I do understand why the system is the way it is. But it still drives me nuts.:)
I'm Australian originally and in Australia our GST (sales tax equivalent) is administered and collected Federally, which allows it to be a flat national rate. The Federal government then redistributes that money among the states (based on some no-doubt ridiculously complex calculation). So the money is still 'for' the States, it's just not ~collected~ by them.
Like in Europe, the GST is embedded in the cost of the item. But I don't agree that it allows the rate to be raised without people noticing, as it's specified very clearly on the receipt you get (i.e. the $20-stickered item will cost $20, but you'll see on the receipt that it's "$20, including $1.81 of GST". Plus the rate of GST has never actually changed - it's been 10% since its inception and any adjustment to this rate would make so much news that you'd have to be oblivious not to know.
I think America would benefit from a similar system (sales tax collected Federally then distributed to States via some agreed and fair method). Not because the amount of tax revenue raised would be more/less, but simply because it's simpler. Reducing administrative burden saves a lot of money - some obvious, some not so. However I am a realist - I know that states' rights is a big thing over there (it is fairly important in Australia too, but not to the same extent), and it's pretty unlikely to happen. Especially when you have 50 states that can veto it, as opposed to the 6 we have here;)
A similar number of deductions and credits exist in other countries too, such that it's possible to have negative tax liabilities... that isn't unique to the US. It's just administratively simple to have a tax-free threshold (0% tax bracket) at the low end. People who don't make more than this, and who don't qualify for any other credits/deductions might be relevant, need not file a tax return at all in some places.
Agreed. I have resided in and worked long-term in many countries including the US, Australia, several Asian and European countries. I definitely paid less tax in the US than I ever did in any other country (on a similar income).
US income taxes are generally lower than other developed countries for most income brackets. This is especially true at the middle-high income level (the top US Federal income tax rate is 35%, compared to 50+% in most of Europe and 45% in Australia, and it kicks in at a higher income). The exception is low-income earners, who pay more in the US than in other countries (many countries have a 0% tax bracket for the first $x of income per year, but US income taxes kick in from the first dollar).
US sales taxes are lowish too, compared with, say, 15-20% VAT seen in much of Europe, or 10% GST in Australia etc. (As an aside, they are also ridiculously complex, varying from State to State, county to county and even city to city - seems like a massive administrative burden compared to the single, flat rate seen almost everywhere else. In fact in most other places, the sales tax/VAT/GST is included in the advertised cost of the item, so if it says $20 on the shelf, it's actually $20 when you get to the counter... not $20 + 5.75% or whatever random percentage the state/county applies. That always drives me nuts when I'm in the US)
There will be Oceanic servers for D3, as there are for SC2. Based in Singapore, admittedly so still a way from Australia, but should give at least acceptable pings (keeping in mind Diablo isn't a twitchy game like an FPS that requires absolutely minimal latency). I get 103 ms from Canberra to the battle.net servers in Singapore currently.
Oh and BTW, our internet connections don't suck as much as you think compared to the US. You might be surprised. I'm a US/Australian dual citizen and have places in both countries. And the connection I get in Australia kicks the hell out of what I can get in the US. Both in normal, suburban areas in decently-sized cities. You can get the 'short end of the stick' when it comes to geography/long lines/RIMs/availability of other options like cable in both countries - it's a lucky dip, and I don't think either country is, on average much better than the other. Oh and you often have no choice of ISPs in the US (it's the local telco monopoly, or the local cable monopoly), whereas there's at least 20 other ISPs I could switch to in Australia, so at least we have that...
I ended up using the Xbox controller, on a PC, for Skyrim. I'd prefer to use keyboard and mouse still (finer control when picking objects up and much easier combat), but:
- Menus system is freaking awful to use with a mouse. Nothing behaves intuitively. Screen elements give no indication whether you can click them or not, whether you can use 'Enter' to select or half to click etc etc.
- With Vsync on (which is necessary since you get Havok physics bugs and awful screen tearing otherwise), there's very disconcerting mouse lag. Doesn't matter too much in general game play, but it makes navigating menus an exercise in frustration.
