zaqokm

> it's a cert that requires you to own a car. a mazda biante here cost around $150k SGD, not sure about other countries though.

The price of car ownership is no doubt extremely costly in Singapore. But that is to offset the cost of public transport, reduce traffic and of course generate revenue. I lost count of how many BMWs I have seen parked in HDB parking lots though :)

> furthermore, there's a lot of taxes we need to pay and we don't even know where these tax goes to!

However in my opinion this is something I do not agree with, taxes in Singapore are extremely low. The highest tax rate is 20% at that is on $320,000 and above, 7% GST ( which is applicable for businesses above $1m income). Then there are annual GST rebates, spouse rebates etc.

> This is a company whose presentations have used the word “fuck” on more than one occasion

Hey I understand your position, but she is criticising the "bullies" (whom I gather are audience members) in that statement, not the company.

The irony of this is she goes on to mention Adria Richards who became infamous for tweeting the private conversation of two people whose language was also inappropriate, and suggesting it was a difficult time for Richards.

So I am confused by the messaging in the post, it is ok to say "Fuck" but wrong to criticise someone for saying it, but it is ok to criticise someone for innuendo for forking a repo.

> That post is more about audiences who, when men and women talk and cuss the same, are shocked, wilting like flowers. They expect the women to be sweet, dainty and lady-like.

I understood the context may be that or made out to be that, but in reality it isn't really appropriate for anyone. I am sure men have been criticised for the same thing, so I do not believe it is some sexiest ideology. It may be that some people believe that speakers should be professional.

going by that post it seems that for some reason she thinks it is appropriate to use the word "Fuck" on stage and inappropriate for people to complain about it.

That seems a little backwards to me.

> Pot, kettle, black[0]

While I am not trying to be an apologist for Facebook, I would like to point out that the majority of issues with Facebook are because people are members. It is easy to opt out of Facebook.

I would like to see you opt out of NSA monitoring. A lot of the actions which the NSA took and take are not made public, you data is collected from means which could be described as subterfuge, if not bordering on illegal.

The NSA isn't upset with Snowden for exposing their tactics, their upset because they got exposed altogether. They will continue to go down the path of monitoring citizens, and collecting data with or without your permission.

And you will never see them [NSA] offer a Terms and Conditions policy or a Privacy Policy.

You should have stayed in Thailand :), outside of Bangkok the environment is reasonably safe.

My 2 cents :) The trouble is that there are little or no real alternatives. There are plenty of hacks like dropbox, simple note, etc but nothing with the complete functionality and cross platform capabilities which Evernote.

The rich may be reducing their tax, but look how the government spends their own tax revenue, not much will change when the government spends trillions on their war effort.

> Microsoft should follow Apple move and make its latest Windows 8.1 operating system free to all Windows users

Apples operating system is not free, you have to purchase an over price computer aka a mac to get it for free.

> I object to his suggestion you should always take blind intros for coffee, and it's not because i'm full of myself, it's because I'm pragmatic.

In business, this is how a lot of business is done aka "I know a guy who you might want to connect with". I gather most BDs will have experience in this during their career, after all BDs are their to entertain and develop new business.

However from what I am reading, the problem was with the persons response, e.g. the email response with a link to a tech blog, what happened to the old "Sorry I am not interested" response or "Ok I will give them a call".

I have a feeling many of the peopel who are complaining will end up sitting their child in front of the TV in years to come. A product like this may be useful as a entertainment device for the child and can be combined with parental involement.

and here I was thinking I was the bitter cynic :)

most of the things which most people do are socially worthless.

> 5 gigs for free with dropbox and icloud isn't enough.

I see this as a loss leader for dropbox, they offer you 5 gig for free and then try to convert you to paid services. The internet isn't free you know, companies need to make money :)

that sounds fine until you want to share data between applications as well as people.

Nothing more than a bit of political posturing.

People who commit fraud, register their devices in their real names :) ?

I think the sentence "A quick check had revealed that the iPad Tesco believed was in the box had already been activated.", needs to be written so it may not be interpreted incorrectly, was it activated prior to the purchase, after it, who checked it, when was it checked (before/during/after the arrest) etc.

The author seems to have a bit of a problem with Tesco, in fact it seems that they have a gigantic problem with Tesco given the tone and attack on Tesco. Given the amount of fraud large (and small) retailers are faced with every day they are probably a little cautious when someone brings in a box of clay and makes such an accusation. This is not a justification, but rather pointing out the fact that in the real world, that there are a lot of people who try to rip business off.

3 hours in jail, that could be seen a little excessive but it is better than a month.

I wouldn't say that Indonesia is a smaller nation than Australia, and by GDP ranked by countries they appear close to each other.

Australia has had a strange relationship with Indonesia, for example Whitlam's involvement in Indonesia and Australia's involvement in Timor.

The most recent interaction has been the people smugglers and the Bali bombings.

So even though I am skeptical on countries spying on their citizens, the reason Australia spies on Indonesia ( and probably vis versa ), may be for very relevant reasons.

Like him or not, the documents were dated 2009 so at least part of this took place during the Rudd era. So I gather that makes Rudd, Dick Cheney ;).

> Got sucked in. there is no way around.

I know the following will not win me too many friends, but there is a way to around this, and that is to stop using their products. They are a commercial entity and making money for the company and shareholders is one of their "prime objectives". Due to that, unfortunately they have to push into areas which generate revenue for them.

The services are not free, you pay for them with your compliance and personal information.

Fortunately we missed it here in Manila also, this is very devastating for the country and it is going to be that way for some time. People without housing, food, water, and daily requirements.

I agree, however I think it is very credible that a lot of people involved in this were not fully aware or complicit in regards to what was happen.

I do not think they were stupid, but just didn't see the entire picture, or were never given the entire picture.

William Binney in an interview suggested that the tech he built for spying on foreign countries was simply retrofitted and used to spy internally.

I am gathering not a lot of people actually knew what was happening at the beginning, and the tools they were using for "valid" purposes were just refocused.