And yet Apple still paid $6billion in Corporate Income Tax in 2012. That's a lot of tax to pay for an entity which tax supposedly isn't for...

The problem with the "spirit" of the law is that now you have two sets of rules - the law, which everyone agrees on, is codified and available in big books, and then you have the "spirit", which some people agree on some of the time, isn't codified, changes from week to week and government to government, and cannot be looked up.

Which is why the "spirit" of the law is nothing but a load of bollocks - if you want someone to not do something, say so in the rules, don't make some extra-legal fluffy bullshit up that you also expect people and companies to adhere to.

I've been following this whole shitfest in the UK quite closely for the past few months, and one amusing thing has consistently struck me - the government are trying to be the goody-goody party in all of this, claiming that the companies involved are being evil and ethically corrupt when it comes to "fair share" taxation, while at the very same time flat out refusing to acknowledge that those companies are not doing anything illegal under the current tax regime.

The government also has ruled out changing the tax law to prevent the current behaviours,because then they lose the trivially easy PR they get from "taking the companies to task" infront of Parliament and the media.

It's time to admit that the current tax law doesn't work once you are above PAYE (that's the government standard taxation for employees - normal people in the UK do not have to do any filings because it's all done by the HMRC for them and tax is taken out of their pay checks each month).

Setting up a company in the UK costs about $40. Doing annual returns for that company costs about $350. By working for that company for no wage, and taking out directors dividends, you save serious amounts of money through not having to pay income tax as the Corporate tax rates are significantly smaller than the income tax rates. This scheme is so heavily and widely used, even MPs in all parties got shamed earlier this year when they were named using it - but it's still completely legal.

No one should be expected to voluntarily pay more tax than they legally are required to, and no one should be shamed for not paying more tax than they are legally required to - if you want someone to pay more tax than they are legally required to, then legally require them to pay more tax! Don't beat around the bush, change the fucking law.

Google must be fucked then, as they provide antispam and antimalware functionality in Gmail, and have done for almost a decade.

No really, because having EME available and *you* as a developer not using them is exactly the same as EME not being standardised and *you* not using them.

The addition of EME to the spec in no way changes your position, whereas the lack of addition to the spec does affect another developers position. Not including EME negatively affects other developers who want to use it, while including EME doesn't affect other developers who don't want to use it.

If you cannot see the difference between those positions, then you need to ask yourself why.

Translation - the standards bodies should do what I want and listen to to one else. What I want is more more important than what anyone else wants.

Hmmm, CalDAV - you mean that thing Google is sun setting on the 16th of September 2013 in favour of their own, proprietary API?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-cleaning.html

Doesn't look as tho Google is being the nice guy here, however you like to cast the other parties...

I'd say that if these were the real things, they are training rounds - versions of the weapon designed to be of the right weight, size and bulk of the original, but have nothing at all to do with actually being able to be used as a real weapon.

Every military has them for every weapon they have in their stock - there are training rounds for nuclear warheads, cruise missiles and even Trident ICBMs.

The crews have to be taught how to handle the weapons, and you do not do that on a live round.

Every library around these parts has computers with Internet access, available for free. You don't need to own a comuter to use one.

Both of you are somewhat wrong - the UK has a lot of CCTV cameras, certainy, but absolutely no where near the amount that "study" showed. We also have the Data Protection Act, which allows individuals to ask any and all CCTV operators to supply them with a copy of every capture they have made of you, for a minimal fee.

Also, out of the CCTV cameras installed, I'd say much less than half of them are local authority owned, most of them are privately owned and operated - and those that are owned and operated by the LA are still answerable to the DPA.

Great, Android has a greater market share of the smartphone market than iPhone - but one thing you ignore is that, rightly or wrongly, Apple kit seems to have a hipster following and is probably (can't be arsed to find stats to back this up, so its opinion) more likely to be bought by the age range this sort of prank is aimed at.

Android on the other hand also comes available as the cheap I-dont-care-what-phone-it-is-so-long-as-it-makes-calls-and-its-included-free end of the market, which tends to not have so much hipster appeal.

Sorry, this is a ridiculous idea - quality literature should indeed be mandatory for educational curriculum, but specifically highlighting a particular genre is arrogant.

The real shocker is that Monty tried to get the Sun-Oracle merger court to remove the GPL from MySQL, and allow companies to take the code private, so he could basically pick up where MySQL AB left off before he sold it to Sun in the first place.

They seem to be fine with engine blade off events, engine fires and other engine related issues, so LNG as they are all properly contained - so no particular reason they wouldn't be fine with other components having the same restrictions.

See my reply to the other guy - the maximum the 777 has achieved in ETOPS *certification* to date is 207.