Re: Phew!

Yup, I wish MS would get that notion of one OS for all devices out of their heads.

Re: I don't understand...

It seems the main idea is to put up as many blocks and obstructions to possible manufacturers of generic drugs to either extend the time it takes for them to get to market or to drive the costs up as much as possible to make them less attractive.

There is a description here in an article from theage.com.au from 2004 about how it works.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/06/1091732084185.html

Onthe Wikipedia page about Evergreening it also talks about Australia and how the FTA with the US affects anti Evergreening legislation here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening

Hmm

while I would agree with your point that there is no such thing as an "ideal world", and slavish obedience can be less than ideal, the reality is that society decrees that you as an individual cannot follow or ignore a law as you see fit, or if you do decide to ignore a law and you are caught then there may consequences to face.

The taking matters into your own hands might be the only way you can think of to getting others to recognise or understand a problem that you wish to change/highlight, however I think the crux of the issue is how far do you go to pursue your goal. Where does it change from merely protesting or making a point to outright criminality. I guess that some of these fellows are going to find out when if have their day in court.

And

cop a contempt of court charge?

The SMH is

owned by Fairfax Media. I suspect you are thinking of the Daily Telegraph and The Australian, both of which are owned by News Limited.

Ahh

I was wondering how you could get any useful information just having a postcode, your mentioning full postcodes makes much more sense now. Being from OZ our post codes encompass (what sounds like) a much larger area and in many metropolitan areas could cover many tens of thousands of people.

@+++ath0

Right, so nothing actually to do with the merits of the case then, which is what I thought you were suggesting, rather they were worried they would lose a customer.

@+++atho

And that clue would be what?

Well..

"And as for Lewis's note on how the SBS, Navy Seals etc. have spent most of their time sitting idle, can I ask on what evidence this is based?"

Considering the way our various Govts trumpet even the slightest "Victory" over the forces of "Evil", I would suspect if they (The Seals/SBS etc) had been involved in thwarting any smidge of an "Evil" plot it would have been splashed all over the media.

@ Restricted Access

Solid gold! :D

umm

presuming you aren't joking, this piece was not about Wikileaks but Wikipedia.

hmm

I think you overstate the similarities of the amount of control exercised by both companies just a tad. The levels of control employed by both companies are similar only in the broadest sense in that you can say they both maintain some restrictions on their products. The specifics and the amount are where the differences in philosphy arise.

How you view the argument about Apple controlling the user experience by locking down their device/computer etc as ostensibly only maintaining a user experience or just a way to milk them as often and as hard as possible depends I guess on what you think their motivations are, and/or how you think they see their users. Being a cynical bastard I lean towards the milking scenario, but I seriously doubt they are as rabidly mercenary as some anti fanbois would have you believe.

At the end of the day you make your choice for whatever reason is important to you, open, closed or something in between, personally as long as there is a clear viable choice I don’t really care.

Not

sure I understand what you are saying here. Are you saying they publish "troll bait news" simply for people to comment/generate content on?

Not sure that

Cade has an axe to grind necessarily. This whole episode as reported has show quite a bit of inconsistent behaviour and explanations on Googles part.

1. Google secretly helps develop a phone but denies it all the way until they finally release it to the surprise of no one.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/13/the_googlephone_exists/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/05/google_nexus_one_announcement/

2. This annoys their partners somewhat after they have outlaid a bucket of cash in promotion etc by selling their own phone in competition and then invite them to join the Google store, but claim they are not in competion.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/06/the_googlephone_store/

3. Then when things are perhaps not going so swimmingly on the phone selling front globally they decide to sell the N1 through partner retail channels.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/27/google_backtracks_on_nexus_one/

4. They then close the Google store.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/google_to_stop_selling_nexus_one_online/

5. Finally they close up on the whole thing and claim it was a huge sucess and now it is a developer phone.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/01/schmidt_on_nexus_one/

Now don’t get me wrong I have an HTC Desire and really like it and the whole Android platform, however I not exactly convinced by many of their explanations of the whole episode.

you have a point

however if Wikipedia wants to be taken seriously as a respected repository of knowledge, then I would argue being able to know who has written an article about something as fairly critical. Actually being able to verify that the author has expertise in the subject (not just the time to defend their article) or has no conflicts of interest etc is incredibly important to help you to judge if the information being presented is credible. www.worldbookonline.com is an example of what I mean, each entry has the contributors name and their qualifications. It may be no better written or be no more accurate than the WP version but at least you have some reassurance that the writer knows what they are talking about.

hmm

Can I suggest respectfully that you are at the wrong website if you don't like being made fun of. The Register is pretty even handed about who it makes fun of, ie pretty much everyone.

Heh that argument

is a stretch of Herculean proportions.

It's also quite possible

That some of the SF writers read Davies. He has been around publishing since the 70s.

Well

They are going slowly. Not sure about quietly. :/

Huh?

Were the "Security experts" were overlooking the targets of the attacks. I didnt get that from this article.