If, at any point, the PM ceases to have the support of half of the house then a vote of no confidence can be passed. If this happens, a general election must be called and a new government elected.
Actually, no. If someone else can gain the support of a majority of the House of Commons, then the Queen can ask them to form a government. So if you have a narrow majority in a two-party system with no independents or minor parties, then once enough byelections have been held, you can change government without a general election.
Having an elected upper house somewhat defeats the point of having one at all. There is a huge benefit to having an unelected one. They can not enact bills without the agreement of the lower house (which is elected), so they are unable to simply further their own interests. Conversely, they provide a check on the tyranny of the majority that representative democracy so often leads to by not being subject to the whims of the majority.
You can provide the similar protection with an elected upper house. These may have an advantage in providing a certain legitimacy to the upper house so that acts like the Parliament Act are less likely to have enough popular support to get through.
The Australian parliaments generally use a majoritarian system in our lower houses, but a (semi-)proportional system in the upper houses. So we get majority governments that are effectively minority governments, because to get legislation passed they need the support of some party or other in the upper house. Obviously at times (like now, federally), the upper house will fall to the government, but even if the Westminster upper house is hostile to the government, there's the Parliament Acts to (ab)use. And if the houses are deadlocked, rather than having the Queen and her Prime Minister intervene, you have an election and have the people indicate their desires one way or the other.
So this means you get minor parties who never have chance of even joining in coalition with the government, so they'll never be subject to the whim of the majority, who have a say in legislation---but they're still authorised by the people. A decent compromise, in my view, that's more appropriate for a republican country like Australia.
Don't worry, it's a mistake many native English-speakers make (me included). The spelling doesn't really map very well to the pronunciations in this language...
It was the suing everyone for copyright infringement I was concerned about; if they just buggered out and no longer distributed software in the EU, I don't think there's anything anyone could say about it. Apart, perhaps, from "this is precisely why free software is necessary". And it is precisely why free software is necessary.
(Also, there's nothing wrong with being a monopoly, its the abuse of powers that accompany this position that's illegal. And Microsoft haven't just opened the door for others to make money; they've made it very difficult to compete with them to an extent* that some people find unethical and unlawful.)
* Again, it's extent, not the fact that they've done it at all. If Microsoft had just written the best software, that's one thing; but US and EU courts have found that that's not all they've done, and that's the point.
And that wouldn't be considered an illegal abuse of a monopoly? Can you imagine what the courts would say to that? (If nothing else, it would probably definitively end enforceable EULAs in the EU.)
Given the current state of play NSW will be a National Government in a couple of years.
You cannot seriously think that. Australia has practically the closest-knit federation in the Anglo-American world (at least), and even closer than the unitrary United Kingdom. (A consequence of us being a single nation.) More likely New Zealand will join us than anyone will leave and/or the states will be abolished, but that doesn't seem to be any more likely now than a hundred years ago.
Your statements are also interesting from the perspective of my experience. I live in Melbourne and always have, and Melbourne is very much "Melbourne!"; Melbourne is Melburnian first, and then Australian. Sydney, which I had the chance to visit a few months ago, however, was indisputably "Australia!" Sydney is Australian first, and then Sydney. For NSW to separate, an entirely new identity of first NSW/Sydney, then Australiasian would need to be constructed, and that seems not even to be an issue at present.
(Victoria and Queensland also subsidise the other states. Victoria at times (I don't know about the present) has subsidised a greater proportion than the bigger NSW. It's the way any Federation works. In fact, its also the way any unitrary state works.)
Apparently in the 19th century (before Australia federated and so "Australia" was a geographical term like "Asia" or "Africa", and not the name of a country, like "America" or how "Europe" is heading), someone in the NSW colonial parliament suggested they should rename themselves to "Australia" because, after all, they were the first Australasian colony (and had at times governed all of Australia and New Zealand apart from WA).
The Victorian Parliament, of course, suggested we should rename ourselves to "the Southern Hemisphere".
Actually, a half-decent serifed capital A will usually have curves around the serifs. You probably actually need 300 dpi before you can see it though, it's one reason printed output is so much more of a delight to read than on-screen.
