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teleportation!!!!

article

News reports earlier this evening indicate that IP addresses being used by The Which Company/T3 are not theirs, and actually belong to a WA-based Christian Education Center.

According to the report on the AAP wire (http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,4 461895%5E1702,00.html), at least some and possibly all of the IP addresses which are listed in the original complaint actually belong to the Swan Christian Education Center.

In quotes from Steve Crockett, Information Technology Manager for the center - he said that T3's decision to pursue legal action over an IP which it did not even own was "absolutely unconscionable".

He continues "We are wholeheartedly against spamming". "It's an absolute scourge".

According to the news report, Mr. Mansfield's company had been warned not to use the IP addresses and that the company had continued to use them regardless. An employee of Mr. Mansfield's company is said to have received permission from the center about 4 years ago to use the range of addresses - however it was too long ago for him to remember who gave their permission.

Disgusting that spammers will steal from Christians and Schools just to send us junk.

piracy on the PlayStation had delivered some unexpected benefits, providing a "sampling value" similar to listening to music free on a radio station with the possibility of buying it later. "Some people were able to get access to some games that they either didn't know about or weren't sure were worth it," Mr Deering said.

Furthermore, he gets that one pirated copy != one lost sale.

...if people buy something, make a copy of it, and give it to a friend, the friend uses it once and doesn't give it back, that's piracy.

"Is it piracy? Really? Would that person have bought that? He might have just borrowed it for a day."

Still, I wouldn't expect Sony to allow copying anytime soon. Or even to rollback their laughingstock copy protection, for that matter. But it's nice to see somebody high profile talking sense once in a while.

Airport face identification isn't practical? Try telling the Australian Government that. They are trialling a hybrid face-recognition/biometric passport system that sends shivers up my spine.

To put the numbers in perspective... there have been 20 million Sony Playstation 2's sold since its launch. This article claims it costs Microsoft $320 to make an Xbox.

Microsoft has $40 billion in cash. That's not capital tied up in equipment, that's money in the bank. This means that, if Microsoft decided to contact every PS2 owner around the world, everyone who has bought a PS2 in the last three years, buy them a free Xbox, and send it to them with free shipping... they would be left with only $34 billion.

Microsoft could then buy a controlling interest in Sony Corporation for $26 billion, and then pay retail for a $50 free game for every child in America (from newborn infants up to the 17-year-olds). After doing all that, Microsoft would still have over four billion dollars in cash reserves.

Amazon

Cybersource

Great Debate

You can find more on your own.

The most compelling proof for me has been my own experience working in mixed Windows/Linux/Unix environments. I know for a fact that my TCO has been so much lower for the Unix/Linux installations that there can not even be a comparison made with the Windows installations. I'm not bashing Microsoft, I'm stating facts from personal experience.

The Christmas trading season probably skewed the US figures somewhat, but Japan, Europe and Australia tell a similar story. The Xbox was launched in Australia on March 14 for $A649, more than $A100 more than the PS2. It sold 9000 in the first week (after MS said they would sell 20,000-30,000) and about 3000 a week since then. The PS2 has been outselling the Xbox two to one, with average monthly sales of 6000 a week. Part of this is to do with the fact that PS2 has a special entertainment pack (with DVDs etc) on offer at the moment, but it's still extraordinary.

And yes, the retailers' attitude makes a huge difference. One of the biggest retail chains in Australia, Harvey Norman, has actually refused to stock the Xbox because they weren't going to make any margin.

There is a collection of here that tells the story.

The original story was in The Daily Telegraph, GOVERNMENT SPIED ON US yesterday.

It's interesting that they are now denying the spying, because a Government minister was quoted yesterday defending the spying in this AAP story run on the Sydney Morning Herald website. They seem to have edited the story now, but the original quoted Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott saying the most interesting thing about the Telegraph report was the fact that the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) was making phone calls to the Norwegian ship!

