I used to think Australia was pretty cool. But with their seemingly ever increasing big brother government and internet restictions, I don't think it is all that great any more. I think it is acting like what American big brother advocates would like to get away with. Worse even than Britain's snoop on everyone approach.

Fuck that.

Phil Dick, is that you?

Save the children, live in a cave, give them a bible.

Why do you think every website, from Facebook to Twitter to the crappy newspaper down the street, is trying to get a way to show video ads? It's because they make a lot of money off those things.

That is because most people don't pay to visit a web site. Other than their ISP fees.

And at -5C, as a block of ice it would be really cool.

Bullshit. Canada was using direct debit with Interac since the early 80s. It is run by a group of banks and hits your bank account directly. It doesn't go through credit card companies. It is the most common form of payment here. I could go into a mom and pop corner store and pay this way for 30 years. People like it. It is not for profit but was formed by the banks and run on a private network. People didn't and don't want single companies like Visa or Google or Mastercard or Apple having all the power doing this. Companies that are for profit that want to take an even bigger cut of your money, run on public networks, and make money selling your data. I have a debit card that is very thin. It even fits in with the rest of my ID that I take everywhere anyway, and it is only online on a private network when I make a purchase... when the card is in the machine. Please explain what is so fucking great about Apple or Google pay on phones that run all the time on public networks, open to possible hacks.

Microsoft used to be THE company that sells software that corporations need (from OS to their office suites). Used to. Now Microsoft is a company clinging onto new versions of legacy software

I agree for the most part on your points. But for major products like Office, we see people here agreeing quite often that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And that is valid too... it is a good product even now. But sure, now they seem to be more interested in catching up and copying other companies' ideas than innovating; or even being clever and visionary enough to understand which companies have truly good new ideas and products before they buy them.

What I think is ironic in all this, is it is my understanding that Ballmer was at the helm for most of the time when this mental and innovative contraction took place. Even more interesting is that Microsoft stock went up when he finally left. My take on that is that he's not really qualified to make any judgements on other companies.

You'll feel relieved, then, to know that modern atypical antipsychotics work much better, and with far fewer side effects, than the old-school phenothiazines.

Glad they're working for you.

And Google gets nothing out of the relationship I hear you say. The web sites are only leaches that exist solely because of Google. As if, if Google didn't exist someone else wouldn't step in to fill the niche. Google makes money because they have a lot of sites indexed. Let them cut off whole swaths of Europe say, or North America, and another search engine will take its place. As for Amazon, sure I get cheap books. But I no longer have as many bookstores I can go to, to look at books, find something I might not have picked before, have a coffee, talk to real people. A whole bunch of my favourite bookstores have gone down in the last number of years. Everything is a trade off. And while I like Amazon for technical books, I would rather pay a higher price for a real book, if I had the opportunity to have more book stores. Unfortunately the ones that still exist are mostly big chains that only bring in what some wanker at head office sends them. Someone who probably never reads books either, never mind the genre you like.

Do you make the same argument about why your shouldn't have police departments, fire departments, schools, sewer services, etc? If so, you are an idiot.

Around 25 years ago, Eisner (the president of Disney at the time) was driving in Florida. He saw a small daycare where someone had painted Disney characters on the walls. He sent them a cease and desist order and threatened to sue if they didn't remove them. You know, they even sell their management technique to other big companies and those companies employees become creepy culture of the corporate cult after that or get fired. I worked for one when they bought us out. We had to go to their headquarters and be inCernerated (what we called their 3 day orientation). If you were a good boy or girl the creepy HR types would throw you a little rubber Disney figurine. Wow I got 3 Goofys. In my opinion, Disney is not a nice happy smiley company. Only their characters are and God help you if you infringe.

People use Gmail because it is generally reliable, they abstract them from whatever ISP they may have at the moment, and appear to be free. But mostly because they appear to be free, because the other two can be had elsewhere. But we all know it isn't free. They have your data. I personally don't believe they don't mine your data. The cost is your personal information not really being personal. But cash money is a powerful thing. And with new job creation tending towards "would you like fries with that," saving cash is more important to most than saving privacy.

The rules weren't posted when I made my comment. Announcing prize money is not the same as posting rules terms and conditions. If YOU had bothered to look you would have seen that. And I had to go through numerous pages before I found the one that said 'rules will be posted in mid October.' I am cynical especially when something is hyped but no conditions place around it.

My uid is low-ish, my age is middle-ish, and my cynicism is high. I always read the fine print.