That's basically what everyone does. Import the games from overseas. Customs virtually never checks for RC material (frankly they are more interested in catching stuff that's ~actually~ 'bad', you know, like bombs and drugs and stuff that could pose quarantine risks). And once the game is in your hands it's perfectly legal to play (it's only illegal for a store to ~sell~ RC games in Australia, not merely to possess the game, unless you live in WA or Queensland).
Actually most savvy gamers import all their games ANYWAY, regardless of classification, because they are a hell of a lot cheaper. PC games from the US (since there isn't region coding on PC), and console games from Europe (Australia is a PAL territory hence needs PAL, not NTSC, discs).
Of course in practice people still import RC games and 99% of the time Customs don't check the package, and there's no problem. I know plenty of people with the new Mortal Kombat, for instance.
The beauty of it is that, even though illegal to SELL, it's perfectly legal to own and play an RC game one you acquire it (except, I believe in Qld and WA). I have the (US) version of Fallout 3, which is RC in Australia, but since I live in the ACT it's perfectly legal to play it. (A bad example since the ~only~ differences between the Australian and US versions of Fallout 3 are very, very minor - a few consumable items got renamed and that's about it, but you get the point)
I don't think that'll be a problem here. You see, the R18+ rating already exists for movies, TV shows, books, magazines etc. And those things are all sold in stores. It's just this rating doesn't exist for games at the moment. Introducing R18 for games will simply bring them in-line with the same classifications as already exist for other media.
As it stands, a lot of games that would probably be R18+, if it existed, simply get classified as MA15+ at the moment. And stores still sell them. So I don't really see a problem here.
What an utterly ridiculous statement. It has just as much force, and in fact, the US Constitution would pose exactly the same issue as the Australian one in this case (Federal Govt's inability to legislate on a State issue).
Classification laws does not fall under the heads of power that the Constitution grants to the Federal Govt. It's therefore a State issue, and the Federal Government cannot legislate on the matter (they can suggest, they can issue non-binding codes of standards, they can bring people together at a table to discuss it, but they cannot actually make the law). However, the States have also agreed amongst ~themselves~ that they should keep their classification laws in-sync (otherwise you simply end up with a situation where people just order stuff from a different State with more favourable laws, and they'd be able to do that because the Constitution guarantees the freedom of inter-State trade).
It is precisely BECAUSE of the limits imposed by the Consititution that this is occuring. Otherwise the Fed Govt could just go "STFU States, we are introducing R18+. End of story."
Yep agreed. The divide between the rich and poor in America is widening into a chasm. And the middle class is dying out... you're either struggling, or becoming increasingly wealthy. This is a problem that is deeper than party politics. It will require some kind of fundamental changes to the very way the country operates in the long term.
Which let's face it, neither side of politics will do, because most people will oppose large-scale changes (this is simply human nature... massive change is risky, and there'll always be some segment of the population that 'loses' bigtime). So politicians will play it safe and patch minor things up here and there (e.g. the healthcare reforms, which were so watered-down and half-assed and full of compromise that they won't really do much in the long term to make the health system more efficient and sustainable), because that's the only kind of stuff that actually has any chance of getting through Congress.
But rethinking the fundamentals? Scrapping entire core government systems and schemes and rewriting them from scratch? A brand new tax code? Nah - it's a political impossibility. But it's that kind of large reform that is desperately needed in many areas, I feel. Those changes are easier to do in a smaller, younger, or more centralised country. But America is set in its ways and has a relatively decentralised system of government, so it's tough.
My rent here in Australia is $1400/month (which is $1484 USD on today's exchange rate). And that's literally about as cheap as you can get in most Australian cities - it's a tiny 2 bedroom townhouse with crappy fixtures, in a kinda crappy area, in a mid-sized (~400,000 people) urban area.
I've always wondered how people in the US live survive on the tiny unemployment benefits they have over there (i.e. $20,000/yr). Here, that would cover nothing other than rent. No food, no utilities, nothing. You'd be out on the street (well actually you'd be in public housing, but either way you wouldn't be paying market rent). Even in a small town out in the country I doubt you could live on that.
But now I understand - rent is so, so, so, so much cheaper in the US (or at least, parts of it outside the middle of major cities) that it is actually possible to live on that income...interesting.
Or to put it another way - I'm not jailbroken on my iPhone, and I do not pay a fee to tether. On your provider, you may need to pay a fee to tether (with any phone, not just an iPhone). The only difference is the carrier. How is the carrier ~not~ therefore the root cause of you having to pay this fee?
