Re: Hmm ...
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45 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Aug 2012
Bollocks, whilst the chips have been stacked over the last 100 years against 3rd party candidates it is not impossible but America, like most modern democratic societies these days, lack the desire or will to overturn the status quo by forcing the issue.
Everywhere you look there is division, purposefully created by manipulation of the media, (and no not by some conspiracy theorist cabal of people manipulating the media in a coordinated fashion but by by the very nature of information overload at every media source), that ensures a united focus on 3rd party candidates could never be achieved.
NB: That is not to say that the media are the sole contributors to divided opinion but they certainly do exacerbate the issue...
That division of popular opinion is the sole reason the two party system will continue to lead the day
On one hand I applaud the initiative but on the other hand I agree with a number of points outlined by other posters about what to do with the completed study (although not to the extremities that they have posted).
I too would also agree that some of the questions need to be shaped better, that first one IMHO should read more:
"What broadband infrastructure does Australia need for the next 20-30 years" as this, as I understand it, is the main premise of the NBN and I don't believe there has been a solid answer to this question by anyone.
The remaining two questions can be shaped after this one.
Anyway a good idea but I am not too sure about the execution nor the potential use post completion. (need to have a clearly defined strategy for use post completion perhaps?)
Hahahahahahahahahaha I find this u-turn funny as someone mentions above it was a huge disaster waiting to occur for M$
I love my 360 but am definitely not going to purchase a ON$ as this whole u-turn stinks to high heaven, I'm also slightly suspicious of the "always on" feature (band-aid over the camera & taped up mic notwithstanding) so it looks like a turn to the dark side of a S$ny rootkit it is for me!
Have been using UNIX from old Sco Sys V days, linux beta etc but have also used all other OS's (sheesh even dreaded OS/2) in a number of different capacities and situations but to me Linux on the desktop comes down to these major strengths & weaknesses:
Strength: Linux is so amazingly configurable
Weakness: Linux is so amazingly configurable
Simple as that. For those reasons above I doubt you will see "Linux on every desktop" as was the byline of a number of major Comp mags in the 90's when RedHat kicked off in earnest.
In el reg these days, once upon yore I could rely on V central to provide me up to date information on my kitten vid accessibility before the mainstream press but now I find that you are days, (days!) behind them. How can the SMH (Syd Morning Horrible) publish this story before you good folk??
Standards are slipping..
Nail & head on this, I would say:
"Quite possibly THQ failed BECAUSE they attempted originality and the public, broadly speaking, didn't want it."
Kids have been raised on FPS (yes i am generalising but just take a look at the games most teenagers-20's flock to) and whilst GTA and the like also get played it is damn difficult to bring originality into the gaming genre these days..
I am hoping MS & Sony can bring a closer collaboration of the console and PC with their new consoles which may give the gaming industry a broader scope in which to inject originality (although how that could be possible I admit i would not have the first clue..).
re "But this is one of relatively few cases where a software product with essentially no competition simply vaporised. Amazing"
One word: Novell. I entered the IT industry when Novell had over 80% of the server market (even managed to squeeze a CNE out of the company i was working for) and look how it disappeared almost overnight!
Another domination (rightly or wrongly) by M$.
Admittedly I just ran out and got a MCSE at the time (damn easy during NT3.51 days) so I was one of those rats who deserted that Novell Titanic.
I am having to use Google docs and the respective Google Drive for the first time in a corp env and whilst from a compatibility perspective its a good win from a functionality perspective its a big lose... Don't get me started about using Gmail vs. Outlook, whilst I am not a huge MS fan having grown up on SCO Sys V, Linux early beta's, and most of the various Linux forks, SUN Solaris etc I do find that for shear ease of use Office 03-07 isn't half bad. Especially when I would rather spend more of my working day resolving issues on the job I have been employed to do than trying to shoe horn workarounds just to attach multiple emails to one email..