So sigh, I'm using a console controller, on a PC, for an RPG game. Never though I'd see the day. But the UI is ~much~ nicer to use with a controller since it was designed from the ground up for one.
Agreed. Iran isn't friendly to the West, but it's an advanced country where many (not all) have a pretty decent quality of life and enjoy far more freedoms than those in NK. Iranian people know something about the outside world and is free to travel to (most) other countries. And it seems many do - bumped into quite a lot of Iranians around the place while travelling (particularly in Asia and Europe) and they seem articulate and well-educated.
Compare that to NK where most cannot travel and you are fed, literally from birth, a constant stream of misinformation along the lines of "other countries are evil/trying to destroy us, and those that aren't live in terrible poverty far worse than what we have here in North Korea".
Plus the Iranian leaders are at least vaguely rational human beings. I think North Korea is far more likely to do something crazy and irrational that would result in war than Iran is.
True - far fewer use Flickr than Facebook. Having said that, I use Flickr for photos (despite being an avid Facebook user too), and so do most of my friends (in fact, they introduced me to Flickr originally). For me at least, it offers a number of advantages over FB:
- It's built for photos from the ground up, rather than being a social networking site that also happens to let you upload photos. So it has a lot of useful image-specific tools that Facebook doesn't. It also has some nice geotagging features, allows you to preserve/edit/view EXIF information, proper creative-commons-based image rights controls etc.
- Much simpler privacy controls. Basically, for each photo, it's either public (viewable at http://www.flickr.com/username by anyone - no Flickr account needed), or viewable only by Flickr friends. When sharing photos with friends and family (who may or may not have a Facebook account), it's simpler to say "go to this URL to see my photos", than it is to get them to sign up to Facebook, become my friend etc. (I know that can probably set up FB such that certain photos are visible to non-members while still hiding all the rest of my posts and information... I haven't looked into it... but FB's privacy controls are more complex and overkill for the task at hand. Flickr seems a simpler and more elegant solution.)
- It's not Facebook. While I'm not saying that I 'trust' Yahoo more than I do Facebook (or any other large corporation for that matter), it can't hurt not to have all my stuff in one place, right? If Facebook suddenly suffers a major security flaw, or decides to sell everyone's data or some other evil thing, at least they won't have my photos:) (Similarly, if Flickr goes bad, they have my photos, but not any other personal info that FB has).
- It was (and frankly, still is) a nicer site to use and navigate than FB. And it used to be kinda cool before Yahoo took it over...:(
Very true, but I suspect Flickr was chosen because:
- Most Facebook users set privacy preferences up such that only friends can see their photos. Flickr on the other hand, being a 'photography sharing site' rather than something for personal images (as you rightly say), has mostly 'public' photos, accessible without even needing a Flickr account, that can be easily crawled and analysed. (You can make photos visible only to other Flickr friends, but by and large, people don't do this, as they aren't using it for private photos).
- Camera model is derived from EXIF data in image. Facebook uploading software (or maybe Facebook itself) generally strips out EXIF information from images. So despite the fact that Facebook offers many more images than Flickr, it is useless in any study of how much particular makes/models of camera are used. (Again, you can hide/strip EXIF data on Flickr as well, but a smaller proportion of people do this than you might think, and at least it's an option, unlike on FB where it's stripped no matter what)
Wait what - wouldn't providing this be a critical, basic role of government? Are you saying this doesn't exist already!? Or have I just been 'whooshed'?
I work in the legal sphere and my job involves a lot of trawling through legislation from various countries, and from various levels of government (Federal, State, local etc.). I have always taken for granted that the consolidated text of legislation (as well as the raw text of actual Bills passed) is provided by the Government in a freely accessible, easy-to-search (and easy-to-read) form. For example, for Australian Federal legislation, http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ - there are similar services for each State legislature too, and in all the other countries I've worked in, mostly in Asia and Europe.
I mean, surely providing people with copies of the legislation and laws that apply to them (in their current, consolidated form, as well as the text of the actual Bills as passed) is an absolutely necessary requirement of any fair and just society? Is there really no such thing in the US? I kinda find hard to believe... but I'm yet to do any significant amount of work with US legislation so simply don't know the sites out there that exist.
