other peoples info. Luckily, the police tend to do legwork enough to know wether the number they have matches the registered owners. Police in Norway is usually unarmed, except in cases where they suspect firearms. And even if they come armed, people/police rarely get shot. To be under telephone surveillance, it requires a crime that has a ten year penalty or more here. By Norwegian standards that is a pretty harsh sentence.

This is was not unique for Norway at the time, but I remember what happened: Many criminals started using other peoples social security numbers... Let's say you want to register with certain operators, all you need to do is get a prepaid package with a new number, then send a text message with "REG firstname surname socialsecuritynumber". Nothing but automatic verification. I don't know what is worse, let criminals have anonymous phones or have them use other peoples ID.

Install Windows in VMware Workstation, and tell it to pass your webcam to the virtual machine. Problem solved :>

Thanks to VMware Workstation, there is no longer need for multiple PCs on the desk. Whenever I want to test something I just fire up a fresh virtual machine. More displays are always welcome though.

I hope this comes in a version that works on all flashcarts, not just the iPlayer.

The best solution to all this madness would be to disallow Microsoft to have lock-in technologies in their bundled browser, media player and so on. Bundle Windows Media Player all you want, as long as all Microsoft format it plays are open... Then anyone can create a competing player knowing they also can implement the same formats. Same logic goes for IE8.

I have had a Windows XP Professional running in VMware on my MacBook and my Vista 64-bit desktop from the beginning. It solves a lot of problems with some quirky legacy apps I have to run.

And thanks to the USB support, I can also use:
1) Very old USB scanner with XP 32-bit drivers. I use it a few times a year for digitalizing reciepts etc., and I really don't want to pay for a new one.
2) Random gadgets with stupid software and buggy drivers.

Getting this free with Windows 7 would really rock.

I know this might be a long shot, but if people really believe all they see when they google your name on google, how about taking advantage of that? After I had googled my own name, I realised how lucky I am because what you find is basically tech reviews done by me and some old karate scoreboards with me even winning some medals. Putting some effort in it, I could probably make it look like I am also doing third wold humanitarian work, help the poor, fight cancer etc. That would probably fly well with all nosy employers and possible future employers that like to google people. And if someoene asks, you could either stick with the story or dismiss it as a coincidence because someone shares your name. For the record, I do have a name that is most likely unique.