While I recognise your sarcasm, if HP does it down here, the ACCC (Australian Competition and Comsumer Commission) will probably belt them down, like they already have done for DVDs.
Every DVD player here is cheap and region unlocked. The only sane reason for buying some brand name contraption is if you want it to tie into your home theatre system well.
Think about it, grab a embedded linux system with onboard sound and network (wifi or ethernet), have a central server broadcast non-RIAA regulated tunes, then find people willing to stick one of these up where they live. Have enough people do this around the area, and boom, you have a radio station which the RIAA can't touch (because they don't regulate the music on it), the FCC can't exactly complain about (broadcast power on each node doesn't warrant a license right?), and annoying the hell out of the local commercial radio stations.
The only problem I could see is keeping each broadcast node in sync, especially if you're all broadcasting on the same frequency.
I agree with you there. Like erm, >$15 for 1mb worth of data at normal rates. No thanks, screw you Optarse.
Vodafone has a good GPRS data bundle, $50 for 500mb, but I would like something at a much lower cost. I haven't seen any new plans out of Telstra and Optus to compete with this either.
I personally think its the other way around. HL2 was too overhyped and to me at least, didn't show that much of an improvement over HL1. If you seriously expected a Ravenholm type atmosphere in Doom 3, you need a head check.
Instead of abusing the moderation system by modding you up because I somehow manage to agree with you, I can say one thing: Whatever the EU does, its strange and sounds stupid, from my point of view.
$59/m for 256/64? Crap value. Unless your a money tight leecher.
I'm paying $59 for 512/128 with Internode for 16gb (after that is shaping to 64k). Definitely worth it and I haven't had much troubles with it.
Anyway, Australia IS the home of bad broadband pricing. Apparently Telstra charges hell per MB for AGVC backhaul access for ADSL to the point that 24/7 downloading on a 1.5/256 line will cost $900. Providers are setting up their own DSLAMs where they have the most customers and they probably are getting a fatter profit out of them too.
..... 14 bur-core-01.inet.qwest.net (205.171.213.45) 180.961 ms 183.025 ms 185.045 ms 15 iah-core-02.inet.qwest.net (205.171.205.26) 220.178 ms 219.651 ms 219.012 ms 16 iah-core-01.inet.qwest.net (205.171.31.1) 238.633 ms 217.957 ms 216.568 ms 17 tpa-core-02.inet.qwest.net (205.171.5.105) 235.636 ms 232.132 ms 234.284 ms 18 205.171.27.38 (205.171.27.38) 240.769 ms 238.409 ms 240.465 ms 19 65.115.128.14 (65.115.128.14) 238.637 ms 241.148 ms 240.690 ms ....
Yes, it is illegal because the server is in the U.S. Why didn't they think about that?
But did any educational organization hand over data on me for future spamvertising by Verisign and give me this proprietary USB key as a special "thank you"?
If I'm ever given one I'd smash it on the spot. Thank you for assuming I spend all day on #teenchat, Verisign, but please focus your time on screwing other kids.
As a technology concious teenager, I would like to say FUCK OFF VERISIGN. I WILL NOT BE PLUGGING SOMETHING INTO MY OWN HARDWARE JUST TO LET PEOPLE KNOW WHO I REALLY AM. If I want to disclose my identity in full, thats my own decision.
Of course, they're are a whole lot of teens out there who spend the whole night talking to friends on MSN (blame Micro$haft for capturing this market by bundling it with WinXP).
I would like to call on parents reading this to frag all traces of MSN and other chat networks from their teens computers so the quality of english spoken worldwide does not decline within the next decade. I stopped wasting my time talking to losers on such chat networks because I simply can't bear the quality of english OR SHOULD I SAY SMSlish being driven around by people who think 500 millisecond responses are critical. Spoken to your kids english teacher recently? Doesn't come as a suprise to me that I am one of the only students in the english class that can maintain good spelling with no cutbacks to save time.
