That means there's more chance the proposed filter might come to fruition in Australia. Now the Government can point and say "see, NZ did it!".
Although it's sorta funny... I was being berated by a kiwi on this very forum a few weeks ago, who was going on about how crap Australia was and that he couldn't wait to go home to NZ where there was "no chance of an internet filter". Joke's on him now, I guess. At least our 'filter' is still only an (unpopular) proposal, rather than actually implemented. Yet.
Don't know about Victoria, but we've had a electronic voting option here in the ACT for both the last Federal election and the last Territory election. Having said that, most people still prefer the paper ballot because it's what they are used to, I suppose.
I was merely contrasting the 'best effort' of ADSL service providers with the 'guaranteed speed' from the FTTN+VDSL style network. Because the company has control over that final copper link and because they specifically make sure that it's never longer than a few hundred metres, they can actually guarantee speeds. Whereas as you'll be familiar with, they can't give any such guarantees with ADSL over POTS.
You're lucky to get 20 Mbps from ADSL2+ btw (must be damn close to the exchange). I only get about 6 Mbps:(
The UK isn't alone with this. I'm Australian, but married an American who is now living here with me (in Australia). It took her years to get used to the fact that yes, things are generally closed after business hours (other than supermarkets), and yes, many things are closed on weekends (particularly Sundays).
OTOH I'm always amazed when we spend time in America that even in a smallish town, if I want to buy a plasma TV at 4 in the morning, I usually can! (Walmart and other 24h stores). I can see the convenience of it, but also hate to think of the poor suckers that have to work at those hours, and the general lack of holidays/relaxation time in US society (legal minimum for annual leave in Australia is 4 weeks, whereas in the US a lot of people seem to have only 2 weeks or so, unless they've been with a company for a long time).
Yep. It's the constant tiny amounts of rain that make London (and most of the UK) depressing. Other places that on paper get far more rain (in terms of total in mm/inches) can also be a lot more sunny.
I live in Australia and it's the same situation with Sydney vs. Melbourne. The running joke/stereotype in Sydney is that Melbourne weather is awful and wet. Actually, Melbourne gets about 600mm per year, compared to Sydney's 1200mm. So Sydney is ~twice~ as wet. But it also has far more sunny days... the rain that falls just tends to dump in large events rather than constant light showers.
It was just an example from personal use, as I don't personally upload videos. But precisely - that's another thing that would benefit from higher upstream speeds.
Plus when I send photos, I send lots. Several hundred photos would easily equate to sending a video.
I'll support government-run hospitalization if somebody can name one thing they do well:
Huh? Hospitals are still private businesses in countries with universal health care. The government isn't running the hospitals or employing the doctors. All the government does is pay the bill at the end of the day.
I think a lot of people in the US don't seem to understand that. The Government just PAYS. They don't actually run or manage the health-care system itself.
That's kinda the point though - your money is ALREADY being spread around in such a manner. As TapeCutter said, you are already spending more tax dollars just for the existing Medicare/Medicaid systems, than people elsewhere are spending to get full universal coverage. You'd probably personally SAVE money if the US moved to a UHC system.
UHC is about making the system more simple and efficient. Getting you better value for the dollar you already spend. It is not about people stealing from other people.
Well, frankly, I don't want socialized medicine..I don't want the govt. telling me what Dr. I can see, or what tests meds the Dr can give me (possibly based on my age, etc)
No wonder people think a universal heath care system is bad if this kind of misinformation is out there.
I live in Australia. We have a universal heath care system that covers everyone. It is paid for via 1.5% of our taxable income (not all income, just the taxable component, and low income earners have an exemption so they pay nothing).
I can go to any doctor I want, anywhere. The scary 'Government' doesn't tell me to do anything whatsoever.
Universal heath care is not 'free' healthcare. Nor is it 'Government-run' health care (doctor's practices and clinics are still private businesses who are free to do whatever they want). The only difference is that a single payer (a Government department) ~pays~ for the treatment, rather than a random assortment of eleventy-billion for-profit insurers). It's not Government-RUN... their role is nothing more than paying the bill at the end of the day.
