Just ask anyone with a deregulated, privatised electricity supply. Adelaide Australia (electricity up by more than 30% for Christmas), and California.
And I don't think deregulating our airlines (Australia) helped either. They're either about to drop out the sky like they do in the USA or we're only going to have Qantas and only football teams are going to be able to afford to fly, because the airline sponsors the competition. The internet tickets may be cheaper but the I have to fly now/tomorrow tickets, which used to be the cheapest are now more expensive than ever before.
And banking, how that has gone to shit in Australia. The banks are making huge profits, laying off lots of staff and slugging the hell out of their customers with less than multimillion turnovers. The only way to get your money out of them is to become a director or exec and then quit. Sigh. Even the shareholders are getting a raw deal out of this highway robbery. Bring back regulation, I say!
My understanding with Australian internet traffic is that there are already different rates/costs and limits for upload traffic than for download traffic, especially if you have a "permanent" connection. (anyone else get dropouts on their adsl?)
Also when I was in NZ they had a different rate for traffic downloaded from outside the country ie USA or Australia to traffic racked up within the country.
I think some web site hosting cost more if lots of people download (upload from your server)your site too. That's why you see some sites with pleading messages not to directly link to their url, ie they'd prefer you copied their picture to your site and let your website incur the cost of people sucking onto their computers.
actually I'm having a hard time thinking of anything where regulation has made the cost go up, as much as deregulation or privatisation has. Even our bus tickets are more expensive. And don't get me started on the UK Rail system. Yikes.
There is nothing more important that people's money
If there was nothing more important than money, why would we trade it for anything? I agree that there isn't anything much more likely to generate irrational behaviour than money, apart from threats to health.
Anyway since when does hiding what is on the monitor help when the data is accessible from thousands of terminals? Can't see it on that monitor, I'll just suck up the data on my own monitor. Hell, can I sue for being able to view my bank accounts from the not-so-private internet cafe monitors?
I'd be quite happy for a (smelly) sock for the gob of the next teller who announces to the whole queue - "so how would you like your $3000 withdrawal", when I had already written that down on a bit of paper for them. Can I sue for the fear and trauma caused by this? Perhaps I could get the money debited from their salary instead of my bank account?
So let's get cones of silence and monitors built directly into the goggles. Put each person's encrypted data on sneaker net (floppy disk etc) and make each workstation stand alone
How about making the screen resolution really small ie tiny text and making staff wear magnifying glasses?
If spammers insist on spamming so that we have to waste our time and resources dealing with it, we should send bills for our time.
Lets see. $200/hour, 1 hour minimum, per spam...
I get rid of telemarketers the same way.
them: Hello - I'm a complete stranger calling because your (unlisted) phone number was generated by the computer...
me: My time is billable, can I have your name and credit card number please before we continue...
- nobody has yet to make up a name and credit card number, they just hang up.
Would spam stop if nobody bought anything advertised on spam? Who the hell is it that buys things or clicks links from spam? Perhaps we could get these people disconnected from the internet too.
I have no idea why you think it is me that is gambling online. I'm just talking about the trouble I have avoiding the sites.
If everyone was like me, there would be no MacDonalds, no soap opera, Seinfeld would not be famous, neither would the cast of Friends. Sport on TV would be equal men and women, and there would be no golf ever. There'd be no gambling with money either.
Not because I think there shouldn't be these things but because I'm not the least bit interested in these things, so they'd make no money out of it. The only gambling would be on the stock market. And the slashdot team would have their own chat show on (free to air) tv every night. fairly late night cos I don't get home early.
Is that NZ horses winning Aussie Races? Hell one of them was even called "Kiwi" just in case we weren't sure.
I thought Brew had retired but he seems to be on the come back trail. SMH ref . I like the idea of "the big ask" from the land of big hairy NZ spiders.
Then he wouldn't need to make his fingers wrap around an unfamiliar keyboard.
Except most dictation software I know fails as soon as the speaker gets passionate or excited about a topic. Then the computer completely fails to understand a word. The results are funnier than watching a spellchecker offer suggestions for correcting proper names or code.
How can you tell the difference between a running race and gambling? You can't because you can make bets on who's going to win.
Do they have horse racing in Greece?