Also think what else such USB Keys could do. Enable sitefinder instead of Google? Spy on students in cases where X person is under agreement to lease equipment from the school? Erase traces of non-DRM music to keep their friends at the **AA happy? Hmm, better speed up development of my RFID disk wipe module ASAP. I think I'll need it when school IT staff think they can blackmail me into violating californian breakin disclosure law again. They've already tried to break into my own blog to see what dirt I have marked private on them.
Broadcasting rights. A greedy business. Sad thing nothing else can fund sport.
Sad that you lose the ABC. Down here in Aus, Channel 7 is olympic-only coverage for the next two weeks, and thats on one channel only (IMHO, most of the stuff on CH7 is family oriented crap anyway. I never watch it), afaik they might be able to multichannel for those lucky enough to have a digital STB, but thats only 400,000 out of 20,000,000 of the population that have it. Figures released by the dominant "repeatvision" providers (or "pay for special content with 20 minute long ads and 11 hours per day of old content tv" to elaborate) Foxtel (Metro, mainly where Telstra layed cable until they stopped years ago, some sat installations) and Austar (Regional, sattelite except in one case) say they signed up more subscribers to their "digital" service (which for sattelite is just repacked with MDS instead of Irdeto 2 encryption) than all time FTA digtal STB sales.
SBS (the special broadcasting service for all things multilingal etc.) is also broadcasting clips and stuff like bike riding et al. Mind you, loosing two free to air stations (out of 5) to Olympic coverage sucks. No pay tv coverage either (not to mention that pay tv is simply 30+ channel "repeatvision" here..)
Wow, it is bollocks to me (Free To Air TV here equals Free To Air and nothing more, nothing less). Paying people to run around in vans all day to see if someone hasn't paid up?
Brits better start rolling out super fast wireless networks with MythTV boxes with several TV tuners (or don't tell me they can detect multiple oscillators too?) to ditch such crap.
Down under, the BBC equivalent is funded from taxpayer government budget dosh, and revenue from selling merchandise. And half the stuff on the ABC TV is BBC content.... Ok ok, we don't have as much population and costs for public servicesm but shelling out money for TV? what the..
Of course, no big ISP wants to give away free transit bandwidth to a small ISP, and I was not meaning interconnection for flat-fee transit bandwidth.
Singtel Optus did it in WAIX, and everybody flushed 15GB a day (or month? It was a big number) to Sigapore. They cut it because they were paying the huge transit bill (how hard is it to just not advertise those networks to a IX at all?).
It's not that the Big ISP's shouldn't peer with smaller ones that should really be paying transit costs, But that the "Big 4" refuse to peer with the other Tier-1 ISP's down here. ISP's have been going to the ACCC about it, funny since it was a ACCC decision in 1998 which forced the 4 to peer.
What hurts over here is when we have content on one of the big 4 networks, in the same city, but you have to pay a fortune for it. ISP's have been paying per the MB for stuff like the ABC broadband archive, PlanetMirror and AARNet (especially it's mirror). The ABC recently agreed to peer with PIPE in Sydney (after having fibre terminated there a long time ago, both free of charge in the hope it will peer). It should ease performance issues with the ABC's link with AAPT (causing everybodys streams to drop out in peak times at the moment). Some of the 'in the press' articles at PIPE networks provide some insight into the state of peering in Australia.
Sending traffic across the road to the "Big 4" (Telstra, Optus, MCI/Ozemail, Telco NZ/AAPT) costs a fortune, since they refuse to peer with anybody else. In fact, bringing your own link from the U.S is cheaper than transit bandwidth from the Big 4, that is, if your in Sydney with lots of money. Only 6 ISP's actually have their own international links.
Theres a big push in Australia to get ISP's to peer at peering exchanges like PIPE and WAIX in the capital cities. Most ISP's here (bar the "Big 4" except in one case) are connected to them, and some even offer quota free content for anything that goes through a peering exchange.