The single-payer system is better because it's more efficient (less paperwork, less risk of non-payees, thus cheaper overall), and because it covers everyone regardless of their ability to (personally) pay. But doctors themselves are still running private businesses... I can't emphasise this enough... there's no difference from the doctor's (or patient's) point of view other than who pays. The treatment itself is not 'socalised'.
Also, as an aside - the existence of a universal system in this country hasn't killed the private health insurance industry. In fact that industry is thriving, even though technically noone ~needs~ to buy health insurance. They offer other perks like private hospitals, coverage for cosmetic/non-essential surgery, physio, massages, health spas and gym memberships, etc. So they are still doing good business. People are still willing to pay for these perks. So capitalism is still alive and well under such a system, there's nothing really 'socialist' about it at all.
Well of course you would assume the question was being asked by someone in the US... because in every other country, your health insurance has nothing whatsoever to do with your job/employer.
So if someone asks about health insurance options when leaving the corporate world... that is a question that ONLY makes sense in the US.
Personally the reason I'm looking forward to fibre-based networks is not so much the increase in downstream speed (my 24 Mbps ADSL2+ service is great for the moment), but better upstream speed (my 1 Mbps upload rate is becoming increasingly inadequate as the size of data I upload increases, e.g. uploading photos to Flickr which are 6+ MB each).
ADSL (and to a lesser extent cable) are highly asymmetrical services. You can get symmetrical DSL links (SHDSL for instance), but they tend to have lower aggregate speeds (e.g. 5Mbps/5Mbps) and be very expensive. Fibre gives us the opportunity to have some truly beefy, symmetrical home links, which we'll need as applications become increasingly two-way/interactive.
Put it this way. I'd rather have a 20/20 Mbps connection than a 100/1 Mbps connection (or even a 1Gbps/1Mbps!). Upload speed is nice!
I agree that this is a bit misleading. Virgin isn't alone in doing this - it seems to be a common thing for FTTN (fibre to the node) networks everywhere. In my city (Canberra, Australia), there is a company called TransACT (http://www.transact.com.au) that has an extensive network which they also like to advertise as being fibre. But it's only fibre to each distribution box (each servicing 50-100 homes), then a short copper link which they run to the premises. They run VDSL at 52 Mbps over the copper, delivering IPTV, phone and Internet access. So like the Virgin proposal, it's only fibre to the node, not to the home. Some areas are being upgraded to VDSL2 which brings speeds up towards 100 Mbps.
Not to say that's a bad thing - the short copper runs mean you are guaranteed the advertised speed (unlike ADSL2+, on which you get 'as fast as your line will allow', which can be pretty bad if your copper line is more than 3 or 4 km long). But to contrast their 'fibre' network to 'crappy old DSL' is plainly wrong (especially considering they even use an xDSL technology for the last mile!).
Ahh, but Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on earth (measured by proportion of population living in large metro areas). Far more so than most of Europe, or the US and Canada.
So although I'm quite aware that an Akubra is a pretty essential thing to have if you live on the land, all I'm really saying is that using it as an icon representing the country as a whole smacks of stereotyping. It just irritates me Americans just seem to instantly think of a 30 year old movie as the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Australia... not only that but a movie that is not really supposed to be taken seriously. It's like they know nothing else about the place, except that.
Wasn't meaning to launch a massive thread on the matter but it bugs me every time I see the icon, that's all.
Good point. Although at least Bill Gates has (had) something to do with Microsoft. That hat has little to do with Australia outside of a bad 80s movie which seems to be 100x more well-known in the US than Australia itself;)
Indeed - but the surveyed people are naturally assuming that the filter would actually work. They are giving their opinions on a magical hypothetical filter that would block 100% of illegal content, block 0% of legitmate content, resulted in no slowdown of internet access speeds, and that could not be abused or misused by future governments.
If such a filter existed, then hell, even ~I~ would tentatively support it. So when a non-technical person is simply asked "would you like illegal websites blocked", then no wonder 80% of people say yes. But in the ~real world~, that can't be done without other negative effects and potential risks.
