Can someone explain this for the non-Americans? I'm curious...
Are $2 and $50 notes/bills rare or discontinued or something? Or is it that cashiers dislike giving change from a $50?
Telecoms here in Singapore are, in general, very good. Overseas calling is very cheap. Mobile phone rates the same.
Singapore has had Cable and ADSL nationwide at reasonable prices for years now. (on the downside, cable in certain high density areas is starting to get a bit clogged).
GPRS (that's high bandwidth packet-switched data over GSM, for those unfamiliar) has been available on all 3 mobilephone networks since mid last year. And it's so cheap I don't even have to think about using it.
Technologically, Singapore is right up there. But I guess every country/city/region/whatever has its share of clueless people:)
Australia still a Constitutional Monarchy
on
The Drone War
·
· Score: 1
That's very close to true:)
A few years ago we (in.au) held a referrendum to decide on the issue. The whole thing came about to honour the incoming PM's election promise to put the issue to the people.
He assembled a bunch of public figures representing various political parties, pro-repulic and anti-republic (ie: monarchist) groups, war veteran reps, aboriginal (native) figures, etc etc. He sat them down in a room for 2 weeks and told them to thrash it out between them, and come up with a yes/no question that could be put to the people in a referrendum. It was called "The Constitutional Convention".
Now I personally (and a lot of other pro-republic people I've spoken to) saw the whole thing as a whitewash. The PM was (and is) a public monarchist - no fascade of impartialitiy here. The discussions ground to a halt in the last few days on the issue of how the new government would work - the "preferred model".
The Pro-Republican group with the biggest numbers and most publicity (the A.R.M.)decided that the best model would be to keep things pretty much the same - Australians would elect the Reps and Senate, the party with the majority gets government, that party puts forward the PM, and then parliament would elect the president.
Pro-Republic Purists rejected that outright, wanting a model where the head of state was elected directly. The Convention was unable to agree on a good model so in the end the A.R.M's model became the default, since they had the most clout. The Prime Minister would only accept a Yes/No question for the referrendum, so Australians were denied the opportunity to select their preferred model. The PM was also opposed to an "in principal" vote, with the details thrashed out later.
So, IMNSHO, the referrendum was defeated because the Australian public rejected an unpopular model.
And this came about because of the PM's inflexibility and the failure of the white-wash "convention" (2 weeks to re-write the constitution and try to please everybody in the process? Hello?!)
(The other factor - as pointed out by styrotech - is the war veterans, who having fought for the British Empire still feel a bit attached to it.)
Following all of this, PM Johnny declared the issue was over, and hurriedly swept it under the carpet.
On the issue of Australia's "freedom", the Brits haven't stuck their nose in for decades. In fact they were a bit surpised when we didn't break away. We're very much self-governing, attachments to the monarchy are little more than ceremonial.
It'd just be nice if we could make the whole thing a bit more official.
When I first tried WAP 12 months ago, I thought "this is stupid, I'd never use this". I didn't bother to buy a phone equipped with WAP, i just thought of it as something I'd never use.
I'm a convert now:) GRPS makes the whole thing actually useable and useful. I've got a new WAP/GPRS phone. It takes about half a second to bring up a GPRS connection, then about 2 seconds to load your typical page. I read news from Yahoo while I walk to work.
Here in Singapore I pay less than SG$0.005 (US$0.0025) per KB and no time or subscription charges. It works in road tunnels and on the subway.
I'm going to be mighty pissed when my dot-com employer goes bust and I have to go back to Australia and pay over 4 times that:)
Here (singapore) I can watch CNBC, CNN, Fox, a few dozen other things, and BBC World.
My preference is BBC World by far. The coverage is balanced, in depth, and generally not sensational.
My only complaint is their stupid 'Hardtalk' interview segments, where they take interesting people and insult their intelligence with stupid questions and needless interruptions. But otoh, it's funny seeing Brits try to be rude and formal at the same time:)
wow... i'm suprised this is such a foreign concept for you
here in singapore, phone plans normally have a few hundred free SMS included. (mine: 400 per month) Beyond that they're about SG$0.10 ea (
mobile phones are toys! they're not just for business people!
i can also sms my friends back home in australia, and when i go back there (or to malaysia, indonesia, europe...) i can use the same handset, it just works.
GSM is fantastic, you guys in the USA should have had it years ago like most the rest of the world. give the FCC a good kick in the ass:)
Slashdot Mirror
Can someone explain this for the non-Americans? I'm curious... Are $2 and $50 notes/bills rare or discontinued or something? Or is it that cashiers dislike giving change from a $50?
Telecoms here in Singapore are, in general, very good. Overseas calling is very cheap. Mobile phone rates the same.
