Slashdot Mirror

Yes, because building infrastructure nobody needs is also a great use of money.

...from a guy whose country is literally building massive empty cities.
Infrastructure sans people.

https://www.afr.com/news/world...

The only thing creepier is a friend of mine in the military that said there is some speculation that these empty cities could be relocation destinations for refugees from other cities in the event of war...which would then make one wonder what does China expect?

https://www.afr.com/news/austr...

I'm more concerned about the companies which the government approves.

BTW: this is the same government that less than a week ago proposed laws that would be more suitable in former East Germany.

Also, the same government which, a couple of years ago, required telecoms carriers log all data for 2 years. (At least /. is now SSL.)

Why wouldn't you?

For the first time ever, the components that make up a solar / storage system are so cheap that they can be paid back with the earnings from the electricity generated.
This is probably been helped by the Australian Governments policy of selling off all the power assets to private enterprise who, in turn, have escalated energy and supply costs at a rate far greater than inflation resulting in significant power bills for most Australians. Natural market forces, along with the public's quest for greener energy, have led most people to look for environmentally ways to lessen their electricity bills.
Side note: The Liberal Australian Government is still way out of step with the public on renewable's arguing that Coal fired power generation is good and renewable's is ugly.

Australian consumer law is generally pretty strong. Apple tried to pull the "one year warranty" argument, and they were slapped down - hard - by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The result can be seen for yourself: in Australia, you have a two year statutory warranty, given that that's the standard contract for a plan plus phone.

More details here and here.

to become PM you must be the leader of the party with the largest representation in parliament.

You under estimate the man. He is _very_ conversant with arithmetic:

Quoting: https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/transcript-interview-with-alan-jones-and-the-budget-and-relations-with-cliv:
But the fact of the matter is, this business, as John Howard said, is governed by the iron laws of arithmetic.

He also very conversant with the memory of your average Australian voter, apparently. After 300 comments, no one remembered him saying this. You've gotta admire the hubris.

His position apparently is while he, only he apparently, is governed only by the laws of arithmetic, the rest of us have to obey the laws he makes up - those of Australia. Oh, and don't forget while he is telling us we can't use crypto so he can spy on us, just a year ago he was enthusiastic user of Whatsapp, presumably so the people who elected him could not see what he was preparing to do - like springing this on us.

I wouldn't trust HPE for much:

http://www.afr.com/technology/cloud-computing/hpe-australia-boss-looks-to-leave-ato-crash-in-the-past-with-cloudled-growth-20170121-gtw72g

http://www.zdnet.com/article/136-complaints-arise-from-atos-string-of-hpe-hardware-outages/

Housing in Australia has several components to it which I will try to cover in this post. I live in Melbourne Australia and I want to provide insight to people interested in learning more. 1. The 1980s Hawke/Keating Market reforms set the country up for the past 30 years of economic growth. Anyone denying that is crazy. They floated the currency, freed up the market for global trade and set the nation on a path to long term wealth. They did however over stamp on the breaks in 1991 causing a short recession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... 2. Negative Gearing and the Capital Gains Tax concessions are two massive tax breaks for existing home owners. Their effects are huge and not to be underestimated. Negative gearing allows any loss on a property such as repair work or investment loss to be written off against the owner's taxable income. Originally it was introduced to boost investment in the housing market. The Capital gains discount allows a property owner to not pay tax on 50% of their profit on a property when they sell it. In the current market this has created a situation where it is better to leave a property empty, appreciating in value and then sell it without the hassle of dealing with tenants and property management firms. http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... 3. Foreign investment. Market research data from Vancouver shows that implementing a 15% tax on foreign property investment caused a property price drop of around 20%. Where that money is coming from doesn't really matter, the point is that foreign investment accounts for approximately 8-11% of properties purchased in the market. https://www.bloomberg.com/news... 4. Recent studies of water usage in Melbourne and Sydney show that upto 80,000 properties in Melbourne alone lie vacant. http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ne... and http://www.afr.com/real-estate... 5. Immigration, 182,000 people migrated to Australia in 2015-16 the 2016-17 stats are not available http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats... This is a large number by Australian standards, but most immigrants are not rich enough to buy property outright. Mostly they increase competition in the rental market. Most of these people are settling in Sydney and Melbourne with an estimate of 70-80% of people moving to these two cities. http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... 6. The mining/resources boom. In the late 1990s/early 2000s the mining/resources boom brought a ton of wealth into Australia, this prevented a natural correction from occurring in the property market. More money flooded into the market which has helped to inflate prices and keep the cycle going. Now, with all of these factors combining there are many things occurring in the domestic market. Yes the car industry is closing, but overall that's not a big deal so far, because we haven't been exporting many cars for years and it's been a government funded jobs program. Wages are stagnant and growth is quite low at the moment, at the same time we have seen layoffs increasing especially in the mineral states such as Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The biggest threat to the economy in my opinion is high house prices growth at a time of high unemployment growth. We are seeing areas which most people would not consider desirable to purchase housing in (traditionally poverty stricken high crime areas)

