[...] 83% increase in complaints about electricity companies from the end of 2007 to mid-2008.

What are your experiences with energy companies? Have you had troubles with billing in the past? Can anything be done to address high catch-up bills?

The comments to this blog post list story after story of woe dealing with AGL, Red and Origin, all dealing with misread meters, estimated readings and double billing.

We've been trying to change gas and electricity companies since February. It still hasn't happened, mostly due to our inaccessible gas meter.

The core blame appears to be bad billing systems and the fact that although you have a choice in resellers, you don't have a choice in distributors. Our gas distributor is "very difficult to deal with".

And so it goes on...

I'm at the stage where I'm drafting a letter, but the comments in The Age blog post lead to be believe that will be as much of a waste of time as the hours I've spent on the phone explaining my situation over and over and over again.

It used to upset me to tears, but now it's just boring. Like doing the dishes. At least it isn't costing us money. Unless you count five days off work for nothing...

In what is billed as an initial phase of a MySpace Music evolution, the website features unlimited ad-supported streaming of songs along with tools for creating personalised playlists and buying tunes online from Amazon MP3 store.

Along with being able to listen to music free of charge, digitised songs sold at MP3 can be freely copied or moved between iPods or any other players because they aren't shackled by digital rights management software.

[...]

MySpace said its partners in the "landmark joint venture" include EMI Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and The Orchard.

Ad supported music? Artists sharing in ad revenue based on the number of plays (streams)? Sounds a lot like MP3.com's Payola...

I haven't looked too hard but I can't find any mention of the ability for anyone (ie. me) to upload their own music and share the ad revenue. As various independent record companies are thinking of suing mySpace for anti-trust for not letting them in on the party, I doubt that option is available.

Still, with the launch of this site, and assuming bands do upload their entire catalogues, as is the purpose of the new mySpace music player, the site will provide the world with one option I have though the internet has needed for a long time. Full streaming of songs to let you try before you buy, and, a single location to link to when you talk about "that song".

There is talk of "launching in Australia" which I presume means you can't buy music at mySpace if you're in Australia.

When they get over THAT stupid hurdle, the world will be a better place.

Assuming the financial markets don't melt down first... although... many have been talking about the coming "Great Depression" like it's something romantic. Something will encourage creativity and save the world from it's capitalist doom.

That's all nice, but I like eating meat more than once a month thank you very much.