How can Hanson get locked up for 3 years, effectively becoming a martyr, for an administrative error... ?
OK, that one's a witch hunt, pure and simple. But, you must admit, as one of the two "responsible persons" for the political party, seeing as the party was found guilty of fraud, she's the one who should pay.
How can the daughter of the foreign minister get fined a couple of hundred dollars and lose her license for a few months for doing 165km/h in a 100km/h zone in her daddy's ss commodore and I get fined a couple of hundred for only going 10km/h over the limit?
Did you get locked up? No?, So your offense was less than hers, and at cost you less. The actual $$$ value is just a matter of degree. What's the problem?
Why do they drop the charges against a corrupt politician who ripped-off the australian public to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars because the poor fat pig "has only a couple of months to live" - yet then continues to live to this very day, complete with his disgustingly generous parliametary superannuation payouts?
DPP decision, not a judge's / court decision. In case you haven't worked it out, the DPP is a quasi-political arm, not as fiercely independent as the rest of the legal system.
... Illegal immigrant detention centres are illegal - what a fucking joke! What gives them the right to decide that illegal entrants to our country have the same, or greater, rights than our own citizens!?
Who wants to give them the same or greater rights? Nobody; the courts are just saying "hey, they're people, don't treat them like shit!". Remember how we treated the refugees from Kosovo? "Come to our country, it's safe! / OK, now America has pulled out so it's safe at home, now fuck off before we lock you up permanently". Lovely...
The time is drawing near for when we, the decent people of Australia, will have to stand up for ourselves and take back, using whatever means necessary, the government and legal systems that are so out of control and corrupt.
Ah yes, the "decent people". Unlike those scumsucking politicians, commo pinky judges, dirty abos, lazy dole bludgers, filthy immigrants, and puppy-munching asians which are destroying our way of life, overrunning our cities, and looking lustingly at our wives.
I am generally pretty down on the Ham community in my part of the world. I've met too many miserable smartarse old bastards in the amatuer "community" whose only fun in their cloistered little lives is to make things hard for people who are interested in getting involved. I've also met a few total d!ckheads who were welcomed in to the fraternity because they fit the image the incumbents wanted.
OTOH, I work with a couple of really good, friendly, intelligent guys who are hams. But, 'round here, they're the exception rather than the rule.
Anyway, on to what I really wanted to say: I work in the telecommunications industry. For a while, I was responsible for maintaining the backup power systems in all sites - exchanges (COs), remotes, CAN-E, mobiles, etc - for 1/2 my city. Exchanges generally had 2-4 hours battery backup (+ standby generators), mobile sites usually slightly more, and CAN & customer sites anywhere from 8 hours up to days.
And the one thing I learned in that time is, while people will put up with the power being out for hours on end, they'll bitch like hell if the phone is dead when they want to use it...
Unless, of course, you're running a generator right under their window;-)
(Oh, and I'm surprised nobody yet has mentioned that it's "shone", not "shined";-)
The idea being presented here is exactly what you are talking about. It's not using hydrogen as the source, just as a storage mechanism. So, when the big generator is working, you can electrolyze water and fill your hydrogen tank. When the big generator dies, you and all your neighbors power yourselves, or even pump power into the grid.
So, in effect, you'll become backup/off-line storage for them.
I remember, many years ago as a kid, seeing the "UPS" at the local international airport.
It consisted of a *big* motor / generator unit, and an absolutely *huge* flywheel (well, maybe not that huge - I would have been maybe 8 at the time...)
This unit was used to power the important systems - RADAR, runway lights, ILS, etc - for the (hopefully short) period of time between the supply going out, and the stationary plants kicking in.
Ffwd 20-odd years, and I saw similar smaller units in use in office buildings and such. Point being, flywheel-type energy storage is nothing new...
OK, mine's about an eight-foot L shape. What do I see?
That's absolutely amazing - mine's a standard 6'x3' office-type desk, and contains much the same as yours (Only 1 eMac, the MIDI keyboard is on a stand next to the desk, but I've got a 60W stereo amp as well), maybe a few more Coke cans than you... But I've got one thing you haven't.
This works for Apple because they actually produce QUALITY products - their level of attrition/triage isn't as high as... say... Dell. Or Gateway (God fucking forbid...)
... He says, 2 days after I take my 6 month old eMac to the shop with a dead screen...
Having said that, the tech guy I spoke to was top-notch, friendly, knew his stuff, immediately accepted that I knew what I was talking about (e.g. "it's just the display - I managed to telnet and ftp in to get my important stuff off it - and it seems to have no HT"), and quoted me 4 or 5 working days turnaround. I guess I'll find out how right he is. But my previous experiences with Apple (sales, not service), lead me to believe it'll probably be quicker than that. Here's hoping.
