This problem is lessened by the machines involved probably having been purchased in large numbers. All that is required is to get the OS running on one machine, then roll it out to the 10,000 or so identical machines from the same purchase. Personally though I've been setting up free student computers for years using, at times, some very old hardware. I have very rarely had any driver issues at all.

The other angle is that Australia has always had censorship. Radio and TV are censored. Video games were logically censored to keep things in line with alread excepted policy. I'm personally surprised that censorship of the Internet has taken so long. I used to run a PC repair business and every customer with children and some without were concerned about what is available on the internet and many asked me to install Net Nanny or some other similar service. Any internet filter that filters out things like child porn and bestiality will be, except for some vocal small groups, quite popular here.

As for the 'oversights' outlined by the parent, Australians trust our governments a lot more than people in the US. Up until not too many years ago all of our public utilities were government owned, we have free government run or supplemented health care, education and payments and job training for the unemployed. It is quite natural to us that there should be censorship and I think the majority if Australians would be quite happy for the government to be doing it without questioning things too much.

...but GREAT news for global economic stability!

Or how does it work with people who just don't flip out easily? As an ex firefighter, I don't stress out easily. Panicking or stressing out is for AFTER the emergency when you have time. When I have to make an emergency call, I'm not enormously stressed at all - I'm just focusing on getting across the required information as clearly as possible.

Especially when one considers that this is at an OLD plant. The new reactors being developed in China literally cannot melt down. Even if you stop the coolant completely.

Oooooh yeah! So how exactly is a human being supposed to shift to energy and shoot down the phoneline again? It must be those new-fangled computers with magic powers again!!!

I agree. The approach in the article might work for some trolls, but only those who have an agenda related to the topic being discussed in some way. Goatse trolls. How do you respond to that? "Yes, it's ok you like stretched arseholes and bowel lining. Thank you for sharing?!?!" Or anti-semitic/racist comments? Seriously, 'don't feed the trolls' is still the best advice in most cases.

Sheesh. It could take hours to get one of those f****ing things to work! Even now that dial-up is largely a thing of the past in wealthier Western nations, it's commonly used in Eastern Europe and poorer nations around the world - and winmodem support is still crap.

PPA certainly dull in comparison to the AUR! I also recommend Arch wholeheartedly for those who are a bit more advanced.

This is probably why the rest of the world has been distancing itself from the US economy. You forgetting however that the more money the US gov prints, the less it is worth. Even if they buy the debt themselves. How do they do that? By selling government bonds. To Japan and China. So no, they can't buy themselves out of debt that way. Germany tried paying debts by just printing money in the early 30's and destroyed what was left of their economy after WW1. In fact that's one of the things that created the opening for Hitler to gain power.

Hilarious? If China didn't hold the upper hand so completely perhaps. Currently though, all China has to do is put all it's US gov bonds on the market at once to plunge the USA into a depression like it's never seen before. It won't do that however as long as the US is buying Chinese products - protecting China's export economy. That's the only reason China has kept the US going.

With the power that China currently has over the US though, it was nice of them to even send a letter. I don't think that the USA is in any position to be threatening anything.

I use vim because it's nice and easy while being powerful - as well as the fact that it's already installed on pretty much every Linux and Unix (Macs too for memory) system out there. I use vi for most text files and config files, but use gedit for coding - it has nice tag colouring and I can have many files open at once in tabs.

I must admit that I haven't used emacs more than once or twice. A mate of mine used to prefer emacs for working with LaTex.