Both sides of politics listen to various Christian lobby groups. Labour don't have a monopoly on that (but don't let that get in the way of a good partisan rant). I support those groups' right to lobby, even if I don't agree with their position.
I think its also relevant to the discussion that a number of Christian lobby groups oppose the filtering. Some of them realise that its ineffective and the censorship side of it is dangerous to our freedoms. The groups that oppose it would prefer to see the money spent on measures which are effective e.g. resourcing police so they can catch the pedos, educating parents about supervising their kids on the net etc.
High-flying CxOs have been insisting for *years* that their insultingly high remuneration packages are justified because they are the ones responsible for success.
Well, that means they must also be responsible for the failures... [SNIP]
Except in most cases they aren't taking responsibility for their failures. They're still getting their bonuses on top of their 7 figure salaries. At worst the execs are keeping their pay at the same absurdly high levels as it was during the good times (auto makers being a notable exception to this rule).
Most credit card companies charge a percentage on the transaction value, in the range of about 1% to 4%. You probably didn't cost them any extra and just pissed off any motorists waiting in the queue to use your pump.
The Enlightenment has died in Australia, and it's sad that the people aren't marching on Adelaide demanding the government's resignation and Rudd's forced expulsion
We did march on Adelaide. The only problem with that plan was the minor detail that parliament house is in Canberra.
Tenders for the building the broadband were submitted to the government a couple of weeks ago. It hit the media because Telstra was chucking a hissy fit. Construction will probably start some time next year, after the government chooses the winning bid.
Actually there was a big media shitstorm earlier in the year about a photographer (Bill Henson) taking photos of nude teenagers and putting them on display in an art gallery. The cops raided the gallery and took his photos off the wall the day before the exhibition opened. This happened despite the fact that his work wasn't child porn according to Aus law, even without the exemption for artistic freedoms it still wouldn't have fit the definition of what is illegal.
No one likes to admit they're wrong, journalists included. The corrections in the paper I read are usually a tiny part of a column buried somewhere on page 2. No one reads them, but you can bet that a lot of people read that front page story from the day before that had the error in it.
My country (Australia) has both private (1/3 students) and public schools (2/3). Education is administered at state level here, so a direct comparison to the USA may not be applicable.
Quality of education is about the same in both the public and private systems. Some of the elite private schools always place highly in the year 12 results tables. I'll point out that the results are manipulated because they are able to do things like give scholarships to talented students and quietly ask less intelligent students to leave at the end of year 10. Public schools can't do this. Even the best private schools still get beaten regularly by state selective schools, which are public schools for gifted students that you have to sit a test to get into.
There is also evidence to suggest that public school students do better at university and in the real world than private school students with equivalent year 12 marks. This is due to having had to fend for themselves more during high school instead of having their hands held the whole way through.
As for cost, you're dead wrong about the private system being cheaper. Public schools get 1/3 of government funding for education and the private schools receive 2/3. Only 1/3rd of students go to private schools. I should also mention that private schools charge fees ranging from around AUD$2000 to AUD$20000 a year, depending on the school. In total private schools have a lot more money to play with than public schools, and deliver the same quality of education. So private schools also fail on the count of being able to do it cheaper than the public system (although I think more spending in the public system would allow it to be better resources).
Parents don't pay more attention to what their kids learn at private schools. The number one argument in the media for sending children there is that they will be taught "values" (most private schools are religious). These "values" are always loosely defined at best. The real number one reason parents have for choosing a private school, according to a survey by an education professor, was that the parents like the uniforms better.
First, it's clear that he doesn't really know what he's talking about. Two, it only bothers him because he's aware of it. It's a psychological thing.
I totally agree. The linked video was useless as a comparison, because the video itself was running at 24fps. I did notice a difference on the bouncing ball (the 2nd ball is relevant, the first is just camera technique and you could make it look similarly blurry at 60fps if you wanted), but I could not see any difference in the ut2k4 side by side. Nor should I have been able to according to scientific fact.
