I have 44 bought games on my steam list, all on a box that only runs windows so that I can play games. Thank you for giving me dream that one day I can get rid of all the windows installs in my house.

Microsoft don't need to compete with Apple.
Microsoft are primarily interested in the corporate market - business and government.
Everything else just flows on with that due to the need to be compatible.

Apple has spoken recently of their inroads into business as a "collateral win", an unintended bonus.
They are putting zero effort into replicating or replacing the core feature set that any large business relies on (exchange, active directory, etc).

The reason that Microsoft is scared of Google is that they are actively attempting to make the underlying system immaterial as the Google services become the compatibility glue.
Who cares if the underlying system is running Windows, OSX, Linux or something else when the end user gets exactly the same experience?

That's what Microsoft is scared of, not a high end device manufacturer that interoperates with them.

RSA is expected to replace practically every one of the 40 million SecurID tokens currently used.

Nah, how about just offer them a "sorry" and a couple of old games and call it even?

That is exactly my fear, that the new legislation will simply move the existing MA15+ content to R18.
There's been zero transparency from the government on their intentions and to my cynical mind Mr Rau's pronouncement on the subject looks designed to deliberately fail - and then afterwards he can spread his hands and say "It's not my fault none of the other AG's wanted R18".
The liberal government did basically the same thing to stop us getting out from underneath the monarchy about a decade ago. Rather than make it a straight debate about republic vs monarchy, they clouded the issue with arguments about the specific type of government that would replace the current system.

As much as I respect the honesty and integrity of your unnamed friend at the ARB, I don't trust the politicians as far as I can throw them.

I don't know if a voluntary system would give us anything different here, the problem is that the lack of a rating within the codified guidelines result in a title being illegal to buy locally or import.

According to the code by which these classifications are made:
The Code
Under the Code, classification decisions are to give effect, as far as possible, to the following principles:
(a) adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want;
(b) minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them;
(c) everyone should be protected from exposure to unsolicited material that they find offensive;
(d) the need to take account of community concerns about:
(i) depictions that condone or incite violence, particularly sexual violence; and
(ii) the portrayal of persons in a demeaning manner.

Look at A there and tell me how not allowing me (a 30 year old) to legally acquire something like Mortal Kombat or Left for Dead 2 is abiding by their own guidelines.

Just taking the existing MA15+ bracket and renaming it to R18 will not do anything meaningful.
We have a system in this country (Australia) that claims to be about classification, but is actually about censorship!

I (and many others) want a uniform system across all media, and unless something is illegal to make, it shouldn't be illegal to buy!

As much as I hate to admit it, 10 years of marriage backs this up.
No matter how much you will save, no matter how hard you try, not matter how good the outcome: Buy her the new shiny and make it HER choice.

ISP's charge because a) IPv4 addresses are a scarce commodity and b) routing extra ones is work

When both of those reasons are gone, if your ISP charges extra, vote with your feet.

Couldn't you just mute the in-game chat??

Paying a few 10's of dollars every few years for an OS that is stable, never has 'driver issues' and fully utilises all of my hardware? Technologies and API's that don't get unexpectedly dropped (not deprecated) release to release? Wifi that works all the time. A system that wakes up immediately from sleep. Everytime. Plug an internal monitor in. It works.

Sign me up!

Call me a fanboy (or 'fanboi' or 'steve jobs towelboy' or whatever is flavour of the week for you) if you like. I'm getting stuff done with my computer, not fighting it.

Don't pretend that I don't "know Linux". I'm surrounded by smart developers, using Linux. "I wrote a script, after I plug this monitor in, you just run this and the resolutions all sort themselves out! Cool!". Nice. I just plug my external monitor in and it's there. But nice script.

Oh My Software Freedom is gone! Boo hoo. I'm so sad.

As usual, the vast majority of the comments here miss the point entirely which is the death of X. This can not come soon enough. Hopefully you pull it off better than the "let's fix Audio - this time for Sure!".

Errrr, I have 2 Sony DVD Players and a Sony PS3, and they all play DivX. The oldest is about 4 years old.

The whole point of the Australian government is Representative Democracy.

By my rough calculations, 75% of our politicians should be self righteous, arrogant busy-bodies who think they know better than me regardless of anything so trivial as reality.

As an atheist, I can appreciate the sentiment, but as a realist I see the fact that all our leading politicians are currently zealots as simply an aberration that even those nominally religious abhor.

I would argue that encouraging participants to read the entire conversation and then respond once to all the previous discussion is a good thing.
Why deal with 4 separate single line responses?
If they are on diverging topics, surely they shouldn't be under the same thread any more?
The failure of participants to correctly quote is no more a fault of gmails than top posting is a fault of outlook.