> (being one of the only times that the possession apostrophe is not used)
No, it's not an unusual case, it's entirely logical. You don't use an apostrophe in other possessive pronouns such as his, her and their, so why would you in its?
I've never heard of computerandvideogames.com and I don't know anything about its reputation but I do note that the article does not portray the rumour as fact. The article begins "If insider speculation is to be believed..." and then proceeds to report the facts as facts and the rumours as rumours. Presumably they think the readers are intelligent enough to make up their own mind.
I work as a journalist myself (at a foreign newspaper) and my professional opinion is that this rumour is not just smoke. The front page of Vivendi's website says:
"Following the many rumors about possible asset disposals, Vivendi Universal would like to again emphasize that no statement or comments will be made on disposals before their completion."
Experience as a business journalist tells me that this means Vivendi will be issuing a statement within the next few days and the statement will probably confirm the rumour. If there is no truth to the rumour, they would have dismissed it as such or denied it outright.
The slow downloading might have something to do with the fact that there is a deluge of traffic to the stories about the Bali bombings. Priorities, priorities!
T3 Direct says it will appeal the case on the grounds that it sends legitimate opt-in email as well as spam and the blocked IP addresses affected that part of the business too. Full story here.
That's true - and broadband internet is cheaper and more widely available than in Aus (though I hear it's less reliable). But the mobile phone stuff really does astonish me!
I can't believe it costs you money to receive an SMS or a mobile phone call. You guys (North Americans) have such a weird mobile phone system! It seems really unfair that the recipient has to pay when the recipient cannot control the actions of the people calling or sending SMS messages. Especially since marketers are starting to send SMS advertising messages - clearly the marketers should have to pay for that! North America is truly unique in this regard - everywhere else in the world (Europe, Australia, Asia etc) the person making the phone call is the one who pays - just like it is for fixed-line calls.
Why not Iraq or Cuba? For God's sake, ICANN is an international body making decisions that affect the whole world. If it answers to anybody, it should be the UN. I know there was historically a link between ICANN and the US Govt but that's no justification.
Microsoft was already subsidising the cost of the Xbox by $A200 each - but that's not the fully story. The manufacturer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, so the subsidy is really only so their subsidiary can declare a profit.
When someone from the US DOES access networks from overseas (probably rare considering America's infamous insularity) then the US telco should pay.
Australia can pay its own way, but we should cut developing countries like Africa some slack. We talk about tackling the "digital divide" but we never DO anything about it.
It's the World Wide Web (and was invented by a Briton) and.com etc are global domains. The US actually does have a country domain.us - just like Australia is.au, Canada is.ca etc - but they don't use it. That's the no.1 cause of the acute shortage in domain names. Perhaps all traffic between global domains should be cost-shared, whereas traffic between country domains should be user pays. That way, Americans would have to actually use their.us country domain (solving the domain name shortage) or pay half the costs. I'm being a tad facetious here, but it's worth thinking about.
This has nothing to do with the topic at hand and should be modded as off-topic rather than insightful! Yes, many African countries are economic basketcases - in part because of colonialism and in part because of the factors you mentioned.
But the issue is that there is an international convention that telcos share the cost of international telephony traffic (just like postal services share the cost of international mail delivery) and in this particular case, the Western telcos aren't doing their bit.
This cost-sharing issue is not just a problem that's unique to Africa. Australian telcos share the cost of voice telephony with international telcos, but the same principle is not applied to internet traffic. Basically, American ISPs refuse to cost-share with Australian ISPs or if they do so, it's on really uneven terms. This doesn't happen in every instance but it happens a lot.
I imagine there are a lot more Australians or Africans accessing US websites than vice versa. So if you use the user-pays principle, the Australian or African ISPs would still pay more. But it's simply outrageous for the American ISPs not to pay for the small amount of email or web traffic they do send to these countries.
When Xbox launched in the US, it sold 1.5 million consoles in the first two months. Nintendo GameCube sold roughly twice that, albeit at half the price. But the truly amazing thing is that the PlayStation 2 - a console that was a year old and hadn't moved in price to combat the Xbox - sold 2.5 million in the same period of time.
