I wonder if this has more to do with lowering the cost of consumer's electricity bills.
Australia's electricity supply is generated predominantly by coal and so produces huge quantities of carbon emissions. Australia still has plenty of coal in the ground and is keen to support the coal industry as a provider of jobs and exports.
The current Federal Government is pushing ahead with plans to retrofit coal power stations with 'clean coal technology' - which generally isn't actually burning clean coal, but involves scrub the emsission and storing the carbon. Claims this will increase power bills by 15-30% for consumers has been met with outrage in the media. If the a move to CFLs can save consumers even 5% (possibly more?) on their electricity bill it may help mute criticsm of the costs of cleaner powerstations.
The incredible thing about this document for me is that MS haven't set out to say MS Office is better than OpenOffice because it has X, Y or Z.
Instead, they say you better stick with MS Office because it will just cost too much to change. No where do they try to claim that it is the better product (except perhaps with the fact that it includes Access.)
This sounds familiar. Author Neal Stephenson (of Snow Crash fame) talked about this idea in a Wired article and called it the Global Neighbourhood Watch.
Thes Australian Broadband news site Whirlpool has an article regarding an Isreali company being involved.
The article notes the problem of strong transformers in use in Australia (similar to the US maybe? We are on 240V/230V however...) but the guy interviewed didn't seem to have any idea if it would be a problem.
I agree. Sharing the cost is definitely a much fairer way of doing it now, but how much of that will the consumers see?
I disagree that the population of Australia itself prevents strong competition. See how much long distance (and now local) calls have dropped now that real competitors (one.Tel and a few others) are in the market?
I think the size of Australia is more the problem. 20 million people spread over a country roughly equal to the United States slows down competition somewhat!
I'll second that. I have a copy of Use Both Sides of Your Brain by Tony Buzan, and it's very interesting. There's a chapter on speed reading, but I haven't had a chance to try it out in practice yet (ironic, isn't it?).
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if this has more to do with lowering the cost of consumer's electricity bills.
Australia's electricity supply is generated predominantly by coal and so produces huge quantities of carbon emissions. Australia still has plenty of coal in the ground and is keen to support the coal industry as a provider of jobs and exports.
The current Federal Government is pushing ahead with plans to retrofit coal power stations with 'clean coal technology' - which generally isn't actually burning clean coal, but involves scrub the emsission and storing the carbon. Claims this will increase power bills by 15-30% for consumers has been met with outrage in the media. If the a move to CFLs can save consumers even 5% (possibly more?) on their electricity bill it may help mute criticsm of the costs of cleaner powerstations.
The incredible thing about this document for me is that MS haven't set out to say MS Office is better than OpenOffice because it has X, Y or Z.
Instead, they say you better stick with MS Office because it will just cost too much to change. No where do they try to claim that it is the better product (except perhaps with the fact that it includes Access.)
One of the big promises of e-voting is accuracy. Hand counting of written ballots has a certain margin of error.
Here's another link:
e nson-waldman.html
http://www.cfp2000.org/news/student_reports/steph
Thes Australian Broadband news site Whirlpool
has an article regarding an Isreali company being involved.
The article notes the problem of strong transformers in use in Australia (similar to the US maybe? We are on 240V/230V however...) but the guy interviewed didn't seem to have any idea if it would be a problem.
I agree. Sharing the cost is definitely a much fairer way of doing it now, but how much of that will the consumers see?
I disagree that the population of Australia itself prevents strong competition. See how much long distance (and now local) calls have dropped now that real competitors (one.Tel and a few others) are in the market?
I think the size of Australia is more the problem. 20 million people spread over a country roughly equal to the United States slows down competition somewhat!
I'll second that. I have a copy of Use Both Sides of Your Brain by Tony Buzan, and it's very interesting. There's a chapter on speed reading, but I haven't had a chance to try it out in practice yet (ironic, isn't it?).