It's completely outrageous that the Government is trying to deflect blame by questioning the MUA's motives. That completely side steps the issue. I couldn't care less what the MUA and the captain discussed, the point is that they have a right to do so. This was a political issue not a matter of
national security.

It's an ethical minefield, regardless of whether the Government's actions are in the letter of the law. I object to a taxpayer-funded spying organisation that was set up to protect Australia's national security being hijacked for political ends. A Norwegian ship captain is entitled to talk to people in Australia without being spied on unless he is suspected of terrorism or something similar. In this case, the only purpose of the eavesdropping was to formulate a political response in an election campaign.

Today there are plenty of good columns and editorials condemning the Government.

Editorial: Canberra must answer spy allegations

and Scott Burchill: Indefensible breach of privacy

Of course, we all know that governments spy on us (think Echelon) but it's more than a little grubby if the data is used for political ends.

The original story was in The Daily Telegraph, GOVERNMENT SPIED ON US yesterday.

It's interesting that they are now denying the spying, because a Government minister was quoted yesterday defending the spying in this AAP story run on the Sydney Morning Herald website. They seem to have edited the story now, but the original quoted Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott saying the most interesting thing about the Telegraph report was the fact that the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) was making phone calls to the Norwegian ship!

It's completely outrageous that the Government is trying to deflect blame by questioning the MUA's motives. That completely side steps the issue. I couldn't care less what the MUA and the captain discussed, the point is that they have a right to do so. This was a political issue not a matter of
national security.

It's an ethical minefield, regardless of whether the Government's actions are in the letter of the law. I object to a taxpayer-funded spying organisation that was set up to protect Australia's national security being hijacked for political ends. A Norwegian ship captain is entitled to talk to people in Australia without being spied on unless he is suspected of terrorism or something similar. In this case, the only purpose of the eavesdropping was to formulate a political response in an election campaign.

Today there are plenty of good columns and editorials condemning the Government.

Editorial: Canberra must answer spy allegations

and Scott Burchill: Indefensible breach of privacy

Of course, we all know that governments spy on us (think Echelon) but it's more than a little grubby if the data is used for political ends.

The original story was in The Daily Telegraph, GOVERNMENT SPIED ON US yesterday.

It's interesting that they are now denying the spying, because a Government minister was quoted yesterday defending the spying in this AAP story run on the Sydney Morning Herald website. They seem to have edited the story now, but the original quoted Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott saying the most interesting thing about the Telegraph report was the fact that the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) was making phone calls to the Norwegian ship!

It's completely outrageous that the Government is trying to deflect blame by questioning the MUA's motives. That completely side steps the issue. I couldn't care less what the MUA and the captain discussed, the point is that they have a right to do so. This was a political issue not a matter of
national security.

It's an ethical minefield, regardless of whether the Government's actions are in the letter of the law. I object to a taxpayer-funded spying organisation that was set up to protect Australia's national security being hijacked for political ends. A Norwegian ship captain is entitled to talk to people in Australia without being spied on unless he is suspected of terrorism or something similar. In this case, the only purpose of the eavesdropping was to formulate a political response in an election campaign.

Today there are plenty of good columns and editorials condemning the Government.

Editorial: Canberra must answer spy allegations

and Scott Burchill: Indefensible breach of privacy

Of course, we all know that governments spy on us (think Echelon) but it's more than a little grubby if the data is used for political ends.

can be found here

personally, I think that spying on citizens is like masturbation. Everyone does it, no one admits it, and in the end it gets you nowhere.

Why go all the way to the airport when you can get plenty of wireless coverage for next to nothing* (here in Sydney at least)

*conscience not included

I was wondering if there were any portable ogg/vorbis players the other day too. Unfortunalty I found nothing useful except this article which mentions that the HipZip player mentions a company which is responsible for Ogg Vorbis.. And, something about this Dadio OS

The issue with this case is that the judge found the main point of hiring a DVD is to watch the content (the movie and any extras) and the software is incidental.

