Yes I can afford a smartphone with GPS - and I indeed have one.
However I'd rather take an old iPod Nano which weighs virtually nothing and is worth 100 bucks with me, than carry my far heavier and far more fragile iPhone 4 which is less than 3 weeks old and cost me $1000 AUD.
I run in a tshirt and shorts so something as heavy as the iPhone bouncing around in a pocket is kinda irritating and probably isn't very good for the phone. I have had incidents while jogging in the past where things carried in the pockets get accidentally damaged.
If you bought it without the knowledge that it was stolen, then yes. Any other system is kinda retarded... it's not fair to penalise the legitimate and honest purchaser of property of their purchase if they bought it in good faith and without any reason to believe it was stolen.
I have the Nike+ and Lance's little words of encouragement are completely meaningless to me. Hell since it occurs at the end of the run, I've usually already taken the earphones out so I don't even hear it.
Rather for me the Nike+ system was just an easier way of tracking when and how far I ran. I already carried my MP3 player while running anyway, and the Nike receiver stays in the shoe... so it was a completely effortless way to do that. Rewards or acheivements etc. had nothing to do with it.
Not to disagree with the central point TFA is trying to make - but you're right: Nike+ is a poor example. It's not acheivements-centric at all.
I'm pretty sure you have a few fundamentalist conservative Christian politicians in the US too. These are generally where the freedom-destroying proposals come from. Fortunately for both countries they do not represent a majority of the Parliament/Congress.
Slashdot constantly keeps reporting about every little stupid idea that any Australian politician, local council member, random uninfluential lobby group or guy off the street comes up with. And reports it as if it were a) a done deal; or b) imminent and unavoidable. See also: mandatory Internet filter (Slashdot ~seems~ to think we have one, or that one is coming Real Soon Now. It's not. The proposal is essentially dead and buried).
Some random person's ideas/proposals for new 'facist' laws does not mean those laws exist, or will ever exist.
Most Slashdot headlines about countries outside the US are poorly researched, inflammatory, and in many cases, completely wrong. (This is probably also true about many headlines concerning the US too!)
No way. They may be more 'draconian' (by your definition) than in the US, but they are generally less so than most of the EU. Australia in almost every way (cultural, government, etc.) really is a middle ground between Europe and the US in my experience.
For instance:
- Requiring ID to get a prepaid SIM card is standard in Australia, but also in most of Europe. I don't see this as particularly 'scary'. You are signing up for a company's services. They need to know who you are (even prepaid users have an 'account' and can request mailed statements etc.). And if you really wanted, you could just give fake details.
- The 'internet laws' you are thinking of (the filter, I assume?) never actually got passed and looks like they never will thanks to the outcome of last week's election. They don't exist. Slashdot just likes to hype every proposal up as if it were a done deal, but then fail to report when things actually ~don't~ end up happening.
- The proposal to record users' web histories is similarly doomed. But I should point out that it was essentially a proposal to introduce what is already the STANDARD EU directive on recording web history, here in Australia. That is, ~much of Europe already does this~, but we don't.
- Games censorship: again this has been somewhat misrepresented on Slashdot. The problem here is not a law AGAINST certain content, it is the lack of a classification FOR it. Basically we have a classification system like most countries. But due to an oversight (and the age of the laws in question), there's no R18 rating for games (although there is for movies, literature and any other content). So there's no classification that can be given to games that surpass the limits of what can fit under the MA15+ category. And if something isn't classified, it can't be sold commercially. Let me reiterate - there is absolutely no law against OWNING such content. You just cannot ~sell~ it within Australia. The wheels are in motion to get these laws updated though, and in the meantime we can do what we've always done: buy it off Ebay/foreign website.
- Porn: not sure what you mean by this. Again any restriction on this relates to ~selling~ it (and even there, it varies from state to state). Nothing wrong with owning it. Yes customs technically has the legal power to search for it being brought into the country (as certain types, i.e. child porn, ARE obviously illegal). But I've never seen this actually occur in practice (and I travel internationally a lot). And for that matter, customs/immigration have the right to search for ANYTHING they want anyway - this is true in all countries. If you want scary immigration officers, I can assure you the US TSA are a lot worse than anything Australia has to offer;)
So overall, we certainly do have somewhat tougher laws than the US when it comes to communications/censorship etc. But generally speaking we have less of these laws than Europe. We are nowhere near the most draconian (to use your definition) in the western world therefore.