BTW the Australian Govt has banned online gambling sites in OZ. It doesn't help any because every time I go near geocities or yahoo, I'm bombarded by the Overseas sites. All the ban did was make sure the money leaves our country.
Can't wait for the first tuesday in November. Go Pharlap go. (uh dammit what time warp did that come from?) Anyone got a tip for which horse is going to win this year?
I miss the flying games. I recently visited an arcade attached to the local cinema and there were car races, bike races, skiing, fishing!, air hockey, grab the teddy bear, basketball and lots of kickem boxing fight kind of games. Not a single flight/spaceship, shoot and bomb game in the whole arcade.
What are we? Grounded speed machines? How can a car simulator possibly be better than an aeroplane simulator??
I like a game I can learn in 30 seconds with one joystick and two buttons. I hate having to learn a manual the size of a phone book and then learn fifty different command sequences. I don't know how the rest of you do it but I die really quickly in the quake/doom games.
still playing minesweeper and 50 varieties of solitaire - cos I don't die when I get distracted and have to start again from the beginning/bottom level.
Is there a combination puzzle and co-ordination game out there?
Ie if M$ reduced the price a lot ie comparable to the cost of a CD, then it would likely become more convenient to buy the CD than waste time burning it and this would kill off the piracy in most places.
Isn't this how big supermarket chains work? reduce the cost of everything to force the competition out? Then they can charge what they like. Then the competition comes back and the cycle continues.
The target audience is probably computer phobic as well. But the whole idea is to provide services that the rest of us take for granted. I'm guessing: internet surfing, email, word processing (for that nice job application), maybe spreadsheets but that applies less to people who don't have any money to count, or perhaps more for those who have to make every cent count. And to keep the youth interested and learning, games would be good too.
Ideally you'd pick a system they'd only have to learn once, or once every five years (not 18 months) and something that they might be able to afford to set up at home on a second hand computer, that actually will run.
That rules M$ out on every score. You'd have to go to free/open source software for people who haven't got any money. And I think they'd be prepared to pay the price of extra time and effort to get access. Not that the windows interface is "easy" or "user friendly" anyway.
I would imagine that the skills one could pick up this way would also be useful for business that were running on a shoestring too.
Or we could just ditch the Linux idea and go with that simputer.org system.
It seems obvious that 200K is not going to cover the annual M$ subscription cost let alone fitting out the whole organisation or even the public access.
Then again our 200K only buys half of what your 200K does in Microsoft products. Oddly, companies like Starbucks seem to charge the same numbers for coffee here as they do there eg $2.50, making ours half price in international $.
Or is that $5 USA and $2.50 Oz making our coffee 75% off?
How many old bombs do you see on the road every day. How many cars in the local football stadium car park have bald tyres, or illegible (by speed cameras at least) licence plates, or lots of rust? For that matter, how many drivers do you see every day who obviously got their licence from a breakfast cereal packet?
They have a hard time enforcing the current rules about connecting incompatible telecommunications equipment to the system. Why would a new law make any difference?
Loudly ringing mobile phones in cinemas/theatres deserve to be pelted with
jaffas. You can recycle the jaffas already on the floor.
According to a British Insurance company, using cell phones or mobile phones
handsfree or not, makes the driver more dangerous than a drunk driver. Now imagine
a drunk driver on the phone and you have a killing machine. Terrorism at home.
Other things that are bad for driving are
conversation with passenger when driver insists on eye contact. At least
the passenger can watch the road and scream.
trying to change a tape or cd while driving,
having sex while driving
smoking while driving
eating or drinking. Nothing like dropping a milkshake in the driver's lap
to cause a prang.
having a large hairy spider crawl out of the air vent (fortunately managed
to pull over safely before jumping out of the vehicle and screaming).
getting a flat tyre while travelling at speed on a bad road
tailgating a truck when it has a blowout.
mosquitos in the car. trying to kill the mosquito or blow fly while driving
small children fighting in the back. For gods sake, mum and dad, pull over.
driving while really angry. like after getting a speeding ticket.
driving with a dog in your lap (and its head out the window)
getting changed for basketball game in driver's seat while passenger steers
and changes gears
swerving around an (imaginary) animal on a narrow winding hill road.
using a street directory or map while driving.
thinking that a truck can pull up quick enough to avoid you when you cut
infront in your tiny 4 cylinder car
thinking that a truck coming at you on a narrow country road will pull off
the road to let you and your caravan drive down the centre of the road.
roadside advertising, specifically designed to attract driver's attention
to the sign and away from the road.
