One response only... "[citation needed]". Some of the stuff you listed are just random delusions that you can find in The Sun every time. Others seem like one-off crazy cases that can happen... but they happen more or less everywhere else too and when you present them stripped out of context, they don't really matter (they're usually connected to long-standing conflicts). I can only confirm the whole bin collection thing - it is just crazy and it is a big problem (although I don't know about any place that does the collection less than once a week).

Also, if only all bureaucracies worked as well as UK's! I don't mind filling loads of forms if they actually solve my problem in time - which was not always the case in other countries I lived in.

> em with a wavelenght around 12.24 cm at 2.45 GHz

Redundant information is redundant. Besides, that's a wavelength of ~54 potrzebie

Agreed - the explanation seems weird. I'm not sure about Nokia patching scene, but most of the Siemens *45, *55, *65 phones could be completely reprogrammed and were well understood. SL45 was one of the best examples - it's annotated assembler firmware was so nice to work with that people simply wrote binary patches in assembler, or used C compiler + binary patched some jump addresses. There were complete design notes circulating on P2P networks. I'm not sure what can be so specific to Nokia 1100 that they don't want to reprogram any other device.

Even better - if they're good enough to reprogram Nokia to interact directly with SIM and GSM module, why won't they just buy GSM modules themselves and clone some random SIM cards? It's not like GSM transmitters are some controlled goods available only to Nokia et al. If you can afford 100 of them, they should be quite easy to obtain.

So yeah - it seems there's something more going on here. Or they're just some script kiddies who bought a "hacking technique" from someone more advanced and now they can only replicate the issue on that one device.

Pretty much every programming book presents a simplified view of the world. Because it teaches C, not systems. Try Rochkind's "Advanced unix programming" one day if you want something close to real world. fsync()'s fairly portable and can be redefined to noop where needed, so I don't see a problem there.

Of course "Adding fsync() all over the place wouldn't fix anything". On the other hand, adding it where it's supposed to go, will :) You cannot be both fast AND transactional in every operation.

A wife that goes "MEOW" and eats bugs would really disturb me. But if you like that...

Well - be there's arpeggio for vim:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2425
And apparently "The concept of this plugin is derived from Emacs' key-chord.el" - so there you go. All proper IDEs support it already ;)

Actually, they know which provider sent in the call. So they can point at the original company that allows spoofing.

I'm not sure which company regulates telecomunication laws in US, but I guess they have the authority to force it on PSTN and they *are* interested.

I guess they will be interested if someone can spoof any number. Otherwise, you can call anyone passing yourself as a local FBI worker ("you can compare my caller id with your phonebook, I'm an FBI agent")

Only clueless people will respond to a spammer - there is no defence here. But if someone blames you, you can easily prove you're right by email headers.

Will you sponsor her new line, send notifications to all her friends&family and spend time correcting contact details in the bank, insurance company, etc.?