Theres a flipside too - we have substantially better consumer protection, privacy etc. laws than the US. Companies get away with so much in the US that would result on them getting stomped on here (or in the EU). So I guess we basically are a more regulated society in general, and that has both good and bad aspects.
For xDSL technologies, it depends on your phone line (which the ISP can't predict obviously).
If your phone line was long enough/in poor enough condition that it could only support 7 Mbps, both the 'up to 10' and 'up to 20' plans would give you exactly the same speed.
If your line was good enough to attain, say, 16 Mbps, then the 'up to 10' would give you 10, and the 'up to 20' would give you 16. And so on.
For other technologies where the limiting factor is congestion from other users, rather than physical limitations of your line (e.g. cable or wireless), the higher one would generally be better you'd think (in the quiet periods, you'd get more out of the 'up to 20' plan). But you'd be wise to ask around on some forums or something to see how congested that particular ISP's network is and what other users experience.
For technologies where you aren't spectrum sharing (e.g. FTTN/FTTH fibre deployments), they generally won't be advertised as 'up to'. You should attain the maximum speed on fibre (to a local, fast host at least - obviously if things are slow beyond your ISP's network then no amount of fibre is going to help that).
How can an ISP possibly tell the condition (and hence maximum speed) of a potential customers phone line?
They can't even get anything more than a VERY rough estimate of line length (since phone lines can be of radically different lengths even just a few houses apart, due to differing routes to the exchange). Add to that other factors such as the quality, age and gauge of the copper, the EM interference environment a particular line passes through on its path to the DSLAM, random uncontrollable interference or damage to the line inside the customer's premises itself etc, and you have no real way of predicting the speed possible over that line, without physically connecting them up and testing it.
All they can realistically do is offer an 'up to' speed. It would be a nightmare trying to assess each potential customer individually and 'advertise' a particular speed that could be offered to them.
For xDSL technologies I don't see a problem with advertising an 'up to' speed. There's no way in hell an ISP can break the laws of physics. ADSL2+ is capable of 24 Mbps over a short line, but the attainable sync speed drops off rapidly once you surpass 1 km or so.
But since everyone's phone line is different (in length, copper gauge, number of bridge taps and joins etc.), an ISP can't psychically predict what your modem will be able to sync at before they connect you. All they can do is say "you'll get the maximum speed your line will support, up to the theoretical maximum of 24 Mbps". xDSL is a 'best effort' service - you'll get whatever speed your modem can manage to squeeze out of your line and no more or less.
Indeed, how ELSE could they possibly advertise it?
(Fibre and cable on the other hand should be able to deliver the advertised speed regardless of your geographical position, and in my experience, mostly do. Used to be on a FTTN network that advertised 8Mbps and that's ~exactly~ what I got. But on my currently 'up to 24 Mbps' ADSL2+ connection, I only get 6.4 Mbps on a good day, 5.9 Mbps when it rains, due to my 4km-long phone line)
No you aren't going crazy. Most phones have FM radio already, so I don't really 'get' this thread and why everyone is saying they don't.
This includes many late model Android smartphones (HTC Desire definitely has radio, and I'm pretty sure the Legend does too).
Apple is the odd one out (as usual) - the iPhone doesn't have radio. But this is not really surprising since Apple have traditionally eschewed putting radio into their devices - even those designed to play music as their primary function. They didn't add radio to the iPod until the 4th or 5th generation, for instance.
Ditto here in Australia... the many ABC (Australian BBC/CBC/etc equivalent, not a commercial network) radio stations are absolutely invaluable. There's a local station for local news, and several excellent nationwide stations (NewsRadio for news, Classic FM for classical music, JJJ for new music, but not the typical Top40 stuff, more indie etc). Admittedly these stations all also stream online and have podcasts etc. But still, there's plenty of good stuff on the radio. From my travels in the US though it does seem as if US radio sucks for the most part (although NPR and some of the local stations in college towns etc. have some good stuff).