Don't worry, the ATO can't keep track of anything:

http://www.afr.com/technology/enterprise-it/mass-data-loss-fears-as-ato-suffers-hewlett-packard-enterprise-equipment-crash-20161213-gtac9r

https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/12/ato-website-restored-after-two-days-one-petabyte-of-data-lost/

https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/arts-and-culture/an-ato-server-crash-just-erased-1000tb-of-data-so-/c9b261ce-2250-4f4f-b20f-c00c12f9d5cb.htm

BTW, I remember when this story broke and it was widely reported. Now, I can barely find mention of it online....

Every major country spies - even Canada (ever hear of CSIS? https://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/in... ).

The real question is what they do with the information they're looking for. Do they conduct industrial espionage and give/sell it to companies who then can crush the competition? http://www.afr.com/technology/... (Note, not conclusively proven, but pretty scary potential example nonetheless, and a Canada-centric one at that)

Do they use it to try and influence democratic elections and destabilize peaceful political blocs, like Russia has been (and not just America - go look at France, or Germany, and their election troubles with the Russians).

Now I certainly won't claim the CIA, and US Government more generally, haven't done some f*cked up shit in the past (Iran/Persia, Central America, etc), but do try to keep some perspective on things.

In this case a pretty scamming pump up the stock price upon the back of http://www.afr.com/technology/... a 40 billion dollar stock buy back. That is 40 billion dollars fewer shares in the market on top of the impact of buying those shares. So completely bullshit story and as soon as I read it, I did a search for "microsoft stock buyback" because I just knew, so obvious and they also raised their dividend. So that price will drop real quick once the stock buyback runs out and the dividend has been paid.

I actually saw this headline first:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/w...

ROFL, talk about a load of crap. Even their own story mentions it was unknown at the time of publishing whether the car was in autopilot or not. Of course, it was super effective... the comments are full of crap about how autopilot is a crap feature that is killing people in a car prone to explosive burns.

Meanwhile, actual facts intrude:
http://www.afr.com/technology/...

Car was travelling at 155km/hr and autopilot was not on.

Sam

That's what they keep telling us

They're being bought by the second worst ISP in Australia: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/401960,iinet-board-seriously-concerned-about-culture-post-tpg-buy.aspx, http://www.afr.com/technology/iinet-shareholders-hit-out-at-board-over-tpg-m2-takeover-battle-20150507-ggvyow.

They've already destroyed several large players in the infrastructure space (PIPE Networks for example, AAPT is in progress), and now one of the highest ranked customer service ISPs (if not the highest) is about to be consumed in a primarily cash-based deal, leaving the original team with no control or say in the combined company.

There's little chance of TPG allowing anything to continue that costs more than the bare minimum. Where you previously had people who knew their stuff proactively supporting many-thousand-$-per-month corporate fibre WANs and the like, you now get a bored dude from the Philippines working through a residential ADSL support flowchart, he wouldn't know a VLAN if it was trunked right up his bum.

iiNet/Internode/Westnet/etc are the last service-oriented consumer ISP in the marketplace. Their legal defence of their common-carrier status and their continued protection of customers is just one example. It would be a shame if they were absorbed by a company that is their exact opposite.

(What's the worst ISP though? I reserve that title for Dodo).