And lets not forget, the legal tender there is still pounds, unlike every other nation in the EU.
And the legal tender in Denmark is still the Danish crown, unlike every other nation in the EU. So what?
I know there is some discontent in the UK regarding Europe, but that doesn't change the fact former parts of their empire *did* feel as if they were being shrugged off, that the UK has walked away from their empire as much as their empire has walked away from them. If you care, I can cite sources too, just not know at three o'clock in the morning.
Er no, the UK isn't negotiating any such date, they are clinging on to the ragged remnants of their empire with the strength of senility.
Err... In the end, the UK told their Empire to go bugger off. They wanted to join Europe. At least some of their colonies didn't want a full break down of the Empire when it was finally gone. If the UK wanted to've kept it, why did they kill it? (Of course, by now the tide has turned, and some of the ex-colonies are pressing for even further symbolic independence like becoming republics and removing the Union Jack from their flags. But that doesn't change the fact that England got turned their back on us as much as we ran away from them.)
Do you have no (independently-run) on-campus shops at all? (or maybe that's what you mean by "concessions"?) Is that normal for US Unis? Sounds positively socialist!:)
My university has this annoying tendency to do this all the time (let's start with soft drinks, i.e., the Coke-only contract we have here) because of financial incentives from the vendors for such monopolistic contracts.
How does that work? Are all the places that sell soft-drink owned & managed by the University, or does the Uni change the contracts for rent etc. that the managers of the various businesses on campus need to agree to if they want to remain in business there. If the latter, how do they manage that? It seems in the Land of the Free (which I assume you come from) that would be illegal somehow.
Another factor is the fact that audiences, as a whole, read very little, so literary allusions don't work any more.
The Simpsons can manage literary allusions. If The Simpsons can manage literary allusions without fear, anyone can. (Mind, The Simpsons are, or were, fantastic but in a different way to Monty Python.)
Yeah, I'm not saying this is a fatal flaw in the UI. It's just that it's one of a number of flaws in the UI/OS that means that me and the other poster in this thread find it an uncomfortable and undesirable way to use our computers. Probably the reason I notice it is that I come from and really like a window-centric system, so when I have to adapt to an application-centric system, if anything's inconsistent, it's harder for me to adapt to it and more noticeable.
So it seems the OSS community's leaders just aren't interested in OS X on commodity hardware as much as one would think.
I'm not sure if I need to say anything there. Seriously. I think I should just sit here and stare blankly at you. I would think this was a troll if it wasn't so utterly bizarre.
What in hell and gods green earth could possibly make anyone think that open source software comunity leaders would be remotely interested in running a non-free operating environment on any hardware, commodity or not?
Unless the latest version of MacOS changes things, then even standard MacOS X applications have the close-app-on-close-window thing. I can't remember many of them, and my memory of this might not be correct, but I'm pretty sure the System Preferences app was one of them. I recall a Mac fan informing me it's because it's a single-window app; it doesn't make sense to close the window and not have the app running, but if that's so, my mind would've preferred the close button to've been disabled. That way, closing a window is only possible when it makes sense to have an app running with all windows closed.
These sorts of inconsistencies are seriously part of the reason I put GNU/Linux onto my Rev A iMac G5. And shortly thereafter deleted the MacOS X installation. (Seriously. And no, I'm not an anti-Mac troll; reasonable people can differ reasonably, can't we?)
On GNU/Linux, there's no general way that always works; the exact method depends on what environment you choose to use.
In general, executable files have a piece of metadata set that makes them so. Whether executable bits over-ride the other ways of determining the file-type is up to the environment...
Many environments use extensions for others, so that executables will have no extension, but jpegs will be.jpg and so forth. Most software that have a file open dialog box will filter by extensions, though not all of them do. Extensions are rarely if ever hidden, but they're much less necessary so I have no problems with creating an Gimp image called "Flag of Victoria" instead of "Flag of Victoria.xcf". Still, most files intended for public distribution have extensions.