Yep. Doom ran acceptably but not brilliantly on a 486 33 Mhz, but terribly if you kicked the turbo button off (which I think reduced it to... 16 Mhz? Or something? Can't quite remember).
OTOH it flew on my 486 DX4/100 with 8MB RAM and 2 MB Diamond Stealth video card;) Those were the days.
Well ok, so it may not JUST be the US that does this. But Europe and Asia (which together form an easy 2/3rds of the mobile phone market) do this. Similarly in Australia, NZ etc.
It's not 'more expensive' to buy a phone without a plan. Sure the INITIAL cost is a *lot* more. But over the course of your 12 or 24 month contract, you will end up paying more for the handset than if you had just bought it outright at the start. It also means you are locked into a plan for that period of time, during which better/cheaper plans will undoubtedly come along that you would have liked to take advantage of.
The average cap is 5-20 GB because that's what people mostly need. Every major ISP these days offers caps of 200 GB or higher if the customer wants it. It's simply that most don't need that much. But that's not indicative of a problem with Australia's Internet in general.
The way you phrase it makes it sound like these low caps are the only choice, and people are being forced to buy those plans. There are much larger caps available.
Similarly with the speed: that 2 mbps average is correct, because many people remain on low end 1.5 Mbps ADSL plans. But it's not like they ~can't get~ faster plans (usually). They just choose not to. The actual average sync speed that a typical Australian phone line gets on a non-speed-limited plan (i.e. ADSL2+) is in the 10-11 Mbit range (although yes, some people are stuck at the end of a long line and get a lot less).
It's not really about applications that need 1 Gbit. The network might be theoretically capable of that, but ISPs are highly unlikely to offer that speed on residential plans any time soon.
Consumers in the NBN pilot areas (in Tasmania) who are already using the network are being offered plans from ISPs ranging from 25/2 Mbit, to 100/16 Mbit. Most people are choosing the 25 or 50 Mbit plans... few need 100 Mbit at this point in time, and Gbit would be ridiculous overkill.
But in 10, 20, 30 years time, it's nice to know the network can handle Gbit to the home, because it will be needed then. I mean even in my small three person household, we have 7 internet connected devices already. If all of them need data at once, you can definitely feel the slowdown, even on my relatively fast ADSL2+ connection. So I think there will always be a need for higher speeds as more and more devices in the home rely on Internet connectivity.
- Liberals: have stated their policy is to scrap the filter (yay!), but will also scrap the FTTH NBN and implement a cheaper plan consisting of FTTN, wireless and upgrading more exchanges to ADSL2+ / reducing copper lengths.
- Labor: have quietly dropped the plan and have publicly stated they will reconsider it and tone it down. Even within the Labor party there are quite a few (e.g. Kate Lundy) who are pushing to have it reduced to a voluntary or opt-out filter. Which is fine - so long as there's a choice to be filtered, or not filtered.
And in the end, none of the above matters anyway, since no matter which of the two major parties wins the election, the Greens are 99.9% certain to hold the balance of power, and thus the filter proposal can never make it through the Senate to be enacted into law. Frankly I'd be surprised if a mandatory filtering Bill even gets introduced into the House of Reps.
They park a lot of infrastructure down here (well, the same amount as you'd expect in any developed country, at least). Youtube and Google content all comes from a local server to which I get a 20ms ping to. So it's definitely hosted in Australia.
No - that is how most people, in most countries, buy mobile phones. They buy a handset, then shop around for a plan (or just go home and pop in the SIM card from their existing plan).
It may be 'the minority' in the US, but it's the norm elsewhere. I haven't bought a carrier-locked phone (or, for that matter, a phone plan with a 'x month' committment) in over a decade.
Indeed. The US system seems bizarre to the rest of the world.
In the rest of the world, countries either don't even have a credit reporting system, or if they do, it works from the assumption that you start with GOOD credit history, and the only thing that hurts it are previous debts you have defaulted on. I.e. someone that has never had any credit cards or other debt will be able to get a loan just as easily as someone who has had previous debt, but has paid it off on time etc. The idea of 'building' a credit history is un-necessary - just don't default on debts and you will be fine.
