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In fact on second grumpy thoughts, that applies to all you Americans. $30k US (that's what, like, $35k Australian these days?) for a 400hp V8 muscle car? We pay that for a fuckin' Camry. The cheapest half-decent 'sports' car would probably be the Ford XR6 Turbo which goes for what, $70k new? How the hell do you get such nice cars so cheap? :/ No wonder all your car companies are folding. Grrargh. **CARNERDRAGE** :P

The irony being, the Camaro in question was designed by Holden in Australia.

I have a friend who owned a 15 year old corolla. His wife owned a brand new astra, think of it a corolla equivalent built by GM. His car never broke down, hers was back in the shop approximately every 3 months. In terms of paper value his car was close to worthless, in terms of utility, his car was far more useful.

You might also want to look at the resale value of Toyotas as opposed to other cars.

Not everyone buys a car based on handwaving. My wife and I made a very consious financial decision to buy a corolla as probably the best financial decision for a car in that size. Cheaper parts, lots of them on the road so no trouble finding a mechanic or parts, good resale value (which is in itself a comment on running costs).

A classic example is the Cube - a computer everyone wanted but no one thought was worth the price (the down side of designing products for a multibillionaire). It remains to be seen whether the MacBook Air will fall into that category.

There is a classic "Australian" car, the monaro. Judging the car purely on sales, it was a financial failure however it was a great success for Holden. Why? Because it was similar to the qube. People bought Holdens because the monaro was associated with holden. People went into holden show rooms and bought other Holdens because the monaro was in the showroom.

I think this is how the Air works. They might never sell a whole lot of them but their existance will sell other Mac laptops. Here in Australia I'm only seeing Mac ads for the Air. I'll bet that only a small proportion of the macs sold are Airs.

Here in Australia, we have the Holden Rodeo, which is really an Isuzu. We also have the Holden Astra/Vectra/Barina as well as the locally built Commodore (the "Monaro" coupe version is sold as the Pontiac GTO in the USA).

here

what we Brits call Vauxhall cars the rest of the world call 'Opal'.

Not all of it. "Holden" is the brand name a lot of Vauxhall models go under in Australia.

Not As Such.

The data about the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) election, the open-source software, the open-source operating system it ran on, and the open-source compiler that compiled it all is available via the makers, Software Improvements Pty Ltd.

The independant review, lab results of testing, and report on how it all worked in practice are available through the ACT Electoral Commission.

Not so much a well-oiled Chevy as a Holden Monaro which in the US is called a Pontiac GTO. As the GM site says, What Makes an American Legend? But it doesn't say the answer - good Aussie Engineering. Oi! Oi! Oi!

GM still hasnt remembered how to send power to the rear wheels so it looks like Ford is the only one carrying the performance torch for a while, at least in regards to having a V8 and RWD

Not in Australia... high-performance V8 versions of our standard RWD family sedans from both Ford and GM-owned Holden are more popular than ever these days. The rest of the world is starting to notice too - the Holden Monaro (a 2-door version of the standard Commodore family sedan) is being exported to the US and sold as the new Pontiac GTO.

Check out Holden Special Vehicles, Ford Performance Vehicles, and the V8 Supercars race series. Can't say I personally find them particularly entertaining, but you can't deny their popularity...

For whatever reason, no, they don't. I see a lot of stuff about US State cops kitting themselves out with proceeds from crime, etc, etc. That doesn't happen here - proceeds from crime go straight back into gummint coffers.

At various times they have dabbled with whatever was the latest/greatest/fastest. 10-15 years ago, when the Mitsubishi Cordia Turbo was the dogs nuts of fast small cars, the police in my state (NSW) got a few of them and let the Highway Patrol group use them. Apparently the Cordia went fast in a straight line, but couldn't go around corners particularly well. They quietly and quickly dissapeared.

More recently, the aforementioned Subaru Impreza WRX made an appearance. I saw a couple of those painted up in police colours in active use just a few years ago. Again, they have quietly dissapeared from the scene, dunno why.

Somehow, I always picture them having souped-up V8's with 'INTERCEPTOR' printed on the back...

Well, you're close-ish to the truth. NSW police have pretty much always had the Holden Commodore and/or the Ford Falcon (sorry, lots of evil javascript and flash there, couldn't find an alternative) de jour. They're low quality, fuel guzzling Australian built hunks-o-junk, but the manufacturers have probably backed the government into a support-local-industry corner, and they're probably only paying three-fiddy apiece for them (that's all they're worth!!!).