:)
Singapore has had Cable and ADSL nationwide at reasonable prices for years now. (on the downside, cable in certain high density areas is starting to get a bit clogged).
GPRS (that's high bandwidth packet-switched data over GSM, for those unfamiliar) has been available on all 3 mobilephone networks since mid last year. And it's so cheap I don't even have to think about using it.
Technologically, Singapore is right up there. But I guess every country/city/region/whatever has its share of clueless people
That's very close to true :)
.au) held a referrendum to decide on the issue. The whole thing came about to honour the incoming PM's election promise to put the issue to the people.
A few years ago we (in
He assembled a bunch of public figures representing various political parties, pro-repulic and anti-republic (ie: monarchist) groups, war veteran reps, aboriginal (native) figures, etc etc. He sat them down in a room for 2 weeks and told them to thrash it out between them, and come up with a yes/no question that could be put to the people in a referrendum. It was called "The Constitutional Convention".
Now I personally (and a lot of other pro-republic people I've spoken to) saw the whole thing as a whitewash. The PM was (and is) a public monarchist - no fascade of impartialitiy here. The discussions ground to a halt in the last few days on the issue of how the new government would work - the "preferred model".
The Pro-Republican group with the biggest numbers and most publicity (the A.R.M.)decided that the best model would be to keep things pretty much the same - Australians would elect the Reps and Senate, the party with the majority gets government, that party puts forward the PM, and then parliament would elect the president.
Pro-Republic Purists rejected that outright, wanting a model where the head of state was elected directly. The Convention was unable to agree on a good model so in the end the A.R.M's model became the default, since they had the most clout. The Prime Minister would only accept a Yes/No question for the referrendum, so Australians were denied the opportunity to select their preferred model. The PM was also opposed to an "in principal" vote, with the details thrashed out later.
So, IMNSHO, the referrendum was defeated because the Australian public rejected an unpopular model.
And this came about because of the PM's inflexibility and the failure of the white-wash "convention" (2 weeks to re-write the constitution and try to please everybody in the process? Hello?!)
(The other factor - as pointed out by styrotech - is the war veterans, who having fought for the British Empire still feel a bit attached to it.)
Following all of this, PM Johnny declared the issue was over, and hurriedly swept it under the carpet.
On the issue of Australia's "freedom", the Brits haven't stuck their nose in for decades. In fact they were a bit surpised when we didn't break away. We're very much self-governing, attachments to the monarchy are little more than ceremonial.
It'd just be nice if we could make the whole thing a bit more official.
but can i have one of the ones made by the beer-swilling hackers?
seriously... i want a handmade one!
When I first tried WAP 12 months ago, I thought "this is stupid, I'd never use this". I didn't bother to buy a phone equipped with WAP, i just thought of it as something I'd never use.
:) GRPS makes the whole thing actually useable and useful. I've got a new WAP/GPRS phone. It takes about half a second to bring up a GPRS connection, then about 2 seconds to load your typical page. I read news from Yahoo while I walk to work.
:)
I'm a convert now
Here in Singapore I pay less than SG$0.005 (US$0.0025) per KB and no time or subscription charges. It works in road tunnels and on the subway.
I'm going to be mighty pissed when my dot-com employer goes bust and I have to go back to Australia and pay over 4 times that
Here (singapore) I can watch CNBC, CNN, Fox, a few dozen other things, and BBC World.
:)
My preference is BBC World by far. The coverage is balanced, in depth, and generally not sensational.
My only complaint is their stupid 'Hardtalk' interview segments, where they take interesting people and insult their intelligence with stupid questions and needless interruptions. But otoh, it's funny seeing Brits try to be rude and formal at the same time
> I can go to my personal website and post that Martians blew up the WTC.
Aah, but the onus would be on the reader to verify the story. Find another source, read another view, compare to TV, Radio, Print.
Careful, you might end up being better informed...
Shiny and small? This is my favorite: Nokia 8250 ;)
Of course, not available in the USA
wow... i'm suprised this is such a foreign concept for you
:)
here in singapore, phone plans normally have a few hundred free SMS included. (mine: 400 per month) Beyond that they're about SG$0.10 ea (
mobile phones are toys! they're not just for business people!
i can also sms my friends back home in australia, and when i go back there (or to malaysia, indonesia, europe...) i can use the same handset, it just works.
GSM is fantastic, you guys in the USA should have had it years ago like most the rest of the world. give the FCC a good kick in the ass
They don't seem to keep a record.
The score and tones are generated by a Flash applet, which - once loaded - doesn't seem to talk back to the webserver.
It happily 'searches' for and plays 'compositions' with my ethernet cable unplugged.