For gaming I do think having a higher fps (e.g. 60) is better. This is because the frame rate isn't constant but depends on how much work the graphics card is doing. The frame rate drops when you have water, reflections, rockets exploding all around you etc. If you get 60fps normally, this means you have some room for your frame rate to drop to drop without looking jerky.
As for movies and TV, I'm sorry that the OP can't enjoy them, unlike normal people (it is possible he's not making up his complaining and just has extraordinarily good vision). They have, to my knowledge, always been screened at 24fps or thereabouts and will always be broadcast at a similar rate. Any extra frame rate is just wasted.
I doubt any of these are going to happen in the next 5 years, if at all. Here are my thoughts on each of their predictions.
1. Solar power This sounds a lot like the 50s and 60s sci-fi where every little gadget is nuclear powered. Not going to happen. I can imagine more and more portable devices switching to solar, but I think it will be closer to 10-15 years before it becomes widespread.
2. DNA testing Could happen, but I don't think it will be a common practice in 5 years time.
3. Voice input Speech to text is still pretty bad. Some examples of problems it still struggles with are handling different accents, background noise. I think instead of voice input we will see a lot more touch-screen interfaces similar to the Nintendo DS and iPhone. Keyboard + mouse will still rule the desktop.
4. Robot shop assistants Sounds far too annoying and expensive for the retailers to catch on. Also what's the point of having a robot if a human then has to go and get the item(s) suggested by it? Why not have the human make the suggestions as is currently done?
5. Memory aids I doubt people's behavior will change so much in 5 years that everything we do will be recorded. I think we are heading that way, but I'd allow longer than 5 years for it to become mainstream. I'd also suggest that a lot of work still needs to be done with how data is stored, organized, searched etc. for this to become useful. There's no point in having everything recorded if you aren't able to find the information you need at a later date.
I just asked a co-worker who did his citizenship test a few weeks ago about the Donald Bradman question. He said one of the example questions was about him. One of the actual questions was about horse racing. So yes, sport is far more important than nerds in Australia.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see how that's any different to the taxi drivers here.
You mean to tell us you actually made some sort of effort to read the article?
Your proposal has far too much common sense in it. Something like that would never be adopted.
Both sides of politics listen to various Christian lobby groups. Labour don't have a monopoly on that (but don't let that get in the way of a good partisan rant). I support those groups' right to lobby, even if I don't agree with their position.
I think its also relevant to the discussion that a number of Christian lobby groups oppose the filtering. Some of them realise that its ineffective and the censorship side of it is dangerous to our freedoms. The groups that oppose it would prefer to see the money spent on measures which are effective e.g. resourcing police so they can catch the pedos, educating parents about supervising their kids on the net etc.
NB: I'm not affiliated with any lobby groups.
Except in most cases they aren't taking responsibility for their failures. They're still getting their bonuses on top of their 7 figure salaries. At worst the execs are keeping their pay at the same absurdly high levels as it was during the good times (auto makers being a notable exception to this rule).
Another one bites the dust.
furries don't shave, hence the name furry
Since when did something become morally right because other people are doing it too?
In other news 45% of slashdot stories are pirate copies.
Most credit card companies charge a percentage on the transaction value, in the range of about 1% to 4%. You probably didn't cost them any extra and just pissed off any motorists waiting in the queue to use your pump.
That's a piss poor idea!
We did march on Adelaide. The only problem with that plan was the minor detail that parliament house is in Canberra.
Tenders for the building the broadband were submitted to the government a couple of weeks ago. It hit the media because Telstra was chucking a hissy fit. Construction will probably start some time next year, after the government chooses the winning bid.
My understanding of Australian law is that it does make this distinction too (Not a lawyer)
Actually there was a big media shitstorm earlier in the year about a photographer (Bill Henson) taking photos of nude teenagers and putting them on display in an art gallery. The cops raided the gallery and took his photos off the wall the day before the exhibition opened. This happened despite the fact that his work wasn't child porn according to Aus law, even without the exemption for artistic freedoms it still wouldn't have fit the definition of what is illegal.
No one likes to admit they're wrong, journalists included. The corrections in the paper I read are usually a tiny part of a column buried somewhere on page 2. No one reads them, but you can bet that a lot of people read that front page story from the day before that had the error in it.