Many environments will look inside a file to determine its type. This way, if you get a file named "frog.jpg" but its contents is actually ASCII text (e.g. for a shell script or to launch a vulnerability in the JPEG libraries) it'll show up as an ASCII text file and the system will alert you to a possible security problem.
Some file systems have metadata for file types as well; some user environments will use these.
Is this upgrade path for consumers or only the manufacturers? Replacing the chip in a laptop sounds like it would be dangerous (heat-wise, and so forth)
How do you make these things like middle button paste work? I searched high and low, but couldn't find anything, so it's probably something blindingly obvious that I've just overlooked.
Is there some webpage on how to *nixify OS X, do you know? Most of these things I just couldn't find. I assumed Steve knew best and left.
Interesting. How *nixy can you make it? Can you get middle-button paste and stuff? Scroll-up (hidden) windows? (I think the old MacOS could do that, so surely, but I could never find the shiny button?). How about rearranging the buttons? Jobs was on to something when he made the first NeXTSTEP and put the close button far away from the minimise/maximise, but went mad on OS X and put them right next to each other, meaning I kept clicking the wrong one till I installed GNU/Linux on my rev A iMac G5. Can that be "fixed" (so to speak)?
Indeed. I've recently been looking for a new distribution because I decided I plainly didn't like certain aspects of Ubuntu. Knowing that I'd tried installing Debian and failed badly, and that I'd run Gentoo in the past, I tried installing Gentoo again. Last time, I was an open source user, nowadays I'm a free software user, but every time I tried installing software, Gentoo tried installing non-free packages. I had difficulty getting it to install basic stuff like Gnome without trying to install a non-free Java environment! (Maybe there's a simple USE option, but it wasn't mentioned in the installer guide, and I wasn't going to look high and low for it.)
In the end after searching high and low, I did decide I'd try installing Debian again (after all, they've redone their installer) and now it seems trivial to keep non-free packages off my system. I'm now officially a happy Debian user.
That's the difference between Debian and most everyone else.
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If, at any point, the PM ceases to have the support of half of the house then a vote of no confidence can be passed. If this happens, a general election must be called and a new government elected.
Actually, no. If someone else can gain the support of a majority of the House of Commons, then the Queen can ask them to form a government. So if you have a narrow majority in a two-party system with no independents or minor parties, then once enough byelections have been held, you can change government without a general election.
Having an elected upper house somewhat defeats the point of having one at all. There is a huge benefit to having an unelected one. They can not enact bills without the agreement of the lower house (which is elected), so they are unable to simply further their own interests. Conversely, they provide a check on the tyranny of the majority that representative democracy so often leads to by not being subject to the whims of the majority.
You can provide the similar protection with an elected upper house. These may have an advantage in providing a certain legitimacy to the upper house so that acts like the Parliament Act are less likely to have enough popular support to get through.
The Australian parliaments generally use a majoritarian system in our lower houses, but a (semi-)proportional system in the upper houses. So we get majority governments that are effectively minority governments, because to get legislation passed they need the support of some party or other in the upper house. Obviously at times (like now, federally), the upper house will fall to the government, but even if the Westminster upper house is hostile to the government, there's the Parliament Acts to (ab)use. And if the houses are deadlocked, rather than having the Queen and her Prime Minister intervene, you have an election and have the people indicate their desires one way or the other.
So this means you get minor parties who never have chance of even joining in coalition with the government, so they'll never be subject to the whim of the majority, who have a say in legislation---but they're still authorised by the people. A decent compromise, in my view, that's more appropriate for a republican country like Australia.
Just better hope his next software package isn't a word processor for KDE!
Don't worry, it's a mistake many native English-speakers make (me included). The spelling doesn't really map very well to the pronunciations in this language...
It was the suing everyone for copyright infringement I was concerned about; if they just buggered out and no longer distributed software in the EU, I don't think there's anything anyone could say about it. Apart, perhaps, from "this is precisely why free software is necessary". And it is precisely why free software is necessary.
(Also, there's nothing wrong with being a monopoly, its the abuse of powers that accompany this position that's illegal. And Microsoft haven't just opened the door for others to make money; they've made it very difficult to compete with them to an extent* that some people find unethical and unlawful.)