Same here, I do appreciate that due to a heavy load, first day, it would be bad but lets face it its not exactly Glastonbury tickets he is selling and a user registration/automated email setup shouldn't put too much load on the system..
You could potentially excuse a newbie company for doing this but someone with K.Com's (supposed?) knowledge of the net etc? inexcusable if you ask me..
To that Chinese version of FB (does it let you write in English?) to put all those unmarked cop cars licence plates up online...
As for those sport celebs who were "twi$$er bashed" (that is just laughable in the first instance), I say grow some skin and balls.. pffft the state of Oz scares the hell out of me these days, I know the polly's don't have anything to do but seriously can't they instead just focus on screwing us out of hard earned money as opposed to interfering in what we can do or say..
Nah 5 years running without detection they are definitely 1 up, I am sure they expected it to be discovered well before now.
NATO couldn't find its bottom without a ton of bureaucratic red tape, seriously doubt they could pull off something this clever, unless of course the yanks or Israelis gave them access to the guys who came up with Stuxnet and the other clones.
Commercial and Investment banks have been doing this type of offshore accounting for a hell of a lot longer than Google and the rest, (look at where a majority of the worlds banking industry situate their trading arms in Asia Pac, Singapore or HK the lowest tax rates in Asia!) the simple answer is that there is no simple answer to any of this.
Yes it is unfair and guess what the middle & lower classes will always get screwed by tax whilst any company (or individual for that matter!) that can afford the high price accountants will always find loopholes in tax law, big up the government for trying to close them down but in reality its a game of cat & mouse and believe me the government are definitely the mice...(so are the MC & LC..)
With that many sophistimacated <---intentional> words in this article, (lacunae, sclerotic) you are really doing the rest of us Australians a disservice!
Please revert back to less complex words such as, empty, slow or just anything with 5-6 letters or less..
Else other nations may get the wrong idea and not look down on us drunken, bbq eating, croc hunting Ozzies! (oi,oi,oi etc)
That it was a state sponsored Israeli attack (given their sophistication with Stuxnet worm, 7 years ago! just think of their advancements since then.) or a few anti-Iranian hackers (based in Israel) who couldn't penetrate the NAT setup of an Iranian oil company...
Hmm let me think about that now.
I don't doubt Stuxnet (and its associated viral colleagues) hit the Iranian Nuke plant badly else Iran would have shouted from the rooftop about how it defeated the Western Imperial Dogs etc..
And a fixed line between the 2 endpoints, I have had a hand in setting up a few SWIFT links with the old hardware encryptors on them and whilst you may have been able to see passwords go in via the entry points in cleartext those encyptors and the fixed lines (as well as the ambiguous message formatting) meant it was extremely challenging to intercept.
I certainly commend the efforts to investigative and identify if there is anyone (anything?) out there capable of building a Dyson Sphere which would certainly be an awe inspiring moment if indeed we could identify one, (I too am of the belief that if they were advanced enough there would be ways of hiding the emissions, yes, yes laws of Thermodynamics and all but I have no doubt we as a species haven't plumbed all the secrets of the universe yet so don't discount there are other ways we have to discover that may break those laws.. but I digress), but here is another thought of mine.
What if we are not alone but in fact the one species that has managed to progress/advance quickly enough to this level, taking that one step further ,(and whilst we postulate that the universe is old do we really know how many billions of years are left, i know we can guess/calculate based on matter decay etc but I refer to my earlier point of not knowing everything yet.), perhaps we will become the first KI,KII & KII or KiV species! we could become that "ancient" species that develop all the cool toys ..
Anyway just a thought, would explain why we can't seem to find anything just yet.. Could also be because space, is really, really big.....
regarding the following:
"As to how messed up Apple's maps are, I suppose it depends on where you are and how much you want to believe the media hyperbole"
Whilst i am not a staunch supporter of any specific company (I just buy or use a product i believe is of quality for me), i also conversely don't typically jump on the bandwagon if said company cocks up but I have to say the Apple maps product is fairly dire and made me look like a complete numpty (not hard I know) the other day.