A child could come home and put his keys in the bowl, which would take a picture of the keys and send the image to the parents' bowl. Parents could look into their bowls and feel comforted that their child is home safe.
It's even worse when you realise it's actually a typo...
Mr. Burns: "Stop everything. I don't remember writing a check for bowling." Smithers: "Uhh. Sir, that's a check for your boweling..."
So, it appears that the common practice of draping a coffin - particularly that of a military person or dignitary - in your flag would contravene points (b), (c), and (h), and arguably points (d), (g), and (i)?
Your example of Morgan is flawed. The fact is they perform better, stronger (?), and faster than their competitors in their market!. Their market is, of course, hand-crafted ash-framed aluminium bodied sportscars in the classic British tradition...
I love the Moggies - even considered buying a near-new used one a little while ago - but I wouldn't drive one in traffic;-)
Reading those links - particularly the Virgin one - gave me an idea. Why aren't the Big Media demons looking on things like the iPod as a personal "Top 40, all the time" radio?
Take your iPod to Virgin Megastore.
Pay $10~$20, have a special section/directory loaded with the current Top 40 in DRM-wrapped AAC.
Return every few weeks, pay a $2~$5 top-up fee, and have the Top 40 updated.
????
Profit!
As much as I hate their actions - it's not about the money, or the music, it's all about control - this seems like a good solution from their point of view. It's an extension of their current paradigm (radio), it reinforces their market manipulation and lock-in (Top 40), and they get revenue! What more could the bastards want?!
(This idea (c) 2003 by NoMaster / The Bastard Software Co. All rights reserved. Open other end. Content may appear larger than actual size...)
When a foreigh government subsidizes a company to artificially lower the prices of its products, that's not "free trade" and it's not "fair trade." It's predatory mercantilism (...)
So, what's it called again when your government does it? I'm sure there's quite a few steelmakers, wheat farmers, sugar farmers, technology companies, miners, etc around the world who would like to know...
Protectionism is a harmful and ultimately self destructive practice.
So are masturbation and smoking. And you'll never stop any of them...
As a non-USAian, I really think this whole thing is a combination of non-issue and hypocracy. Very "four legs good, two legs bad" => "four legs good, two legs better". Remember, when a government intervenes, either directly or indirectly, to prop up failing businesses, it's call "protecting our (economy | way of life | workers)" if it's your government, and (protectionisim | unfair subsidies | "communism") when it's not...
Alas, all these things ARE true for a culture that existed 2,000+ years ago.
Sadly it is not a culture of today.
Today the tribes of the area are too busy killing each other in the name of a dozen religions. They're too busy filling their souls with hate and killing off the dissenters with the odd ideas which will become the next medicine or math or a myriad of other futures. They're too busy protecting their own stuff/turf/wealth/power to worry about what could be.
Y'know, cut just one zero out of that first sentence and you could be talking about the US;-)
I was walking through a department store on my way out of the mall a little while ago and set off thier little alarm thing. It was something I had purchased in another store and was in my bag.
I too have been in this situation - doorpost alarm goes off, security come a-running, and they've tried to hold and search me.
The interesting part? What set off the alarm was my keyring! After a little experimentation at the local corner store/video rental owned by a friend, I learned that if my 2 car keys are angled together in *just* the right way, it sets off the doorpost anti-theft alarm. These things work by detecting a resonant circuit, and I guess the angle + cuttings of the keys matches the frequency of these things.
The best part - I can now do this at will! Much fun can be had this way...;-)
Here in Oz, when I first set up my eMac, it asked me if I wanted to sign up with [insert Apple preferred ISP - iPrimus?].
It only asked once. It didn't drop an icon on the desktop. It doesn't keep asking me each time I reboot, or every 5 minutes in between. Just the once.
I can't even find the option in System Preferences. Although, I'm sure I've seen the signup app or.webloc on the filesystem somewhere.
The point is, it's totally unlike a default Windows installation, which hounds you for not having an internet connection, and taunts you with an "easy signup!" icon on the desktop until you delete it (and even then, it warns you that can't truly be deleted!)
Now, if they could only do the same with Quicktime. Every month or so, it asks if I want to upgrade to QT Pro. That's right, you don't even get the full version of QT when you buy a Mac! I swear, they're selling AU$3000 computers in order to leverage their AU$29.95 app...