Does anyone else feel mildly offended every time they see that stupid hat icon they use for Australian stories now? I mean seriously... is this a serious news site? It'd be like using a picture of Speedy Gonzales for Mexican stories, or a fat man with a mustache saying "mamma mia!" for Italian ones.
Don't worry... we are still like that. Don't confuse a few fringe Senators' ideas with the status quo. Slashdot really gives you a warped view on anything that involves privacy/censorship and countries outside the US. Remember, this 'great filter':
- Is currently nothing more than a proposal. Not legislation, and not even an actual Bill that's been introduced formally into the House or Senate; - Is clearly being discussed and is a major topic in the news here. People are informed about it and forming their own opinions on it... it's not subversively being shoved down anyone's throat, despite what one or two loony Senators would like; - Is being attempted to be introduced via the normal democratic process... and failing pretty badly. The Liberal opposition and the Greens are almost certain to prevent it ever passing the Senate; - And finally, even if it gets implemented, it is nothing more than a simple HTTP URL blacklist. Circumvented in about 5 seconds and doesn't do jack to P2P/usenet/IRC/any other protocol.
This is not to say that the filter is nothing to worry about and shouldn't be fought - it absolutely should be! But drawing comparisons to China or North Korea is a bit of a stretch.
Australia is still an open and free country, and probably still the country out there that's most similar to the US, culturally and ideologically. Sure there are those that would wish to reduce those freedoms... but those kind of people exist in the US as well. But both countries have strong, independent legal systems and proper democratic process by which to challenge such things.
I'm a dual US/AU citizen and travel regularly between the two countries every year. I'm pretty familiar with the news and issues in both countries. Slashdot definitely puts a slant on most of these kind of stories, making things outside the US seem worse than they are. Same applies to their reporting on the UK and other European nations, to an extent.
Some come down and visit again some time. We won't bite:P
Actually it could be a sign that perhaps the Department is preparing to quietly let this matter slip into the background... i.e. give up on it. Rationally, this filter was never going to get off the ground. The Government's own report says it is a waste of money and won't work. It doesn't do anything other than block a handful of URLs, which is pretty pointless considering most of the traffic they are interested in stopping would be via P2P, usenet, IRC and other such channels, which are not filtered at all. It's not a major priority except for certain fringe elements... and Labor doesn't have the numbers in the Senate to get this proposed legislation through.
For all the sensationalist reporting on the proposed filter on Slashdot, anyone that knows how the Australia Federal Government works internally knows this filter is pretty unlikely to ever come into fruition (in its current form, at least). Governments definitely don't like wasting money on things that are going to make them less popular. Especially considering it's an election year.
Indeed. It seems as if gamers want all of the reward, but none of the risk. Which is partly why most Asian MMOs aren't that popular in the west (most are generally risk v reward, open PvP and have harsh penalties for death or failure). At high levels in those games, the XP death penalties alone represent hours of lost (and irrecoverable) progress. Items that take months or even years to obtain can be dropped and lost forever in the blink of an eye. Not to mention the crafting systems that require months of farming/gathering/etc. for an attempt at making an item, which has a reasonable chance of failing completely leaving you with nothing.
I kinda like that style of game. Keeps the kids out. But I'm a minority these days it seems.
Evidence: Look at the EU/NA subscription numbers of Lineage 1 or 2, or Aion (to a lesser extent... it's sorta a hybrid between eastern and western styles). These are big-budget games that are insanely popular in their native Korea (WoW-like subscriber figures in the 5-10 million range). But in the West they struggle to pull much more than an 'average MMOs' numbers (tens to hundreds of thousands), even though they are very polished games that have had a lot of effort put into their game mechanics, artwork and music.
Slashdot Mirror
Nooo...
That means there's more chance the proposed filter might come to fruition in Australia. Now the Government can point and say "see, NZ did it!".