* Again, it's extent, not the fact that they've done it at all. If Microsoft had just written the best software, that's one thing; but US and EU courts have found that that's not all they've done, and that's the point.
And that wouldn't be considered an illegal abuse of a monopoly? Can you imagine what the courts would say to that? (If nothing else, it would probably definitively end enforceable EULAs in the EU.)
Given the current state of play NSW will be a National Government in a couple of years.
You cannot seriously think that. Australia has practically the closest-knit federation in the Anglo-American world (at least), and even closer than the unitrary United Kingdom. (A consequence of us being a single nation.) More likely New Zealand will join us than anyone will leave and/or the states will be abolished, but that doesn't seem to be any more likely now than a hundred years ago.
Your statements are also interesting from the perspective of my experience. I live in Melbourne and always have, and Melbourne is very much "Melbourne!"; Melbourne is Melburnian first, and then Australian. Sydney, which I had the chance to visit a few months ago, however, was indisputably "Australia!" Sydney is Australian first, and then Sydney. For NSW to separate, an entirely new identity of first NSW/Sydney, then Australiasian would need to be constructed, and that seems not even to be an issue at present.
(Victoria and Queensland also subsidise the other states. Victoria at times (I don't know about the present) has subsidised a greater proportion than the bigger NSW. It's the way any Federation works. In fact, its also the way any unitrary state works.)
Apparently in the 19th century (before Australia federated and so "Australia" was a geographical term like "Asia" or "Africa", and not the name of a country, like "America" or how "Europe" is heading), someone in the NSW colonial parliament suggested they should rename themselves to "Australia" because, after all, they were the first Australasian colony (and had at times governed all of Australia and New Zealand apart from WA).
The Victorian Parliament, of course, suggested we should rename ourselves to "the Southern Hemisphere".
(So I'm told, treat this as "rumor".)
Not on their own though, nor all of it...
Americans speak English? Heh! :)
Isn't that precisely what the HDCP thing is? Hardware enforcement will come.
Actually, a half-decent serifed capital A will usually have curves around the serifs. You probably actually need 300 dpi before you can see it though, it's one reason printed output is so much more of a delight to read than on-screen.
And lets not forget, the legal tender there is still pounds, unlike every other nation in the EU.
And the legal tender in Denmark is still the Danish crown, unlike every other nation in the EU. So what?
I know there is some discontent in the UK regarding Europe, but that doesn't change the fact former parts of their empire *did* feel as if they were being shrugged off, that the UK has walked away from their empire as much as their empire has walked away from them. If you care, I can cite sources too, just not know at three o'clock in the morning.
Er no, the UK isn't negotiating any such date, they are clinging on to the ragged remnants of their empire with the strength of senility.
Err... In the end, the UK told their Empire to go bugger off. They wanted to join Europe. At least some of their colonies didn't want a full break down of the Empire when it was finally gone. If the UK wanted to've kept it, why did they kill it? (Of course, by now the tide has turned, and some of the ex-colonies are pressing for even further symbolic independence like becoming republics and removing the Union Jack from their flags. But that doesn't change the fact that England got turned their back on us as much as we ran away from them.)
"Concessions"?
:)
Do you have no (independently-run) on-campus shops at all? (or maybe that's what you mean by "concessions"?) Is that normal for US Unis? Sounds positively socialist!
My university has this annoying tendency to do this all the time (let's start with soft drinks, i.e., the Coke-only contract we have here) because of financial incentives from the vendors for such monopolistic contracts.
How does that work? Are all the places that sell soft-drink owned & managed by the University, or does the Uni change the contracts for rent etc. that the managers of the various businesses on campus need to agree to if they want to remain in business there. If the latter, how do they manage that? It seems in the Land of the Free (which I assume you come from) that would be illegal somehow.
Another factor is the fact that audiences, as a whole, read
very little, so literary allusions don't work any more.
The Simpsons can manage literary allusions. If The Simpsons can manage literary allusions without fear, anyone can. (Mind, The Simpsons are, or were, fantastic but in a different way to Monty Python.)