Like if your PC is compromised by an attacker and then you pull the hard drive and [assuming there's a way to get a hash from SMART/ATAPI) you can compare the hash of the firmware that the drive is running to the list of published firmwares at the vendor's site.

Why does the malware have to respond with the actual hash of the firmware? Respond with one of the "known good" hashes.

If you're reading the firmware and calculating a hash, the firmware does not have to give you the firmware that is actually running. Respond with a "known good" firmware image.

Depending on the design of the firmware and the controller chips, even JTAG may not help you - they don't have to actually give you raw access to the device's memory. They're supposed to, but we're not talking about the laws of physics here. The "rules" can be violated.

The vendors may need to move operations outside of five-eyes to remain commercially viable.

Yeah, only five-eyes nations do this kind of thing.

Open-source the whole stack

Won't work. No one is actually looking for esoteric bugs in complex code that can lead to an attack. See: glibc.

Require access to reflash the firmware securely by independent means.

The firmware image on the device does not have to let you reflash it. It can happily report "success!" while doing nothing. It can also re-infect the new image - the device is powered, so the existing firmware can be running. Additionally, you're assuming this "independent reflasher" is itself secure.

Previously I would have thought this a pipedream

Yes, this is entirely a new phenomenon.

Very clever of Linux to make a very obvious dig at the recent feminist hijacking attempts made by the SJW community that is vague enough to keep from disrupting business, but clear enough to be caught by those of us in the know.

Well played, indeed.

Why IKEA’s profits are mostly tax free

AGL are reporting that their most polluting coal fired electricity plant(s) is now $186M less profitable due to loss of government funding provided entirely by the carbon tax. Essentially it was funding pollution, not penalising it. PEr the AFR: http://www.afr.com/p/business/... (paywalled, but the summary say it all) The carbon tax never did anything due to a ridiculous number of exemptions and pay-back subsidies designed to protect labour voting areas - one of which the above coal fired plant is in.

the CIA once destroyed a gas pipeline in 1982 by hacking malicious controls software into a system purchased by them from canada.

Your summary is just absolutely AWFUL. Obviously, no Canadian pipelines were damaged... Instead the CIA had a Canadian company sabotage their own SCADA software, knowing that the Soviet KGB was going to steal their pipeline control systems, with that software on it.

Secondly, it's a story from a single source, unconfirmed, that has been disputed by others. So it may actually have been shoddy construction, instead of sabotage, which doesn't support your claim:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

now the cows have come home. America is finding itself on the receiving end of increasingly sophisticated attacks

Except the attacks were coming in hard and heavy, long before Stuxnet. It's incredibly ridiculous to claim that nobody else would be doing it, if the US didn't participate... It's just too tempting a target for the Chinese and Russians to miss-out on, and the US allowing itself to fall behind would be disastrous and negligent.

http://www.afr.com/p/technolog...

The ACCC a few years back put in a new law (which Apple fought tooth and nail, source: http://www.afr.com/p/technolog... [afr.com]) which required every piece of electronics sold in Australia to have a two year "warranty". I put that in sarcasm quotes not because it's invalid (the ACCC has some *serious* bite here, enough to scare Apple into compliance), but because it's not technically a warranty. It's simply: "a reasonable expectation that an electronic product will be fit for purpose for two years from purchase".

I think you'll find that two years is just a minimum.

Which is to say you could probably argue that a high-end mobile phone would be expected by any "reasonable" person to work for more like 3-4, possibly even 5, years.

If I had an Apple phone fail within 3 years I'd expect Apple to replace it without too much haranguing. Closer to the 4 year mark I'd expect to have to get consumer affairs involved, but still succeed.

In Australia this would never fly, ever.

The ACCC a few years back put in a new law (which Apple fought tooth and nail, source: http://www.afr.com/p/technolog...) which required every piece of electronics sold in Australia to have a two year "warranty". I put that in sarcasm quotes not because it's invalid (the ACCC has some *serious* bite here, enough to scare Apple into compliance), but because it's not technically a warranty. It's simply: "a reasonable expectation that an electronic product will be fit for purpose for two years from purchase".