Although it's sorta funny ... I was being berated by a kiwi on this very forum a few weeks ago, who was going on about how crap Australia was and that he couldn't wait to go home to NZ where there was "no chance of an internet filter". Joke's on him now, I guess. At least our 'filter' is still only an (unpopular) proposal, rather than actually implemented. Yet.
Some information about the ACT electronic voting system here: http://www.elections.act.gov.au/elections/electronicvoting.html
Don't know about Victoria, but we've had a electronic voting option here in the ACT for both the last Federal election and the last Territory election. Having said that, most people still prefer the paper ballot because it's what they are used to, I suppose.
Haha ... you got an informative mod for this :D
I was merely contrasting the 'best effort' of ADSL service providers with the 'guaranteed speed' from the FTTN+VDSL style network. Because the company has control over that final copper link and because they specifically make sure that it's never longer than a few hundred metres, they can actually guarantee speeds. Whereas as you'll be familiar with, they can't give any such guarantees with ADSL over POTS.
You're lucky to get 20 Mbps from ADSL2+ btw (must be damn close to the exchange). I only get about 6 Mbps :(
The UK isn't alone with this. I'm Australian, but married an American who is now living here with me (in Australia). It took her years to get used to the fact that yes, things are generally closed after business hours (other than supermarkets), and yes, many things are closed on weekends (particularly Sundays).
OTOH I'm always amazed when we spend time in America that even in a smallish town, if I want to buy a plasma TV at 4 in the morning, I usually can! (Walmart and other 24h stores). I can see the convenience of it, but also hate to think of the poor suckers that have to work at those hours, and the general lack of holidays/relaxation time in US society (legal minimum for annual leave in Australia is 4 weeks, whereas in the US a lot of people seem to have only 2 weeks or so, unless they've been with a company for a long time).
Yep. It's the constant tiny amounts of rain that make London (and most of the UK) depressing. Other places that on paper get far more rain (in terms of total in mm/inches) can also be a lot more sunny.
I live in Australia and it's the same situation with Sydney vs. Melbourne. The running joke/stereotype in Sydney is that Melbourne weather is awful and wet. Actually, Melbourne gets about 600mm per year, compared to Sydney's 1200mm. So Sydney is ~twice~ as wet. But it also has far more sunny days ... the rain that falls just tends to dump in large events rather than constant light showers.
It was just an example from personal use, as I don't personally upload videos. But precisely - that's another thing that would benefit from higher upstream speeds.
Plus when I send photos, I send lots. Several hundred photos would easily equate to sending a video.
Funnily enough, that'd be a lot more accurate ;)
I'll support government-run hospitalization if somebody can name one thing they do well:
Huh? Hospitals are still private businesses in countries with universal health care. The government isn't running the hospitals or employing the doctors. All the government does is pay the bill at the end of the day.
I think a lot of people in the US don't seem to understand that. The Government just PAYS. They don't actually run or manage the health-care system itself.
That's kinda the point though - your money is ALREADY being spread around in such a manner. As TapeCutter said, you are already spending more tax dollars just for the existing Medicare/Medicaid systems, than people elsewhere are spending to get full universal coverage. You'd probably personally SAVE money if the US moved to a UHC system.
UHC is about making the system more simple and efficient. Getting you better value for the dollar you already spend. It is not about people stealing from other people.
Well, frankly, I don't want socialized medicine..I don't want the govt. telling me what Dr. I can see, or what tests meds the Dr can give me (possibly based on my age, etc)
No wonder people think a universal heath care system is bad if this kind of misinformation is out there.
I live in Australia. We have a universal heath care system that covers everyone. It is paid for via 1.5% of our taxable income (not all income, just the taxable component, and low income earners have an exemption so they pay nothing).
I can go to any doctor I want, anywhere. The scary 'Government' doesn't tell me to do anything whatsoever.
Universal heath care is not 'free' healthcare. Nor is it 'Government-run' health care (doctor's practices and clinics are still private businesses who are free to do whatever they want). The only difference is that a single payer (a Government department) ~pays~ for the treatment, rather than a random assortment of eleventy-billion for-profit insurers). It's not Government-RUN ... their role is nothing more than paying the bill at the end of the day.
