While they are at it, why don't they change "Microsoft" and "Windows" too. They have got terrible reputations.

I don't think you know what counts as an "industrial accident". You seem to think it means a Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. I have worked in such industries and a cook in the canteen cutting her hand with a potato peeler counts as an industial accident. I'm not exagerating. That did happen where I work and the fuss about that cut hand went on for days - we were called in to "refresher" safety lectures, circulars were sent round, we were sick of hearing about it. The cook herself was no doubt highly embarrassed by it all.

The truth is that the management were in a pissing contest with other industrial sites for safety awards, and they had lost Brownie points. I think if I cut my hand I would sneak out to the car park and secretly bandage myself with my car first aid kit rather than go to a site first-aider.

To go 999 days on such a site with no "industrial accidents" would be, frankly, incredible.

FTFA :- "Microsoft's losses on the tablet device at $US1.7 billion so far. But, still, Microsoft is serene: "It's been exciting to see the response to the Surface Pro 3 from individuals and businesses alike"

Yes, I have heard that people can get excited about losing big money. I once read a confession by a big gambler who said that he had experienced an orgasm on losing a big stake at a roulette wheel.

Keep at it Microsoft - right down to your last penny!

So something exists at the biological level. Call it what you like.

In practice we have. Take a look at some escorts ads.

Sounds like the job divisions in Planet of the Apes. When I saw that film, I saw the Gorilla/Chimp/Orang-Utang grouping as a thinly disguised analogy to the White/Black/Asian human groupings. Not necessarily in that order though - decide for yourself. I saw an interview with one of the actors in which he said that, during filming, at meal breaks and off-set generally the actors of the different "species" gravitated into their own groups. And they say "Looks don't matter"!

Dunno, but try looking at some Chinese websites. I can't read Chinese, but the English lanuage ones are anti-foreigner and especially anti-black. I am not talking about official web sites, but individual blogs, and they are clearly mainstream, not fringe ones. I happened to follow a link into that area once. In the UK you would end up in jail for the stuff they say.

So it is just one hell of a co-incidence then that white parents generally have white children and black parents generally have black children ? I'm learning all the time.

TV companies have found a solution.

Serious question, why are the Australians taking the lead in this? There were only 6 Australians on board out of 239 people, and waters near (but not all that near) Australia are only one area of many that the plane might have ended up. Most pasengers were Chinese or Malaysians. I'm suprised no-one has come up with a conspiracy theory on this point - there have been some more fantastic ones.

That's two reasons. How about also the fact that more dry land runways were built as time went on.

You also need to consider the imperial background of the Great Powers. The British Empire (and the French and US Empires too) included large numbers of small islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific, each with a post office, a local government official, a bit of trade, sea around them, a jetty, and no airstrip. The flying boats were ideal for carrying the post and lighter trade items which got there faster than by the monthly (if you were lucky) cargo steam ship.

Once these places got their independence, typically in the 1950's, they were no longer an Imperial responsibility but neither could they support a commercial air service of any sort at the time. End of flying boats.

What is the difference? I'm interested.

My daughter (aged 10 at the time) filled in a paper-based marketing survey on the promise that you would get rewarded with 1000 GBP (but I'll use $$) in vouchers. Seemed too good to be true, but they were true to their word! A thick wad of vouchers came. The vouchers were something like :

.. $100 off a new Rolls Royce
.. $100 off a new house
.. $50 off recarpeting my whole house
.. $50 off having a swimming pool installed
...$50 off a world cruise
.. $5 off some hotel in Singapore
.. $5 off at some restaurant in the North of Scotland
.. $1 off beauty treatment at some place in Northern Ireland
.. $1 off a life subscription to a church magazine
.. One penny off budgerigar food
.. and so on

I had the last laugh though. Everything my daughter put down was a joke, like saying (in my name) I kept weasels (some people do). I got free copies of a quarterly Weasel magazine for the next two years

Sounds like a rabbit hutch to me. Maybe fine if a computer is the only thing you need room for, but some people have other parts to their lives.

Correlation != Causation, always. When a company does an advertising campaign they very often persuade shopkeepers to stock more of their stuff "Because there is going to be a big demand for it when the public see our advertising". Therefore, someone buying at random, like I buy soap for example, is more likely to pick up the item in question just by chance.

OK, you could say the advertising does have an effect as its existence is a lever to get shopkeepers to stock more of the stuff, and I don't doubt that some buyers are influenced, but IMHO the effect is not as great as the admen like to assume.