When you dig into the Australian law:
"Though it does not specify how long a warranty should last for specific products, it must allow repairs within a reasonable time of purchase."
So for smartphones regularly sold on a 2 year contract, 2 years should be the minimum warranty period. Whitegoods are typically expected to last 5 years at least, so if your fridge fails after 3 you have the law on your side if the manufacturer only includes a 2 year warranty. There is however another expectation - spending a large sum on an item vs buying a cheap version of a similar item may affect the reasonable warranty period. Brand names on your goods increase the price, but also increase the expected lifetime (quality) of an item, which also increases the expected warranty period.

In Australia this would never fly, ever.

The ACCC a few years back put in a new law (which Apple fought tooth and nail, source: http://www.afr.com/p/technolog...) which required every piece of electronics sold in Australia to have a two year "warranty". I put that in sarcasm quotes not because it's invalid (the ACCC has some *serious* bite here, enough to scare Apple into compliance), but because it's not technically a warranty. It's simply: "a reasonable expectation that an electronic product will be fit for purpose for two years from purchase".

Legally, that's not a warranty, but in some ways it's a lot more powerful.

However, Apple continues to fight it, usually by simply redefining their terms. For example, I had a 1.5 year old iPhone 5's battery die recently. I took it in to get replaced, they said that batteries are considered consumable items and, based on its charge/discharge cycles, it had been "consumed", rather than "broken" or "worn out".

I went home, printed out the relevant law, returned and showed it to them and the manager replaced it for free, all the while warning me that this wasn't something they were expected to cover. The girl helping me was very sympathetic and helpful, though, and I felt as though both the manager and the genius-bar chick both resented Apple dodging the law a little bit.

If your RevoDrive failed in any way for two years after purchase here, in Oz, it would get fixed for free. Not even Apple can dodge that.

I thought this was already the case.

At least here (AU), it's been practically impossible to get a MasterCard or Visa-backed card without a smartchip for half a decade, and in 2014 signatures will no longer be accepted to validate identity on credit purchases. There's been ads running for about a year requesting that people create a PIN for each of their cards. (AFR rundown)

Bank-issued cards (not store cards) always come with NFC as well now (doesn't seem to be any way to request otherwise). The last non-NFC card I had just expired and was replaced with a Visa PayWave. NFC & RFID is also very popular for specialist stuff : cabcharge cards, fuel cards, public transport.

Oh please. Get a real government over spend.

Your 670% cost blowout is nothing compared to 20000% cost blowout our government had.

Chinese never denied spying on everyone

Are you fucking serious?

Dunning-Kruger is becoming the new Godwin.

From:
http://www.afr.com/p/national/transcript_interview_with_former_KnS7JDIrw73GWlljxA7vdK
"I personally think Snowden is a very troubled, narcissistic young man who has done a very, very bad thing."
"ideological embrace of transparency as a virtue."
"Likewise, at what point does a cultural tendency towards transparency flip-over to become a deep threat inside your system?"
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/1/secrets-are-hard-to-keep-in-the-whole-wired-world/
"“a romantic, absolute attachment to transparency; [a belief] that secrecy in any form is wrong.”
https://www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/01/hayden012306.html
"The great urban legend out there then was something called "Echelon""
"It is not a driftnet over Dearborn or Lackawanna or Freemont grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about."
"If FISA worked just as well, why wouldn't I use FISA? To save typing?
No. There is an operational impact here, and I have two paths in front of me, both of them lawful, one FISA, one the presidential -- the president's authorization.
And we go down this path because our operational judgment is it is much more effective."
Interesting how the press picks up on the "FISA statute itself says that it will be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance may be pursued"
and is then told : "I'm not asserting anything. I'm asserting that NSA is doing its job."
http://freebeacon.com/china-military-preparing-for-peoples-war-in-cyberspace-space/
"Cyber warfare may truly be called a people’s warfare"
...cyber reconnaissance, jamming, and attack”—from space vehicles.

Actually, Hayden knows exactly what he's talking about.

And by all means, no one is thinking about ways to defeat the US.

Bahahahahahaaha

Yeah, Icebike is a MS promoter from a long way back.