No, it's not a troll. Australian ATMs can use PINs longer than 4 digits. This doesn't mean you HAVE to use a longer one, but you can. I know with Commonwealth Bank you can have up to at least 8 digits and I imagine the other banks are similar.
I have a smartphone too. But for watching media when travelling, the larger screen of a tablet is nice. Movies on a 4 inch screen kinda suck. So do some websites.
It's just a prepaid SIM. I can shove it in any cellular device (iPad, other tablet, netbook, smartphone, USB 3G modem etc.) I want. So I obviously have to have ~some~ device to use it, yes, but it doesn't have to be an iPad.
I'm actually on a non-standard rate because I bought my SIM during a promotional period the carrier (Vodafone Australia) was having a while back, and they gave me a 'bundle' deal since my phone was already with them. So I do get things a bit cheaper than the 'advertised' rates. Nonetheless, the standard rates aren't bad. There are way too many plan options to list here, but a few off the website currently are:
- $39 for 10 GB (on plan) - $29 for 4 GB (prepaid or on plan) - $49 for 12 GB (on plan) - $300 for 30 GB (prepaid with long expiry - good for casual usage)
So not as good as what I quoted but beats the prices you were mentioning by a long way still. And Vodafone isn't the cheapest provider. Telstra and Optus have similar deals, TPG, Amaysim, Virgin Mobile are cheaper and there's dozens of other random providers that probably have some good deals (I just like sticking with the big names I guess).
It's interesting. The US is cheaper than Australia for almost EVERYTHING - food, clothing, electronics, books, CDs/DVDs, sporting gear etc etc. But we do have a considerably better cellular market than you guys. There's at least 10+ providers available in most areas and they will either sell you contracted phones+plans (like the US model), or are happy to sell you just a SIM card that you can shove in whatever device/phone you have. Prepaid, postpaid (without contract), or on-contract - your choice. (Having said that, I'd swap our choice of phone networks for your cheaper "everything else" in a flash!)
$60 per month? Ouch... I wouldn't do it for that insane price either.:(
I usually just tether my tablet to my phone (since I never go close to using my phone's data allowance each month and since I'm paying for it anyway...). But I do also have a prepaid SIM in the tablet too. It currently has $0 credit on it, but I could add some if I needed it. $100 buys you a whopping 18 GB, with 365-day expiry (so I have up to a year to use that). I wouldn't go on a recurring monthly plan for tablet data (especially since I often have WiFi or tethering available to me). Prepaid is the way to go... just add credit when you need it.
Obviously the equation for "replacing laptops with tablets" differs depending on what data costs are like where you live. $60 a month is getting shafted majorly, so I see why you're adverse to the idea. OTOH I'm happy to whack on a $100 recharge once a year on the SIM in the iPad for the luxury of being able to use that data anywhere/anytime (and I could put that SIM in a USB dongle attached to a laptop, and use the data that way too if I wanted). Added to the 1.5 GB/month I get on my phone (cost: $20/month), it's more than enough. Obviously depends on your usage patterns though.
It does breach privacy laws in many (most?) developed countries. I'm a part-time lecturer at a major Australian university and I can tell you, we are not allowed to communicate with students, send them material, or receive submitted assignments from Gmail/Hotmail/etc. accounts, because it could contain personally identifying information, which under the Privacy Act, cannot be stored on servers located outside of Australia. This same reasoning would also prevent the university outsourcing their email system to someone like Google, UNLESS they can guarantee that the information would remain only their servers/clusters in Australia.
For US universities it's probably not an issue. But most countries have considerably tougher privacy laws than the US. Europe particularly.
Don't think iPads and the like are supposed to replace desktops. But they might replace laptops for some use cases. I have to admit, I pretty much just use my big grunty desktop (serious work, gaming) or my iPad (quick web browsing, email, watching Youtube etc.) now. The laptop is gathering dust. I used to take it when I went on trips but now I just throw the iPad in instead - it's lighter and has better battery life, and it does all I need it to when travelling (basically email, Skype, web) and a few things the laptop doesn't (GPS + maps).