The single-payer system is better because it's more efficient (less paperwork, less risk of non-payees, thus cheaper overall), and because it covers everyone regardless of their ability to (personally) pay. But doctors themselves are still running private businesses ... I can't emphasise this enough ... there's no difference from the doctor's (or patient's) point of view other than who pays. The treatment itself is not 'socalised'.
Also, as an aside - the existence of a universal system in this country hasn't killed the private health insurance industry. In fact that industry is thriving, even though technically noone ~needs~ to buy health insurance. They offer other perks like private hospitals, coverage for cosmetic/non-essential surgery, physio, massages, health spas and gym memberships, etc. So they are still doing good business. People are still willing to pay for these perks. So capitalism is still alive and well under such a system, there's nothing really 'socialist' about it at all.
Well of course you would assume the question was being asked by someone in the US ... because in every other country, your health insurance has nothing whatsoever to do with your job/employer.
So if someone asks about health insurance options when leaving the corporate world ... that is a question that ONLY makes sense in the US.
Personally the reason I'm looking forward to fibre-based networks is not so much the increase in downstream speed (my 24 Mbps ADSL2+ service is great for the moment), but better upstream speed (my 1 Mbps upload rate is becoming increasingly inadequate as the size of data I upload increases, e.g. uploading photos to Flickr which are 6+ MB each).
ADSL (and to a lesser extent cable) are highly asymmetrical services. You can get symmetrical DSL links (SHDSL for instance), but they tend to have lower aggregate speeds (e.g. 5Mbps/5Mbps) and be very expensive. Fibre gives us the opportunity to have some truly beefy, symmetrical home links, which we'll need as applications become increasingly two-way/interactive.
Put it this way. I'd rather have a 20/20 Mbps connection than a 100/1 Mbps connection (or even a 1Gbps/1Mbps!). Upload speed is nice!
I agree that this is a bit misleading. Virgin isn't alone in doing this - it seems to be a common thing for FTTN (fibre to the node) networks everywhere. In my city (Canberra, Australia), there is a company called TransACT (http://www.transact.com.au) that has an extensive network which they also like to advertise as being fibre. But it's only fibre to each distribution box (each servicing 50-100 homes), then a short copper link which they run to the premises. They run VDSL at 52 Mbps over the copper, delivering IPTV, phone and Internet access. So like the Virgin proposal, it's only fibre to the node, not to the home. Some areas are being upgraded to VDSL2 which brings speeds up towards 100 Mbps.
Not to say that's a bad thing - the short copper runs mean you are guaranteed the advertised speed (unlike ADSL2+, on which you get 'as fast as your line will allow', which can be pretty bad if your copper line is more than 3 or 4 km long). But to contrast their 'fibre' network to 'crappy old DSL' is plainly wrong (especially considering they even use an xDSL technology for the last mile!).
Haha I got modded funny? What the ... :)
Ahh, but Australia is one of the most urbanised countries on earth (measured by proportion of population living in large metro areas). Far more so than most of Europe, or the US and Canada.
So although I'm quite aware that an Akubra is a pretty essential thing to have if you live on the land, all I'm really saying is that using it as an icon representing the country as a whole smacks of stereotyping. It just irritates me Americans just seem to instantly think of a 30 year old movie as the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Australia ... not only that but a movie that is not really supposed to be taken seriously. It's like they know nothing else about the place, except that.
Wasn't meaning to launch a massive thread on the matter but it bugs me every time I see the icon, that's all.
Yep. Although the ones ending in -o are usually derogatory. Including both the above. The ones ending in -ie are so common as to almost not be slang ;)
Good point. Although at least Bill Gates has (had) something to do with Microsoft. That hat has little to do with Australia outside of a bad 80s movie which seems to be 100x more well-known in the US than Australia itself ;)
Indeed - but the surveyed people are naturally assuming that the filter would actually work. They are giving their opinions on a magical hypothetical filter that would block 100% of illegal content, block 0% of legitmate content, resulted in no slowdown of internet access speeds, and that could not be abused or misused by future governments.