I prefer the Australian Financial Review's version:

Microsoft slashes Surface prices (for unlucky few)

Microsoft has slashed the price of its ill-starred Surface Pro tablet in countries around the world. But, in a lucky escape, the discounts don’t apply here in Australia.

Prices for the Surface Pro tumbled in the US, Canada, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan over the weekend. In the US, it’s now listed as “Starting at $799”, $US100 cheaper than it was a few days ago.

Meanwhile here in Australia, the Surface Pro still starts at $999, just like always. Fingers crossed the discounting doesn’t spread down here, otherwise people might be tempted to buy one, which wouldn’t be a good idea. Not just yet, anyway.

http://www.afr.com/f/free/technology/digitallife/microsoft_slashes_surface_prices_MjgML0oVz8scIMOLdJ78LL

The most cited column is the one written in the Australian Financial Review: Spy agencies ban Lenovo PCs on security concerns

That column is insufficiently clear; It repeatedly conflates completely different things; for example;

.... said the NSA was “incredibly concerned about state-sponsored malicious circuitry and the counterfeit circuitry found on a widespread basis in US defence systems”.

Sure; counterfeit circuitry is common. It's a serious safety issue. However it's not a relevant security issue. That is bundled together with state-sponsored malicious circuitry for which no evidence has ever been given that it's common looks exactly like deception. Even the one paragraph which seems clear:

The ban was introduced in the mid-2000s after intensive laboratory testing of its equipment allegedly documented “back-door” hardware and “firmware” vulnerabilities in Lenovo chips.

Actually seems to confuse "vulnerabilities" and "back-doors" if you read it carefully. Overall, whilst this is the closest to a clear statement that these vulnerabilities exist, the article is dubious. The evidence it tells us about is secret. I guess it's likely true but it's hardly clear evidence.

The spy agency do not have to make their evidence public. The news is only reporting that the spy agencies have banned Lenovo equipment from being used on THEIR network. This doesn't affect anyone outside of that network from being able to buy Lenovo.

The spy agencies are part of the national defences and are responsible for the security of their country. If they have clear evidence that malicious circuits are being widely deployed against their own people then they absolutely do have a duty to make this public. If the evidence is unclear then they have an absolute duty of secrecy and investigation until they can prove that clearly. At that point they should be banning all products of the manufacturers responsible and ensuring that they are removed from all public networks at the purchaser's or manufacturer's expense.

I see nothing wrong with insisting that all hardware and software used within the closed and secured network are written, assembled or manufactured from a member country with all vetting reasonable possible prior to use.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. However it is a different statement completely from the one made. This would be something like "Lenovo is unable to meet the stringent requirements of our security which require that all management, engineering and logistics and production staff are from countries covered within the UKUSA Agreement. At this time we know of no reason to ban Lenovo products in non classified networks, however we encourage continuing vigilance of the functioning of products from all vendors".

Instead we get a whole load of innuendo and no actual evidence.

The most cited column is the one written in the Australian Financial Review: Spy agencies ban Lenovo PCs on security concerns

The spy agency do not have to make their evidence public. The news is only reporting that the spy agencies have banned Lenovo equipment from being used on THEIR network. This doesn't affect anyone outside of that network from being able to buy Lenovo.

I see nothing wrong with insisting that all hardware and software used within the closed and secured network are written, assembled or manufactured from a member country with all vetting reasonable possible prior to use.

Australia's unannounced 'totalitarian' web filter causes alarm http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/17/australia-internet-block Internet chiefs call for checks, balances in censorship battle
http://www.afr.com/p/technology/internet_chiefs_call_for_checks_Ey7wPYhsXUaMqvnZavS1SP

Reckless Oz regulator runs roughshod over rights
http://www.zdnet.com/reckless-oz-regulator-runs-roughshod-over-rights-7000015473/

ASIC request sparks internet censorship
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/asic-request-sparks-internet-censorship/story-e6frgakx-1226644514861

New fears for web censorship in Australia
http://www.itwire.com/it-policy-news/govenrment-tech-policy/59872-new-fears-for-web-censorship-in-australia

That is right. Mineral Rights are assigned separately by the government, over lunch in 'corrupt' deals to your political mates.