I had travelled to a city the other day that i am not overly familiar with and needed to get to a meeting, looked at the map on my iPhone which stated there was a train station there. So went in to the info office and asked the guy what line i should take to get to the station. He was looking at me blankly so i repeated the question slowed my words down and increased pitch, as you do, to which he replied "Sorry mate they knocked that station and building down about 3 years ago."
Whoopsie, did I feel like an idiot.
In summary from my limited usage I concur with the media, its shite.
"So, what you actually mean is you unquestioningly believe TPB" nope, I was being sarcastic without applying a tag..
I believe someone posted the other day that if you have to tag sarcasm, well you aren't doing it right ;)
I posted anon because the shoe, I mean mask, seemed to fit.
as well as:
"The Australian Capital Territory introduced a civil penalty system for the possession of ‘small amounts’ of cannabis in 1993. If someone is caught with up to two non-hydroponic cannabis plants, or up to 25 grams of marijuana (cannabis plant material), they receive a $100 fine with 60 days to expiate (pay the fine) instead of a criminal charge. Instead of paying the fine, the person may choose to attend a drug assessment and treatment program."
Ahhh yes the seat of Australian government
"It seems today that freedom is now reserved privilege for corporations, the super-rich and politicians. "
Nothing new there unfortunately old bean, think the Maya(n) priests kicked this off although back then not being part of the elitist super priests or one of their calendar flunky's meant your heart was being ripped out, at least we just have servers removed now etc,
Lets call that progress at least :)
Seriously this is the type of parliamentarians that we have fostered in this once beautiful country, what is even more laughable than this type of elitist behaviour is that a majority of our MP's especially our ginga leader are paid more than our Yankee brethren! (Sorry to say far more than our English ones by far as well)
I mean come on, running a country of 23m vs. running a country of 300m not to mention that in all aspects of scale we are one of the smaller western nations compared to the G8 (I think we just make it into the G20 :) and we have a PM that pays itself <--intentional use> far more than the Yankee presso!
I digress though. Conroy is a coc---k and now we have video evidence, (like we needed it!)
Add to that the Carbon Tax which will be feed downstream to consumers and Queenslanders are royally f'ed. My folks spent quite a bit of cash on getting their panels in place and whilst they initially noticed a downward trend on their leccy bill it has of late moved back up to pre-panel figures.
Combine all of the above with the terrible outlay of costs in other areas that the previous QLD govt have made (desalination plant anyone?) then I am not overly surprised that the state govt have had their credit rating downgraded, its just a shame that the only way they can see to crawl themselves out of this hole is by screwing the populace but admitedlly that is the default position of any Aussie govt state or federal..
"There's no problem with the police assuming that everyone is guilty. In a sense,"
Appreciate that you were making a point and not being literal and whilst i also appreciate that in reality it is more true than I like to believe it is dangerous for Joe public to be content with this, all the continual constraints being placed on our lives and add this to the mix!
I do cringe when I envisage our future, so many books and movies over the last 60 odd years have put forward a world of control "for our safety" it would certainly appear we are well on our way towards those that it makes me "think of of the children"..
Actually I would postulate there is also:
D) Perhaps there aren't that many uninsured cars on the road...
Whilst yes I am suggesting that the problem is not as bad as they say I do admit I don't actually know but like every initiative sponsored by a government that just doesn't have anything to do except dream up ways of spending public money, I would question the reality of the "problem" they claim, WMD in Iraq anyone?
Can't say I fully agree with your point there, I would say that broadly (apart from the mayor piece) the jurno got it fairly accurate. When I first visited "Electric Town" in 93 my neck almost broke from all the shiny, shiny new stuff there (WTF is a mini-disc player!).
Have seen it deteriorate in the years since and last time i was there in 09 it was very much a "meh" moment, nothing there I couldn't find in any tech store around Tokyo just more concentrated and certainly nothing eye poppingly new or funky.