You can pretty much guarantee that if it made financial sense, Amazon would be doing it. I reckon you'll find that the seasonal nature of the work combined with the specificity of the tasks involved mean that robots arren't an attractive solution. Speaking as someone who used robotic packers for a while, you need very high volume work that is not error-prone in order to make them cost effective running 24/7. Tooling up to run flat out for a couple of weeks a year cannot possibly make sense.

Is it possible to travel to USA from Europe by ship? Is there any passenger lines? Or cargo ships which accepts passengers?

For those of you who donated zilch - go read Peter Singer, perhaps starting with Practical Ethics (Amazon listing), and reconsider your life. Or perhaps come up with a counter argument as to why you believe he is wrong.

I don't think you can resolve 3D space particularly well beyond 20 feet or so (you can, but it's much less effective, and your eyes would need to be much further apart to do so). I imagine it would be pretty disorienting to go from a closeup of a football game where the linebackers hiking to the QB, and then suddenly a wide angle shot (Which is basically 2D), and then zoom in on the 3D shot of the wide receiver catching the football in 3D, then to a 2D shot of the crowd going wild and so on. 3D sportscasting might be effectively limited to sports like boxing, or pool where the camera is only 10 feet or so (perceived) from the action, with lots of closeups. 120hz, 1080p fencing would be pretty cool to watch.

I have had a few complaints about people not getting my mails. But all times, the fault was on the receiving mailservers.

Mostly, the situation was:
[my-mailserver]<------>[their-barracuda]<------>[their-mailserver]
When their-mailserver isn't configured to check the SPF of the second hop, mail gets rejected as their-barracuda clearly isn't one of my servers. I don't feel responsible for other organisations' misconfiguration.

What about 3d downloads? Will you have to buy a pair of M$ 3d glasses that only work with the 360?

[citation provided]

As is already the case with credit transfers, ATM cash withdrawals and card payments, the cost of a cross-border direct debit in euro will become the same as the cost of a national direct debit.

... Which security guard/bomb squad is that stupid to fire upon (unknown) explosives?

I'd think there are still judges available in Israel; not borderguards being judge, jury and executioner at the same time.

To my opinion, this is one gigantic power-security-struggle-theater.

You're ignoring many factors in reaching your idea that "people want Windows."

First, do people know they have choices? Many people don't know what linux is, thinking it's some type of application that operates a system of some kind. under windows, obviously, since they're a PC.

Second, windows machines are ubiquitous. I go into Best Buy, I see nothing but MS Windows or OS X machines. I choose the $300 one. What did I buy?

Third, most preinstalled linux machines are truly pathetic. If you buy a laptop with Linspire and a bad wifi driver... why would you not return it and get the not-broken/windows version?

There is no product that competes with Windows in the consumer market, except OS X.

The best comment I've ever heard about stealth spaceships was in the faq for the board game Full Thrust. I wish I could find the link, but there was a big write up that calculated how much heat would be radiated away from a manned space craft simply to keep it heated, and thus the crew alive. Then given a telescope sweeping through space you could easily detect the ship against the background of the cold deep black.

But doesn't that count as foreplay?

"Neither the friend nor the couple are known. In fact, who knows if this is even real, and who cares, it's hilarious."

What's next? Fart jokes? Unverified of course!

How do I deride allegations of sexism? By doing a sexist rant.

Well done AC, well done.

Those are just excuses from people that are not willing to address the real issue: sexism in the work place.

We know there are professions openly hostile to women, IT amongst them, you can't make an excuse by citing examples of careers which men don't want to follow.

I disagree.

Bought a Dell Linux Netbook for my wife. Took careful note of the specs and the OS on each version of the netbook.

The windows version of her netbook was $100 more expensive.

The netbook came loaded with Ubuntu. Not dodgy, no headaches.

And there were at least 3-4 other models available with Linux pre-loaded.

Perhaps your just looking in the wrong place if what you say has been your experience. Because I seriously doubt that its the norm.