Sure, Apple is an ~enabler~ in this case. Their firmware allows the carriers to charge this fee in the first place. But at the end of the day, it's still the carrier doing it. And as stated above, ~any~ phone your carrier sells you will come with firmware that allows them to do this, not just iPhones. Why would they impose a tethering fee on their plans and then sell phones that allow you to tether without checking you are able to? That makes no sense, unless they sell 'iPhone only' plans that are completely separate from their other plans, which providers in this country at least don't do - they sell you a plan/SIM card and you put it in any phone you want)
No but you have to do ~something~ (jailbreak, flash different firmware) to get around the fee on virtually all smartphones. iOS or not. You can get around it on iOS by jailbreaking, just like you can get around it on Android by flashing a different firmware. (Some phones may come with factory firmware that ignores the carrier settings right out of the box, but in my experience that is the exception rather than the norm).
My point is NOT that iOS does not restrict you - it's that it restricts you in the same way as most other smartphones' default factory firmware. I.e. yes, it has a restriction, but so do most other phones (unless you do something to get around that). I'm no particular iOS fanboy... I have a HTC Desire as well as an iPhone lying around and quite like both of them for different reasons. My point was simply that these carrier-based restrictions are imposed by ~most~ phones out there, not just iPhones.
True - but people you you or I, or Slashdotters in general, aren't the norm. For each person who is intentionally running an open access point like yourself, I'd wager there's at least ten who have open access points unintentionally (or simply don't care).
Unlikely in Australia where the vast majority of residential connections have a monthly transfer cap. You can get unlimited plans (in some areas) but they are overkill for most people's requirements, and kinda expensive.
Apple "permits" the arbitrary blocking of this service in the same way as virtually all firmware-makers (for any type of phone) do. Most phone firmware is able to hide/show/enable/disable certain features, such as tethering, based on the content of the carrier data file. This is not limited to iOS or Apple. Out of the box, most smartphones obey these restrictions.
My provider used to charge for tethering on some of their plans. It didn't matter whether you used an iPhone, an Android phone, a Blackberry or anything else on those plans - they still charged you for tethering, and those phones obeyed the setting in the carrier data file that said "disallow tethering". Now on Android you could flash a different firmware (like cyanogenmod) to get around this, of course, but similarly, you can jailbreak iOS to do this as well. In either case you had to do ~something~ to get around it - the factory standard firmware did not initially allow it on either type of phone.
I will agree with you on the other points (greater choice of software to install etc.), but I really don't see how factory-standard iOS firmware is any different than factory-standard firmware for other phones, most of which DO allow the carrier to restrict tethering etc.
That was my thought at first too. Are some of them businesses? Or are some of them 'open' (in terms of not having a WEP/WPA password) but actually still require further authentication once connected (e.g. a VPN or a gateway which requires a username/password).
However now that I read TFA, I see that the observations were made only in residential areas (i.e. suburban streets). You would not expect to find many businesses in these areas. I'm sure a couple might have been, but not that many. So yeah it'll mostly be clueless people who haven't secured their home WiFi networks, it seems.
10,000 points in a city the size of Sydney is hardly that amazing though...
I can tether my iPhone (via Bluetooth or USB to a single device, or via Wifi to up to 5 devices), without a fee. Your ~telephone company~ may charge you a fee for doing it. My carrier doesn't charge for it (actually I don't think any major carriers here do - some of them used to, but people bitched about it too much and they got rid of the fees). But it has nothing to do with the phone itself. Complain about your carrier, not the phone or OS.
There are legitimate arguments to be made against Apple's/iOS's restrictions. But that is not one of them. The rest of your points are very valid but it hurts your argument somewhat to lead off with a falsehood - makes you sound like a blind Apple-hater that doesn't care about the actual facts.
Facetime over 3G is a legitimate argument. As is access to the file system/different UIs etc.
However:
- Skype: works over 3G just fine without jailbreaking (both voice and video) so I'm not sure what you're thinking about there. I do it all the time (both at home, and when travelling with various prepaid SIMs in different countries), so I know it works.
- Fees for using using the 3G as a hotspot (tethering): this is a fee your CARRIER imposes and has nothing to do with the phone (or its jailbrokenness). Your carrier can do this because the carrier file data associated with your carrier in the (non-jailbroken) iOS has a flag that says "hide/disallow the tethering option unless they have plan XYZ". Jailbreaking gets around that because it allows software that can ignore the carrier data file. But it's not a problem with iOS per se. You should be complaining about your phone company instead. I can use tethering/hotspot with no extra fees just fine since my carrier doesn't engage in those kind of shenanigans.