In my country all they do is look at your income, assets, expenses and any records of previous defaults, and make a judgement on that. There is no 'credit score' as such. The US system seems really weird (and unfair!) to me - since I am a person that has never really had any debt and almost never uses credit cards.
Yeah agreed. Lovely country and I'd agree - best I've been to outside Australia in terms of where I'd want to live. And I've been to: the UK, the US, Canada, France, Singapore, Fiji (and Australia and NZ obviously).
Kinda already exists. My shower back in Australia had a little control panel where you punch in the desired temperature, then just turn on a single, conventional tap. (Where there are separate hot and cold taps, you turn on only the 'hot' tap and water of the selected temperature comes out).
The control panel looks like this. You can get it to 'remember' a limited number of presets for different people's temperature preferences too. I personally love them. Press a button, turn on water, and you can confidently step straight in knowing it will be the perfect temperature. No need to test with your hand first. 41 C was my preference... my wife likes it a bit cooler at 38 C.
These Rinnai Infinity systems are very common in Australia (where I'm from), but for some reason I haven't seen anything like them in America, where I've lived for several years now. America does seem to like those two-degrees-of-freedom single faucets though, although I can never get the temperature just right on them - prefer separate hot and cold knobs personally.
Admittedly the Rinnai system controls only temperature, not pressure. But it's kinda like what you were thinking of.
What on earth are you going on about (allcaps and childish names notwithstanding)? I'm not saying there shouldn't be debate. There should be, and plenty of it. But there's not much point in debating whether x is good or bad, until it has actually been agreed and defined what 'x' is in the first place. Governments canvas things and throw ideas around internally all the time, and if there was a full public debate on every random thing that anyone in Government ever thought of, nothing would ever get done.
Anyway, my point was not that it is OK that the document was censored. Like you, I agree that it shouldn't be. I was merely pointing out for the non-Australian audience on/. who reads only the headlines that this not in any way shape or form a formal proposal, and hence why the "premature" quote isn't as bad as it sounds (still 'bad', but not incredibly so).
(Also debate about the filter HAS actually led to it being put on an indefinite hold, and if it ever returns it is likely to be in a modified form, e.g. opt-out/in, which I don't think most people will take issue with. Your example thus seems to be contradictory to your argument - Government had already pretty much settled on the form the filter was to take, details were THEN publicly released, and as a direct result of people's protestations and actions against it, caused a shift in policy. Noone has "imposed" anything on us.)
Parent is a fantastic post - someone please mod him up (I have points, but already posted in this thread).
I'm a dual Australian and American citizen and it's completely accurate. Australians see the American mistrust of government as incredibly paranoid, verging on delusional. By and large the Australian Government, despite the odd bungle and scandal, does a pretty good job in providing the services that it does and keeping Australia's quality of life and economy the best in the developed world (only G20 nation not to go into recession due to the 'global financial crisis'). They are on our side in the end, even if some of their ideas are a bit misguided from time to time.
OTOH though, I've seen the other side of the fence now that I live in America and have married into an American. Americans have a much better understanding of human nature when it comes to how governments can abuse their power and become 'evil', I think. Mostly as the parent says, due to their more turbulent and violent history. But I think some degree of mistrust and suspicion is a healthy thing, and the Australian people could do well to be a bit more like the Americans in that respect. Australians are incredibly apathetic about politics. Most simply don't follow politics or care one way or the other. America seems to have a higher proportion of people who are politically-interested and opinionated. Some are a bit extreme though - irrationally HATING some idea just because it has SOME degree of Government control or influence.
Also, to remain a bit more on topic - the document referred to in TFA is an internal discussion paper. Not a law. Not a Bill. Not a draft Bill. Not even a formal proposal of any kind. Slashdot always likes to beat stuff up and make it seem much more ominous than it actually is (see also: Internet filter proposals that have zero chance of actually being enacted in their current form - politically impossible given the current and likely future Senate makeup and massive public unpopularity - it may eventually get through as an opt-in or opt-out filter, which is fine).
Slashdot Mirror
I am the parent to which you are replying.
Yes I can afford a smartphone with GPS - and I indeed have one.