From Films aren't software, court rules on Australian IT:

Justice Emmett said a DVD contained computer programs that allowed the film to be played, but the film itself was not a computer program.

"If I hire a book from a lending library, the subject matter of the hire is the paper and cardboard with markings in printers ink," he said. "The essential object of the hire, however, is to be able to read the contents of the book."

Very sensible, I think!

Anyway, this is old - see this article from December 10. It's written more for an IT audience as well, so better for /. community.

See: December 10 | Films aren't software, court rules.

This was submitted to Slashdot at the time and wasn't run. Hmmm.

Why is the Herald only reporting this now? And why is Slashdot only accepting the submission now? This was reported in Australian IT on December 10 (Films aren't software, court rules). It was also submitted to Slashdot, but rejected. Why? What's the bet that this comment gets censored too?

Can be found here. It is dating back to Novemeber 05, 2001.

A) Apologise to you shareholders and learn from the experience
B) Gouge your customers for the cash

Guess which option Ziggy took? Not just with Internet, but also with mobile phone services which are soon to become one of the most expensive in the world.

The price rises are nothing to do with the pofitability of ADSL operations

Xix.

this is suspiciously like the very statement you criticize, where the government doesn't want to come clean about what is on the black list.

In any case, one typical example are the Government of Helmut Kohl in Germany, who just a few years ago destroyed evidence of illegal actions they had been taking against various scapegoats and organizations they had blacklisted.

much more recently in Australia there is this Sex Scandal coverup which has possibilities for censorship, dated 10 Jan 2002.

Cheer up. It could be worse. What would happen if the Government lied to us?

But wait there's more....you are probably thinking why there is not higher cap plan available? Well the situation is if you went to the link I provided above there is a 5GB cap plan (no speed limit)...look at the price... A$209 ($US100) per month!!!!
What really amazes me is that it would be cheaper (but not possible in this case) to set up 2 x 3GB cap cable accounts and it would be still cheaper than the 5GB plan. I just don't get how Tel$tra has come up with their pricing models! Let's just say you wanted 10GB Cap, $US 200 per month!!! What do ordinary Optus customers pay for this competing service? Approx $70 ($US35) per month. Only 17% of the Telstra cost!!!

According to Telstra, the customers have to "MANAGE" their usage to ensure they don't go over their cap...so what tools have Telstra given to its customer's? A an online usage meter that does not work! Check this link to see why customers a very angry. I wish I could switch over to Optus, but where I live, Telstra is the only broadband provider. Talk about monopoly.

Optus customers have it good and I wish I could join you guys. I think the broadband broadband offered overseas kick butt.

Maybe I should relocate (I can not see myself going back to dialup). Btw, Telstra have recently introduced these new restrictions so I did not know about them until after I signed the contract months before.
Here's a link that mentions the first customer hit with the 3G cap.

Melbourne a target for hijack terror
By RAHUL BEDI in New Delhi, MARK DUNN and IAN McPHEDRAN
07dec01

MELBOURNE'S landmark Rialto Towers were the target of a suicide hijack plot by a terror suspect linked to the September 11 attacks.

The man, with confessed links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network, trained as a pilot at a Moorabbin flying school in 1997 and 1998.
It has been revealed the man and associates plotted to crash hijacked jets into targets, including the 55-storey Rialto, London's Houses of Parliament and Tower Bridge, and New Delhi's parliament.

About 10,000 work in the Rialto - the tallest office building in the southern hemisphere and headquarters of some of Australia's leading financial, legal and IT companies.

...well sorta.

The Australian government's soloution to the problem of controlling what web site content is suitable for kids to view was to set up a fully government owned company called NetAlert, and in their favour they do promote close supervision by parents rather than censorship.

It's just a shame that the governemnt have not listened to their own advisory body and tend to prefer to travel the path of censorship. :0p

However since conception of NetAlert they have done nothing but pour millions of dollars into self promotion and haven't made any real effort to find a solution to the problems at hand, there was an article about this on Australian IT a while back but (I couldn't find the exact link). The report had details of how many tens of thousands of dollars were being spent on NetAlert fridge magnets .... all tax payer money!!