Coal licences: ‘corrupt’ deal worth $100m
http://www.afr.com/p/national/coal_licences_corrupt_deal_worth_5N2rJf47NdL2yQJuDxmmkJ

Obeid family and friends reap millions from lucrative coal licenses
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/obeid-family-and-friends-reap-millions-from-lucrative-coal-licences-20120520-1yz31.html

is very knowledgeable about hacking. they should fly the Jolly Roger over their HQ

That's because the Australian regulations add to the development costs of games.

To legally sell in Australia they have to go trough a ton of legal bullshit your elected officials inflict in the name of 'The Children'.

Really? So how about all the non-game software, how about Adobe, Microsoft and many others?
From the article:

“If you go to Apple’s iTunes and buy Macklemore’s song Same Love, which is number two in the Australian charts, it’s 69 cents in the US and over $2 in Australia,” he said.

“[And] we found it cost $5795 more to buy Microsoft’s Visual Studio software in Australia compared with the US. These are downloaded products with no Australian labour involved and no local distribution costs – it’s simply a matter of where the computer server thinks you’re coming from.”

have any evidence of that, idiot?

He's right. Maybe the majority of Ozzies doesn't, but the Ozzie politicians want to be just like US, mostly the bad part. And, if Ozzies do nothing about, it is the politicians that matter.

* Remember David Hicks? Schapelle Corby had more support from the Howard govt then him.
* Remember Gillard's reaction to Assange's Cablegate? Mastercard used it as a pretext for cutting the transfer of donations to Wikileaks.
* Have you heard of serious "cyber terror" threats in Australia? Gillard says you should be very afraid of it, give away some of you rights and have that "cyber security centre" operational (doesn't matter that the budget for the centre may or may not exists, Roxon - the AG - just can't wait to use the "scare" to push some laws)
* Wonder how the Australia's seat on UN Security Council is seen by its major trading partner, the one that kept Australia sheltered from GFC? Potential sycophancy ... would they be right, who's ass Australia is most likely to kiss?

Many users who run IE7 either have a.) no choice or b.) no idea what is IE7/IE8/IE9 and the differences between them.

Hence why the site is still available for IE7. If you are unwilling to understand the difference, or unable to change your browser, you can still use the site - provided that you pay for the extra effort that went into making it available.

why not display the "IE7 not supported, please follow these instructions to upgrade"?

They do just that.

This tax probably unnecessarily increases complexity in their billing systems

Why would a simple UA check with a fixed price multiplier increase complexity in the billing system?

This is a stunt, pure and simple. IE7 use is trivial and you can readily conclude that people who haven't upgraded in 10 years are NOT the primary customer of a computer retailer. People that cheap, don't buy stuff.

The owner of the company is well known for pulling publicity stunts. And hopefully most aussies got a better sense of humor then the whiners above.

As for those saying he should instead display a warning, the site does exactly that, http://www.afr.com/rw/2009-2014/AFR/2012/06/14/Photos/724adc40-b5bf-11e1-a3fb-e6c175e978e8_IE%20tax--236x197.jpg

I wonder why so many are offended by a joke, maybe a lot of them really shouldn't be on this TECH site because they still run IE7 themselves?

This is NOT a business plan or a real tax. It is a publicity stunt to create traffic at the cost of non-existent customers. You don't think that this company really thinks that after a plain warning that customers will be charged more, IE7 users will really pay the increased price? Mind you, they are IE7 users. In reality Kogan looked at their stats, saw a tiny non-significant IE7 usage that their web dev team still had to develop for at greater cost then this groups produces in profit and decided to stir the pot, get some free publicity and be considered by anyone with a sense of a humor as a bunch of all right blokes.

No, you didn't miss that, as it's wrong. Reading the article , it makes clear that DocumentCloud was hosting the actual emails (not just the indexing), and that many of them are still available at AFR's website (not all).

The original article can be found here

Here is what I found interesting.

- The ban is supported by the Attorney-General Nicola Roxon. The Attorney-General of Australia is the minister responsible for ASIO (wiki). For those who don't know, ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation ) is the equivalent of the CIA in Australia.

