Plus, most companies are quite happy to deliver electronically, since it saves them money. Check with your delivery companies, they might even offer a discount if you go paperless.

Oh snap, any AV kit finding their crap violates the GPL now.

(as if they didn't yet...)

Well, my boss knows my political position (welcome to our wonderful world of politicial influence in pretty much any place that is remotely touching administration), he knows my medical problems (after all, he's the guy who has to sign my sick days), where I live (because he needs a place to send my mail to) and as far as I can tell, he doesn't give half a shit if I enjoy sucking off goats as long as I do my job.

That doesn't mean that I enjoy some random company having any data of me. Hence I usually give them more data than they want. Poison the cache with random data and let's see how they find out how they match up.

This is why we have mandatory health insurance over here. Our car insurance only covers the metal, not the bone.

But why are insurance premiums at rates that border on insane? Did all insurances somehow magically agree to form a cartel so you can't escape their clutches? While not impossible, I think there's another reason: Litigation.

People go to court for the most harebrained claims, and of course, having an insurance, the defendants don't give half a shit. Sue my insurance company for whatever you please, why should I care? Well, in the long run, you should care. Because the company now has to hire more lawyers, and they also have to pay the bills should the judge side with the "poor victim" of that horrible car crash that almost dented his bumper.

The general idea suggested above isn't that bad. We have a similar system in effect, but retroactive. The more you cost a company, the more your premium goes up. You cause accidents and your insurance company has to pay? Up goes your premium.

People here returned effin' quickly to paying for smaller damages themselves, because paying that 300,-- bill you just caused on the other one's car is heaps cheaper than watching your premium drop to the next level. And it takes 2 years of accident free driving to recover.

There is an inherent flaw of NOT requiring insurance to operate a vehicle. Imagine you're driving down the road and some dufus hits you squarely in the side, breaking both your arms and legs, fracturing your hip and sending you on an awfully long recovery period. Plus a lost job, of course, your boss won't wait for you half a year to a year 'til you return.

Said driver now has a McD "wannahavefrieswiththat" job and could NEVER EVER pay your med bills. Sure he'll be in debt to you for the rest of his life, but you'll never see a dime from him. You, someone who did not do anything wrong, will be left with a heavy med bill, on top of the pain and all, out of a job and maybe crippled for life.

I somehow do not think that's too good an idea.

Litigations for ludicrous claims like "whiplash" from a "crash" that put a barely noticeable dent in your bumper is a problem, I give you that. But let's not forget that there are actually people who get injured in car accidents for real.

In German, the term is "Raubkopie". Or, "robbed copy". I don't know about the English semantics in this particular case, but a robbery, unlike theft, requires some kind of force against the victim in the German law to be applicable.

Just in case you thought it couldn't get any more loaded, biased and FUDded.

Then be prepared to pay a higher premium.

Oh, your government will step in and disallow disadvantaging you for not buying a certain piece of equipment (at least if said equipment is not endorsed by the government)? Oh, no problem! We just decided to up the premiums for ALL our customers, we can do that, we can put our price at whatever rate we want, you see? But we offer discounts to people who have this item in their car.

Face it, a "discount" for some always means a higher rate for everyone else. Nothing else. The "discount" price is always their real asking price, the "real" asking price is just the price plus fine for not playing by their rules.

Identical? A true Jedi builds his own Light Saber, how could there possibly be an identical one?

Uhoh, someone's pissed that his mom told him Santa ain't real...