And now NetAlert still aren't happy with their corporate identity so they are in the process of developing their third website in about two years! Well there goes another $50,000 or so :0p

On of the local rags up here in Australia is reporting that three possible sites have been identified.

Link Here: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page /0,5478,3258422%255E662,00.html

LL

Don't forget the BBC, The Australian and Herald Sun, The New Zealand Herald, and every other English-language paper on the planet (for those of us who prefer to read English, that is). These papers often have more details than American papers, especially with regards to this whole terrorism thing. It's really useful to get an international perspective sometimes.

Don't forget the BBC, The Australian and Herald Sun, The New Zealand Herald, and every other English-language paper on the planet (for those of us who prefer to read English, that is). These papers often have more details than American papers, especially with regards to this whole terrorism thing. It's really useful to get an international perspective sometimes.

Yeah, right, because Israel's been doing such a bang-up job of preventing terrorism through their methods. Israel taught those terrorists a lesson back in 1967 and they've had no significant terrorist incidents since then.

It amazes me that the people who warn us not to cave in to terrorists are the same ones urging massive retaliation to teach them a lesson or to make sure they fear us enough to stop committing terrorist acts. Get this through your heads, folks. Massive retaliation is caving in to terrorists. It is exactly what they want us to do; read this article, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one for five very different pieces of the same puzzle. The bottom line is that massive retaliation is exactly what bin Laden wants and what terrorists want in general, since it makes them stronger. The empirical evidence is clear: Israeli policy has demonstrably led to increased terrorism. The theoretical evidence is clear: terrorists and their teachers, like the Brazilian writer cited in the first of the links above, themselves have stated quite clearly that they want massive retaliation because it will expose their enemies and unite their friends. The growing anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world, even amongst communities not directly targeted in the attacks on Afghanistan is evidence that the terrorists' plan is working. We are handing them what they want on a silver platter. And for those who are calling for a policy that will make the US "hugely feared" in the middle east, peep this: Islamic terrorists will never fear the US more than they fear Allah. Their leaders might, for a time, and most of the people in the region might, for a time, but if even .01% of the Muslim world still believes that Allah will reward them for killing Americans, that's 150,000 terrorists on the loose.

Finding and destroying the people responsible for the attacks on 9/11 is common sense, and that goal has my full support as an American and as a human being. But surely the greatest and most powerful nation in human history can find a way to crush a relatively tiny cult of ignorant thugs without driving half the world into their arms and to their defense.

Yeah, right, because Israel's been doing such a bang-up job of preventing terrorism through their methods. Israel taught those terrorists a lesson back in 1967 and they've had no significant terrorist incidents since then.

It amazes me that the people who warn us not to cave in to terrorists are the same ones urging massive retaliation to teach them a lesson or to make sure they fear us enough to stop committing terrorist acts. Get this through your heads, folks. Massive retaliation is caving in to terrorists. It is exactly what they want us to do; read this article, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one for five very different pieces of the same puzzle. The bottom line is that massive retaliation is exactly what bin Laden wants and what terrorists want in general, since it makes them stronger. The empirical evidence is clear: Israeli policy has demonstrably led to increased terrorism. The theoretical evidence is clear: terrorists and their teachers, like the Brazilian writer cited in the first of the links above, themselves have stated quite clearly that they want massive retaliation because it will expose their enemies and unite their friends. The growing anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world, even amongst communities not directly targeted in the attacks on Afghanistan is evidence that the terrorists' plan is working. We are handing them what they want on a silver platter. And for those who are calling for a policy that will make the US "hugely feared" in the middle east, peep this: Islamic terrorists will never fear the US more than they fear Allah. Their leaders might, for a time, and most of the people in the region might, for a time, but if even .01% of the Muslim world still believes that Allah will reward them for killing Americans, that's 150,000 terrorists on the loose.

