Don't know about you, but most of my job involves Finding information, Analyzing it, and Producing something else from it. FAPing for short. And I've been FAPing most of my life.

Except that Australian Consumer Law is ridiculously difficult to enforce. I had a Fisher Paykel oven installed 2.5 years ago, and the glass shattered while preheating it just last week. No amount of arguing "Australian Consumer Law" with the manufacturer would get them to fix it under warranty, since their ovens only have a 2-year warranty. The "reasonable lifetime" of an Oven is certainly longer than 30 months.

...except for when it's night time. Or when it's cloudy. Or when it's winter in Europe. Or when a volcano in Iceland erupts.

So... emacs?

$ mysql maildb -e "INSERT INTO aliases VALUES ('mythrowawaylogin@mydomain.com', 'mylogin')"

Ah, the joys of postfix+mysql and your own domain. Someone spams you, and you don't click the unsubscribe, you just drop the alias

I even have an alias on my phone to do it for me when I'm out in meatspace.

I'm in a similar situation: I create a unique email address for each company I deal with, and each website I register on.

The only solution I've found to be the most effective is sending these companies threatening letters. Quote them sections from their own privacy policy; usually there will be a clause about circumstances under which they will share your subscriber information. Tell them they've breached their own privacy policy, and whatever federal privacy legislation your country has in place. While you're at it, file a complaint with your country's Privacy Commissioner, or whatever the equivalent is.

Perhaps we need some sort of "name and shame" website for companies whose subscriber lists have been either breached or sold (e.g. Dell)

I don't really understand the difference between levying a higher gas tax (which is far easier to implement), and implementing a complicated system for tracking miles driven, and levying this at the gas pump.

Call me stupid, couldn't Oregon achieve two goals of their goals (reducing SUVs, and increased revenue) by simply adjusting the gas tax by the average MPG for cars each year? No crazy GPS+Transmitter system needed, no transition time to a new system, and no invasion of privacy needed...

I don't really understand why people are more amenable to a mile tax system vs gas tax... Unless you have a 100% electric car, you still pay for the additional miles driven, through the additional gas you consume. The only difference is you can reduce your taxes paid by purchasing a more fuel-efficient car...

Depends if you're in the US. In which case, you pay the menu price, plus sales tax, plus tip.

Drop bears. By far the most hazardous animal in Australia for humans.

For us folks down in Australia, it's less about "getting stuff for free", and more about "getting stuff". A large problem with the current distribution model is content is locked to particular geographic regions -- while consumers have moved well beyond this in their mind. We buy physical products off the Internet from all over the world -- how is content any different?

Due to the licensing and distribution models, TV shows and movies that come out in the US, often take months -- even years -- to make their way down under. Die Hard 4 for example, released June 2007, took two months before it was ever aired in Australia. Many TV shows won't air until the following year.

The problem with the claim Chip & Pin is more secure, is that the card processors (Visa, Mastercard) used it as a justification to shift liability from the Bank over to the Merchant.

With swiped transactions, when a customer disputes the transaction, the Merchant isn't automatically liable for the transation -- they only need to prove the customer actually made the purchase (e.g. producing the signed receipt). With Chip & Pin, the merchant is automatically assumed to be liable, according to the merchant agreement. There's very little a merchant can do to dispute the chargeback.

The whole point of most security systems -- even alarm systems -- is to pose a deterrent. Most break-ins are crimes of opportunity, not elaborate schemes planned over periods of months. Alarm systems are fairly inept nowadays: when you last heard your neighbour's alarm go off, did you drop in to investigate, or just presume it was broken again?

The effectiveness of the "security theatre" was demonstrated in a very personal way for me a few years ago. Some criminals went on a rampage looking for cash and valuables, and broke into every car on the street -- that didn't have a flashing red light. My sister's car, A Hyundai Excel, arguably one of the easiest cars to break into, was left untouched, because her aftermarket immobiliser happened to have a flashing red light on the dash. No alarm, no stickers, just a simple red light.