Most people I know who jailbreak do it so they can customise the UI, as you say, not with an intent to pirate apps (though that is a 'useful' side effect). I haven't personally jailbroken because frankly I don't care ~that~ much about the UI. It's functional enough for my needs. iOS 5 is going to allow some degree of lock-screen notifications/info which is an encouraging sign (though it will no doubt still be limited compared to what you can do through jailbreaking).
Not just "running a different OS with a slightly cooler display and keyboard". The build quality of Macs (particularly the laptops) utterly destroys the build quality of any (brand name) PC. They do seem to be tougher, and last longer (on average). Plus, OSX is an operating system that doesn't seem to suffer the same degree of 'it gets slower over time' as Windows does (though Win 7 isn't too bad in this regard). An OSX machine seems to be able to be abused by a clueless user for longer, in my experience, with less maintenance required.
Note that I don't own a Mac myself but I do recommend them to people like my parents etc. I get around the crappy build quality of most PCs by assembling my own and using high-end cases and components. But that's not the average user out there. For the average user, a Mac will last them longer than a typical cheap HP or Dell Windows PC.
Guam is simply a conveniently located switching point. A lot of capacity from Australia, for example, goes up to Guam, because it can then be split out and placed on one of the many US-Asia pipes across the north Pacific. Data can turn 'left' to go to Japan/Asia, or hang a right to go to North America.
This means a company can build a cable from Australia to Guam and then make use of the huge capacity to both Asia and the US from there. Multiple destinations for a single cable, compared to dedicated cables to Asia and the US separately (which do exist as well, and have better latency, but are obviously more expensive to build).
Not quite... including all the publically available information I can find (from that map and other sources), Australia's current international undersea capacity is comprised of:
That capacity is not all lit either - it's enough for the current level of demand. The main issue with internet in Australia is actually the price of domestic transit rather than international (capacity to the US is cheaper per Mbps than domestic capacity).
In anticipation of the nationwide NBN FTTH network which is currently under construction (and which will no doubt massively increase demand for capacity), further cables are under construction ATM. Most importantly the PACNET cable (Australia-US) which is due to be completed in 2013 with a massive 12 Tbit/s capacity (i.e. it will overnight more than double our total international bandwidth).
Anyway either way, a 5 Tbps cable to Svalbard certainly does seem pretty 'overkill'!
Yeah. I've been using a Corsair Force F115 here for the last 5 months or so. Resume from sleep was buggy for me too - a quick poke around the Corsair forums reveals it's a known issue, and unfortunately the last firmware that Sandforce submitted to Corsair for testing, that was supposed to fix the issue, didn't pass their quality control. So they are waiting on SandForce to 'try again' with their next firmware.
However, I then realised that putting my computer to sleep wasn't really necessary anymore given that Windows boots in 7 seconds now (end of BIOS to usable desktop). The time penalty for powering off cf. going to sleep was small now. So I just disabled sleep altogether several months ago and forgot about the whole thing. Until I read your post just now.:)
(I will say that other than having to disable sleep, I love this damn thing. So, so fast...)
Indeed. As a dual US-Australian citizen who spends their time living in both countries at various times of the year, I don't blame you at the moment. The US has some nice aspects to it (cheaper travel, cheap consumer goods, ability to play unrated games etc.) but the economy (unemployment rates, average wages etc.) and quality of life (number of holidays, work/life balance, crime rates, design of cities, quality of food etc.) is so much better in Australia it's not funny.
It wasn't always that way. Used to be the US was the place to make money, and Australia was a nice place to relax and enjoy life. But the US has been hit hard economically in the last 10-15 years, while Australia has made leaps and bounds ahead (without losing much of its its great lifestyle, good governance and egalitarian society). Australia today is almost unrecognisable from Australia in the 80s and early 90s. And the Australian dollar now being worth more than the US dollar was the final straw for me - I now tend to remain in AU for the foreseeable future. We'll see how the recovery in the US goes, but with its crippling debt, I hold no great hopes on that front.
Anyway this is all a bit off topic. Regarding XBLIF, I wonder if you can somehow figure out a way of getting a US XBL account which would give you access to XBLIF? I don't personally have an Xbox so I'm not sure what kind of information is needed to create an account - if you can put in a fake address and use cards/vouchers to top up your balance perhaps you don't even need a US credit card/billing address? Do they do IP geolocation to prevent people using it outside of the US? If so you could set up a VPN (at your home router level) to get around this. I do this to access stuff like Pandora and Hulu when I'm outside the US, and also to buy games at US prices off Steam. Don't know how practical all this is, but where there's a will, there's a way...;)
I think you're being a bit quick to see 'hate' in everything. I think they (Europeans, that is, which I am not BTW, but do come from a metric-only country) just want to be able to understand the summary. I have no issues with having any kind of units whatsoever in the summary but it would be nice if it was also stated in ISO/SI units as well (i.e. put it in brackets afterwards).