So someone running a K6/400 and Win98 finds out that they can buy a cheap W2005 so they can continue to use online banking, but they're going to have to buy a new midrange computer (which will presumably have W2005 bundled) to make it run because the real minimum specs for W2005 will be 2GHz and 1G DRAM?
I mean the minimum for running real apps on top of the OS, not the MS specified minimum that allows getting to the desktop.
Do you really think people will buy new computers because their banks say so?
You're forgetting how the PC industry is driven right now:
Shiny new OS appears, min spec P2/400MHz & 64Meg RAM
Customer buys shiny new OS
Customer finds shiny new OS is a dog; techie-friend advises "real" min spec is actually P10/9.8GHz & 2TB RAM
I saw "Matrix : Recycled" yesterday, and about 5 minutes in I remembered that after seeing the first one a second time, I said to myself "Y'know, this isn't that good..."
...Star Wars ("It is our destiny" seemed just ripped out of Return of the Jedi, even the way it was spoken)...
I saw "Matrix 2 : The Legend Of Curley's Gold" with my little sister and her friend. During Morpheus's big scene in Zion (being deliberately vague to prevent spoilage - oh, who cares; his speech/sermon in the big cavern/church/hall), my sister and I both turned to each other at exactly the same time and said "Ewoks!"
Believe me, it's just like the Ewok party scenes in SW:ROTJ;-)
In short, you could condense the whole movie down to the scene where Neo is kicking the living shit out of 100's of Hugo Weavings (something I, as an Australian, have always wanted to do;-), wrap a (what passes for "deep") philosophical and metaphysical lead-in and out on it, and have a pretty good video game for the Tekken-lovers out there.
(Oh, and during the sex scene I was waiting for Trinity to stick her little finger in the socket on the back of Neo's head;-)
But I still maintain that the private sector can do anything faster, cheaper, more effeciantly, and of a better quality than the government.
(Wandering ever more off-topic...)
This is true, up to a point. What happens is that, left unfettered, the private sector (which is after all out to make money - as much as possible) in any realm tends to stratify, with the (cost || popularity) of each (level || quality) of (goods || services) near the top of what that strata will bear.
Which is, of course, the whole point of the headline story/article. The truly odd thing is that this should come as any surprise to the authors or the general populace. It's a theme repeated over and over again in almost all aspects of society.
And yes, it happens in "communist" societies too...
Not exactly. It looks at the query and decides whether it thinks you want a non-English domain, and if so, directs you to a page to get an IE plugin which adds support for international URLs. A very dirty hack and not in any way part of the DNS standard, but not advertising.
Bullshit. It's advertising IE. If it wasn't, it'd have either a) "plug ins" for *every* browsing engine out there (impossible - think Lynx, or a webspider...), or b) a totally server-side solution. It has neither - just an IE plugin...
I'm tired of the Anti-Americanism. True, America is big and bad and loud. But we're not the *SOLE* cause of misery in the world. I'm tired of nations who just blame, blame, blame and don't accept even a modicum of responsiblity.
It's comforting to note that, in these trying and troubled times, Americans have not lost their sense of irony...
Same thing happened with the 2000 Sydney Olympics. IIRC, the word "Olympics" and the interlocked rings is required to be (registered && trademarked) by each games organisation for each individual games.
The TV satire-documentary "The Games" (a brilliant show - it should be compulsory viewing on all inbound international flights, just as an introduction to Australian culture and humour) did a nice send-up of it at the time - a Greek gentleman turned up at the SOCOG offices claiming infringement. His name? Sidney Olympic Games...
Copyright doesn't protect ideas from being copied, it protects expression from being copied. You can't copyright an idea at all, period.
I wonder how far somebody would get if they tried to create, oh, I dunno, an independently rendered expression of the idea of an oversized mouse piloting a boat whilst whistling a happy tune?
You compare us to the Renaissance, when a few staggering works of genius were created, generally under the patronage of kings and popes.... Could Michaelangelo have painted the Sistine Chapel without money for paint? No.
Of course not, but consider the source and purpose of the money supplied to him - an independently wealthy organisation, with the aim of enriching all people by glorifying the wonders of a shared belief. Unless you happen to believe that sacrificing your money to the frozen popsicle head of a long-dead plagarist, or the pockets of a few amoral people, is a glory to be shared, I don't think the same purpose holds...
Slashdot Mirror
OK, that one's a witch hunt, pure and simple. But, you must admit, as one of the two "responsible persons" for the political party, seeing as the party was found guilty of fraud, she's the one who should pay.
How can the daughter of the foreign minister get fined a couple of hundred dollars and lose her license for a few months for doing 165km/h in a 100km/h zone in her daddy's ss commodore and I get fined a couple of hundred for only going 10km/h over the limit?