Having said that I would never use a tablet as my PRIMARY machine (the premise of this thread). Nor would most Slashdotters. A proper PC will always have its place for coding, gaming and heavy duty processing of media (video, audio and photos - as you will no doubt agree). But for the average Joe who just uses their computer to check a few websites and send an email or two, a tablet fits their needs nicely.
Well I might try to, but I'm not sure I'd get any advantage out of it. I'd be authorised to use marijuana ~in Canada~. If I'm in another country, the laws of that country apply to me, regardless of if I'm a citizen of another country or ten other countries for that matter. Canada will offer me some consular assistance, no doubt, but at the end of the day they'd tell me that I was subject to the laws of a foreign country and I broke those laws (same as they'd tell any other Canadian - dual citizen or not).
The king doesn't give two hoots about this matter and is on the public record as saying he doesn't support lese majeste laws. The royal family has never launched a lese majeste action. It is the government that imposes and enforces these laws (and being a constitutional monarch, the King is powerless to stop them).
So while I fully agree with your sentiment, it is the Thai Govt. that FB would be selling their back door to, not the king.
My guess is - because he can't. If Thailand is like most other constitutional monarchies (most obviously, the western/Commonwealth nations such as the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ etc.) - the monarch acts essentially as a powerless figurehead. The Parliament is the only body that can create/amend laws. Constitutional monarchs are apolitical: they do not involve themselves in political comment or debate of any kind and are expected to remain silent and neutral, simply doing Parliament's bidding (i.e. signing into law whatever Parliament puts before them, whether they personally agree with it or not).
Technically there is no 'choice' in the matter - dual citizens are legally obliged to use the passport of the country you are entering. Of course that doesn't mean everyone DOES, but it's what you're supposed to do under law.
Having said that, as you point out, this is almost always the advantageous thing to do anyway, since countries will always grant entry to their own citizens (as they should). I don't see dual citizenship as a problem provided the person has correctly satisfied the requirements of being a citizen of both countries. Then again I may be a bit biased - I'm a dualie myself.
True, but there's almost never more than a few days between the various regions' release these days, so I don't think Europe being 'first' really matters. It's only first by a couple of days, not like in the 90s when there could be months apart. Plus with things like Steam/XBLA/other digital distribution, it makes no sense to stagger releases by too much.
It was like that in Australia in the 90s, but these days we get releases of games and movies on the same date as everywhere else usually. A day or two later in this case... but more often than not it's simultaneous world wide (and in fact, sometimes we even get things first due to our time zone being ahead of all the other major markets).
Actually what's really weird is that Japan is last. You know, Nintendo being Japanese and all.
Most games just get released for Japan & US first (i.e. NTSC countries), followed by Europe/Australia/NZ (PAL countries) shortly after. Which makes sense - they are two different versions of the game disc. This release schedule is odd though because it's releasing in some PAL territories first (Europe), then an NTSC (US), then another PAL and another NTSC (Australia, Japan)...
Not always. My PC (with SSD) takes 9 seconds from the end of the BIOS, to on the desktop, usable, with hard drive activity completely finished and stopped. I have turned off one or two extraneous services (crap like Adobe Updater/Apple Updater/Google Updater/Office Preload etc), but other than that haven't done anything special to optimise. SSDs are very fast, especially for that 'post boot churning' stuff which is a lot of random IO.
Huh? My PC takes less than 20 seconds from cold boot to usable desktop, and every component in it bar one is ~4 years old. 11 seconds for the BIOS and AHCI crap, and 9 seconds actual boot (broken down into 8 seconds Win logo, 1 second loading to desktop). No exaggeration - just timed it to make sure.
The 'one component' that is not 4 years old is a Corsair Force SSD, which of course is the main reason it boots that quickly. But even with the old rotating hard drive it was well under a minute. If your PC takes a minute to boot up, something is wrong...
Live action porn movies would generally get the X in Australia rating. (However it is only legal to sell X rated material in the ACT and NT, and not in the other 6 states - remember classification is a State matter, not a Federal one, though the States have voluntarily agreed to harmonise most aspects of their classification guidelines with the exception of the treatment of X and RC material)
However the X rating does not exist for games. So a game that had live action porn would probably be RC, even under the new guidelines. A movie would be fine though.