Both of those cars have a V8 in the model range, and I think the Highway Patrol at least get V8s. Most of the common-or-garden police cars I see around at the moment seem to be Holden Commodores, but Ford have an 'SV6' and 'SV8' model, gofasta ones that they're using in some police applications. No "Intruders" tho!

Here, I googled, and found a few pictures...

This is a pretty standard NSW Police card right now. (a holden commondoor)

This is an example of a Subaru Impreza WRX in NSW Police colours...

An old Mitsubishi Cordia Turbo

They just keep going back to Commodores and Falcons though...

Back to topic, though - is this thing even close to Weta's cluster performance?

lets be honest, in regards to 95% of the shit 95% of people do on a computer, there's virtually no difference in speed between a K6-3 450 & A P4 2.8.

So really, unless one's into 3D games, compiling code, rendering 3D or encoding video, & one already have a 500+mhz PC, replacing it with a new computer is just wanking off, well that is if one's trying to justify it as a need. Of course if one's treating oneself & being honest that one's treating oneself, then it isn't wanking off.

Afterall I'd love a nice new Holden One Tonner, but I'd be wanking off to claim I need one for work, afterall in that regard it performs no better than my old Daihatzu van.

Especially once exchange rates are taken into account

It's that simple, imagine, people getting paid anywhere between US$50,000 & millions to buggerise arround on computers half the day & gossip the other half of the day.

I wonder what percentage of that input actually produces anything of substance. I'd say less than 5%

Lets face it the average Mexican fruitpicker in California is more productive than the average Californian IT worker.

Really I don't see any justification for the average IT worker in the US earning more than double the US minimum wage. Even then IMAO they are only getting that extra over the minimum wage, as compo for wasting their time for studying such as unproductive stuff at college for 4 years, or whatever.

Maybe its about time they realised that the .com & Y2K scams have come their course & the boom days are over.

Or they could simply deflate the inflated US$, which more than anything else is killing US competitiveness.

No wonder GM is planning to sell Holden Utes ('ute' is short for utility) as El Caminos & Holden Monaros as Pontiac GTOs in the USA. Here's a Monaro ad video

Especially once exchange rates are taken into account

It's that simple, imagine, people getting paid anywhere between US$50,000 & millions to buggerise arround on computers half the day & gossip the other half of the day.

I wonder what percentage of that input actually produces anything of substance. I'd say less than 5%

Lets face it the average Mexican fruitpicker in California is more productive than the average Californian IT worker.

Really I don't see any justification for the average IT worker in the US earning more than double the US minimum wage. Even then IMAO they are only getting that extra over the minimum wage, as compo for wasting their time for studying such as unproductive stuff at college for 4 years, or whatever.

Maybe its about time they realised that the .com & Y2K scams have come their course & the boom days are over.

Or they could simply deflate the inflated US$, which more than anything else is killing US competitiveness.

No wonder GM is planning to sell Holden Utes ('ute' is short for utility) as El Caminos & Holden Monaros as Pontiac GTOs in the USA. Here's a Monaro ad video

Especially once exchange rates are taken into account

It's that simple, imagine, people getting paid anywhere between US$50,000 & millions to buggerise arround on computers half the day & gossip the other half of the day.

I wonder what percentage of that input actually produces anything of substance. I'd say less than 5%

Lets face it the average Mexican fruitpicker in California is more productive than the average Californian IT worker.

Really I don't see any justification for the average IT worker in the US earning more than double the US minimum wage. Even then IMAO they are only getting that extra over the minimum wage, as compo for wasting their time for studying such as unproductive stuff at college for 4 years, or whatever.

Maybe its about time they realised that the .com & Y2K scams have come their course & the boom days are over.

Or they could simply deflate the inflated US$, which more than anything else is killing US competitiveness.

No wonder GM is planning to sell Holden Utes ('ute' is short for utility) as El Caminos & Holden Monaros as Pontiac GTOs in the USA. Here's a Monaro ad video

Amazing, huh?

Here are some links to Australian technology in the same field

Eco-mmodore a full size standard sedan, which is normally powered by a 3.8l V6 or 5.7l V8, using australian developed hybrid technology.
aXcessAustralia prototype - a consortium of australian auto component manufacturers have built a prototype car using the same technology, developed by the CSIRO.