I admit I didn't even know there ~was~ such a unit as BTU before seeing this article let alone having any sense how 'large' that unit is (cf. feet, miles, deg F etc. which I don't use but I at least know exist, and know roughly what the conversion factors are). Thank God for Wiki and Google's unit conversion feature.
Also I do see plenty of vitriol going the other way on Slashdot. It's often with regard to political systems and ideals. Some Americans have a tendency to think of anything other than an exact copy of their poilitical system as 'repressive' or 'not free' or even 'socialist' (or at least, what they think socialism is), without for a minute entertaining the idea that perhaps different societies simply have different ideas about how much of a role government should play in various things (and I'm not talking about extreme examples here like Saudi Arabia or China or something, I'm talking about other Western democracies). Or people making judgements about countries they have never set foot in (what you might read about a place often differs greatly from the actual experience of day to day life on the ground). Slashdot infuriates me with such things every now and again, and I keep saying to myself that I should quit visiting, but somehow after a few days all is forgiven and I'm back here again for some reason, heh...
Note I'm not trying to argue with you here - there are plenty of uninformed/ignorant/intolerant idiots in every country and I agree that taking every possible opportunity to snipe at Americans for something as stupid as units of measurement is pretty immature. But that's kinda how the Internet is these days, sadly. And it goes both ways, from what I can see.
I don't think roundabouts are any more dangerous than a conventional intersection for pedestrians. A driver who fails to indicate in a roundabout is also equally likely to fail to indicate in a normal intersection, and the pedestrian may be equally unsure whether they are going to turn or not. Regardless, as a pedestrian, you should not be stepping onto the road to begin crossing if there is any traffic coming that could potentially turn into the road you are crossing. You shouldn't be trusting anyone's ability to indicate - roundabout or not.
Roundabouts aren't really replacements for traffic lights. If you have an intersection that is busy enough to require lights, roundabouts won't really work that much better.
Instead, roundabouts are perfect for places you may currently have 4-way stops. As a non-American who has visited the US many times, the 4-way stop baffles me every time. No other place I have visited has such a thing - they are bizarre and seem to rely on some mutual understanding of who got there first and thus in what order people need to go. Not to mention that they require a stop every time, even if there is no other traffic, or the only other other traffic is turning in a direction that wouldn't interfere with you anyway.
Roundabouts are far superior (hence their widespread use in virtually every other country where two roughly-equally trafficked roads meet that aren't busy enough to warrant traffic lights). You can go through them without stopping and usually without even pausing in low-traffic areas, and even where there is other traffic, it makes it much clearer who has right of way (simply, you give way to all traffic already on the roundabout, which in practice means just glancing left and stopping only if someone is coming from the left).
The only 'problem' with them in the US is a lack of familiarity (which is understandable - if you didn't grow up using them you may feel uncomfortable about them, not just because of your own lack of experience with them, but because you know the ~other~ people on the road don't know how to use them either, thus increasing danger to you). But once you know how to use them properly they are far and away better than 4-way stops. And even if you do have an accident on them, since all traffic is moving in the same direction, the relative speed of impacts will be low (compared to a t-bone or head-on at a regular crossroads).
This is a decision taken privately by two ISPs in Australia. There was no doubt some form of governmental pressure involved... but it's not a law, it's not a governmental requirement, and it didn't involve anyone electing or voting for anyone. The two companies are free to stop doing this tomorrow if they so choose.
So if you don't like it, and you happen to be a customer of one of these two ISPs, circumvent it (easily done as mentioned in TFS), or change to another ISP (which is a good move anyway - Telstra and Optus are honestly not the best choices for most people). ISP choice in Australia is one thing that they HAVE done right (due to forced resale of Telstra wholesale services), and almost anyone who has a phone line has access to anywhere between 10-30 other ISPs to choose from.
So your language is rather over the top, talking of military coups and elections etc - this is not an action taken by 'government' at all. In fact, quite the opposite - the censorship plan the government actually wanted was shot down in flames and never passed Parliament (nor would ever have a hope of doing so - public opposition to it was strong, in the order of 70-90% depending on which poll you believe).
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That's basically what everyone does. Import the games from overseas. Customs virtually never checks for RC material (frankly they are more interested in catching stuff that's ~actually~ 'bad', you know, like bombs and drugs and stuff that could pose quarantine risks). And once the game is in your hands it's perfectly legal to play (it's only illegal for a store to ~sell~ RC games in Australia, not merely to possess the game, unless you live in WA or Queensland).
