well, if nothing else, I chuckled a little.

We won't be having naan of this around here!

Hell, I'm not even American and even I know this was basically laid out by Woodrow Wilson as a GOAL back when he was kicking about.

source

Hey the concept is only 102 years old, as far as american politicians are concerned..

Simply put, but this is the actual answer to the question posed in the summary. The cost of health service and supplies are greatly inflated in the states compared to most of the modern world. I don't mean in the sense of "oh, in other countries it's paid for by taxes" sense or the "yeah but it is inferior quality care" sense but the actual amount that the provider gets paid for exactly the same supplies or service, regardless of who is paying it in the end. As an outsider looking in at America i really do not understand how the health provider industry in the states managed to pull it off.

Americans are getting ripped off on health care hard, to the tune of 2 to 10 times the prices paid out to suppliers or service providers in other countries. I think given the amount of discussion on HOW or WHO will be paying for health care in past years, some groups had to be lobbying very hard to keep the topic of "Why is it so damned expensive here to begin with" out of the limelight.

And they succeeded.

Many companies refuse to approve implementing costly security, and will fire techies who raise concerns about that too often and then hire incompetent techies who don't think to question the lack of security.

Who is really at fault in this case, the fool or the fool who hired him.

Canadian Universities still have some general education requirements when talking about getting a BS. Not as stringent as in the US but you still usually need a couple humanities courses mixed in. Other than a few specific courses though, this is mostly represented by general elective credits which you could choose to put into pure comp sci and math if you wished.

Nah, that joke will only work if there comes a time when Game Developers Lead the Industry again.

It is, however, in the actual government website on the topic =(

The King of Thailand absolutely loves découpage

It reminds me of the interesting reaction i'm seeing in people i know from a similar ad campaign here in Canada at the moment. Recently Rogers Telecommunications started a campaign targeting young couples with their "Buy two smart phones on our couples/family plans and get a free PS3" campaign. Although i know one who went with it, but for the most part it is making people realize the value that these companies receive from their Long Term Contracts. This is something that most companies would prefer to downplay, and make retention offers or sign up bonuses come across as some grand concession on their part.

People who once never really questioned contracts are going "well damn, if its worth 300$ to them up front is this really something that benefits me more than the cost?"

Kinda nice to see the artificial mindset these companies have set in peoples minds about how "phones are cheap" with the prominent display of contract only prices eroded a bit by their own actions.

What I don't get is, is the benefit to Microsoft possibly worth it in this case? It's hard to quantify the 'hook em young' effect.