Because of the golden rule: Those with the gold make the rule.

Well DUH! Whenever some CEO says "We won't do it" as soon as something they planned (read: quietly announced to test the waters) caused a public outcry, it only means "we're waiting for you to be occupied with something else".

They invested money inventing it, it benefits them, they won't just "forget" about it. They wait for YOU to forget about it.

Could you please be quiet? I can already see some pencil pusher go "hey, good idea!"

Hmm... if someone comes illegally onto my property after I clearly marked it, I may shoot him in defense. Say... does that work on that DNT too?

Please, oh please say yes...

Ya know, last time I checked it was still illegal.

And I bet it's been lobbied into existence by some manager who wanted to make sure we can't get rid of 'em... sneaky bastards...

I guess you're right. Maybe I should move.

Do you know a country that's not ruled by corporate dictatorships but by that "democracy" you talk about?

Last time I checked "Vote with the wallet" worked for the ballot box just fine. Of course, provided your wallet is big enough to buy the right politicians.

And now try to convince some government in a country the name of which ends in -stan that prosecuting spammers is a worthwhile endeavour. Hint: It's likely a big part of their GDP.

Please lemme be there, I promise I try not to laugh. Can't promise I won't laugh, but I'll try.

Another hint: Spam doesn't give a fuck about your local laws, and neither does it care for petty things like national borders.

The big boys in the industry ARE getting their shit together. That is exactly WHY we get legislation.

What did you expect, invention? Lobbying is where you spend your money these days as a company, not innovation. It's not the better product that makes the race, it's the better lobbying.

And why did it work? Noooo, not because Cobol is so great, or because programmers back then were so much better. The difference is simply that they had time to test it, and test it, and test it again, before it was finally deemed ready for shipping.

Today you get bananaware. Yes, bananaware. Matures at the customer.

Today, the deadline determines shipping date. Not "when it's done", but when the manager set some arbitrary point in time. Whatever we have at that point, we'll ship.

Now add that they hire the cheapest temps they can find instead of programmers with experience, and whoever has more than 2 years of XP tries to get the hell out and into some management position because the pay, let's face it, stinks, and you know why no program will EVER replace those dinosaurs.

They were programmed in a time when companies accepted that good software costs money.

Germany did see a drop in its economy. Hauling the East on board took a giant's effort and they were "lucky" enough to be one of the strongest economies on this planet so they could pull that off. That doesn't mean that everything in the East was "bad" or outdated, but a lot of corruption was going on as well, leading to a big loss where actually competitive companies were sold off cheaply and the state being stuck with the duds. Crime and unemployment are currently a serious problem in the East (with unemployment rates as high as 20-25%), and it's not really likely that this is going to change soon.

If anyone, it wasn't the population that really won in the unification. It was mostly a win for big business. Sadly, that doesn't automatically translate into a windfall for Germany's economy. It mostly means that the country is now forced to deal with a lot of unemployed people while the assets of the East were squandered to "friends" of the government that was in charge back then.

I was actually considering getting it. Of course, not sleeping on the sidewalk to get it, I was out of luck, but indeed I do think that a quick SOLD OUT is not necessarily a good sign. Of course, many other items were in short supply at their initial release, too, but with all of them it meant for me that I waited for a good while to see if it was intentional or whether it was really a manufacturing problem.

I have a Wii. I got it about a year after its release for exactly the same reasons. Though it was pretty much a given that Nintendo HAS to commit because, well, what other products do they really have that they can stand on? They needed to commit to it because there was no other option if they wanted to stay in the console race. I didn't intend to get a PS3, so that didn't bother me, but the others all had one serious problem: The company making them needn't commit. They have other items that are their main product, and if that one flops badly, so what.

Same with this tablet. MS has many other legs to stand on, if this one fizzles like the Kin or to a lesser degree the Zune, they could easily accept the loss and just cut it. The "guaranteed software support" isn't really that great if it bombs and no company jumps onto it and makes software for it.

Yes, from the government's point of view. But how many went into that area of work and how many dedicated pretty much their life (and, like von Braun for example) would sleep with the devil because they really WANTED it to happen?

To me it sounds like the company that made it not only did poor market research, they also don't seem to believe in their own product if they don't trust it to sell and hence produce only a small number of them because they themselves thought it would sit on the shelf.

Enough reason for me to steer clear of it. Or at the very least I'll watch the market for a while now and if, and only if, they sell large numbers in the foreseeable future, I could believe that they are willing to support it for a while afterwards and not simply let it "phase out".

Why did man go to the moon?

Because someone said it's impossible and most of all, because it is there.

Now return your geek card, please.