Actually most savvy gamers import all their games ANYWAY, regardless of classification, because they are a hell of a lot cheaper. PC games from the US (since there isn't region coding on PC), and console games from Europe (Australia is a PAL territory hence needs PAL, not NTSC, discs).
All very true.
Of course in practice people still import RC games and 99% of the time Customs don't check the package, and there's no problem. I know plenty of people with the new Mortal Kombat, for instance.
The beauty of it is that, even though illegal to SELL, it's perfectly legal to own and play an RC game one you acquire it (except, I believe in Qld and WA). I have the (US) version of Fallout 3, which is RC in Australia, but since I live in the ACT it's perfectly legal to play it. (A bad example since the ~only~ differences between the Australian and US versions of Fallout 3 are very, very minor - a few consumable items got renamed and that's about it, but you get the point)
I don't think that'll be a problem here. You see, the R18+ rating already exists for movies, TV shows, books, magazines etc. And those things are all sold in stores. It's just this rating doesn't exist for games at the moment. Introducing R18 for games will simply bring them in-line with the same classifications as already exist for other media.
As it stands, a lot of games that would probably be R18+, if it existed, simply get classified as MA15+ at the moment. And stores still sell them. So I don't really see a problem here.
What an utterly ridiculous statement. It has just as much force, and in fact, the US Constitution would pose exactly the same issue as the Australian one in this case (Federal Govt's inability to legislate on a State issue).
Classification laws does not fall under the heads of power that the Constitution grants to the Federal Govt. It's therefore a State issue, and the Federal Government cannot legislate on the matter (they can suggest, they can issue non-binding codes of standards, they can bring people together at a table to discuss it, but they cannot actually make the law). However, the States have also agreed amongst ~themselves~ that they should keep their classification laws in-sync (otherwise you simply end up with a situation where people just order stuff from a different State with more favourable laws, and they'd be able to do that because the Constitution guarantees the freedom of inter-State trade).
It is precisely BECAUSE of the limits imposed by the Consititution that this is occuring. Otherwise the Fed Govt could just go "STFU States, we are introducing R18+. End of story."
Yep agreed. The divide between the rich and poor in America is widening into a chasm. And the middle class is dying out ... you're either struggling, or becoming increasingly wealthy. This is a problem that is deeper than party politics. It will require some kind of fundamental changes to the very way the country operates in the long term.
Which let's face it, neither side of politics will do, because most people will oppose large-scale changes (this is simply human nature ... massive change is risky, and there'll always be some segment of the population that 'loses' bigtime). So politicians will play it safe and patch minor things up here and there (e.g. the healthcare reforms, which were so watered-down and half-assed and full of compromise that they won't really do much in the long term to make the health system more efficient and sustainable), because that's the only kind of stuff that actually has any chance of getting through Congress.
But rethinking the fundamentals? Scrapping entire core government systems and schemes and rewriting them from scratch? A brand new tax code? Nah - it's a political impossibility. But it's that kind of large reform that is desperately needed in many areas, I feel. Those changes are easier to do in a smaller, younger, or more centralised country. But America is set in its ways and has a relatively decentralised system of government, so it's tough.
Holy crap rent is cheap in the US!!
My rent here in Australia is $1400/month (which is $1484 USD on today's exchange rate). And that's literally about as cheap as you can get in most Australian cities - it's a tiny 2 bedroom townhouse with crappy fixtures, in a kinda crappy area, in a mid-sized (~400,000 people) urban area.
I've always wondered how people in the US live survive on the tiny unemployment benefits they have over there (i.e. $20,000/yr). Here, that would cover nothing other than rent. No food, no utilities, nothing. You'd be out on the street (well actually you'd be in public housing, but either way you wouldn't be paying market rent). Even in a small town out in the country I doubt you could live on that.
But now I understand - rent is so, so, so, so much cheaper in the US (or at least, parts of it outside the middle of major cities) that it is actually possible to live on that income...interesting.
Or to put it another way - I'm not jailbroken on my iPhone, and I do not pay a fee to tether. On your provider, you may need to pay a fee to tether (with any phone, not just an iPhone). The only difference is the carrier. How is the carrier ~not~ therefore the root cause of you having to pay this fee?
Sure, Apple is an ~enabler~ in this case. Their firmware allows the carriers to charge this fee in the first place. But at the end of the day, it's still the carrier doing it. And as stated above, ~any~ phone your carrier sells you will come with firmware that allows them to do this, not just iPhones. Why would they impose a tethering fee on their plans and then sell phones that allow you to tether without checking you are able to? That makes no sense, unless they sell 'iPhone only' plans that are completely separate from their other plans, which providers in this country at least don't do - they sell you a plan/SIM card and you put it in any phone you want)
No but you have to do ~something~ (jailbreak, flash different firmware) to get around the fee on virtually all smartphones. iOS or not. You can get around it on iOS by jailbreaking, just like you can get around it on Android by flashing a different firmware. (Some phones may come with factory firmware that ignores the carrier settings right out of the box, but in my experience that is the exception rather than the norm).