Did you get locked up? No?, So your offense was less than hers, and at cost you less. The actual $$$ value is just a matter of degree. What's the problem?
Why do they drop the charges against a corrupt politician who ripped-off the australian public to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars because the poor fat pig "has only a couple of months to live" - yet then continues to live to this very day, complete with his disgustingly generous parliametary superannuation payouts?
DPP decision, not a judge's / court decision. In case you haven't worked it out, the DPP is a quasi-political arm, not as fiercely independent as the rest of the legal system.
Who wants to give them the same or greater rights? Nobody; the courts are just saying "hey, they're people, don't treat them like shit!". Remember how we treated the refugees from Kosovo? "Come to our country, it's safe! / OK, now America has pulled out so it's safe at home, now fuck off before we lock you up permanently". Lovely...
The time is drawing near for when we, the decent people of Australia, will have to stand up for ourselves and take back, using whatever means necessary, the government and legal systems that are so out of control and corrupt.
Ah yes, the "decent people". Unlike those scumsucking politicians, commo pinky judges, dirty abos, lazy dole bludgers, filthy immigrants, and puppy-munching asians which are destroying our way of life, overrunning our cities, and looking lustingly at our wives.
Bet I can guess which party you voted for
I am generally pretty down on the Ham community in my part of the world. I've met too many miserable smartarse old bastards in the amatuer "community" whose only fun in their cloistered little lives is to make things hard for people who are interested in getting involved. I've also met a few total d!ckheads who were welcomed in to the fraternity because they fit the image the incumbents wanted.
;-)
;-)
OTOH, I work with a couple of really good, friendly, intelligent guys who are hams. But, 'round here, they're the exception rather than the rule.
Anyway, on to what I really wanted to say: I work in the telecommunications industry. For a while, I was responsible for maintaining the backup power systems in all sites - exchanges (COs), remotes, CAN-E, mobiles, etc - for 1/2 my city. Exchanges generally had 2-4 hours battery backup (+ standby generators), mobile sites usually slightly more, and CAN & customer sites anywhere from 8 hours up to days.
And the one thing I learned in that time is, while people will put up with the power being out for hours on end, they'll bitch like hell if the phone is dead when they want to use it...
Unless, of course, you're running a generator right under their window
(Oh, and I'm surprised nobody yet has mentioned that it's "shone", not "shined"
Question is, will they pay you?
I remember, many years ago as a kid, seeing the "UPS" at the local international airport.
It consisted of a *big* motor / generator unit, and an absolutely *huge* flywheel (well, maybe not that huge - I would have been maybe 8 at the time...)
This unit was used to power the important systems - RADAR, runway lights, ILS, etc - for the (hopefully short) period of time between the supply going out, and the stationary plants kicking in.
Ffwd 20-odd years, and I saw similar smaller units in use in office buildings and such. Point being, flywheel-type energy storage is nothing new...
A Rubber Chicken! (mine even screams!)
Everybody needs a rubber chicken, at least once in their lives...
Having said that, the tech guy I spoke to was top-notch, friendly, knew his stuff, immediately accepted that I knew what I was talking about (e.g. "it's just the display - I managed to telnet and ftp in to get my important stuff off it - and it seems to have no HT"), and quoted me 4 or 5 working days turnaround. I guess I'll find out how right he is. But my previous experiences with Apple (sales, not service), lead me to believe it'll probably be quicker than that. Here's hoping.
Mr. Burns
Smithers
That's interesting.
So, it appears that the common practice of draping a coffin - particularly that of a military person or dignitary - in your flag would contravene points (b), (c), and (h), and arguably points (d), (g), and (i)?
As I said, interesting...
Not quite crap.
;-)
Your example of Morgan is flawed. The fact is they perform better, stronger (?), and faster than their competitors in their market!. Their market is, of course, hand-crafted ash-framed aluminium bodied sportscars in the classic British tradition...
I love the Moggies - even considered buying a near-new used one a little while ago - but I wouldn't drive one in traffic
- Take your iPod to Virgin Megastore.
- Pay $10~$20, have a special section/directory loaded with the current Top 40 in DRM-wrapped AAC.
- Return every few weeks, pay a $2~$5 top-up fee, and have the Top 40 updated.
- ????
- Profit!
As much as I hate their actions - it's not about the money, or the music, it's all about control - this seems like a good solution from their point of view. It's an extension of their current paradigm (radio), it reinforces their market manipulation and lock-in (Top 40), and they get revenue! What more could the bastards want?!(This idea (c) 2003 by NoMaster / The Bastard Software Co. All rights reserved. Open other end. Content may appear larger than actual size...)