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I do understand why the system is the way it is. But it still drives me nuts. :)
I'm Australian originally and in Australia our GST (sales tax equivalent) is administered and collected Federally, which allows it to be a flat national rate. The Federal government then redistributes that money among the states (based on some no-doubt ridiculously complex calculation). So the money is still 'for' the States, it's just not ~collected~ by them.
Like in Europe, the GST is embedded in the cost of the item. But I don't agree that it allows the rate to be raised without people noticing, as it's specified very clearly on the receipt you get (i.e. the $20-stickered item will cost $20, but you'll see on the receipt that it's "$20, including $1.81 of GST". Plus the rate of GST has never actually changed - it's been 10% since its inception and any adjustment to this rate would make so much news that you'd have to be oblivious not to know.
I think America would benefit from a similar system (sales tax collected Federally then distributed to States via some agreed and fair method). Not because the amount of tax revenue raised would be more/less, but simply because it's simpler. Reducing administrative burden saves a lot of money - some obvious, some not so. However I am a realist - I know that states' rights is a big thing over there (it is fairly important in Australia too, but not to the same extent), and it's pretty unlikely to happen. Especially when you have 50 states that can veto it, as opposed to the 6 we have here ;)
A similar number of deductions and credits exist in other countries too, such that it's possible to have negative tax liabilities ... that isn't unique to the US. It's just administratively simple to have a tax-free threshold (0% tax bracket) at the low end. People who don't make more than this, and who don't qualify for any other credits/deductions might be relevant, need not file a tax return at all in some places.
Agreed. I have resided in and worked long-term in many countries including the US, Australia, several Asian and European countries. I definitely paid less tax in the US than I ever did in any other country (on a similar income).
US income taxes are generally lower than other developed countries for most income brackets. This is especially true at the middle-high income level (the top US Federal income tax rate is 35%, compared to 50+% in most of Europe and 45% in Australia, and it kicks in at a higher income). The exception is low-income earners, who pay more in the US than in other countries (many countries have a 0% tax bracket for the first $x of income per year, but US income taxes kick in from the first dollar).
US sales taxes are lowish too, compared with, say, 15-20% VAT seen in much of Europe, or 10% GST in Australia etc. (As an aside, they are also ridiculously complex, varying from State to State, county to county and even city to city - seems like a massive administrative burden compared to the single, flat rate seen almost everywhere else. In fact in most other places, the sales tax/VAT/GST is included in the advertised cost of the item, so if it says $20 on the shelf, it's actually $20 when you get to the counter ... not $20 + 5.75% or whatever random percentage the state/county applies. That always drives me nuts when I'm in the US)
There will be Oceanic servers for D3, as there are for SC2. Based in Singapore, admittedly so still a way from Australia, but should give at least acceptable pings (keeping in mind Diablo isn't a twitchy game like an FPS that requires absolutely minimal latency). I get 103 ms from Canberra to the battle.net servers in Singapore currently.
Oh and BTW, our internet connections don't suck as much as you think compared to the US. You might be surprised. I'm a US/Australian dual citizen and have places in both countries. And the connection I get in Australia kicks the hell out of what I can get in the US. Both in normal, suburban areas in decently-sized cities. You can get the 'short end of the stick' when it comes to geography/long lines/RIMs/availability of other options like cable in both countries - it's a lucky dip, and I don't think either country is, on average much better than the other. Oh and you often have no choice of ISPs in the US (it's the local telco monopoly, or the local cable monopoly), whereas there's at least 20 other ISPs I could switch to in Australia, so at least we have that...
I ended up using the Xbox controller, on a PC, for Skyrim. I'd prefer to use keyboard and mouse still (finer control when picking objects up and much easier combat), but:
- Menus system is freaking awful to use with a mouse. Nothing behaves intuitively. Screen elements give no indication whether you can click them or not, whether you can use 'Enter' to select or half to click etc etc.
- With Vsync on (which is necessary since you get Havok physics bugs and awful screen tearing otherwise), there's very disconcerting mouse lag. Doesn't matter too much in general game play, but it makes navigating menus an exercise in frustration.
So sigh, I'm using a console controller, on a PC, for an RPG game. Never though I'd see the day. But the UI is ~much~ nicer to use with a controller since it was designed from the ground up for one.