However I'd rather take an old iPod Nano which weighs virtually nothing and is worth 100 bucks with me, than carry my far heavier and far more fragile iPhone 4 which is less than 3 weeks old and cost me $1000 AUD.
I run in a tshirt and shorts so something as heavy as the iPhone bouncing around in a pocket is kinda irritating and probably isn't very good for the phone. I have had incidents while jogging in the past where things carried in the pockets get accidentally damaged.
If you bought it without the knowledge that it was stolen, then yes. Any other system is kinda retarded ... it's not fair to penalise the legitimate and honest purchaser of property of their purchase if they bought it in good faith and without any reason to believe it was stolen.
Precisely.
I have the Nike+ and Lance's little words of encouragement are completely meaningless to me. Hell since it occurs at the end of the run, I've usually already taken the earphones out so I don't even hear it.
Rather for me the Nike+ system was just an easier way of tracking when and how far I ran. I already carried my MP3 player while running anyway, and the Nike receiver stays in the shoe ... so it was a completely effortless way to do that. Rewards or acheivements etc. had nothing to do with it.
Not to disagree with the central point TFA is trying to make - but you're right: Nike+ is a poor example. It's not acheivements-centric at all.
I'm pretty sure you have a few fundamentalist conservative Christian politicians in the US too. These are generally where the freedom-destroying proposals come from. Fortunately for both countries they do not represent a majority of the Parliament/Congress.
No, it hasn't.
Slashdot constantly keeps reporting about every little stupid idea that any Australian politician, local council member, random uninfluential lobby group or guy off the street comes up with. And reports it as if it were a) a done deal; or b) imminent and unavoidable. See also: mandatory Internet filter (Slashdot ~seems~ to think we have one, or that one is coming Real Soon Now. It's not. The proposal is essentially dead and buried).
Some random person's ideas/proposals for new 'facist' laws does not mean those laws exist, or will ever exist.
Most Slashdot headlines about countries outside the US are poorly researched, inflammatory, and in many cases, completely wrong. (This is probably also true about many headlines concerning the US too!)
A fruit loop who likes to cause trouble.
So, perfect material for your typical, inflammatory, badly researched, and 'makes things sound a lot worse than they are' Slashdot headline then? ;)
No way. They may be more 'draconian' (by your definition) than in the US, but they are generally less so than most of the EU. Australia in almost every way (cultural, government, etc.) really is a middle ground between Europe and the US in my experience.
For instance:
- Requiring ID to get a prepaid SIM card is standard in Australia, but also in most of Europe. I don't see this as particularly 'scary'. You are signing up for a company's services. They need to know who you are (even prepaid users have an 'account' and can request mailed statements etc.). And if you really wanted, you could just give fake details.
- The 'internet laws' you are thinking of (the filter, I assume?) never actually got passed and looks like they never will thanks to the outcome of last week's election. They don't exist. Slashdot just likes to hype every proposal up as if it were a done deal, but then fail to report when things actually ~don't~ end up happening.
- The proposal to record users' web histories is similarly doomed. But I should point out that it was essentially a proposal to introduce what is already the STANDARD EU directive on recording web history, here in Australia. That is, ~much of Europe already does this~, but we don't.
- Games censorship: again this has been somewhat misrepresented on Slashdot. The problem here is not a law AGAINST certain content, it is the lack of a classification FOR it. Basically we have a classification system like most countries. But due to an oversight (and the age of the laws in question), there's no R18 rating for games (although there is for movies, literature and any other content). So there's no classification that can be given to games that surpass the limits of what can fit under the MA15+ category. And if something isn't classified, it can't be sold commercially. Let me reiterate - there is absolutely no law against OWNING such content. You just cannot ~sell~ it within Australia. The wheels are in motion to get these laws updated though, and in the meantime we can do what we've always done: buy it off Ebay/foreign website.
- Porn: not sure what you mean by this. Again any restriction on this relates to ~selling~ it (and even there, it varies from state to state). Nothing wrong with owning it. Yes customs technically has the legal power to search for it being brought into the country (as certain types, i.e. child porn, ARE obviously illegal). But I've never seen this actually occur in practice (and I travel internationally a lot). And for that matter, customs/immigration have the right to search for ANYTHING they want anyway - this is true in all countries. If you want scary immigration officers, I can assure you the US TSA are a lot worse than anything Australia has to offer ;)
So overall, we certainly do have somewhat tougher laws than the US when it comes to communications/censorship etc. But generally speaking we have less of these laws than Europe. We are nowhere near the most draconian (to use your definition) in the western world therefore.