My country (Australia) has both private (1/3 students) and public schools (2/3). Education is administered at state level here, so a direct comparison to the USA may not be applicable.
Quality of education is about the same in both the public and private systems. Some of the elite private schools always place highly in the year 12 results tables. I'll point out that the results are manipulated because they are able to do things like give scholarships to talented students and quietly ask less intelligent students to leave at the end of year 10. Public schools can't do this. Even the best private schools still get beaten regularly by state selective schools, which are public schools for gifted students that you have to sit a test to get into.
There is also evidence to suggest that public school students do better at university and in the real world than private school students with equivalent year 12 marks. This is due to having had to fend for themselves more during high school instead of having their hands held the whole way through.
As for cost, you're dead wrong about the private system being cheaper. Public schools get 1/3 of government funding for education and the private schools receive 2/3. Only 1/3rd of students go to private schools. I should also mention that private schools charge fees ranging from around AUD$2000 to AUD$20000 a year, depending on the school. In total private schools have a lot more money to play with than public schools, and deliver the same quality of education. So private schools also fail on the count of being able to do it cheaper than the public system (although I think more spending in the public system would allow it to be better resources).
Parents don't pay more attention to what their kids learn at private schools. The number one argument in the media for sending children there is that they will be taught "values" (most private schools are religious). These "values" are always loosely defined at best. The real number one reason parents have for choosing a private school, according to a survey by an education professor, was that the parents like the uniforms better.
I don't think our current AD and BC year numbering systems existed at the time.
I totally agree. The linked video was useless as a comparison, because the video itself was running at 24fps. I did notice a difference on the bouncing ball (the 2nd ball is relevant, the first is just camera technique and you could make it look similarly blurry at 60fps if you wanted), but I could not see any difference in the ut2k4 side by side. Nor should I have been able to according to scientific fact.
For gaming I do think having a higher fps (e.g. 60) is better. This is because the frame rate isn't constant but depends on how much work the graphics card is doing. The frame rate drops when you have water, reflections, rockets exploding all around you etc. If you get 60fps normally, this means you have some room for your frame rate to drop to drop without looking jerky.
As for movies and TV, I'm sorry that the OP can't enjoy them, unlike normal people (it is possible he's not making up his complaining and just has extraordinarily good vision). They have, to my knowledge, always been screened at 24fps or thereabouts and will always be broadcast at a similar rate. Any extra frame rate is just wasted.
I doubt any of these are going to happen in the next 5 years, if at all. Here are my thoughts on each of their predictions.
1. Solar power
This sounds a lot like the 50s and 60s sci-fi where every little gadget is nuclear powered. Not going to happen. I can imagine more and more portable devices switching to solar, but I think it will be closer to 10-15 years before it becomes widespread.
2. DNA testing
Could happen, but I don't think it will be a common practice in 5 years time.
3. Voice input
Speech to text is still pretty bad. Some examples of problems it still struggles with are handling different accents, background noise. I think instead of voice input we will see a lot more touch-screen interfaces similar to the Nintendo DS and iPhone. Keyboard + mouse will still rule the desktop.
4. Robot shop assistants
Sounds far too annoying and expensive for the retailers to catch on. Also what's the point of having a robot if a human then has to go and get the item(s) suggested by it? Why not have the human make the suggestions as is currently done?
5. Memory aids
I doubt people's behavior will change so much in 5 years that everything we do will be recorded. I think we are heading that way, but I'd allow longer than 5 years for it to become mainstream. I'd also suggest that a lot of work still needs to be done with how data is stored, organized, searched etc. for this to become useful. There's no point in having everything recorded if you aren't able to find the information you need at a later date.
I just asked a co-worker who did his citizenship test a few weeks ago about the Donald Bradman question. He said one of the example questions was about him. One of the actual questions was about horse racing. So yes, sport is far more important than nerds in Australia.
I agree, the worst thing about censorship is
And let SLIP the dogs of war.
Taggers, please quote correctly.
I'd just like to point out how relevant the parent poster's sig is to the discussion.
I think the term ginger has to do with the similarity in colour to the spice ginger.