Slashdot Mirror
Just ask anyone with a deregulated, privatised electricity supply. Adelaide Australia (electricity up by more than 30% for Christmas), and California.
And I don't think deregulating our airlines (Australia) helped either. They're either about to drop out the sky like they do in the USA or we're only going to have Qantas and only football teams are going to be able to afford to fly, because the airline sponsors the competition. The internet tickets may be cheaper but the I have to fly now/tomorrow tickets, which used to be the cheapest are now more expensive than ever before.
And banking, how that has gone to shit in Australia. The banks are making huge profits, laying off lots of staff and slugging the hell out of their customers with less than multimillion turnovers. The only way to get your money out of them is to become a director or exec and then quit. Sigh. Even the shareholders are getting a raw deal out of this highway robbery.
Bring back regulation, I say!
My understanding with Australian internet traffic is that there are already different rates/costs and limits for upload traffic than for download traffic, especially if you have a "permanent" connection. (anyone else get dropouts on their adsl?)
Also when I was in NZ they had a different rate for traffic downloaded from outside the country ie USA or Australia to traffic racked up within the country.
I think some web site hosting cost more if lots of people download (upload from your server)your site too. That's why you see some sites with pleading messages not to directly link to their url, ie they'd prefer you copied their picture to your site and let your website incur the cost of people sucking onto their computers.
actually I'm having a hard time thinking of anything where regulation has made the cost go up, as much as deregulation or privatisation has. Even our bus tickets are more expensive. And don't get me started on the UK Rail system. Yikes.
cost of living up, take home pay down.
Perhaps this guy could put the code on floppy disk, photocopy it and fax it in.
Or scan the floppy the same way as he scanned the LPs and email the jpg.
There is nothing more important that people's money
If there was nothing more important than money, why would we trade it for anything? I agree that there isn't anything much more likely to generate irrational behaviour than money, apart from threats to health.
Anyway since when does hiding what is on the monitor help when the data is accessible from thousands of terminals? Can't see it on that monitor, I'll just suck up the data on my own monitor. Hell, can I sue for being able to view my bank accounts from the not-so-private internet cafe monitors?
I'd be quite happy for a (smelly) sock for the gob of the next teller who announces to the whole queue - "so how would you like your $3000 withdrawal", when I had already written that down on a bit of paper for them. Can I sue for the fear and trauma caused by this? Perhaps I could get the money debited from their salary instead of my bank account?
So let's get cones of silence and monitors built directly into the goggles. Put each person's encrypted data on sneaker net (floppy disk etc) and make each workstation stand alone
How about making the screen resolution really small ie tiny text and making staff wear magnifying glasses?
If spammers insist on spamming so that we have to waste our time and resources dealing with it, we should send bills for our time.
Lets see. $200/hour, 1 hour minimum, per spam...
I get rid of telemarketers the same way.
them: Hello - I'm a complete stranger calling because your (unlisted) phone number was generated by the computer...
me: My time is billable, can I have your name and credit card number please before we continue...
- nobody has yet to make up a name and credit card number, they just hang up.
Would spam stop if nobody bought anything advertised on spam? Who the hell is it that buys things or clicks links from spam? Perhaps we could get these people disconnected from the internet too.
Hi Alsee
I have no idea why you think it is me that is gambling online. I'm just talking about the trouble I have avoiding the sites.
If everyone was like me, there would be no MacDonalds, no soap opera, Seinfeld would not be famous, neither would the cast of Friends. Sport on TV would be equal men and women, and there would be no golf ever. There'd be no gambling with money either.
Not because I think there shouldn't be these things but because I'm not the least bit interested in these things, so they'd make no money out of it. The only gambling would be on the stock market. And the slashdot team would have their own chat show on (free to air) tv every night. fairly late night cos I don't get home early.
Is that NZ horses winning Aussie Races? Hell one of them was even called "Kiwi" just in case we weren't sure.
I thought Brew had retired but he seems to be on the come back trail. SMH ref . I like the idea of "the big ask" from the land of big hairy NZ spiders.
Then he wouldn't need to make his fingers wrap around an unfamiliar keyboard.