My point is NOT that iOS does not restrict you - it's that it restricts you in the same way as most other smartphones' default factory firmware. I.e. yes, it has a restriction, but so do most other phones (unless you do something to get around that). I'm no particular iOS fanboy ... I have a HTC Desire as well as an iPhone lying around and quite like both of them for different reasons. My point was simply that these carrier-based restrictions are imposed by ~most~ phones out there, not just iPhones.
True - but people you you or I, or Slashdotters in general, aren't the norm. For each person who is intentionally running an open access point like yourself, I'd wager there's at least ten who have open access points unintentionally (or simply don't care).
Unlikely in Australia where the vast majority of residential connections have a monthly transfer cap. You can get unlimited plans (in some areas) but they are overkill for most people's requirements, and kinda expensive.
So, that's like a million US dollars by now right? ;)
Apple "permits" the arbitrary blocking of this service in the same way as virtually all firmware-makers (for any type of phone) do. Most phone firmware is able to hide/show/enable/disable certain features, such as tethering, based on the content of the carrier data file. This is not limited to iOS or Apple. Out of the box, most smartphones obey these restrictions.
My provider used to charge for tethering on some of their plans. It didn't matter whether you used an iPhone, an Android phone, a Blackberry or anything else on those plans - they still charged you for tethering, and those phones obeyed the setting in the carrier data file that said "disallow tethering". Now on Android you could flash a different firmware (like cyanogenmod) to get around this, of course, but similarly, you can jailbreak iOS to do this as well. In either case you had to do ~something~ to get around it - the factory standard firmware did not initially allow it on either type of phone.
I will agree with you on the other points (greater choice of software to install etc.), but I really don't see how factory-standard iOS firmware is any different than factory-standard firmware for other phones, most of which DO allow the carrier to restrict tethering etc.
That was my thought at first too. Are some of them businesses? Or are some of them 'open' (in terms of not having a WEP/WPA password) but actually still require further authentication once connected (e.g. a VPN or a gateway which requires a username/password).
However now that I read TFA, I see that the observations were made only in residential areas (i.e. suburban streets). You would not expect to find many businesses in these areas. I'm sure a couple might have been, but not that many. So yeah it'll mostly be clueless people who haven't secured their home WiFi networks, it seems.
10,000 points in a city the size of Sydney is hardly that amazing though...
I can tether my iPhone (via Bluetooth or USB to a single device, or via Wifi to up to 5 devices), without a fee. Your ~telephone company~ may charge you a fee for doing it. My carrier doesn't charge for it (actually I don't think any major carriers here do - some of them used to, but people bitched about it too much and they got rid of the fees). But it has nothing to do with the phone itself. Complain about your carrier, not the phone or OS.
There are legitimate arguments to be made against Apple's/iOS's restrictions. But that is not one of them. The rest of your points are very valid but it hurts your argument somewhat to lead off with a falsehood - makes you sound like a blind Apple-hater that doesn't care about the actual facts.
Huh?
Facetime over 3G is a legitimate argument. As is access to the file system/different UIs etc.
However:
- Skype: works over 3G just fine without jailbreaking (both voice and video) so I'm not sure what you're thinking about there. I do it all the time (both at home, and when travelling with various prepaid SIMs in different countries), so I know it works.
- Fees for using using the 3G as a hotspot (tethering): this is a fee your CARRIER imposes and has nothing to do with the phone (or its jailbrokenness). Your carrier can do this because the carrier file data associated with your carrier in the (non-jailbroken) iOS has a flag that says "hide/disallow the tethering option unless they have plan XYZ". Jailbreaking gets around that because it allows software that can ignore the carrier data file. But it's not a problem with iOS per se. You should be complaining about your phone company instead. I can use tethering/hotspot with no extra fees just fine since my carrier doesn't engage in those kind of shenanigans.
Most people I know who jailbreak do it so they can customise the UI, as you say, not with an intent to pirate apps (though that is a 'useful' side effect). I haven't personally jailbroken because frankly I don't care ~that~ much about the UI. It's functional enough for my needs. iOS 5 is going to allow some degree of lock-screen notifications/info which is an encouraging sign (though it will no doubt still be limited compared to what you can do through jailbreaking).