Finding and destroying the people responsible for the attacks on 9/11 is common sense, and that goal has my full support as an American and as a human being. But surely the greatest and most powerful nation in human history can find a way to crush a relatively tiny cult of ignorant thugs without driving half the world into their arms and to their defense.

The article is VERY similar to the CNN article. How's that for lazy journalism? Pinching a story off /. and just changing a few words, and getting paid for it by a major newspaper.

There are no borders in a religious war...

Check this: Muslim pupils attacked in Australia

Particularly: "Meanwhile, Mr Deen criticised Islamic students who were cheering as television images of the plane crashes played at a Queensland university library yesterday."

I assume we'll be deporting the little darlings at the first opportunity?

I found this on an Australian news agency.. (The only news agency I have been able to view so far)
http://www.news.com.au

below is the article from them stating who has owned up to the atrocity of the World Trade Center plane crashes.

Group claims responsibility

11sep01

A PALESTINIAN group has claimed responsibility for the New York World Trade Center attacks.

Abu Dhabi television reports it's received a call from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine abroad claiming responsibility for crashing two planes into the World Trade Center buildings.

Qatar-based al-Jazeera television reports FBI sources say one of the two aircraft had been hijacked.

In another article they hint that a fourth plane was hijacked and heading towards Washington and jets have been scrambled to intercept the plane.

IS

Just check out this article, about a former magistrate in South Australia who took delight in abusing his trust with children.

Liddy refuses to face tearful victims
A bit of a read, but it will change your mind.

This guy did the whole .au domain authority without making any money? He should of started a business off the get go. The best way to make the rules is to be the one in power, and now he is force to hand the keys to the kingdom over to IANA.

The SMH link was down, check out the Australian IT news site out.

I beg to differ. In other news today, Aussie commandos boarded a tanker to stop it entering Australian territory.

The current government is quite prepared to use force if need be.

Wouldn't this require the cooperation of the national government of the defendant's country of origin?

More or less, yes. There's an opinion piece in The Australian which mentions that they'll probably have to apply to a US court to have the damages awarded. The US court is unlikely to award damages unless it meets the US criteria for defamation.

Not that this doesn't fill me with a certain sense of irony. The US courts have been quite happy to extend their jurisdiction in civil cases to whereever it pleases them in the past. So one could say that the precedent has already been set.

Wouldn't this require the cooperation of the national government of the defendant's country of origin?

More or less, yes. There's an opinion piece in The Australian which mentions that they'll probably have to apply to a US court to have the damages awarded. The US court is unlikely to award damages unless it meets the US criteria for defamation.

Not that this doesn't fill me with a certain sense of irony. The US courts have been quite happy to extend their jurisdiction in civil cases to whereever it pleases them in the past. So one could say that the precedent has already been set.

For an Australian Court to rule that a message posted upon a website operated in the United States, by an American company, and directed at readers almost exclusively in the U.S., is, merely because it can be read by someone in Australia, now subject to the jurisdiction of Australian Courts, the start of a dangerous precedent.

If someone imports a copy from the U.S. of the Wall Street Journal into Australia, does that make the publisher liable in Australia for alleged libel on a story in the newspaper?

Perhaps there are assets of Dow Jones & Company somewhere in Australia which the plaintiff in this particular case can attach, but, if not, they would have to come to someplace - most likely the U.S. - and then they'd have to convince an American Court (or whatever country they think they can find assets to attach) to accept the judgement as valid, not necessarily all that easy if the defendant fights it claiming that the courts in Australia have overstepped their jurisdiction.

The issue is even stronger if it was someone who had no presence outside the U.S., who decided not to try and defend what to them was a ridiculous lawsuit and the other party were trying to enforce a default judgement where the website operator didn't show up. The party suing might even be held liable for damages if the suit is considered frivolous or unreasonable.

It is this sort of relatively stupid attempt at an overly Draconian long-arm statute law that will eventually destroy respect for the judiciary and could conceivably backfire.