The Christmas trading season probably skewed the US figures somewhat, but Japan, Europe and Australia tell a similar story. The Xbox was launched in Australia on March 14 for $A649, more than $A100 more than the PS2. It sold 9000 in the first week (after MS said they would sell 20,000-30,000) and about 3000 a week since then. The PS2 has been outselling the Xbox two to one, with average monthly sales of 6000 a week. Part of this is to do with the fact that PS2 has a special entertainment pack (with DVDs etc) on offer at the moment, but it's still extraordinary.
And yes, the retailers' attitude makes a huge difference. One of the biggest retail chains in Australia, Harvey Norman, has actually refused to stock the Xbox because they weren't going to make any margin.
There is a collection of here that tells the story.
Nope, CDs in Australia don't cost $10 - they cost $30. (That's about $US15).
The $70 million figure would be in Australian dollars - so read it as $US35 million.
His definition of "illegal copying" probably goes beyond copying a CD onto another CD and includes file sharing etc.
It's still bogus though - just because people burn a CD doesn't mean it's a lost sale because there's no evidence they would have actually bought the CD.
A number of people have commented that they can type faster than they write. Statistics would bear this out. The average writing speed is 25 words per minute, whereas an average to good typist would type 50-120WPM.
Yes, Australians have the whole "Liberal" thing upside down. But so do Americans! Liberals are supposed to represent small government and individual freedom.
Yes, but the information should only have been acted on if it was compromising national security. The way it was reported to the government and used for political ends was completely inappropriate.
This is not the only confusion. The confusion is also prevalent in US politics because people think liberalism is the mirror opposite of conservatism, when in fact it is not. High government spending and welfare programs are not "conservative", but this does not mean they are "liberal". Liberalism is about small government, freedom and the rights of individuals.
This is crap. Show me the independent statistics. Gun lobbyists like claim that crime goes up after gun controls are implemented, when in fact the reverse is true. Typical Americans thinking guns=freedom.
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No, it's not an unusual case, it's entirely logical. You don't use an apostrophe in other possessive pronouns such as his, her and their, so why would you in its?
No it is a war. Government spin doctors are fixated with calling it a conflict.
Yes, I fear you're right. The present situation in Afghanistan is probably a more realistic outcome than post-WW2 Japan or Germany.
I've never heard of computerandvideogames.com and I don't know anything about its reputation but I do note that the article does not portray the rumour as fact. The article begins "If insider speculation is to be believed ..." and then proceeds to report the facts as facts and the rumours as rumours. Presumably they think the readers are intelligent enough to make up their own mind.
I work as a journalist myself (at a foreign newspaper) and my professional opinion is that this rumour is not just smoke. The front page of Vivendi's website says:
"Following the many rumors about possible asset disposals, Vivendi Universal would like to again emphasize that no statement or comments will be made on disposals before their completion."
Experience as a business journalist tells me that this means Vivendi will be issuing a statement within the next few days and the statement will probably confirm the rumour. If there is no truth to the rumour, they would have dismissed it as such or denied it outright.
The slow downloading might have something to do with the fact that there is a deluge of traffic to the stories about the Bali bombings. Priorities, priorities!
T3 Direct says it will appeal the case on the grounds that it sends legitimate opt-in email as well as spam and the blocked IP addresses affected that part of the business too. Full story here.
McNicol's lawyers were representing him pro bono so he did not incur any legal fees.
Not true. The court not only found that there was no evidence that McNicol had contacted SPEWS, they also found that doing so would not be illegal.
That's true - and broadband internet is cheaper and more widely available than in Aus (though I hear it's less reliable). But the mobile phone stuff really does astonish me!
I can't believe it costs you money to receive an SMS or a mobile phone call. You guys (North Americans) have such a weird mobile phone system! It seems really unfair that the recipient has to pay when the recipient cannot control the actions of the people calling or sending SMS messages. Especially since marketers are starting to send SMS advertising messages - clearly the marketers should have to pay for that! North America is truly unique in this regard - everywhere else in the world (Europe, Australia, Asia etc) the person making the phone call is the one who pays - just like it is for fixed-line calls.
