I wish people would stop focusing on his particular situation. It is irrelevant whether he practically can or cannot pay. The penalty is outrageous even if he's a billionaire.

In what universe is the "hilarious" response not an endorsement of their own product?

You would have a point if every Apple ad clearly stated that Apple reserves the right to filter your access to information in a way which is favourable to Apple and unfavourable to its competitors or people it just doesn't like very much.

Until then, Apple presents products which people believe to be devices for accessing information in an unbiased way, which are in fact not doing that at all.

I suggest that what you think is "well known" is in fact known only by a tiny percentage of informed geeks. The average iphone user has no idea that Apple would interfere with their search results to prevent them finding out about rival products.

There are plenty of reviews from established, recognised websites which rate the new Nokia phones very highly indeed. Outstanding hardware, good mobile OS, good battery life, etc etc etc.

You truly are brainwashed if you think this is just "astroturfing" by Microsoft when the truth is obviously that Apple is abusing its market power to skew search results in its favour.

What's intellectually dishonest is asserting that there is an "obvious correlation".

A few points about music:

1. Supply is effectively infinite. There is always something new you haven't listened to yet. You could never consume it all in one lifetime of non-stop listening.

2. Copying music without a licence does not in any way imply that you would buy the relevant music. At most, it implies that you were sufficiently interested to invest about 10 seconds of your time and about 10 cents worth of bandwidth to "check it out".

3. Copying music without a licence does imply that you are interested in listening to music generally. The more you copy, the more interested you are. There are studies showing that the biggest "pirates" tend to be the biggest spenders on music.

4. In my experience, there is an extremely strong correlation between people copying music and people buying music. Specifically, many people now essentially "try before they buy". For example, someone might download an old Radiohead album. If they have any taste, they will be blown away by its quality. Next time Radiohead release a new album, they will be far, far more likely to buy it than they were before.

5. Most people have a reasonably hard limit of how much spending on entertainment they can "justify". Because the supply of new music is near infinite, people are likely to spend up to their limit on music and then copy thereafter (not as neatly as that, but psychologically).

6. IIRC there is evidence that the rise in on-line copying has actually improved music sales.

7. Music isn't like a car. You don't download one album, then not want another one for 10 years.

Yes, the great comic book burning of 2011 was a grim day indeed. Such a shame that the comics from 55 years ago were all turned to ashes in that terrible hellfire.

+1 - I have a very similar setup to you, 720p panasonic plasma from about 3-4 metres. When I go to my friend's place, who has a 1080p panasonic plasma at the same distance, the difference is obvious. I could tell the difference 10/10 times from the same source material (we both have PS3s which are used as Blu Ray players).

Likewise the difference between 480p and 720p is not "noticeable" from 3-4 metres, it's instantly, glaringly obvious.

I've seen charts like this before - basically a bunch of HDTV nerds who prefer what some dubious analysis of biology tells them over their own eyes.

Do you like movies, sport, and high quality TV shows and value image quality?

Yes: buy a 1080p plasma and a blu ray player and enjoy insanely high quality video in your living room.

No: buy any other TV on the market and a DVD player then sit around congratulating yourself because "no-one can tell the difference between DVD and blu ray anyway" etc etc (or post the same on slashdot every time a TV related comment is made).

Everyone is assuming that desktops are the target here.

There is no reason why MS can't run a strategy of Windows 7 continuing to be supported as the primary desktop/serious OS, and Windows 8 being deployed for a disparate range of non-desktop applications. That would be quite smart, actually.

AFAIK there has been no indication that Win 7 is about to become unavailable or unsupported.

Exactly - another product I can cross off the list of possible future purchases due to a decision to lock buyers in to an association with Apple in order to get full use out of the product.

I'll put it on the list with every clock/radio alarm clock in existence and various other cars.

What absolute crap.

For starters, Labor is centrist or perhaps slightly right of centre on most social issues.

Secondly, the previous (right wing) government favoured authoritarianism and money-as-power and introduced things like: indefinite detention of refugees; harsh anti-terror laws, including detention without trial; scrapping cross-media ownership to reduce diversity and allow corporations to control the media; stacking the independent public broadcaster with right wing loonies to shut down objective news reporting; vilifying minorities; supporting the torture and detention of foreigners and Australian citizens via the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; etc etc etc.

Labor isn't much better. But the Liberal Party is about as anti-participatory democracy as it gets.

The current government is suffering from deep popularity problems and will be very nervous about further antagonising an already angry and disillusioned public. They will be aware of what happened with SOPA and what is happening with ACTA right now in Europe.

So make some noise, damn you. Stop telling us these people don't represent you, and start telling your government.

Write letters, emails, tweets, Facebook updates:

- tell everyone you know about this - if they are even slightly interested (or skeptical of your claims) be prepared to explain the situation and issues to them politely and without frothing at the mouth

- write to newspapers, comments on on-line news articles, generally increase the amount of negative feedback in places where strangers will see this

- for god's sake, write to your local MP and state senators. You may think it doesn't change anything, but if they get enough letters they get nervous, and when they get nervous they apply pressure on those in control of their party's agenda. I suggest telling them: that you voted for them last time and might vote for them but won't if they keep this up; that you are prepared to protest about this and will do everything you can to spread the word about it; that you will be agitating for a change of policy in every forum you can think of.

- write/email/tweet to the Liberal Party telling them this issue is important and you feel betrayed by the Labor government, and ask them what their policy is and what they are going to do about this

- write to the minor parties and tell them you are concerned and want them to raise this issue in parliament

- see if there is an organised campaign via GetUp, EFA etc and get involved - give them money, at minimum, actively help if you can in other ways

Our system isn't properly representative, but our politicians are driven by self-interest. You will notice that the net filter went on the back burner and never came back - the same can be achieved with this issue.

What doesn't achieve anything is complaining about it to a bunch of people who agree with you!