That's not true, at all. Pre-paid is immensely popular here in Australia. Same in NZ and the UK. And Singapore. And possibly others ... but those are the countries I've lived in. Around half of mobile phone users are pre-paid - nothing to do with being 'unbanked', they just want control over their spending and to pay for only what they actually use. Also, people like it because it means you don't have recurring bills, don't have to give the phone company any credit card info, etc.

YMMV in different countries of course, but pre-paid is far from the domain of the poor or 'unbanked' here at least. Plenty of people on six-figure salaries with prepaid phones, because they are simply better value, and offer you more control and more freedom.

Indeed, which brings me to the other thing I see 'wrong' with the article (or at least the summary) - the statement "it's cheap enough for the pre-paid phones that are much more common than post-paid".

Outside the US (not just in third-world countries, but most other developed countries), this is a false dichotomy (suggesting that only 'cheap' phones can be put on pre-paid plans). Many people with 'high end' phones (Galaxy S4, iPhone 5/5S) are on pre-paid plans. Often quite cheap ones. Actually I'd say that's the norm in many places - many Asian countries, Australia/NZ, much of Europe. People caught on long ago that tying yourself into a 2+ year contract for a subsidized phone isn't worth it in the long run, because you miss out on being able to jump to different plans/carriers, who are in competition with each other and generally introduce new, better value plans a couple of times per year.

Yes, yes I know the market in the US is different. But in much of the rest of the world the phone and the plan are two unrelated purchase decisions. You can have a cheap-ass phone on an expensive post-paid plan, or the most expensive phone in the world on the cheapest $10 pre-paid...

I don't think it's much to do with narcissism. Since AC posts at 0, you're limiting your audience severely by posting as AC. Even a good comment won't be seen by most (since the default threshold for non-signed-in users is +1 and most registered users probably browse at +1 or +2...)

Is it narcissistic to actually want your post to be seen? I mean, why even comment if no one will see it and/or respond?

Hooray - an American (I assume) that actually understands what the word 'liberal' means.

Explaining why the major conservative party here in Australia is called the Liberal Party to visiting Americans is always a nightmare...

Which, given the weak USD and the fact that many US citizens file jointly in a dual-income family, doesn't go very far. In places where the cost of living (and salaries) are a lot higher than in America, $100k USD equivalent isn't that much for a family ... very standard middle class.

In Shenzhen yeah absolutely.

This effect does exist over the border in HK though, of course (since they use HK dollars). Even though you are perfectly aware the currency is different, it does kind of throw you for a loop when meals cost three-digit amounts and hotel rooms cost 'thousands' etc. At least for a few days until you get used to it. This doesn't apply as much in Japan or mainland China where the unit of currency itself is not 'dollars'.

Around here at least, ISPs often refer to 'network congestion' caused by router outages, DoS, and other things, on their network status pages etc. So it can be used to refer to data networks...

Agreed. There's heaps of excellent new (mostly indie) music being produced these days. Pop, rock, electronica, all genres under the sun. Problem is that most of it doesn't ever make the radio (particularly in the US). You kind of have to go out actively looking for good stuff ... it won't hit you in the face by chance as you'll never hear any of it in the mainstream media or in public places etc.

Yep, you're completely right. Many of said 'excellent products' are recent acquisitions, and not in the main spaces that Oracle is known for (DB, ERP, CMS etc.) Smaller, simpler, lightweight apps that are actually pretty decent.

Oracle keeps acquiring more and more companies (I should know, I was in one of them). It's not just integration (from a technical viewpoint) that's difficult about this ... even internally within Oracle half the people literally aren't aware of half the products they sell. The result is that one part of Oracle can be actively working against another part of Oracle during bids etc. Or suggesting overly complex solutions to problems that could be better solved with another product that they sell.

Oracle has quite a few individual products that are excellent. Problem is, they don't integrate together quite as well as the sales people will tell you they do. Sure if it's a simple, vanilla implementation you should be OK ... but healthcare/health insurance law and policy is insanely complex and requires a buttload of customisations and interactions with external systems that are out of your direct control.

This.

I have some involvement with this project and the above sums up the main issues nicely. Combine that with the fact that the data that you have to handle provided by some of the external systems is incomplete and often very 'unclean' (in some cases outright corrupt) and the fact that the solution you're implementing features dozens of different products integrated with each other and you get some very weird failure modes that are almost impossible to test for adequately.

Well, it most likely has her full name. Many people though only use prepaid iTunes cards to fund their accounts, and thus wouldn't have any CC info on their accounts (or, for that matter, address information, since it's entered for the purposes of the CC billing address most of the time).

You can buy apps without adding a CC - just buy a free app first and when prompted, add credit from an iTunes card. Then subsequent purchases will come out of that balance without needing to enter a CC. It only bugs you on the first purchase IF that purchase is a non-free app.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

In most English speaking countries outside the US, the concept of 'lawyer' is split into two types of people: solicitors and barristers (though some individuals may practice law as both). Links above explain the difference.

Ah interesting, thanks for the info. In valleys and other areas where temperature inversions are common this may help a bit. Though I live at a relatively high and exposed location, so air quality is rarely a concern around here.

True ... iiNet has swallowed quite a few in the past few years (I know because I used to be on Internode, back in Oz). Still, the situation is much better than here in the US (in terms of competition and price, if not speed).