I am in Australia and have Visa PayWave attached to my card yet I never use it (using EFTPOS instead) because there are fees attached to PayWave but not EFTPOS (with my bank at least) and because EFTPOS transactions show up faster and better on my online banking.

Not sure where I read it but I believe part of why Broadcom is so secretive when it comes to their SoCs and things is that a lot of their market is (or was) for SoCs used in things like cable TV set-top boxes. Keeping things secret from the public at large makes it harder for hackers to figure out how their chips work so they can hack the firmware of these cable TV boxes and things.

Except that the proxy server will have to MITM SSL for it to work.

If you are the IT director of a big corporation, you have no option but to MITM SSL traffic. The alternative is providing a perfect way for malicious insiders to steal corporate secrets (like a whole pile of credit card numbers or the blueprints/source code for the companies latest products). And providing a vector for malware or attacks to bypass all the edge-level intrusion detection systems.

And providing a way for the people on the inside to access things that they shouldn't (whether its pornography, pirated content, or anything else). That last one is even more important in, say, a school or educational environment or library than in a corporate network.

Its not just Japan, France and many other countries seem to have laws that limit discounting of books or fix their prices. Why do governments continue to maintain these restrictions?

Does this stuff say anything about the performance (good or otherwise) of Rupert's other big Australian media asset, Foxtel?

I recon if you were trying to convince someone to take security of critical infrastructure, one way to do it would be to show them Die Hard 4.0 (best example I know of when it comes to hackers breaking into infrastructure) and say "this may only be a Hollywood movie but do you want to be the one who said "no" to better security when that shit happens for real?"

Considering that Citibank is part of the gang of big US banks directly responsible for the Global Financial Crisis through their dodgy practices and considering they are just as bad as the big 4 when it comes to doing evil crap, I wouldn't go with them either.

I used to be with the National once, then I switched to P&N Bank (formerly Police & Nurses credit society) who were really really good (and are the only WA based bank left). Then I moved to Queensland and wanted to switch banks to one that had branches here. After checking all my options (including a number of credit unions) I ended up with an account from the Bank of Queensland because they have both a GREAT zero-fee everyday bank account (with attached Visa Debit card) AND the best customer service I have ever gotten from ANY financial institution.

Anyone in Australia who hasn't at least considered one of the many smaller (and better) financial institutions instead of the big 4 banks (or one of their subsidiaries) is stupid, the smaller guys are just as good (if not better) than the big 4 when it comes to service, products etc and they dont do a lot of the crap the big 4 do.

Plenty of people on the roads who only have licenses because the cops haven't caught them yet (driving dangerously, hooning, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, driving unsafe or un-roadworthy cars or otherwise doing things that put the lives of other road users at risk)

If you could add one feature to C++ (either the language or the standard library) and have it adopted in the C++ standard and supported by all the compilers etc, what would it be and why?

I guess I am used to the world of electronic music where even a top-of-the-line keyboard would probably only cost $2-3k tops and a fairly good one from a name like Yamaha or Roland could probably be picked up for around $1k or so.

How can a Marimba (which from a look at Google is similar to a Xylophone) cost so much money?

Don't know where you come from but in Australia (and presumably in the various European countries mentioned in the summary as well) there are free-to-air TV channels broadcasting in DVB-T standard that do not require any special cards.

I am surprised the Skype app on my Nokia N900 continues to work after all this time (and after the phone has long been discontinued by Nokia)