If such a filter existed, then hell, even ~I~ would tentatively support it. So when a non-technical person is simply asked "would you like illegal websites blocked", then no wonder 80% of people say yes. But in the ~real world~, that can't be done without other negative effects and potential risks.
Does anyone else feel mildly offended every time they see that stupid hat icon they use for Australian stories now? I mean seriously ... is this a serious news site? It'd be like using a picture of Speedy Gonzales for Mexican stories, or a fat man with a mustache saying "mamma mia!" for Italian ones.
Don't worry ... we are still like that. Don't confuse a few fringe Senators' ideas with the status quo. Slashdot really gives you a warped view on anything that involves privacy/censorship and countries outside the US. Remember, this 'great filter':
- Is currently nothing more than a proposal. Not legislation, and not even an actual Bill that's been introduced formally into the House or Senate; ... it's not subversively being shoved down anyone's throat, despite what one or two loony Senators would like; ... and failing pretty badly. The Liberal opposition and the Greens are almost certain to prevent it ever passing the Senate;
- Is clearly being discussed and is a major topic in the news here. People are informed about it and forming their own opinions on it
- Is being attempted to be introduced via the normal democratic process
- And finally, even if it gets implemented, it is nothing more than a simple HTTP URL blacklist. Circumvented in about 5 seconds and doesn't do jack to P2P/usenet/IRC/any other protocol.
This is not to say that the filter is nothing to worry about and shouldn't be fought - it absolutely should be! But drawing comparisons to China or North Korea is a bit of a stretch.
Australia is still an open and free country, and probably still the country out there that's most similar to the US, culturally and ideologically. Sure there are those that would wish to reduce those freedoms ... but those kind of people exist in the US as well. But both countries have strong, independent legal systems and proper democratic process by which to challenge such things.
I'm a dual US/AU citizen and travel regularly between the two countries every year. I'm pretty familiar with the news and issues in both countries. Slashdot definitely puts a slant on most of these kind of stories, making things outside the US seem worse than they are. Same applies to their reporting on the UK and other European nations, to an extent.
Some come down and visit again some time. We won't bite :P
Actually it could be a sign that perhaps the Department is preparing to quietly let this matter slip into the background ... i.e. give up on it. Rationally, this filter was never going to get off the ground. The Government's own report says it is a waste of money and won't work. It doesn't do anything other than block a handful of URLs, which is pretty pointless considering most of the traffic they are interested in stopping would be via P2P, usenet, IRC and other such channels, which are not filtered at all. It's not a major priority except for certain fringe elements ... and Labor doesn't have the numbers in the Senate to get this proposed legislation through.
For all the sensationalist reporting on the proposed filter on Slashdot, anyone that knows how the Australia Federal Government works internally knows this filter is pretty unlikely to ever come into fruition (in its current form, at least). Governments definitely don't like wasting money on things that are going to make them less popular. Especially considering it's an election year.
Indeed. It seems as if gamers want all of the reward, but none of the risk. Which is partly why most Asian MMOs aren't that popular in the west (most are generally risk v reward, open PvP and have harsh penalties for death or failure). At high levels in those games, the XP death penalties alone represent hours of lost (and irrecoverable) progress. Items that take months or even years to obtain can be dropped and lost forever in the blink of an eye. Not to mention the crafting systems that require months of farming/gathering/etc. for an attempt at making an item, which has a reasonable chance of failing completely leaving you with nothing.
I kinda like that style of game. Keeps the kids out. But I'm a minority these days it seems.
Evidence: Look at the EU/NA subscription numbers of Lineage 1 or 2, or Aion (to a lesser extent ... it's sorta a hybrid between eastern and western styles). These are big-budget games that are insanely popular in their native Korea (WoW-like subscriber figures in the 5-10 million range). But in the West they struggle to pull much more than an 'average MMOs' numbers (tens to hundreds of thousands), even though they are very polished games that have had a lot of effort put into their game mechanics, artwork and music.
I assure you you can go to jail for the same things in Australia.
However, we need to extradite him from whereever he's gone first. That takes time.