Theres a flipside too - we have substantially better consumer protection, privacy etc. laws than the US. Companies get away with so much in the US that would result on them getting stomped on here (or in the EU). So I guess we basically are a more regulated society in general, and that has both good and bad aspects.
For xDSL technologies, it depends on your phone line (which the ISP can't predict obviously).
If your phone line was long enough/in poor enough condition that it could only support 7 Mbps, both the 'up to 10' and 'up to 20' plans would give you exactly the same speed.
If your line was good enough to attain, say, 16 Mbps, then the 'up to 10' would give you 10, and the 'up to 20' would give you 16. And so on.
For other technologies where the limiting factor is congestion from other users, rather than physical limitations of your line (e.g. cable or wireless), the higher one would generally be better you'd think (in the quiet periods, you'd get more out of the 'up to 20' plan). But you'd be wise to ask around on some forums or something to see how congested that particular ISP's network is and what other users experience.
For technologies where you aren't spectrum sharing (e.g. FTTN/FTTH fibre deployments), they generally won't be advertised as 'up to'. You should attain the maximum speed on fibre (to a local, fast host at least - obviously if things are slow beyond your ISP's network then no amount of fibre is going to help that).
How can an ISP possibly tell the condition (and hence maximum speed) of a potential customers phone line?
They can't even get anything more than a VERY rough estimate of line length (since phone lines can be of radically different lengths even just a few houses apart, due to differing routes to the exchange). Add to that other factors such as the quality, age and gauge of the copper, the EM interference environment a particular line passes through on its path to the DSLAM, random uncontrollable interference or damage to the line inside the customer's premises itself etc, and you have no real way of predicting the speed possible over that line, without physically connecting them up and testing it.
All they can realistically do is offer an 'up to' speed. It would be a nightmare trying to assess each potential customer individually and 'advertise' a particular speed that could be offered to them.
Precisely.
For xDSL technologies I don't see a problem with advertising an 'up to' speed. There's no way in hell an ISP can break the laws of physics. ADSL2+ is capable of 24 Mbps over a short line, but the attainable sync speed drops off rapidly once you surpass 1 km or so.
But since everyone's phone line is different (in length, copper gauge, number of bridge taps and joins etc.), an ISP can't psychically predict what your modem will be able to sync at before they connect you. All they can do is say "you'll get the maximum speed your line will support, up to the theoretical maximum of 24 Mbps". xDSL is a 'best effort' service - you'll get whatever speed your modem can manage to squeeze out of your line and no more or less.
Indeed, how ELSE could they possibly advertise it?
(Fibre and cable on the other hand should be able to deliver the advertised speed regardless of your geographical position, and in my experience, mostly do. Used to be on a FTTN network that advertised 8Mbps and that's ~exactly~ what I got. But on my currently 'up to 24 Mbps' ADSL2+ connection, I only get 6.4 Mbps on a good day, 5.9 Mbps when it rains, due to my 4km-long phone line)
No you aren't going crazy. Most phones have FM radio already, so I don't really 'get' this thread and why everyone is saying they don't.
This includes many late model Android smartphones (HTC Desire definitely has radio, and I'm pretty sure the Legend does too).
Apple is the odd one out (as usual) - the iPhone doesn't have radio. But this is not really surprising since Apple have traditionally eschewed putting radio into their devices - even those designed to play music as their primary function. They didn't add radio to the iPod until the 4th or 5th generation, for instance.
Ditto here in Australia ... the many ABC (Australian BBC/CBC/etc equivalent, not a commercial network) radio stations are absolutely invaluable. There's a local station for local news, and several excellent nationwide stations (NewsRadio for news, Classic FM for classical music, JJJ for new music, but not the typical Top40 stuff, more indie etc). Admittedly these stations all also stream online and have podcasts etc. But still, there's plenty of good stuff on the radio. From my travels in the US though it does seem as if US radio sucks for the most part (although NPR and some of the local stations in college towns etc. have some good stuff).