Broadband speeds are rediculous here too. Telstra's ADSL wholesale network is limited to 1500/256k with the lowest being 256/64 (and everybody who upgrades from that to 512/128 says that 256/64 isn't broadband). Companies like Optus (and it's XYZed subsidiary), RequestDSL/PowerTel, iiNet (residential deployments, unlike the others), Internode (one DSLAM for a town which didn't have any. Tester said that once things got past 4000k downstream, speed didn't really increase.) and a few others around the country have been rolling out DSLAM's to overcome this limitation. There are only two major HFC networks, and they are in the captial cities (Optus, Telstra. Both have had an agreement not to lay any coax since 1997. Telstra will eventually replace HFC with FTTH, keep in mind that Telstra, unlike Optus doesn't use HFC for telephony). And some smaller regional deployments, like NCable and TransACT (who rolled out a VDSL network around Canberra using Fibre To The Curb, so every house is within 300m of a DSLAM. Why don't you US slobs think about that before saying 'only useful within 300m of an exchange').
I still remember blowing out my 100mb bandwidth quota years ago on 56k. Didn't get reconnected until my parents got the point of me dialing STD to Melbourne to take advantage of the "free" ISP's that were around at the time.
Kuro5hin already has a system where stuff gets seen by a whole lot of people before it even appears on the front page, let alone one of the section pages.
Since/. moves a lot faster (note - maybe not, last time I submitted a successful story, I waited 3 days for it, but that must be the omlet), the subscribers could be allowed to tag a discussion with a dupe tag, or perhaps the -1 - +5 system. X number of -1 or dupe taggings would delay the story.
Slashdot Mirror
it'll be the Australians.
While I recognise your sarcasm, if HP does it down here, the ACCC (Australian Competition and Comsumer Commission) will probably belt them down, like they already have done for DVDs.
Every DVD player here is cheap and region unlocked. The only sane reason for buying some brand name contraption is if you want it to tie into your home theatre system well.
Think about it, grab a embedded linux system with onboard sound and network (wifi or ethernet), have a central server broadcast non-RIAA regulated tunes, then find people willing to stick one of these up where they live. Have enough people do this around the area, and boom, you have a radio station which the RIAA can't touch (because they don't regulate the music on it), the FCC can't exactly complain about (broadcast power on each node doesn't warrant a license right?), and annoying the hell out of the local commercial radio stations.
The only problem I could see is keeping each broadcast node in sync, especially if you're all broadcasting on the same frequency.
Thats people power for you.
I agree with you there. Like erm, >$15 for 1mb worth of data at normal rates. No thanks, screw you Optarse.
Vodafone has a good GPRS data bundle, $50 for 500mb, but I would like something at a much lower cost. I haven't seen any new plans out of Telstra and Optus to compete with this either.
I personally think its the other way around. HL2 was too overhyped and to me at least, didn't show that much of an improvement over HL1. If you seriously expected a Ravenholm type atmosphere in Doom 3, you need a head check.
How the hell did you get it that cheap/even get it (not even on the palmOne aus website yet other than 'come back soon')?
RRP for America is $499 and RRP for the Treo 600 is still $899 AUS.
And I thought Crytek were in bed with nVidia by producing SM 3.0 versions of FarCry.
At least some company hasn't made up their mind exactly.
Instead of abusing the moderation system by modding you up because I somehow manage to agree with you, I can say one thing: Whatever the EU does, its strange and sounds stupid, from my point of view.
Here comes the -1, I hate you mods.
Have recently (1.0 PR) and don't like it. Sure, its fast, but I prefer the suite any day of the week.
.co.au sounds a little short. .com.au sounds better to me.
I agree. I used Firefox back when it was called Phoenix from 0.2 - 0.5, but when to the suite, and I simply can't stand Firefox.
Or why didn't some person/group release a patch on their own?
Warezed copies of HL2 already 'emulate' Steam, no client required.
