I've read that they moved the site to wyoming - a coal powered area - instead of their much greaner existing HQ in Boulder colorado. Reason? The electricity is cheaper.

Well yeah, but when was the last time you had a conversation with your cat? Animals can clearly communicate by reaction but it is definitely in question whether they intend to communicate or are simply reacting to stimulii.

PETA's campaign becomes a little weirder when you realise that the pokemon as presented in the cartoon series aren't even animals - they are sentient and even able to directly communicate with humans.

Sure the analogy is still there, I mean they look like cute fluffy bunnies after all but most of the time the relationship is shown as voluntary and symbiotic. Pokemon isn't promoting animal abuse, it's promoting slavery through stockholm syndrome.

My housemate got one of these things, after mocking him for about a month about how huge it is and then getting an S2 for myself, I really wish I'd gone with the note.

It may look huge, but that is the point and there really is no difficulty fitting it in a pocket.

Actually, yes. The entire purpose of copyright is to allow a creator a reasonable period of time to make profit on their work to promote the creation and distribution of that work. If a work is not actively being distributed anywhere, then logically it is past the reasonable period of making profit on it and should not be covered by copyright.

Actually, it's only recently that serial killers have begun getting facebook accounts just to hide form this kind of profiling. It is clearly traceable that even as recently as 2004, 100% of known serial killers did not have facebook accounts.

Which means that each ripple takes years to cross the cup, Plenty of time to adjust for tehm on a human scale. Bad analogy remains bad.

I will never buy a 99c app sight unseen - In fact I have NEVER purchased an app, nor have a pirated one. I might try a free app even if I'm not interested in it. If I am very interested in an app, I might pirate it.
The only time I'll pay for an app is if I use a free/pirated version enough to need extra features or to want to support the creator.
Tell me now how I am a lost sale if I pirate an app.

Format shifting is perfectly legal in Australia - Such as copying a TV broadcast to VHS. So these programs are completely legal in every way here. Does the US not have something similar? Are you guys really that backward about copyright?

I think what is important here is that they applied evolutionary alogirthms to music A LOT for A LONG TIME. Somehting that I personally haven't heard of being done anywhere else.

Improved headline: Untrained rats map minefields with explosions.

Except that Collector editions of Diablo 3 sold out about a month ago. At least here is AU.

Kind of hard to not pre-order it and still get one since it was released today. Now, you could argue that collector additions are pointless anyway.

you missed the "educational ecosystem" Which I assume to mean "actually helpful software"

On the US dollar issue: When we were at $0.5 AU to $1 US, AAA games were $100. Now we are $1 AU to $1 US AAA games are $100. If the game was priced in USD, then the price doubled. I'll probably be spending more than that for Diablo 3 because of taxes and I'll be buying that through digital distribution, getting the same copy as everyone else.

It's more marked with expensive products, but we really do pay significantly more for software here in Aus.

I'd support a device that could tell me when the government was doing something wrong. On the assumption that I drive my vehicle legally, any black box I had would only ever help me.