Yep. Doom ran acceptably but not brilliantly on a 486 33 Mhz, but terribly if you kicked the turbo button off (which I think reduced it to ... 16 Mhz? Or something? Can't quite remember).
OTOH it flew on my 486 DX4/100 with 8MB RAM and 2 MB Diamond Stealth video card ;) Those were the days.
Well ok, so it may not JUST be the US that does this. But Europe and Asia (which together form an easy 2/3rds of the mobile phone market) do this. Similarly in Australia, NZ etc.
It's not 'more expensive' to buy a phone without a plan. Sure the INITIAL cost is a *lot* more. But over the course of your 12 or 24 month contract, you will end up paying more for the handset than if you had just bought it outright at the start. It also means you are locked into a plan for that period of time, during which better/cheaper plans will undoubtedly come along that you would have liked to take advantage of.
The average cap is 5-20 GB because that's what people mostly need. Every major ISP these days offers caps of 200 GB or higher if the customer wants it. It's simply that most don't need that much. But that's not indicative of a problem with Australia's Internet in general.
The way you phrase it makes it sound like these low caps are the only choice, and people are being forced to buy those plans. There are much larger caps available.
Similarly with the speed: that 2 mbps average is correct, because many people remain on low end 1.5 Mbps ADSL plans. But it's not like they ~can't get~ faster plans (usually). They just choose not to. The actual average sync speed that a typical Australian phone line gets on a non-speed-limited plan (i.e. ADSL2+) is in the 10-11 Mbit range (although yes, some people are stuck at the end of a long line and get a lot less).
It's not really about applications that need 1 Gbit. The network might be theoretically capable of that, but ISPs are highly unlikely to offer that speed on residential plans any time soon.
Consumers in the NBN pilot areas (in Tasmania) who are already using the network are being offered plans from ISPs ranging from 25/2 Mbit, to 100/16 Mbit. Most people are choosing the 25 or 50 Mbit plans ... few need 100 Mbit at this point in time, and Gbit would be ridiculous overkill.
But in 10, 20, 30 years time, it's nice to know the network can handle Gbit to the home, because it will be needed then. I mean even in my small three person household, we have 7 internet connected devices already. If all of them need data at once, you can definitely feel the slowdown, even on my relatively fast ADSL2+ connection. So I think there will always be a need for higher speeds as more and more devices in the home rely on Internet connectivity.
Filter is dead.
- Liberals: have stated their policy is to scrap the filter (yay!), but will also scrap the FTTH NBN and implement a cheaper plan consisting of FTTN, wireless and upgrading more exchanges to ADSL2+ / reducing copper lengths.
- Labor: have quietly dropped the plan and have publicly stated they will reconsider it and tone it down. Even within the Labor party there are quite a few (e.g. Kate Lundy) who are pushing to have it reduced to a voluntary or opt-out filter. Which is fine - so long as there's a choice to be filtered, or not filtered.
And in the end, none of the above matters anyway, since no matter which of the two major parties wins the election, the Greens are 99.9% certain to hold the balance of power, and thus the filter proposal can never make it through the Senate to be enacted into law. Frankly I'd be surprised if a mandatory filtering Bill even gets introduced into the House of Reps.
They park a lot of infrastructure down here (well, the same amount as you'd expect in any developed country, at least). Youtube and Google content all comes from a local server to which I get a 20ms ping to. So it's definitely hosted in Australia.
No - that is how most people, in most countries, buy mobile phones. They buy a handset, then shop around for a plan (or just go home and pop in the SIM card from their existing plan).
It may be 'the minority' in the US, but it's the norm elsewhere. I haven't bought a carrier-locked phone (or, for that matter, a phone plan with a 'x month' committment) in over a decade.
Indeed. The US system seems bizarre to the rest of the world.
In the rest of the world, countries either don't even have a credit reporting system, or if they do, it works from the assumption that you start with GOOD credit history, and the only thing that hurts it are previous debts you have defaulted on. I.e. someone that has never had any credit cards or other debt will be able to get a loan just as easily as someone who has had previous debt, but has paid it off on time etc. The idea of 'building' a credit history is un-necessary - just don't default on debts and you will be fine.
