Yep they are. Peeps do most everything including texting things to themselves to remember stuff. Creating draft SMS to remember, not sure if that is sent to the server but probably. /guilty - Not of sending bank data but sensitive url's /shamed

Probably a few given how the Petrol, gas for you foreigners, tank is usually less protected than the battery would be.

Reminds me of the hysteria paraded by the manufacturers / vested interests about how unsafe LPG, dunno what the yanks call Liquefied Petroleum Gas, was when it came out.

Vested interest screams loudly about the things it hasn't bought into yet.

No law protects against those mentally ill or just plain evil. Unfortunately I'm not sure where the American love of assault weapons fits into that analogy but it's one of the choices.

As Australia, and many other countries, have shownlaws banning access to specific types of firearms does work. It needs the willpower not to be bought by vested interests and the sanity to hold firm.

If the recaptcha is refreshed twice before being abandoned then that's human.

Ah so because the clone is crap the Ebil Fruit Empires actions are OK.

They aren't protecting themselves from levels of suck up it seems.

That's so seriously shallow you must have got it off a cereal box.

The truth needs to be nurtured to fight the efforts of the wankers of the Earth like #newscorpse etc.

I have no issue commenting under a pseudonym and supplying my real name to the admin but would be restricted by the thought of professional harm if I used my real name.

It would certainly be preferable to running Windoze 8.

Yes. Of course the cartel, oops the publishers, demanding Amazon increase the price of E-books year or so ago hasn't helped. Why an E-Book should be around the same price as a hardbook is beyond me given there is no printing, binding, lesser storage or shipping costs.

Please show me any combustion engine that operates at 100% efficiency even when new :)

Yeah it's called 'suck on this denialist pink' for those non warming trends that push the temperature to 54C (~129F) and 'warmist purple' for a mere 50C (122F)

Unfortunately for conservatives, good for the rest of us, science is the antichrist and must be avoided at all costs.

In Australia, and seemingly from afar the US, the conservatives are trapped in the paradox of selling ice to eskimos. They market to, rally with and exclusively listen to themselves then get very surprised when election after election they increase their majorities in the their safe seats and don't have much effect, except on those occasions when the opposition has been in power to long.

In the 70's & 80's , again in Australia but apparently the US to, they diversified to dupe the working class into believing they cared for them, despite massive job losses, safety net cuts etc etc every time they were elected, against all logic. A cadre that is all about the delusion that giving tax cuts to rich people increases employment sees the working class as fodder for the important people. These were the captives of the shock jocks and newscorpse where fact was anathema and dumbarse patriotism despite the facts was the norm. Hopefully social media is starting to affect that as the non right is starting to pull back from its flight to the intelligensia they started in the 60's and are using repeated personal logic to overcome the lies from the likes of the tea party.

If only there was a way to tell which permissions Google is forcing on the app developers.

Basically just like apple if you want to use apps you need to allow inappropriate permissions. Why games are allowed to read my phone state is beyond me.

Google released a new slew of spy ware type permissions about six months ago. Every single app now uses them in preparation for this "ambient" advertising they've promised.

Exactly how they found pot heads who weren't also on booze , Tobacco and / or other substances is beyond me.

This bit is offtopic bullshit but that's life.

The multinationals have artificially increased the price of goods coming to Australia for years by;

      1. Enforcing rights management and getting monopolies which allow them to overcharge.
      2. Lately DRM has been a sledgehammer to try and maintain this cosy overcharge. Any attempts at parallel imports are fought tooth and nail with the same fallacious arguments as the drug companies & cigarette companies use. No warranty, no standards,
      3. Governments don't care. Almost guarantee this inquiry will get no-where.
      4. Local retailers add to the issue by taking the overpriced imports from wholesalers / manufacturers and adding an overly large markup especially in on line retailing, the 10% GST is a minor component but they try and justify the same price as at bricks & mortar stores by claiming GST cost. Blaming the customer is easier than fighting the monopolies.

How Amazon can ship a book from the US to Australia , single unit not bulk so shipping cost higher , and sell it for half the cheapest on line book sourced here and 70% cheaper than the cheapest bookstore is beyond me. Likewise electronics etc.

Yes economies of scale make it cheaper to make & sell in the US etc but not that much. Most local manufacturing of these items have been outsourced to China years ago so the economy of scale isn't as significant as they claim.

Basically until the US government realise the real pirates are the multinational companies clamoring for DRM nothing will change. That won't happen in my lifetime.

Apples & Samsungs lawyers at a guess.

Patent laws have seriously past their useful life and are now a means to keep the lawyers fed.

When you can patent rubbing your finger across something then there is no hope.