Since the early 1900s in the UK... not sure about AUS though ;)

You COULD? Personally I COULDN'T care less... I wonder why you care so much about the majority? ;p

No, the supporting factor is the likelihood of being able to engineer a user to do something stupid, as that tends to be the most common point of entry for an attack. The target size makes no difference, it's the average 'stupidity' (or naivety) of that target that makes the returns worthwhile for the effort expended in attacking it.

I was going to mention this very issue and you beat me to it. I know people who work in local government, both as 'users' of the in-house systems and 'sysadmins' on those same systems, and they all tell me how outdated their setups are. They're by and large using IE6 across the board, because the browser-based apps they use work in IE6 and if there's the slightest glitch in updating the browser they won't touch it - they just don't have the budget to deal with the issue and test it rolled out across such huge networks.

If it doesn't work someone would have to take the blame and we all know how civil servants do everything they can to avoid having any responsibility whatsoever for any decisions, hence the 'committee'. The committee provides plausible deniability wherein any single member can say "I didn't agree with the decision, but the committee decided...".

Welcome to the cosy sheltered world of civil service. People who work there genuinely couldn't survive in the 'real world' of private business/industry!

But it's NOT easy to carry around - it won't fit in a pocket, so it'll mean one hand always full, or carrying it in a bag. If you're going to do that then you may just as well carry a netbook or other small laptop or tablet with more functionality at a lower price point.

If you want a device you can easily carry around and share (!?), then the it's overpriced and underspecced - bad value for money.

At current exchange rates it's nearly 400 GBP. Alternatively I could buy a Dell Mini 10v for just over half of that and install OS X more or less without modification. And then I could run whatever software I like without Apple vetting it first to decide whether or not they deem it suitable for me to run that software. And that's the clincher - the software issue! Shame really...

We can rid ourselves of the stain on the face of England that is London! I'm all for it.

You're shitting me right?

Text is one of the most expensive ways to communicate. What you can say in a 10 second conversation may take a multitude of texts back n forth. Given that a phone call costs an initial 'connection fee' plus the length of call only, but texts are charged 'PER TEXT', it means that your call is paid for once and by only one party in the conversation and with a short conversation that can be a small charge, whereas a texted conversation is charged per response to both sides, thus earning the phone company possibly 10 times as much! Texts are a huge scam - they bundle x number 'free' in with monthly tariffs to persuade younger people to may more than they should for phone service rather than dropping their price to a representative level (virtually free) on PAYG deals. Corporate scam scam scam.

And this shall be your downfall... ;p

Seriously, the only real POINT of using email is that it's asynchronous. You don't HAVE to answer immediately and to be honest, you can even pretend you 'haven't received it yet' if you need to stall for time, which is why it's so useful in deadline-oriented businesses. If email has replaced phonecalls. then your company are wasting a lot of time with staff typing rather than speaking - even the fastest touch-typist would struggle to key as many WPM as speaking quickly.

For me it's all about context. If I need to speak to someone instantly I phone them or check to see if they're logged in to Skype or somesuch. If I don't need an instant response or I need a reply ASAP but they're otherwise engaged (in a meeting for instance) I email or text. If I don't get a timely response I follow up with further or alternative contact.

The TSA security directive was never meant to be known by the public, yet would call for new security measures which would require searching or controlling the public in new ways!? That's a bizarre contradiction. How do you secretly MAKE people submit to new body searches or restrain them in their seats an hour before landing?

I don't think they really thought this plan through...

Which is where your reasoning falls apart...

The people supporting the FaceBook campaign weren't being told what to buy, as normally most of them would abstain completely from the whole Xmas pop chart fiasco. What they did was CHOOSE to get involved in a campaign that aimed to focus people's dissatisfaction at the status quo (not Status Quo the band!!! hehe, that's NEXT year's campaign...) in one concerted effort to make a giant audible statement that the established order of the media conglomerates couldn't really ignore.

They could just as easily have chosen not to get involved, but they didn't - and all have donated to charity too, whether out of their own pocket directly, or through RATM's donation of proceeds to Shelter. Not bad for a FaceBook group really.

Yes and let's not forget that CC doesn't mean it has to be FREE of charge. It simply means you're free to use it however you wish as long as you abide by the terms of the license (accreditation, no commercial use etc). CC generally allows for freely copying/distributing the material as long as now financial gain is made in the process. It doesn't mean the creator has no right to financially gain themselves :)

No, the first three purchases from EACH RETAILER whose sales are used to calculate the official charts count. That means, if you used all 8 main retailers carrying the track (iTunes, Amazon, Tesco, Play, 7Digital, We7, HMV, TuneTribe) that were definitely known to be counted, you could in theory download up to 24 copies just for yourself.

On top of this you could 'gift' as many as 3 copies from any retailers who allowed this (iTunes and 7Digital definitely did, not sure of the others) and they counted as separate downloads as you only paid for them and others did the downloading.

Personally I only bought 11 copies (including gifting it), and kept some in reserve in case they were really needed for a concerted push at the end. For every track I've downloaded I donated 10 times it's price to Shelter... and current donations stand at over 80,000 quid and rising! Well done all involved :)

And if the ROW doesn't want to swallow the Imperial copyright regulations, they can bally well swallow the Imperial Stormtroopers boot!!

...and therein lies your problem - the M16 is far too niche a weapon with limited supplies. You need a more ubiquitous automatic firearm like the Kalashnikov AK47 - copied over and over and built worldwide, you can guarantee a good supply of ammunition and spare parts from all allies... hehehe :D