Yeah, I'm not saying this is a fatal flaw in the UI. It's just that it's one of a number of flaws in the UI/OS that means that me and the other poster in this thread find it an uncomfortable and undesirable way to use our computers. Probably the reason I notice it is that I come from and really like a window-centric system, so when I have to adapt to an application-centric system, if anything's inconsistent, it's harder for me to adapt to it and more noticeable.
So it seems the OSS community's leaders just aren't interested in OS X on commodity hardware as much as one would think.
I'm not sure if I need to say anything there. Seriously. I think I should just sit here and stare blankly at you. I would think this was a troll if it wasn't so utterly bizarre.
What in hell and gods green earth could possibly make anyone think that open source software comunity leaders would be remotely interested in running a non-free operating environment on any hardware, commodity or not?
Your name was well chosen.
Unless the latest version of MacOS changes things, then even standard MacOS X applications have the close-app-on-close-window thing. I can't remember many of them, and my memory of this might not be correct, but I'm pretty sure the System Preferences app was one of them. I recall a Mac fan informing me it's because it's a single-window app; it doesn't make sense to close the window and not have the app running, but if that's so, my mind would've preferred the close button to've been disabled. That way, closing a window is only possible when it makes sense to have an app running with all windows closed.
These sorts of inconsistencies are seriously part of the reason I put GNU/Linux onto my Rev A iMac G5. And shortly thereafter deleted the MacOS X installation. (Seriously. And no, I'm not an anti-Mac troll; reasonable people can differ reasonably, can't we?)
On GNU/Linux, there's no general way that always works; the exact method depends on what environment you choose to use.
.jpg and so forth. Most software that have a file open dialog box will filter by extensions, though not all of them do. Extensions are rarely if ever hidden, but they're much less necessary so I have no problems with creating an Gimp image called "Flag of Victoria" instead of "Flag of Victoria.xcf". Still, most files intended for public distribution have extensions.
In general, executable files have a piece of metadata set that makes them so. Whether executable bits over-ride the other ways of determining the file-type is up to the environment...
Many environments use extensions for others, so that executables will have no extension, but jpegs will be
Many environments will look inside a file to determine its type. This way, if you get a file named "frog.jpg" but its contents is actually ASCII text (e.g. for a shell script or to launch a vulnerability in the JPEG libraries) it'll show up as an ASCII text file and the system will alert you to a possible security problem.
Some file systems have metadata for file types as well; some user environments will use these.
HTH!
Is this upgrade path for consumers or only the manufacturers? Replacing the chip in a laptop sounds like it would be dangerous (heat-wise, and so forth)
How do you make these things like middle button paste work? I searched high and low, but couldn't find anything, so it's probably something blindingly obvious that I've just overlooked.
Is there some webpage on how to *nixify OS X, do you know? Most of these things I just couldn't find. I assumed Steve knew best and left.
Interesting. How *nixy can you make it? Can you get middle-button paste and stuff? Scroll-up (hidden) windows? (I think the old MacOS could do that, so surely, but I could never find the shiny button?). How about rearranging the buttons? Jobs was on to something when he made the first NeXTSTEP and put the close button far away from the minimise/maximise, but went mad on OS X and put them right next to each other, meaning I kept clicking the wrong one till I installed GNU/Linux on my rev A iMac G5. Can that be "fixed" (so to speak)?
Indeed. I've recently been looking for a new distribution because I decided I plainly didn't like certain aspects of Ubuntu. Knowing that I'd tried installing Debian and failed badly, and that I'd run Gentoo in the past, I tried installing Gentoo again. Last time, I was an open source user, nowadays I'm a free software user, but every time I tried installing software, Gentoo tried installing non-free packages. I had difficulty getting it to install basic stuff like Gnome without trying to install a non-free Java environment! (Maybe there's a simple USE option, but it wasn't mentioned in the installer guide, and I wasn't going to look high and low for it.)
In the end after searching high and low, I did decide I'd try installing Debian again (after all, they've redone their installer) and now it seems trivial to keep non-free packages off my system. I'm now officially a happy Debian user.
That's the difference between Debian and most everyone else.