Don't worry. I'm sure they'll be billed back to the Dept. of Labor at 100k per year, +20% finder's fee.

"8 January 2010 -- As of 3 January 2010, worldwide more than 208 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza (H1N1) 2009, including at least 12799 deaths. "

Fortunatly, it was far less then it could ahve been.

It's a pandemic, so global deaths are the umber you need to use.

Clearly this imposition of US law on another country violates several areas and agreements. IF the US were so concerned with FAIR trade would we be operating with countries that condone and support illegal activities in other areas? Let's be honest here - the US imposing this restriction over "free trade" is a bargaining chip at best. The fact that the US is insisting on a DMCA style copyright means the US government is now crawling in bed with the RIAA and MPAA to affect the economies of other nations.

In fact, according to http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl100.html

There is no such thing as an "international copyright" that will automatically protect an
author's writings throughout the world. Protection against unauthorized use in a particular
country depends on the national laws of that country. However, most countries offer protection to foreign works under certain conditions that have been greatly simplified by international copyright treaties and conventions. There are two principal international copyright conventions, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne Convention) and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC).

Hang on a moment, I'll wait till everyone picks their jaw up off the ground realising the US is contraverting US and International laws and agreements.

What? you weren't shocked? Neither was I...

I seen to recall a post on slashdot about Amazon Introduces Bidding For EC2 Compute Time. This announcement took place on 12/14/2009, which coincides with the increase in average ping latency as illustrated in cloudkick's chart. Was Amazon unprepared for the increase in demand created as a result of bidding off of the unused EC2 capacity?

I am sure that people came up with some pretty creative thing to do with low priced EC2 capacity.

Actually, Macromedia only created Director, back in 1985 (dates taken from Wikipedia timelines). FutureWave Software created Flash (then called FutureSplash) in 1996, eleven years later, as a competitor. Macromedia got scared, so they bought up Flash. But Macromedia definitely made things confusing after they bought it, as you say!

They'd rather blame piracy than the recession for the reduction in spending on luxury goods.

no, that'd be SOHOMO

I guess this shouldn't surprise me here, where people seem to think that a great idea is all you need to be successful. (It isn't.)

Having the superior product doesn't count for anything if people don't know about it. I'm quite confident that my products are better than my competitors', but one competitor in particular was first to market and gained so much name recognition that many people don't even realize there IS an alternative. I don't *like* having to pay for ads, but it works, if you're smart about it anyway.

I *stopped* advertising on one popular site because Google's targeting was way off - my ads were getting lost in a sea of garbage ads that had no place on that site, and were causing the users to ignore everything as irrelevant. My sales went up immediately when I moved that budget elsewhere.

So yes, I would happily pay more to have my ads presented only to very specific categories of users, especially if it meant an overall thinning out of the quantity of ads thrown at them. I don't want to waste money spraying ads everywhere - I want them in front of people already looking for something I offer, or who have a need that they didn't know there was a specific product to fill.

As a consumer, if I have to see ads I'd much rather they be for embedded C compilers, test equipment, and scuba gear than cosmetics, luxury cars, and heartburn medication. Every once in a while I *do* come across something I could really use that I didn't know existed. This happens almost exclusively with ads in magazines like Circuit Cellar, though - where the ads are, of course, targeted.

As for American consumers not wanting targeted ads, maybe they should ask in a different way. Put someone in front of the TV for 30 minutes with the usual mix of ads for feminine products, pet food, dandruff shampoo, and so on. Then try another 30 minutes with ads targeted to their specific interests. Then ask them which they'd rather see every day.

for higher-priced cars, say 50000$, you have the Tesla model S witch can be compared with a BMW 5-series,I don't think the BMW has anything the Tesla can't beat except range.

You have to send signals, how can you do that without giving away your position! And for long range communication blanketing an entire country with signals just to you simply isn't something anybody can be arsed to do. While ham operators do it on short/medium range it does not scale well. The best anonymity you can hope for is separation of your number from your name and that the phone companies don't hand this over to just anybody (so if your in the US your fucked)

I usually build my own or work with a local shop when I need a new PC. Early last year, the motherboard failed on my main desktop, I was leaving town on business, and needed to make sure I could get back to work immediately when I returned. I turned to an online purchase from Dell, and had them customize an XPS420. My first --and many times repeated-- requirement: "I need a video card that has a dual DVI output".
"Oh, yes, sir, it's got that".
Of course, it arrived with a DVI/VGA output.
To their credit, when I complained, they shipped me an upgrade card at no cost. Worked out OK for me...would not have for somebody not willing or able to install their own.
Sales staff lying to customers...shocking!