- Huwei's chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, was a member of the People’s Liberation Army

- "Huawei sources have also hinted that the Chinese government will retaliate strongly against Australia if the ban on the company’s tenders is not lifted"

The Australian Financial review charges about $100/month for news and seems to be doing OK: https://subscribe.afr.com/afr/default.aspx?referrer=1

Steve Wozniak interviewed by the Australian Financial Review in March 2008: about 8:00: "But the iPhone I feel very restricted on ... I would hack mine for a while and put on a lot of these other apps ... it's the sort of thing Steve Jobs and I did back when we found ways to hack into the phone system ... " About the ringtone restriction: "I don't like that ... it reminds us of the way we would talk about Microsoft ...". Watch the whole thing, he's about as critical of Apple and Jobs as possible, and a big advocate of openness in hardware and software design.

How many billions in exports is the Wintel platform worth to China?

How much in foreign investment? Microsoft to invest heavily in China The People's Daily.

When President Hu Jintao vists the United States, it is Bill Gates who greets him, Bill Gates he wants to see. Guess who did not bone up on China Malayasia News Online.

The world is flat.

It was Lenin's birthday on Sunday. The most important Communist Party meeting in five years was under way. And the star of the show was the world's most famous capitalist, Bill Gates.

The Vietnamese President, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister all excused themselves from the party meeting to have their pictures taken with Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, who has more star power in Vietnam than any of them.

Gates finds it's just capital in Vietnam

"Oh for gods sake, for a start, when has it been said that it's to prevent welfare fraud?"

The Prime Minister said it's to prevent welfare Fraud. http://afr.com/articles/2006/04/26/1145861409326.h tml

Most of the articles I've read mention benefit fraud when it's an absolute lemon.

http://afr.com/articles/2005/11/07/1131212004352.h tml

Wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Cities do subsidize rural areas.

50 richest counties in america (per capita) (Notice how they're all pretty much urban?)

50 poorest counties in america (per capita) Notice how they're nearly all rural?

The GDP of New York City (America's largest city) is 16th highest in the world (after Belgium.) New York City is the largest outlier in terms of tax dollars paid vs recieved. And in terms of costs, NYC as a seperate state would rank 51st out of 51 states in energy use per capita, but it would be the 11th most populous state in America.

The same is true (just to a lesser degree since they aren't as extreme as NYC) for cities like Chicago, LA and SF.

Hell, a freaking block in NYC contributes more tax dollars to the state than an entire small town (like Utica.)

You're spouting gibberish. The US Government subsidizes the power lines, roads and industries of rural america. This money comes almost exclusively from the wealthy, ie those who live in million dollar+ 1 bedrooms in NYC and SF (and places of that caliber.)

And in terms of Terrorism funding, can you explain to me the rationale behind giving a state like Wyoming more money per capita than New York City to fight terrorism? Do you honestly believe Wyoming is a more attractive international terrorism target than NYC? I mean, that's just ludicrious. Yet our government constantly doles out larger per capita cash rewards to rural states with barely any risk than to major risk locations like LA, SF, DC and NYC. Again, you've got it backwards. Wyoming has the world's most advanced anti-radiation lab, and NYC can't get radiation detectors paid for at all by the federal government.

If Telstra is going to be split, that's wonderful news and what I've wanted all along.

It does not look like today's news stories agree with this statement, however.

Hmmm - lesseenow - "Nightly Business Report" says the Internet's effect on politics is pretty minimal. OK. And Mass Media Network Broadcasting is the winning stragegy, huh?

Now, is "Nightly Business Report" a web page or a show on a Mass Media Network Broadcasting system.

Oh - gee - really? Now, how does *that* flavour/slant the reporting? :)

One thing I've learned to do over time - always check the bias of the reporter and/or owner of the medium (eg: who owns the newspaper and how do they lean, what's the "lean" of the paper in general, etc). It's interesting reading through a copy of The Australian Financial Review and seeing how it paints the two major parties - what kind of reports is it showing - what's the general tone. Seems that at the moment they like the incumbent and not the other guy (well, that's what comes through based on the stories being reported).

Keep that in mind whenever you read/watch/listen to stuff on TV, radio, newspapers, books, the web (especially the web! :)