In my country all they do is look at your income, assets, expenses and any records of previous defaults, and make a judgement on that. There is no 'credit score' as such. The US system seems really weird (and unfair!) to me - since I am a person that has never really had any debt and almost never uses credit cards.
Yeah agreed. Lovely country and I'd agree - best I've been to outside Australia in terms of where I'd want to live. And I've been to: the UK, the US, Canada, France, Singapore, Fiji (and Australia and NZ obviously).
Kinda already exists. My shower back in Australia had a little control panel where you punch in the desired temperature, then just turn on a single, conventional tap. (Where there are separate hot and cold taps, you turn on only the 'hot' tap and water of the selected temperature comes out).
The control panel looks like this. You can get it to 'remember' a limited number of presets for different people's temperature preferences too. I personally love them. Press a button, turn on water, and you can confidently step straight in knowing it will be the perfect temperature. No need to test with your hand first. 41 C was my preference ... my wife likes it a bit cooler at 38 C.
These Rinnai Infinity systems are very common in Australia (where I'm from), but for some reason I haven't seen anything like them in America, where I've lived for several years now. America does seem to like those two-degrees-of-freedom single faucets though, although I can never get the temperature just right on them - prefer separate hot and cold knobs personally.
Admittedly the Rinnai system controls only temperature, not pressure. But it's kinda like what you were thinking of.
What on earth are you going on about (allcaps and childish names notwithstanding)? I'm not saying there shouldn't be debate. There should be, and plenty of it. But there's not much point in debating whether x is good or bad, until it has actually been agreed and defined what 'x' is in the first place. Governments canvas things and throw ideas around internally all the time, and if there was a full public debate on every random thing that anyone in Government ever thought of, nothing would ever get done.
Anyway, my point was not that it is OK that the document was censored. Like you, I agree that it shouldn't be. I was merely pointing out for the non-Australian audience on /. who reads only the headlines that this not in any way shape or form a formal proposal, and hence why the "premature" quote isn't as bad as it sounds (still 'bad', but not incredibly so).
(Also debate about the filter HAS actually led to it being put on an indefinite hold, and if it ever returns it is likely to be in a modified form, e.g. opt-out/in, which I don't think most people will take issue with. Your example thus seems to be contradictory to your argument - Government had already pretty much settled on the form the filter was to take, details were THEN publicly released, and as a direct result of people's protestations and actions against it, caused a shift in policy. Noone has "imposed" anything on us.)
Typo fix: "married into an American" should read "married into an American family". Lol.
Parent is a fantastic post - someone please mod him up (I have points, but already posted in this thread).
I'm a dual Australian and American citizen and it's completely accurate. Australians see the American mistrust of government as incredibly paranoid, verging on delusional. By and large the Australian Government, despite the odd bungle and scandal, does a pretty good job in providing the services that it does and keeping Australia's quality of life and economy the best in the developed world (only G20 nation not to go into recession due to the 'global financial crisis'). They are on our side in the end, even if some of their ideas are a bit misguided from time to time.
OTOH though, I've seen the other side of the fence now that I live in America and have married into an American. Americans have a much better understanding of human nature when it comes to how governments can abuse their power and become 'evil', I think. Mostly as the parent says, due to their more turbulent and violent history. But I think some degree of mistrust and suspicion is a healthy thing, and the Australian people could do well to be a bit more like the Americans in that respect. Australians are incredibly apathetic about politics. Most simply don't follow politics or care one way or the other. America seems to have a higher proportion of people who are politically-interested and opinionated. Some are a bit extreme though - irrationally HATING some idea just because it has SOME degree of Government control or influence.
Also, to remain a bit more on topic - the document referred to in TFA is an internal discussion paper. Not a law. Not a Bill. Not a draft Bill. Not even a formal proposal of any kind. Slashdot always likes to beat stuff up and make it seem much more ominous than it actually is (see also: Internet filter proposals that have zero chance of actually being enacted in their current form - politically impossible given the current and likely future Senate makeup and massive public unpopularity - it may eventually get through as an opt-in or opt-out filter, which is fine).