Agreed. Iran isn't friendly to the West, but it's an advanced country where many (not all) have a pretty decent quality of life and enjoy far more freedoms than those in NK. Iranian people know something about the outside world and is free to travel to (most) other countries. And it seems many do - bumped into quite a lot of Iranians around the place while travelling (particularly in Asia and Europe) and they seem articulate and well-educated.
Compare that to NK where most cannot travel and you are fed, literally from birth, a constant stream of misinformation along the lines of "other countries are evil/trying to destroy us, and those that aren't live in terrible poverty far worse than what we have here in North Korea".
Plus the Iranian leaders are at least vaguely rational human beings. I think North Korea is far more likely to do something crazy and irrational that would result in war than Iran is.
True - far fewer use Flickr than Facebook. Having said that, I use Flickr for photos (despite being an avid Facebook user too), and so do most of my friends (in fact, they introduced me to Flickr originally). For me at least, it offers a number of advantages over FB:
- It's built for photos from the ground up, rather than being a social networking site that also happens to let you upload photos. So it has a lot of useful image-specific tools that Facebook doesn't. It also has some nice geotagging features, allows you to preserve/edit/view EXIF information, proper creative-commons-based image rights controls etc.
- Much simpler privacy controls. Basically, for each photo, it's either public (viewable at http://www.flickr.com/username by anyone - no Flickr account needed), or viewable only by Flickr friends. When sharing photos with friends and family (who may or may not have a Facebook account), it's simpler to say "go to this URL to see my photos", than it is to get them to sign up to Facebook, become my friend etc. (I know that can probably set up FB such that certain photos are visible to non-members while still hiding all the rest of my posts and information ... I haven't looked into it ... but FB's privacy controls are more complex and overkill for the task at hand. Flickr seems a simpler and more elegant solution.)
- It's not Facebook. While I'm not saying that I 'trust' Yahoo more than I do Facebook (or any other large corporation for that matter), it can't hurt not to have all my stuff in one place, right? If Facebook suddenly suffers a major security flaw, or decides to sell everyone's data or some other evil thing, at least they won't have my photos :) (Similarly, if Flickr goes bad, they have my photos, but not any other personal info that FB has).
- It was (and frankly, still is) a nicer site to use and navigate than FB. And it used to be kinda cool before Yahoo took it over... :(
Very true, but I suspect Flickr was chosen because:
- Most Facebook users set privacy preferences up such that only friends can see their photos. Flickr on the other hand, being a 'photography sharing site' rather than something for personal images (as you rightly say), has mostly 'public' photos, accessible without even needing a Flickr account, that can be easily crawled and analysed. (You can make photos visible only to other Flickr friends, but by and large, people don't do this, as they aren't using it for private photos).
- Camera model is derived from EXIF data in image. Facebook uploading software (or maybe Facebook itself) generally strips out EXIF information from images. So despite the fact that Facebook offers many more images than Flickr, it is useless in any study of how much particular makes/models of camera are used. (Again, you can hide/strip EXIF data on Flickr as well, but a smaller proportion of people do this than you might think, and at least it's an option, unlike on FB where it's stripped no matter what)
Wait what - wouldn't providing this be a critical, basic role of government? Are you saying this doesn't exist already!? Or have I just been 'whooshed'?
I work in the legal sphere and my job involves a lot of trawling through legislation from various countries, and from various levels of government (Federal, State, local etc.). I have always taken for granted that the consolidated text of legislation (as well as the raw text of actual Bills passed) is provided by the Government in a freely accessible, easy-to-search (and easy-to-read) form. For example, for Australian Federal legislation, http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ - there are similar services for each State legislature too, and in all the other countries I've worked in, mostly in Asia and Europe.
I mean, surely providing people with copies of the legislation and laws that apply to them (in their current, consolidated form, as well as the text of the actual Bills as passed) is an absolutely necessary requirement of any fair and just society? Is there really no such thing in the US? I kinda find hard to believe ... but I'm yet to do any significant amount of work with US legislation so simply don't know the sites out there that exist.