Why not Iraq or Cuba? For God's sake, ICANN is an international body making decisions that affect the whole world. If it answers to anybody, it should be the UN. I know there was historically a link between ICANN and the US Govt but that's no justification.
Shouldn't that be Congressman Taylor (not senator).
Microsoft was already subsidising the cost of the Xbox by $A200 each - but that's not the fully story. The manufacturer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, so the subsidy is really only so their subsidiary can declare a profit.
When someone from the US DOES access networks from overseas (probably rare considering America's infamous insularity) then the US telco should pay.
Australia can pay its own way, but we should cut developing countries like Africa some slack. We talk about tackling the "digital divide" but we never DO anything about it.
It's the World Wide Web (and was invented by a Briton) and .com etc are global domains. The US actually does have a country domain .us - just like Australia is .au, Canada is .ca etc - but they don't use it. That's the no.1 cause of the acute shortage in domain names. Perhaps all traffic between global domains should be cost-shared, whereas traffic between country domains should be user pays. That way, Americans would have to actually use their .us country domain (solving the domain name shortage) or pay half the costs. I'm being a tad facetious here, but it's worth thinking about.
But the issue is that there is an international convention that telcos share the cost of international telephony traffic (just like postal services share the cost of international mail delivery) and in this particular case, the Western telcos aren't doing their bit.
This cost-sharing issue is not just a problem that's unique to Africa. Australian telcos share the cost of voice telephony with international telcos, but the same principle is not applied to internet traffic. Basically, American ISPs refuse to cost-share with Australian ISPs or if they do so, it's on really uneven terms. This doesn't happen in every instance but it happens a lot.
I imagine there are a lot more Australians or Africans accessing US websites than vice versa. So if you use the user-pays principle, the Australian or African ISPs would still pay more. But it's simply outrageous for the American ISPs not to pay for the small amount of email or web traffic they do send to these countries.
The Christmas trading season probably skewed the US figures somewhat, but Japan, Europe and Australia tell a similar story. The Xbox was launched in Australia on March 14 for $A649, more than $A100 more than the PS2. It sold 9000 in the first week (after MS said they would sell 20,000-30,000) and about 3000 a week since then. The PS2 has been outselling the Xbox two to one, with average monthly sales of 6000 a week. Part of this is to do with the fact that PS2 has a special entertainment pack (with DVDs etc) on offer at the moment, but it's still extraordinary.
And yes, the retailers' attitude makes a huge difference. One of the biggest retail chains in Australia, Harvey Norman, has actually refused to stock the Xbox because they weren't going to make any margin.
There is a collection of here that tells the story.
The $70 million figure would be in Australian dollars - so read it as $US35 million.
His definition of "illegal copying" probably goes beyond copying a CD onto another CD and includes file sharing etc.
It's still bogus though - just because people burn a CD doesn't mean it's a lost sale because there's no evidence they would have actually bought the CD.
A number of people have commented that they can type faster than they write. Statistics would bear this out. The average writing speed is 25 words per minute, whereas an average to good typist would type 50-120WPM.
How's that for a piece of April Fools' Day flamebait? Everyone uses Java.
Yes, Australians have the whole "Liberal" thing upside down. But so do Americans! Liberals are supposed to represent small government and individual freedom.
WRONG! Democrats and Republicans DO NOT equal Liberals and Conservatives. Go back to your text books!
Yes, but the information should only have been acted on if it was compromising national security. The way it was reported to the government and used for political ends was completely inappropriate.
This is not the only confusion. The confusion is also prevalent in US politics because people think liberalism is the mirror opposite of conservatism, when in fact it is not. High government spending and welfare programs are not "conservative", but this does not mean they are "liberal". Liberalism is about small government, freedom and the rights of individuals.
This is crap. Show me the independent statistics. Gun lobbyists like claim that crime goes up after gun controls are implemented, when in fact the reverse is true. Typical Americans thinking guns=freedom.
Although in some aspects the Liberal Party of Australia is more liberal - eg. promoting state rights. (See my other posting).