Except most dictation software I know fails as soon as the speaker gets passionate or excited about a topic. Then the computer completely fails to understand a word. The results are funnier than watching a spellchecker offer suggestions for correcting proper names or code.
wadiwood wedgewood widowhood
You can bet on it.
How can you tell the difference between a running race and gambling? You can't because you can make bets on who's going to win.
Do they have horse racing in Greece?
BTW the Australian Govt has banned online gambling sites in OZ. It doesn't help any because every time I go near geocities or yahoo, I'm bombarded by the Overseas sites. All the ban did was make sure the money leaves our country.
Can't wait for the first tuesday in November. Go Pharlap go. (uh dammit what time warp did that come from?) Anyone got a tip for which horse is going to win this year?
I miss the flying games. I recently visited an arcade attached to the local cinema and there were car races, bike races, skiing, fishing!, air hockey, grab the teddy bear, basketball and lots of kickem boxing fight kind of games. Not a single flight/spaceship, shoot and bomb game in the whole arcade. What are we? Grounded speed machines? How can a car simulator possibly be better than an aeroplane simulator?? I like a game I can learn in 30 seconds with one joystick and two buttons. I hate having to learn a manual the size of a phone book and then learn fifty different command sequences. I don't know how the rest of you do it but I die really quickly in the quake/doom games. still playing minesweeper and 50 varieties of solitaire - cos I don't die when I get distracted and have to start again from the beginning/bottom level. Is there a combination puzzle and co-ordination game out there?
SuperParaMagnetism?
I think by the way of increase in the IT industry, in 18 months we should be able to store a "SuperCaliFraJalisticExpiAliDocious" per square inch.
And it will probably have the durability of a may fly, especially if the FBI insist on everyone keeping 20 log copies just in case of naughtiness.
-- my age is showing, but I'm vaguely comforted by the thought that Mary Poppins is not as old as Longinus or even Richard Maximus
Ie if M$ reduced the price a lot ie comparable to the cost of a CD, then it would likely become more convenient to buy the CD than waste time burning it and this would kill off the piracy in most places. Isn't this how big supermarket chains work? reduce the cost of everything to force the competition out? Then they can charge what they like. Then the competition comes back and the cycle continues.
The target audience is probably computer phobic as well. But the whole idea is to provide services that the rest of us take for granted. I'm guessing: internet surfing, email, word processing (for that nice job application), maybe spreadsheets but that applies less to people who don't have any money to count, or perhaps more for those who have to make every cent count. And to keep the youth interested and learning, games would be good too.
Ideally you'd pick a system they'd only have to learn once, or once every five years (not 18 months) and something that they might be able to afford to set up at home on a second hand computer, that actually will run.
That rules M$ out on every score. You'd have to go to free/open source software for people who haven't got any money. And I think they'd be prepared to pay the price of extra time and effort to get access. Not that the windows interface is "easy" or "user friendly" anyway.
I would imagine that the skills one could pick up this way would also be useful for business that were running on a shoestring too.
Or we could just ditch the Linux idea and go with that simputer.org system.
It seems obvious that 200K is not going to cover the annual M$ subscription cost let alone fitting out the whole organisation or even the public access.
Then again our 200K only buys half of what your 200K does in Microsoft products. Oddly, companies like Starbucks seem to charge the same numbers for coffee here as they do there eg $2.50, making ours half price in international $.
Or is that $5 USA and $2.50 Oz making our coffee 75% off?
if only I had a clue what I was talking about.
How many old bombs do you see on the road every day. How many cars in the local football stadium car park have bald tyres, or illegible (by speed cameras at least) licence plates, or lots of rust? For that matter, how many drivers do you see every day who obviously got their licence from a breakfast cereal packet?
They have a hard time enforcing the current rules about connecting incompatible telecommunications equipment to the system. Why would a new law make any difference?
Loudly ringing mobile phones in cinemas/theatres deserve to be pelted with jaffas. You can recycle the jaffas already on the floor.
According to a British Insurance company, using cell phones or mobile phones handsfree or not, makes the driver more dangerous than a drunk driver. Now imagine a drunk driver on the phone and you have a killing machine. Terrorism at home.
Other things that are bad for driving are
wireless news article on study of mobile phone users driving reaction times
car accident story
another car accident story
links to more info