If the Australian Courts can impose in personam jurisdiction upon someone outside of the country merely because they put something up on a website outside of the country but can be read in their country, then those who publish elsewhere could do the same thing to impose in personam jurisdiction upon someone outside of the country who attempts to sue or respond to their content.

The website publisher could include language in their right to use clause of their website, perhaps with a click-thru agreement in order to get to it, possibly even via a law similar to UCITA and using that to require someone who has a complaint to use arbitration in a specific city of their choosing, or to sue them only in a specific court, perhaps tossing it back on them and requiring anyone using the site to submit to in personam jurisdiction in their area and agreeing to accept service by mail, and requiring they not sue the website operator in any other place or agreeing to automatic liquidated damages of three times the amount of the judgement and agreeing to allow the website operator to submit the automatic judgement to the local court in the city where the publisher operates and allow it to be collected anywhere in the world without trial, and, waiving any defenses and any other requirements which might be available elsewhere.

Imposing 'long arm' jurisdiction over the Internet for communications or use where the other party has no physical presence is conceivably a two-edged sword and it cuts both ways.

Well, Optus@home have clarified their position (probably at the behest of a shit-scared legal dept). To quote Optus@Home chief executive Chris Chapman :

The internet provider was not actively monitoring its customers' usage and would only investigate if notified of the activity by the copyright holder.

"It's a fair cop role - not 'cop' as in an active cop, but we're prepared to work within the co-operative framework," Mr Chapman said.

"We will not walk away from copyright piracy issues if it's brought to our attention. It's a reactive but responsible role, not a proactive role."

This appears to be a completely different approach (aka complete backdown) compared to the imflammatory remarks spewed out by the first spokesperson.

You can view the full article here.

The Australian (National daily newspaper) had this story on their site from around noon WST (+0800). In Australia, regional LUGs are doing a nationwide InstallFest to celebrate.

Not an option. Optus@Home is one of two cable providers in the country. When the other cable provider leaves you with a 3gig download cap per month, you basically are left with the choice of our horrendous ADSL network, a 3 gig cap on Telstra cable or staying with Optus.

That being said however, the reality is no where near as bad as the story makes it out to be. According to the O@H CEO in this article, they are not actually monitoring downloads at all, but rather will only be investigating if someone dobs the user in for wrongdoings.

• "It's a fair cop role - not 'cop' as in an active cop, but we're prepared to work within the co-operative framework," Mr Chapman said. "We will not walk away from copyright piracy issues if it' s brought to our attention. It's a reactive but responsible role, not a proactive role."

They confirmed they will not be actively monitoring customer internet traffic. They're just handling complaints about their users, just like every other ISP already does. They are not scanning downloads for copyright violations as the article title suggests.

http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/444

I'm sure that all the optus@home pirates tune into that newgroup all the time!! Thats a great way to pretend that you've announced something important.

Shouldn't they be informing everyone via email about them graduating from cop school?

Also, something thats interesting is their response, they believe they'll be "reactive" rather than "pro-active". Snooping is snooping, no matter how you do it. Thanks Optus!

http://australianit.news.com.au/common/storyPage/0 ,3811,2668089%5E442,00.html

They're in damage control mode now. Saying they will only monitor traffic after a complaint from a copyright holder. However, it's still not clear if such a complaint can only lead to investigation of an individual user, or if it can lead to blanket monitoring of the optus network for that complainers' content.

Check this out: US admits losing nuke off the coast of Georgia.

If we slashdot readers can only find that nuke and recover it, we could use it to bail out Loki!

Imagine the possible schemes:

Open up a PayPal account for the benefit of Loki, and threaten to nuke Microsoft unless they contribute $1,000,000.

Threaten the United States Government that the Linux community will nuke a random city if they don't pass a law making Windows games illegal, and forgive Loki of all their tax obligations.

Nuke ESR, to make him shut him up finally. (That will improved the public's perception of the Linux community so much that Loki will have no problem selling as many games as they need to stay in business.)

