Well, one would hope that for situations when such proof of receipt is required, similar conditions (such as going in in person) would still apply, even if the original summons/documentation was sent electronically. That said, I think a friend of mine received a court summons in regular mail while overseas. Can't remember the details though. If that doesnt require registered mail, what does?

I agree normal mail has no proof of receipt, but the onus is still on you to check for it and to make ammends when you don't receive the mail. It's a lot more effort than being able to check mail from anywhere anytime.

Yes, with electronic message delivery the ability to check if someone actually received the communication can be designed in, but I don't see how that's a bad thing, unless you regularly use the excuse that you were on holiday to pay bills late?? Instant receipt doesn't necessarily mean that you have the ability to respond to whatever the government requires of you immediately (eg if you are on holiday) but at least you would be aware of it prior to not appearing in court or whatever (ok getting drastic with examples here but you get the point).

I like the idea because I hate snail mail and the point I was trying to make in my original reply is that it is no more secure or reliable, and the onus is still on the individual to check the mailbox, and electronic delivery doesn't really change that.

Segwaying... the only issue I have with the idea is that it lends itself to the requirement for a unique government ID for everyone.

The onus is already on you to have to check your mail regularly, and checking something electronically is a lot easier.

The government sending snail mail does not usually help you - if you change address (up to *you* to change your address in 10000 different places), go on holiday (up to you to have someone physically check for you), get your mail stolen (up to you to pay for a PO box). I've never received registered mail from the government (a good thing I guess) but I've had plenty of notices (eg failure to vote while overseas) and important documents (drivers license) sent out in the regular mail. In fact my DL was sent to my old postal address because they didn't check the back of the form where you make your postal address change.

ahah I like your ideas. unpronounceable is, of course, hilarious, and two that differ yet are pronounced the same is genius.

My servers are my pets, you insensitive clod!

after having 3G on my iPad for a couple months now, all I can say is I wish I could pop a 3G SIM card into my laptop!

I don't use my laptop away from home *that* much, but when I do it'd be neat (and with pre-paid data SIMs you have flexibility of payment options, so it'd be about $10/month as for the iPad (or could share the SIM with the iPad)).

I could tether to my phone (always with me) but the 3G on my phone sucks (different carrier).

haha nice.

"Anything that gets people to raise the awareness of what they post on sites like Facebook. I'm just waiting for the day one of my family members publicly posts their address or phone number without thinking."

And that's different to your address and phone number (including mobiles if you choose) appearing in the phone book that everyone has a copy of IN THEIR HOUSE (or available on the internet)?

I don't disagree with keeping all such info separate, but it's not really difficult for someone who wants to find out about you doing so.

Except that you no longer lose demerits (from a max of 12), you gain them (from zero up to 12) (at least in West Aust). People still talk of losing them though, mostly old people.

I would! mmmm coffeee

For some reason I assumed "extreme cave diving" was like base jumping, free falling down into the depths of a huge chasm. Took me quite a few comments to realise it meant diving as in scuba diving...

Until I installed click-to-flash (best plug in EVER) I never knew how many sites use flash to display.. wait for it... HEADINGS! That's right, why use html for TEXT (or god forbid an IMAGE like a jpeg or even gif if you want to have a fancy font) when you can use FLASH? Seriously!

hahahahahhaha best post of the day.

Well said. "We may change the terms of service at any time" is a clause that lets companies get away with whatever they want.

I recently noticed, purely by accident but thankfully in time, a bait-and-switch type terms and conditions change for the Woolworths/QANTAS frequent flyer program card. When signing up for the program I checked there was no selling of data to third party sources for advertising etc. Then they changed the conditions to add just that! I immediately rang and cancelled my account (I hate being sent advertising in the mail, not to mention the disgusting waste of resources it represents). But with no actual notification of such changes, via mail, email or otherwise, (I just happened to look at their website on that day) most people would not even know and would probably be shocked to realise the change of terms to include such a bastardly clause after the fact.

ha yeah it was pretty dead-pan humour (not that that's a bad thing...)