$59/m for 256/64? Crap value. Unless your a money tight leecher.
I'm paying $59 for 512/128 with Internode for 16gb (after that is shaping to 64k). Definitely worth it and I haven't had much troubles with it.
Anyway, Australia IS the home of bad broadband pricing. Apparently Telstra charges hell per MB for AGVC backhaul access for ADSL to the point that 24/7 downloading on a 1.5/256 line will cost $900. Providers are setting up their own DSLAMs where they have the most customers and they probably are getting a fatter profit out of them too.
For 2x less performance right?
Even if they have seperate memory, due to heat restrictions etc. they are still slower.
Otherwise go ahead and prove me wrong.
But did any educational organization hand over data on me for future spamvertising by Verisign and give me this proprietary USB key as a special "thank you"?
If I'm ever given one I'd smash it on the spot. Thank you for assuming I spend all day on #teenchat, Verisign, but please focus your time on screwing other kids.
That english essays aren't text messenges. Believe me, that "english class" has more problems than just spelling and grammar errors here and there.
As a technology concious teenager, I would like to say FUCK OFF VERISIGN. I WILL NOT BE PLUGGING SOMETHING INTO MY OWN HARDWARE JUST TO LET PEOPLE KNOW WHO I REALLY AM. If I want to disclose my identity in full, thats my own decision.
Of course, they're are a whole lot of teens out there who spend the whole night talking to friends on MSN (blame Micro$haft for capturing this market by bundling it with WinXP).
I would like to call on parents reading this to frag all traces of MSN and other chat networks from their teens computers so the quality of english spoken worldwide does not decline within the next decade. I stopped wasting my time talking to losers on such chat networks because I simply can't bear the quality of english OR SHOULD I SAY SMSlish being driven around by people who think 500 millisecond responses are critical. Spoken to your kids english teacher recently? Doesn't come as a suprise to me that I am one of the only students in the english class that can maintain good spelling with no cutbacks to save time.
Also think what else such USB Keys could do. Enable sitefinder instead of Google? Spy on students in cases where X person is under agreement to lease equipment from the school? Erase traces of non-DRM music to keep their friends at the **AA happy? Hmm, better speed up development of my RFID disk wipe module ASAP. I think I'll need it when school IT staff think they can blackmail me into violating californian breakin disclosure law again. They've already tried to break into my own blog to see what dirt I have marked private on them.
Its quite easy to change the CPUID string on Athlon series processors - a tool called CPUMSR can do it.
I saw that too. Whats the point of writing a report on p2p when your imposing *AA restrictions on your own article?
Broadcasting rights. A greedy business. Sad thing nothing else can fund sport.
Sad that you lose the ABC. Down here in Aus, Channel 7 is olympic-only coverage for the next two weeks, and thats on one channel only (IMHO, most of the stuff on CH7 is family oriented crap anyway. I never watch it), afaik they might be able to multichannel for those lucky enough to have a digital STB, but thats only 400,000 out of 20,000,000 of the population that have it.
Figures released by the dominant "repeatvision" providers (or "pay for special content with 20 minute long ads and 11 hours per day of old content tv" to elaborate) Foxtel (Metro, mainly where Telstra layed cable until they stopped years ago, some sat installations) and Austar (Regional, sattelite except in one case) say they signed up more subscribers to their "digital" service (which for sattelite is just repacked with MDS instead of Irdeto 2 encryption) than all time FTA digtal STB sales.
SBS (the special broadcasting service for all things multilingal etc.) is also broadcasting clips and stuff like bike riding et al. Mind you, loosing two free to air stations (out of 5) to Olympic coverage sucks. No pay tv coverage either (not to mention that pay tv is simply 30+ channel "repeatvision" here..)
Wow, it is bollocks to me (Free To Air TV here equals Free To Air and nothing more, nothing less). Paying people to run around in vans all day to see if someone hasn't paid up?