No, it's not a troll. Australian ATMs can use PINs longer than 4 digits. This doesn't mean you HAVE to use a longer one, but you can. I know with Commonwealth Bank you can have up to at least 8 digits and I imagine the other banks are similar.
I have a smartphone too. But for watching media when travelling, the larger screen of a tablet is nice. Movies on a 4 inch screen kinda suck. So do some websites.
It's just a prepaid SIM. I can shove it in any cellular device (iPad, other tablet, netbook, smartphone, USB 3G modem etc.) I want. So I obviously have to have ~some~ device to use it, yes, but it doesn't have to be an iPad.
I'm actually on a non-standard rate because I bought my SIM during a promotional period the carrier (Vodafone Australia) was having a while back, and they gave me a 'bundle' deal since my phone was already with them. So I do get things a bit cheaper than the 'advertised' rates. Nonetheless, the standard rates aren't bad. There are way too many plan options to list here, but a few off the website currently are:
- $39 for 10 GB (on plan)
- $29 for 4 GB (prepaid or on plan)
- $49 for 12 GB (on plan)
- $300 for 30 GB (prepaid with long expiry - good for casual usage)
So not as good as what I quoted but beats the prices you were mentioning by a long way still. And Vodafone isn't the cheapest provider. Telstra and Optus have similar deals, TPG, Amaysim, Virgin Mobile are cheaper and there's dozens of other random providers that probably have some good deals (I just like sticking with the big names I guess).
It's interesting. The US is cheaper than Australia for almost EVERYTHING - food, clothing, electronics, books, CDs/DVDs, sporting gear etc etc. But we do have a considerably better cellular market than you guys. There's at least 10+ providers available in most areas and they will either sell you contracted phones+plans (like the US model), or are happy to sell you just a SIM card that you can shove in whatever device/phone you have. Prepaid, postpaid (without contract), or on-contract - your choice. (Having said that, I'd swap our choice of phone networks for your cheaper "everything else" in a flash!)
$60 per month? Ouch ... I wouldn't do it for that insane price either. :(
I usually just tether my tablet to my phone (since I never go close to using my phone's data allowance each month and since I'm paying for it anyway...). But I do also have a prepaid SIM in the tablet too. It currently has $0 credit on it, but I could add some if I needed it. $100 buys you a whopping 18 GB, with 365-day expiry (so I have up to a year to use that). I wouldn't go on a recurring monthly plan for tablet data (especially since I often have WiFi or tethering available to me). Prepaid is the way to go ... just add credit when you need it.
Obviously the equation for "replacing laptops with tablets" differs depending on what data costs are like where you live. $60 a month is getting shafted majorly, so I see why you're adverse to the idea. OTOH I'm happy to whack on a $100 recharge once a year on the SIM in the iPad for the luxury of being able to use that data anywhere/anytime (and I could put that SIM in a USB dongle attached to a laptop, and use the data that way too if I wanted). Added to the 1.5 GB/month I get on my phone (cost: $20/month), it's more than enough. Obviously depends on your usage patterns though.
It does breach privacy laws in many (most?) developed countries. I'm a part-time lecturer at a major Australian university and I can tell you, we are not allowed to communicate with students, send them material, or receive submitted assignments from Gmail/Hotmail/etc. accounts, because it could contain personally identifying information, which under the Privacy Act, cannot be stored on servers located outside of Australia. This same reasoning would also prevent the university outsourcing their email system to someone like Google, UNLESS they can guarantee that the information would remain only their servers/clusters in Australia.
For US universities it's probably not an issue. But most countries have considerably tougher privacy laws than the US. Europe particularly.
Buy a tablet with a cellular data connection? No WiFi needed.
Don't think iPads and the like are supposed to replace desktops. But they might replace laptops for some use cases. I have to admit, I pretty much just use my big grunty desktop (serious work, gaming) or my iPad (quick web browsing, email, watching Youtube etc.) now. The laptop is gathering dust. I used to take it when I went on trips but now I just throw the iPad in instead - it's lighter and has better battery life, and it does all I need it to when travelling (basically email, Skype, web) and a few things the laptop doesn't (GPS + maps).
