I just looked at the Major Findings, and they could quite easily have removed the term "Developing Economies" completely, and the report would still have made sense. I live in a developed country, and media is so expensive here that the media companies are complaining that sales of music (in particular) are on the decline, but there never seems to be any analysis of why. Just coincidently, I had a conversation with a colleague about the troubles he has been having with music DVD's he buys from amazon.com of a particular Irish music group he likes. He has bought two of them and they worked flawlessly. The latest one however is region locked to region 1 (we are not in the US) and so won't play for him. My advise to him? Email the band's management and explain to them that the easiest solution is to pirate the DVD, as the product will not doubt be a better one without the region lock. He has their contact details, and is going to do just that. I wonder what the response will be?

Like this guy: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple

You forgot the most important one Bribes = Political Donations

This comment is largely true, especially the cost per unit bit. The music industry at one point worked by record company executives finding talent, and exploiting that talent. That's why guys like Duke Ellington had a recording career, but needed to make his living by playing live. No problem so far. The talent is being exploited and ripped off by the record companies, but they can play live, so they don't starve. Eventually the record companies figured out how to create an act, record it and exploit it, without needing to pay a percentage to the actual act. The Monkees might be the first of these. I would imagine that by now every act with a top 40 hit right now is one of these manufactured acts, because the record companies don't need any other sort. The problem is that the general public gets pretty sick of generic, manufactured rubbish, and stops buying it, so the record companies need to find a new revenue stream. I don't know where that will come from, but it won't be from me.

I was wondering about that because I was given an HP Laserjet 5n not so long ago, and it works really well under Win XP, 7 and Ubuntu. I also have 3 spare toner carts, so I guess I'm set for years.

I deal with Vodafone (NZ) which may not be too different from Vodafone (Aus). If it is, this is probably not the stupidist thing they do. In about 36 months of dealing with them, they have never once got our invoice right the first time. They however do business in a duopoly market here in NZ, and their opposition is no better, so what is their incentive?

I think you're not represented in Government because you're not a corporation or lobby group with lots of campaign funds to dole out. Neither are your neighbours. The whole liberal/conservative thing is just a smokescreen as you point out in the first part of your post.

I read TFA and thought cool! I wonder how many light years that is. Imagine my disappointment when Google told me it was 0.0018286505 light years. Boy space is big, I thought it was a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's nothing..... etc.

Ha! Big-titted idiot. Awesome! I actually though Clinton for a second.

That's right. I lost 3 billion people once, and it really helped. Mind you, I found them again. Turns out they were behind the sofa the whole time.

That's just not true, oh wait, I just have to go and get this stick. OK, back now, carry on.

You're right about everything except who pays the politicians. The corporates in whose interest laws like these are passed are the ones paying the politicians, not the working class. (or any other class).

Here (in New Zealand), we've been getting a rash of phone callers telling people they're infected and asking for money. In fact me wife got just such a call last week. Fortunately she knows just enough to tell the caller to fsk off. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10686568 I don't know if that's common in other places. We might just be a gullible bunch.

That's not quite right. I was a Photolithographer all through the 80's (and most of the 90's too), and as a "Colour Stripper" (cue jokes now), I took the seperated film from the scanner and did the actual retouching on a light bench with a paint brush and a retouching paste, (can't even remember what it was called now). It took a long time, as required a fair bit of skill, which is why we were paid quite well to do it. When Macs became fast enough, and Photoshop mature enough to do the job, we did it using those tools. Takes a lot less skill frankly, its just a matter of knowing what works and doing that again and again.

There's a huge error in the article of course. I'm sure all Slashdot users will have picked it up, but I'll spell it out for the slower ones among you. Mr Butler is quoted as saying"It is nobody's business telling you what software you can or cannot run on your own computer." This is quite wrong. Its Steve Jobs' business what you run on your computer. Right, carry on.