Posts by Chuq

Wikipedia cracks the five-million article barrier, in English

Re: But it isn't in English

This issue was raised in the early days. If there were two English versions of each article, 99% of each pair of articles would be identical - can you imagine trying to keep them in sync with each other?

It was decided to have a single English version and to alter the spelling based on the subject of the article (e.g. the article on Winston Churchill would use International English, the article on John F Kennedy would use US English spelling). If there is no particular geographic or cultural focus to the article, it stays in the version in which it was first written. In the case of the five-millionth article, it is about an Australian shrub so it would use the International English spelling.

Tasmania wants more backbone

My understanding was the study wasn't for an additional Bass Strait cable, but for connecting to the APX-Central cable - which isn't a Bass Strait link - it will go around the south of the state. As well as increased competition, it would be good for geographical diversity too.

Turnbull says no need to future-proof NBN

Re: Would you Future-proof a PC?

Not really a good comparison - it takes a couple of hours to upgrade a PC. It takes 5-10 years to build a national broadband network in a country the size of Australia. You don't want to have to start the next NBN before you've finished the current one.

Most of the cost of building the NBN is civil works and logistics. If you're going to be digging up roads and footpaths, running cables into peoples houses, you might as well spent the little bit extra and put in a cable that you won't need to dig up again for over 50 years, rather than in 5 years.

NBN Co numbers suggest FTTP build could be done for close to Labor's budget

They *were* easy to refute (Malcolm was just making up random numbers) but the mainstream media didn't want to play any part in getting actual facts across.

Fill 'er up: 'Leccy car firm Tesla brings back PUMP SERVICE

Re: Cartropolis

Yep, I can't wait until we all have self-driving vehicles on call. But that's a couple of decades away. It is a long wait for the technology to mature (they can't deal with rain, for example) and for the laws surrounding them to develop. After that there will be the early adopters, the ones who currently don't have a car, can't drive or use taxis. Then it will be the people who used to take buses or trains. And lets not forget, even the Teslas being sold this year have the hardware for autonomous driving so it isn't as if they couldn't be part of the same system in the end.