Puhlease... try to keep your "information" out of this. We're trying to run a fact-free discussion here!

The same issues are happening with the Dutch transport system. At the moment it's only a hassle with people checking out incorrectly (audible signal sounds) or having two cards in their wallet (a random one gets debited - during checks you may present the wrong one, resulting in a lot of hassle and a fine, and if you're unlucky a trip to the police station).

Do wolf spiders eat silverfish? Because if so, I'm starting a wolf spider farm right now.

Thomas Jefferson was wrong, in this case, as several economists argued later. Merchants without a country tend to fare really bad when the merchants that do have ties with the rulers (or are directly in control of) another country make laws banning the first group from doing business in the country of the second group. If the first group of homeless merchants don't have strong ties with rulers somewhere they're up shit creek without a paddle.

While multinationals often have their "head office" in a tax haven for tax reasons, the *real* headquarters is always located in a spot close to political power, where the owners of said company have cultural, personal and financial ties with the people having political power.

Spearfishing is an issue there. Although I'm assuming here that there is a trace to whoever has received email from you in the first place so spearfishing would be risky.

Spam, not so much. I really don't think spammers are going to check public keys before sending out spam. The computational complexity for doing that would raise their mailing cost without increasing profit.

Configuring outlook for encryption is doable. It's doable for techies in Windows mail as well (unless you start using two accounts and don't want to encrypt one of them - the settings are global and unpolished) but I've had a client who wanted encryption and didn't get it working on his client, not even with a manual with screenprints.

As I've said in this discussion before: why not use Lotus Domino? It's been built from the ground up for exactly this. I know it's clunky and expensive but I've worked with a lot of sysadmins that, once they worked with it, never wanted to go back to Exchange/outlook. It's so much less of a hassle once you have the setup working. And secure too.

I know your comment is meant to be funny (and it is), but what I really don't get is why everyone is talking about Outlook (argh) and sharepoint (*shudder*), and not about Lotus Domino. I'm also a bit... confused about why Lotus Domino isn't the default choice for anyone even remotely thinking about secure mail.

Lotus had a place for storing certificates since they were invented. In fact, ALL authorization is done using keys. It's been designed to work with them from the ground up. If the admin manages to remove his ID from the database, he's just as thoroughly holed under the waterline as any user. Inside the company everything can remain encrypted and when going out you can use encryption for everyone you have the certificates for, or make it impossible to send unencrypted mail. Using Lotus there is absolutely no barrier to using encryption (only to using the damn client in the first place - the GUI has issues).

Ofcourse, one can also keep on bolting random software on top of other software, like that factory in Bangladesh: at some point, the foundation can't hold the weight anymore and you're done.

I meant: with genetherapy. Duh.

Like infections or broken bones. Before we got around to finding ways of fixing things. Personally, I'm pretty happy with that. The genepool can look after itself - and otherwise I'm hopeful that in a few decades we can clean it up ourselves as much as we like.

I've just done a quick tour on Japanese suicide statistics and it's a pretty mixed bag. Mostly people commit suicide by throwing themselves in front of trains, hanging, jumping off cliffs or overdosing - just as in most other countries, people are looking for a painless end to their sorrows, not a painful and protracted death bed to make a political statement.

Since the railway charges the family with the cost of the delays etc., more people are turning to gassing themselves - with all the risk for the area that involves, especially the ones getting creative with sulfur dioxide in appartment buildings.

If handguns were available over the counter, I'm pretty sure the methods would be replaced.

I couldn't find any statistics on the failed attempts versus successful ones. That might shed some light on the subject. I have the distinct feeling that the absolute numbers of people attempting suicide may not be higher in Japan but that they are more determined or use more lethal methods. This would both support my statement (providing them with guns will increase casualties) and support the countervailing argument (the main issue is committing suicide, not the method itself).

I doubt that. I think it will go like this:

Next: rigorous import controls on 3D printers
Next: mandatory insertion of identifiers that can be traced to the owner of a 3D printer
Next: 3D printer plastics will become a controlled substance

This gun-printer is a wet dream for any industry that felt (yes: past tense) threatened by 3D printing. The bloody idiot just gave all the enemies of 3D printing a powerful political weapon.

Not really: suicide is often a cry for help, and when people slit their wrists or overdose on sleeping pills, they often get found in time to get them to a hospital. After that, you can try and treat the depression.

Guns make sure no such option is available. And that's why even when the number of suicide attempts may be equal, the availability of guns in one country and not in the other, ensures a noticeable difference in lethality of said suicide attempts. "Successrates" vary between NL and USA: 2% to 2.5% out of all attempts (and there are a lot of attempts: 100.000 in the Netherlands alone each year). A small but noticeable difference with a lot of casualties attached.

Of course, the real issue is suicide, but handing suicidal people better ways of killing themselves does not seem like a good idea.

Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to determine which frequency arrives first, since frequency is the number of wavetops arriving over time. If you have a very small sampling interval in which to determine frequency, your sampled frequency starts to deviate from the real frequency really fast.

So 5 specific years of Apple growth metrics is now the yardstick for all of the worlds companies?

Let's add the next 5 years and then check their average growth over 5 years. Do you think they'll keep it up?

Okay - that's still not really pleasant but at least not as bad as 50$/month. I'd still appreciate a light version for 5$/month though.