Brits better start rolling out super fast wireless networks with MythTV boxes with several TV tuners (or don't tell me they can detect multiple oscillators too?) to ditch such crap.
Down under, the BBC equivalent is funded from taxpayer government budget dosh, and revenue from selling merchandise. And half the stuff on the ABC TV is BBC content.... Ok ok, we don't have as much population and costs for public servicesm but shelling out money for TV? what the..
Anyone outside Britain mind telling us what this TV license crap is?
To us Aussies, we don't know what the damn hell your talking about.
Of course, no big ISP wants to give away free transit bandwidth to a small ISP, and I was not meaning interconnection for flat-fee transit bandwidth.
Singtel Optus did it in WAIX, and everybody flushed 15GB a day (or month? It was a big number) to Sigapore. They cut it because they were paying the huge transit bill (how hard is it to just not advertise those networks to a IX at all?).
It's not that the Big ISP's shouldn't peer with smaller ones that should really be paying transit costs, But that the "Big 4" refuse to peer with the other Tier-1 ISP's down here. ISP's have been going to the ACCC about it, funny since it was a ACCC decision in 1998 which forced the 4 to peer.
What hurts over here is when we have content on one of the big 4 networks, in the same city, but you have to pay a fortune for it. ISP's have been paying per the MB for stuff like the ABC broadband archive, PlanetMirror and AARNet (especially it's mirror). The ABC recently agreed to peer with PIPE in Sydney (after having fibre terminated there a long time ago, both free of charge in the hope it will peer). It should ease performance issues with the ABC's link with AAPT (causing everybodys streams to drop out in peak times at the moment). Some of the 'in the press' articles at PIPE networks provide some insight into the state of peering in Australia.
Sending traffic across the road to the "Big 4" (Telstra, Optus, MCI/Ozemail, Telco NZ/AAPT) costs a fortune, since they refuse to peer with anybody else. In fact, bringing your own link from the U.S is cheaper than transit bandwidth from the Big 4, that is, if your in Sydney with lots of money. Only 6 ISP's actually have their own international links.
Theres a big push in Australia to get ISP's to peer at peering exchanges like PIPE and WAIX in the capital cities. Most ISP's here (bar the "Big 4" except in one case) are connected to them, and some even offer quota free content for anything that goes through a peering exchange.
Broadband speeds are rediculous here too. Telstra's ADSL wholesale network is limited to 1500/256k with the lowest being 256/64 (and everybody who upgrades from that to 512/128 says that 256/64 isn't broadband). Companies like Optus (and it's XYZed subsidiary), RequestDSL/PowerTel, iiNet (residential deployments, unlike the others), Internode (one DSLAM for a town which didn't have any. Tester said that once things got past 4000k downstream, speed didn't really increase.) and a few others around the country have been rolling out DSLAM's to overcome this limitation.
There are only two major HFC networks, and they are in the captial cities (Optus, Telstra. Both have had an agreement not to lay any coax since 1997. Telstra will eventually replace HFC with FTTH, keep in mind that Telstra, unlike Optus doesn't use HFC for telephony). And some smaller regional deployments, like NCable and TransACT (who rolled out a VDSL network around Canberra using Fibre To The Curb, so every house is within 300m of a DSLAM. Why don't you US slobs think about that before saying 'only useful within 300m of an exchange').
I still remember blowing out my 100mb bandwidth quota years ago on 56k. Didn't get reconnected until my parents got the point of me dialing STD to Melbourne to take advantage of the "free" ISP's that were around at the time.
Kuro5hin already has a system where stuff gets seen by a whole lot of people before it even appears on the front page, let alone one of the section pages.
/. moves a lot faster (note - maybe not, last time I submitted a successful story, I waited 3 days for it, but that must be the omlet), the subscribers could be allowed to tag a discussion with a dupe tag, or perhaps the -1 - +5 system. X number of -1 or dupe taggings would delay the story.
Since