Having said that I would never use a tablet as my PRIMARY machine (the premise of this thread). Nor would most Slashdotters. A proper PC will always have its place for coding, gaming and heavy duty processing of media (video, audio and photos - as you will no doubt agree). But for the average Joe who just uses their computer to check a few websites and send an email or two, a tablet fits their needs nicely.
Well I might try to, but I'm not sure I'd get any advantage out of it. I'd be authorised to use marijuana ~in Canada~. If I'm in another country, the laws of that country apply to me, regardless of if I'm a citizen of another country or ten other countries for that matter. Canada will offer me some consular assistance, no doubt, but at the end of the day they'd tell me that I was subject to the laws of a foreign country and I broke those laws (same as they'd tell any other Canadian - dual citizen or not).
The king doesn't give two hoots about this matter and is on the public record as saying he doesn't support lese majeste laws. The royal family has never launched a lese majeste action. It is the government that imposes and enforces these laws (and being a constitutional monarch, the King is powerless to stop them).
So while I fully agree with your sentiment, it is the Thai Govt. that FB would be selling their back door to, not the king.
My guess is - because he can't. If Thailand is like most other constitutional monarchies (most obviously, the western/Commonwealth nations such as the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ etc.) - the monarch acts essentially as a powerless figurehead. The Parliament is the only body that can create/amend laws. Constitutional monarchs are apolitical: they do not involve themselves in political comment or debate of any kind and are expected to remain silent and neutral, simply doing Parliament's bidding (i.e. signing into law whatever Parliament puts before them, whether they personally agree with it or not).
Technically there is no 'choice' in the matter - dual citizens are legally obliged to use the passport of the country you are entering. Of course that doesn't mean everyone DOES, but it's what you're supposed to do under law.
Having said that, as you point out, this is almost always the advantageous thing to do anyway, since countries will always grant entry to their own citizens (as they should). I don't see dual citizenship as a problem provided the person has correctly satisfied the requirements of being a citizen of both countries. Then again I may be a bit biased - I'm a dualie myself.
True, but there's almost never more than a few days between the various regions' release these days, so I don't think Europe being 'first' really matters. It's only first by a couple of days, not like in the 90s when there could be months apart. Plus with things like Steam/XBLA/other digital distribution, it makes no sense to stagger releases by too much.
It was like that in Australia in the 90s, but these days we get releases of games and movies on the same date as everywhere else usually. A day or two later in this case ... but more often than not it's simultaneous world wide (and in fact, sometimes we even get things first due to our time zone being ahead of all the other major markets).
Actually what's really weird is that Japan is last. You know, Nintendo being Japanese and all.
Most games just get released for Japan & US first (i.e. NTSC countries), followed by Europe/Australia/NZ (PAL countries) shortly after. Which makes sense - they are two different versions of the game disc. This release schedule is odd though because it's releasing in some PAL territories first (Europe), then an NTSC (US), then another PAL and another NTSC (Australia, Japan)...
Not always. My PC (with SSD) takes 9 seconds from the end of the BIOS, to on the desktop, usable, with hard drive activity completely finished and stopped. I have turned off one or two extraneous services (crap like Adobe Updater/Apple Updater/Google Updater/Office Preload etc), but other than that haven't done anything special to optimise. SSDs are very fast, especially for that 'post boot churning' stuff which is a lot of random IO.
Huh? My PC takes less than 20 seconds from cold boot to usable desktop, and every component in it bar one is ~4 years old. 11 seconds for the BIOS and AHCI crap, and 9 seconds actual boot (broken down into 8 seconds Win logo, 1 second loading to desktop). No exaggeration - just timed it to make sure.
The 'one component' that is not 4 years old is a Corsair Force SSD, which of course is the main reason it boots that quickly. But even with the old rotating hard drive it was well under a minute. If your PC takes a minute to boot up, something is wrong...
Live action porn movies would generally get the X in Australia rating. (However it is only legal to sell X rated material in the ACT and NT, and not in the other 6 states - remember classification is a State matter, not a Federal one, though the States have voluntarily agreed to harmonise most aspects of their classification guidelines with the exception of the treatment of X and RC material)
However the X rating does not exist for games. So a game that had live action porn would probably be RC, even under the new guidelines. A movie would be fine though.