Not just "running a different OS with a slightly cooler display and keyboard". The build quality of Macs (particularly the laptops) utterly destroys the build quality of any (brand name) PC. They do seem to be tougher, and last longer (on average). Plus, OSX is an operating system that doesn't seem to suffer the same degree of 'it gets slower over time' as Windows does (though Win 7 isn't too bad in this regard). An OSX machine seems to be able to be abused by a clueless user for longer, in my experience, with less maintenance required.
Note that I don't own a Mac myself but I do recommend them to people like my parents etc. I get around the crappy build quality of most PCs by assembling my own and using high-end cases and components. But that's not the average user out there. For the average user, a Mac will last them longer than a typical cheap HP or Dell Windows PC.
Huh? SXC (both halves of the loop) definitely appears on the map for me. As does SEA-ME-WE.
Guam is simply a conveniently located switching point. A lot of capacity from Australia, for example, goes up to Guam, because it can then be split out and placed on one of the many US-Asia pipes across the north Pacific. Data can turn 'left' to go to Japan/Asia, or hang a right to go to North America.
This means a company can build a cable from Australia to Guam and then make use of the huge capacity to both Asia and the US from there. Multiple destinations for a single cable, compared to dedicated cables to Asia and the US separately (which do exist as well, and have better latency, but are obviously more expensive to build).
Not quite ... including all the publically available information I can find (from that map and other sources), Australia's current international undersea capacity is comprised of:
JASURAUS – 5Gbit/s
SEA-ME-WE-3 – 960Gbit/s
PIPE-PACIFIC-1 – 1.92Tbit/s
AUSTRALIA-JAPAN-CABLE – 1Tbit/s
GONDWANA-1 – 640Gbit/s
SOUTHERN-CROSS – 2.4Tbit/s (2 paths, in a ring, 2x 1.2Tbit/s)
TELSTRA-ENDEAVOUR – 1.28Tb/s
Total capacity: 8.205 Tb/s
That capacity is not all lit either - it's enough for the current level of demand. The main issue with internet in Australia is actually the price of domestic transit rather than international (capacity to the US is cheaper per Mbps than domestic capacity).
In anticipation of the nationwide NBN FTTH network which is currently under construction (and which will no doubt massively increase demand for capacity), further cables are under construction ATM. Most importantly the PACNET cable (Australia-US) which is due to be completed in 2013 with a massive 12 Tbit/s capacity (i.e. it will overnight more than double our total international bandwidth).
Anyway either way, a 5 Tbps cable to Svalbard certainly does seem pretty 'overkill'!
Yeah. I've been using a Corsair Force F115 here for the last 5 months or so. Resume from sleep was buggy for me too - a quick poke around the Corsair forums reveals it's a known issue, and unfortunately the last firmware that Sandforce submitted to Corsair for testing, that was supposed to fix the issue, didn't pass their quality control. So they are waiting on SandForce to 'try again' with their next firmware.
However, I then realised that putting my computer to sleep wasn't really necessary anymore given that Windows boots in 7 seconds now (end of BIOS to usable desktop). The time penalty for powering off cf. going to sleep was small now. So I just disabled sleep altogether several months ago and forgot about the whole thing. Until I read your post just now. :)
(I will say that other than having to disable sleep, I love this damn thing. So, so fast...)
Indeed. As a dual US-Australian citizen who spends their time living in both countries at various times of the year, I don't blame you at the moment. The US has some nice aspects to it (cheaper travel, cheap consumer goods, ability to play unrated games etc.) but the economy (unemployment rates, average wages etc.) and quality of life (number of holidays, work/life balance, crime rates, design of cities, quality of food etc.) is so much better in Australia it's not funny.
It wasn't always that way. Used to be the US was the place to make money, and Australia was a nice place to relax and enjoy life. But the US has been hit hard economically in the last 10-15 years, while Australia has made leaps and bounds ahead (without losing much of its its great lifestyle, good governance and egalitarian society). Australia today is almost unrecognisable from Australia in the 80s and early 90s. And the Australian dollar now being worth more than the US dollar was the final straw for me - I now tend to remain in AU for the foreseeable future. We'll see how the recovery in the US goes, but with its crippling debt, I hold no great hopes on that front.
Anyway this is all a bit off topic. Regarding XBLIF, I wonder if you can somehow figure out a way of getting a US XBL account which would give you access to XBLIF? I don't personally have an Xbox so I'm not sure what kind of information is needed to create an account - if you can put in a fake address and use cards/vouchers to top up your balance perhaps you don't even need a US credit card/billing address? Do they do IP geolocation to prevent people using it outside of the US? If so you could set up a VPN (at your home router level) to get around this. I do this to access stuff like Pandora and Hulu when I'm outside the US, and also to buy games at US prices off Steam. Don't know how practical all this is, but where there's a will, there's a way ... ;)
From one fellow 'high karma' poster to another...