If we play our cards right, we can do all three! What a glorious day that would be for Open Software!!! Does anyone have access to some boats and diving equipment we could use? Let's get started!!!

It was reported in the IT section of The Australian. You can find the article here

Mass transit isn't as safe as you'd think.

Cars kill fewer people at once.

I guess if something happens while you are on some mass transit you can at least expect it to be on the world news (small comfort).

>It's a pitty that the US government so heavily subsidizes automobiles and gives other forms of transit the shaft

As a Canadian who has been to the states often enough to understand mass transit in both countries, I quickly realised that mass transit ONLY works in huge cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta, Detriot, New York, for example. And since a large amount of the population in both countries lives in cities where ANYTHING and EVERYTHING (especially work) takes a minimum of a 15 minute drive (often 1/2 hour) mass transit is NOT a viable choice. I refuse to wait an hour (each way) to get my groceries by bus. Heck, where I live I have to drive 20 minutes just to pick up groceries, and I'm only 5 minutes out of a city of 300,000. This is normal in a not-so-big-but-growing city.

Rail: Won't work because you'd have to stop for 3 minutes every 3 rail minutes to pick people up, due to urban sprawl. It will take twice as long to get to the destination (assuming traffic on the roads isn't bad -- and in the smaller cities it usually isn't).

Bus: A better idea, but still much too slow. The amount of buses needed to take so few people ends up pumping more crap into the air than the individual cars, from what I see now.

Supersonic Transport: Great for going to other cities. But that isn't really the problem, is it?

Subway: Not unless your city population is in the millions. The price is just way too high.

Basically, these ideas work well for most other developed countries because their population in most cities is high enough to support them. The United States, and Canada (especially) don't have enough population density to make these ideas work.

I think if you want to solve the problems of the under 1/2 million population cities you need to pack people in more tightly and fix the roads so that people can get where they need to go quickly. Oh, and you need to encourage more really local business (like a 5 minute walk local), rather than have patches of houses, and (far away) patches of stores.

Just my 2 cents.

• Legislation they cannot realistically enforce. Banning Internet gambling, attempting Internet censorship, making web caching illegal, making PlayStation mods illegal. Censorship laws have so far been a complete failure, with people circumventing them. Internet censorship is said to have cost $2.5 million, while providing no benefit. It's genuinely frightening that the people writing these laws have no knowledge of what they are trying to control.

• Partially privatising the previously Government-owned telco (49% so far) for political purposes, which has made them give clear priority to profit and share price over service. Access to affordable telecommunications in rural areas is getting gradually worse (though the private sector is helping). They restrict their broadband net access to 3Gb/month after selling it as unlimited, while ensuring they are the only available broadband provider for many Australians. They were force to give other carriers access to their DSL network, so they now sell wholesale network access at $69/month, while selling broadband DSL net access to consumers at $70/month (line + access + equipment), and placing limits on the service. Just today, they are refusing to give any rebate to a broadband customer who had a 13 day outage. Somehow the government don't see any of this as a problem, and still plan to sell the rest of Telstra.

• Various laws with no regard for the privacy of citizens, like allowing spies to crack systems, and remotely tap and alter data.

For what it's worth, even Microsoft realise they are hopeless. Hopefully they'll be voted out at the next election (probably later this year?), and this insanity will end.

Hey! I'm the IT guy at the department where Richard (Bert) Roberts works. Woohoo!

Pity he's just resigned. Doh!

Tim Flannery (also mentioned in the linked article) wrote a very interesting book a few years back called The Future Eaters . It was an eye-opener for me on fire-stick farming and megafaunal extinctions due to humans in Australian prehistory. Very cool book, although the guy in the office next to me snorts in derision every time I mention it (Well, he did discover Mungo Man in 1974, the oldest known human remains in Australia - so I guess he's entitled to his opinion :) Flannery has a new book out on the ecological history of North America, The Eternal Frontier , which also looks interesting.
--

or in this case, our poor, fragile police.