Because, if you do, I think I want to kill you...
As a non-USAian, I really think this whole thing is a combination of non-issue and hypocracy. Very "four legs good, two legs bad" => "four legs good, two legs better". Remember, when a government intervenes, either directly or indirectly, to prop up failing businesses, it's call "protecting our (economy | way of life | workers)" if it's your government, and (protectionisim | unfair subsidies | "communism") when it's not...
Y'know, cut just one zero out of that first sentence and you could be talking about the US
The interesting part? What set off the alarm was my keyring! After a little experimentation at the local corner store/video rental owned by a friend, I learned that if my 2 car keys are angled together in *just* the right way, it sets off the doorpost anti-theft alarm. These things work by detecting a resonant circuit, and I guess the angle + cuttings of the keys matches the frequency of these things.
The best part - I can now do this at will! Much fun can be had this way...
Here in Oz, when I first set up my eMac, it asked me if I wanted to sign up with [insert Apple preferred ISP - iPrimus?].
.webloc on the filesystem somewhere.
It only asked once. It didn't drop an icon on the desktop. It doesn't keep asking me each time I reboot, or every 5 minutes in between. Just the once.
I can't even find the option in System Preferences. Although, I'm sure I've seen the signup app or
The point is, it's totally unlike a default Windows installation, which hounds you for not having an internet connection, and taunts you with an "easy signup!" icon on the desktop until you delete it (and even then, it warns you that can't truly be deleted!)
Now, if they could only do the same with Quicktime. Every month or so, it asks if I want to upgrade to QT Pro. That's right, you don't even get the full version of QT when you buy a Mac! I swear, they're selling AU$3000 computers in order to leverage their AU$29.95 app...
You're forgetting how the PC industry is driven right now
- Shiny new OS appears, min spec P2/400MHz & 64Meg RAM
- Customer buys shiny new OS
- Customer finds shiny new OS is a dog; techie-friend advises "real" min spec is actually P10/9.8GHz & 2TB RAM
- Customer buys P10/9.8GHz & 2TB RAM
- Profit!!!
Note the complete absence of the ???? step...I saw "Matrix 2 : The Legend Of Curley's Gold" with my little sister and her friend. During Morpheus's big scene in Zion (being deliberately vague to prevent spoilage - oh, who cares; his speech/sermon in the big cavern/church/hall), my sister and I both turned to each other at exactly the same time and said "Ewoks!"
Believe me, it's just like the Ewok party scenes in SW:ROTJ
In short, you could condense the whole movie down to the scene where Neo is kicking the living shit out of 100's of Hugo Weavings (something I, as an Australian, have always wanted to do
(Oh, and during the sex scene I was waiting for Trinity to stick her little finger in the socket on the back of Neo's head
If you would like to help Usenet (or, at least the parts I mainly read
(Hint for everyone else : it ain't Austin...)
This is what I love about
But I still maintain that the private sector can do anything faster, cheaper, more effeciantly, and of a better quality than the government.
(Wandering ever more off-topic...)
This is true, up to a point. What happens is that, left unfettered, the private sector (which is after all out to make money - as much as possible) in any realm tends to stratify, with the (cost || popularity) of each (level || quality) of (goods || services) near the top of what that strata will bear.
Which is, of course, the whole point of the headline story/article. The truly odd thing is that this should come as any surprise to the authors or the general populace. It's a theme repeated over and over again in almost all aspects of society.
And yes, it happens in "communist" societies too...
Bullshit. It's advertising IE. If it wasn't, it'd have either a) "plug ins" for *every* browsing engine out there (impossible - think Lynx, or a webspider...), or b) a totally server-side solution. It has neither - just an IE plugin...
The TV satire-documentary "The Games" (a brilliant show - it should be compulsory viewing on all inbound international flights, just as an introduction to Australian culture and humour) did a nice send-up of it at the time - a Greek gentleman turned up at the SOCOG offices claiming infringement. His name? Sidney Olympic Games...
I wonder how far somebody would get if they tried to create, oh, I dunno, an independently rendered expression of the idea of an oversized mouse piloting a boat whilst whistling a happy tune?
Of course not, but consider the source and purpose of the money supplied to him - an independently wealthy organisation, with the aim of enriching all people by glorifying the wonders of a shared belief. Unless you happen to believe that sacrificing your money to the frozen popsicle head of a long-dead plagarist, or the pockets of a few amoral people, is a glory to be shared, I don't think the same purpose holds...