I think you're being a bit quick to see 'hate' in everything. I think they (Europeans, that is, which I am not BTW, but do come from a metric-only country) just want to be able to understand the summary. I have no issues with having any kind of units whatsoever in the summary but it would be nice if it was also stated in ISO/SI units as well (i.e. put it in brackets afterwards).
I admit I didn't even know there ~was~ such a unit as BTU before seeing this article let alone having any sense how 'large' that unit is (cf. feet, miles, deg F etc. which I don't use but I at least know exist, and know roughly what the conversion factors are). Thank God for Wiki and Google's unit conversion feature.
Also I do see plenty of vitriol going the other way on Slashdot. It's often with regard to political systems and ideals. Some Americans have a tendency to think of anything other than an exact copy of their poilitical system as 'repressive' or 'not free' or even 'socialist' (or at least, what they think socialism is), without for a minute entertaining the idea that perhaps different societies simply have different ideas about how much of a role government should play in various things (and I'm not talking about extreme examples here like Saudi Arabia or China or something, I'm talking about other Western democracies). Or people making judgements about countries they have never set foot in (what you might read about a place often differs greatly from the actual experience of day to day life on the ground). Slashdot infuriates me with such things every now and again, and I keep saying to myself that I should quit visiting, but somehow after a few days all is forgiven and I'm back here again for some reason, heh...
Note I'm not trying to argue with you here - there are plenty of uninformed/ignorant/intolerant idiots in every country and I agree that taking every possible opportunity to snipe at Americans for something as stupid as units of measurement is pretty immature. But that's kinda how the Internet is these days, sadly. And it goes both ways, from what I can see.
I don't think roundabouts are any more dangerous than a conventional intersection for pedestrians. A driver who fails to indicate in a roundabout is also equally likely to fail to indicate in a normal intersection, and the pedestrian may be equally unsure whether they are going to turn or not. Regardless, as a pedestrian, you should not be stepping onto the road to begin crossing if there is any traffic coming that could potentially turn into the road you are crossing. You shouldn't be trusting anyone's ability to indicate - roundabout or not.
Roundabouts aren't really replacements for traffic lights. If you have an intersection that is busy enough to require lights, roundabouts won't really work that much better.
Instead, roundabouts are perfect for places you may currently have 4-way stops. As a non-American who has visited the US many times, the 4-way stop baffles me every time. No other place I have visited has such a thing - they are bizarre and seem to rely on some mutual understanding of who got there first and thus in what order people need to go. Not to mention that they require a stop every time, even if there is no other traffic, or the only other other traffic is turning in a direction that wouldn't interfere with you anyway.
Roundabouts are far superior (hence their widespread use in virtually every other country where two roughly-equally trafficked roads meet that aren't busy enough to warrant traffic lights). You can go through them without stopping and usually without even pausing in low-traffic areas, and even where there is other traffic, it makes it much clearer who has right of way (simply, you give way to all traffic already on the roundabout, which in practice means just glancing left and stopping only if someone is coming from the left).
The only 'problem' with them in the US is a lack of familiarity (which is understandable - if you didn't grow up using them you may feel uncomfortable about them, not just because of your own lack of experience with them, but because you know the ~other~ people on the road don't know how to use them either, thus increasing danger to you). But once you know how to use them properly they are far and away better than 4-way stops. And even if you do have an accident on them, since all traffic is moving in the same direction, the relative speed of impacts will be low (compared to a t-bone or head-on at a regular crossroads).
This is a decision taken privately by two ISPs in Australia. There was no doubt some form of governmental pressure involved ... but it's not a law, it's not a governmental requirement, and it didn't involve anyone electing or voting for anyone. The two companies are free to stop doing this tomorrow if they so choose.
So if you don't like it, and you happen to be a customer of one of these two ISPs, circumvent it (easily done as mentioned in TFS), or change to another ISP (which is a good move anyway - Telstra and Optus are honestly not the best choices for most people). ISP choice in Australia is one thing that they HAVE done right (due to forced resale of Telstra wholesale services), and almost anyone who has a phone line has access to anywhere between 10-30 other ISPs to choose from.
So your language is rather over the top, talking of military coups and elections etc - this is not an action taken by 'government' at all. In fact, quite the opposite - the censorship plan the government actually wanted was shot down in flames and never passed Parliament (nor would ever have a hope of doing so - public opposition to it was strong, in the order of 70-90% depending on which poll you believe).