Another thing to consider is that, at least in the case of movies, things that re rated R18+ in the US (and maybe in Europe) often only get an MA15+ rating in Australia. From what I understand, the US R18+ covers all the content that the Australian MA15+ and R18+ categories cover.
In general, I get the impression that Australia has a reasonably liberal stance on what movies are permitted to be shown (Ken Park and Baise Moi being notable exceptions), although a less liberal stance on computer games (ref. GTA: Vice City).
In other words, "we want you to pay for the priveleg of finding out whether or not we fixed the scene with Greedo and Han".
Thank goodness for Slashdot - for sure there will be a review up the day they are released, and the first thing everyone on Slashdot who buys it will check is, "did Greedo still shoot first?". Of course, the second thing they check will be Princess Leia in the slave-girl outfit...
In our current post-modern, whatever climate, the Olympics are seen to be about bring people together, I guess because out and out competition is not politically correct.
I don't think they are originally about that though - the motto, "Faster, Stronger, Higher" shows that it is about individual performance, and about bettering yourself and being better than others. The whole thing about sharing cultures is just a modern tack-on to an old competition that is about being better than everyone else in the world.
Actually, funny you should mention that. There have been studies (I can't find a reference just at the moment though) that show that bookmakers and betting agencies are better at predicting things, such as the outcome of an election, than most other forms of prediction (e.g. those taking into account past performance, statistical analysis, etc). I guess that people, taken as a population, really are very careful about what they do with their money.
Actually, I'm sure it breaks compatibility with some applications for reasons other than there being a firewall turned on. For example, I noticed that Endnote 8 is not compatible with it, but older versions are. This wasn't listed on the Microsoft sites linked to above as being a firewall issue.
Of course, it's possible that this could be a problem associated with 'bad coding' or whatever in Endnote rather than SP2.
And in this case, Apple won't be selling a 12 song device, but will be licensing their iTunes-compatible software to a company who will use it in a phone.
That said, it's still a fairly big move for Apple to start licensing their software to someone else since they are, traditionally, a hardware company. Not that this will hurt their market share in the way of iPods at all. However, it would likely mean more sales from the iTunes store, particularly if you can purchase and download directly from your phone.
I can just see it - people listening to a song on the radio or at a night-club, hear a song they like. They find out the title and log onto the iTunes store directly from wherever they are and grab the song for only 99c. The next step would be for the iTunes store to incorporate sound recognition, so you hold your phone up to a muic source, the online service tells you what the track is called and then prompts you to purchase it. Imagine the possibilities!
Of course, purchasing directly to the phone probably won't happen, because if it's anything like the iPod you won't be legally/theoretically able to copy the songs back onto your computer, in an attempt to curb illegal file sharing. Unless, of course, only DRM-enabled tracks could be transferred back. Interesting concept anyway...
Now add the ability to control iTunes remotely (say from a Palm or PocketPC) and we've got a product.
I think you should check out Salling Clicker
As for the pricing and features list - yes, it's a shame that Apple makes a product with a feature set and at a price that sells well (80,000 pre-orders, apparently), but that you don't like. Maybe you should email Steve Jobs and see if he can create a different version and price it specially just for you.
The Ask Slashdot from March 2000, linked to in the article summary, contained this comment from Neilsen in response to a question on Linus/Unix usability and 'prettiness' of interface: I know that Slashdot readers don't want to hear this, but the very first question is whether it is even possible to create a truly good user experience on top of Linux. Many other companies have tried to make Unix easy to use and many very talented designers have worked hard on these projects for several years without very good results.
The only data points we have say that it can't be done.
Yeah, but aside from the snakes, spiders, sharks, box jellyfish, blue ringed octopus, crocodiles (they're only up north so you don't need to worry about them too much - but snakes and spiders are everywhere), etc. Aside from all those things, or in spite of all those things, Australia is the best place on earth. Don't believe me? Check the guide: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A53650
This coming from an Australian company? Hardly suprising: us Aussies are always happy to get something for nothing. Getting away with it is always a boasting point and something akin to a national sport/pastime.
If I didn't like their stuff so much, I'd be so annoyed that they keep offering such good competitions in the US and leave Australians (and many other places, I'm sure) out to dry.
We'd be happy enough even just to have access to the iTMS - the competition would be nice too, but please at least let us use the store.
I used to work in a call centre and heard the story that someone had called in a bomb threat. The operator in the call centre tried to sound the guy out, then said, "I'm sorry - the line is breaking up. Can I get your phone number and I'll call you back" and the guy gave it to her.
And since Australia, en masse, already loves to hate America, this just adds to the mix. Oh, Australia will happily lap up US culture and music, but we do have an overall impression of Americans as ignorant imbeciles who don't understand sarcasm. This joke, for example, was quite popular down here (even if it is British in origin):
NEWS FLASH:
"American Discovers Sarcasm"
Bill MacKenzie Jnr was visiting London in the British Isles, when he discovered sarcasm. 'Yup. It was, like, really cool, you know ? I was standing in, like, the pouring rain on one of those quaint little streets they have in Britain. Maaan, it was really coming down. There was this pin-striped dude next to me and he said "Hey, nice weather, huh ?"
'I was stunned, coz, like, it sure wasn't nice, you know what I mean ?'
It then occurred to this astute US citizen, that he had actually unearthed this phenomenon previously horded by the UK - sarcasm.
'Of course,' said proud Bill later 'I now use it all the time. For instance, last week, at my Sunday BBQ. I mean I had burnt the crap outta my burgers, so I shouted "Hey " Nice weather !"
The forums on Australian broadband site Whirlpool show a good example of this. There's a sidebar you can open for watching the forums easily, but is not supported on IE. It's designed for Mozilla, but also works in Opera. And you gotta love the error message you get when you try to open it in IE...
Note: this doesn't break the site for IE users, but just denies them one piece of extra functionality
I don't know about all MPs, but Government Minister's pay the same attention to emails as to snail mail letters. Some will reply by email, some will reply by snail mail (if you include your address).
However, the same attention, in this context, means that they generally forward it to the Minister responsible for that matter or, if they are the Minister responsible, they get their Department to answer it - or their political staff if it's a purely political matter (as opposed to a policy issue).
However, it still pays to write sometimes. If there's enough opposition from enough sources, it can make an imapct. Even better than writing letters would be to get the story picked up in various newspapers. Sadly enough, politicians are more worried about negative press on the front page of the Australian or the SMH than they are about negative comments in any number of letters sent to them.
I think it would be very difficult to find details or statistics of P2P traffic on Australian backbones - mainly because it's quite a sensitive topic between ISPs and the record indutry. ARIA has been running a line that ISPs are soft on file sharing because:
1. Lots of file sharing = big bandwidth usage 2. Customers buy lots of bandwidth 3. Profit for ISPs and, ARIA argues, losses for record industry and poor, struggling artists, etc etc
So, the ISPs don't talk about file sharing.
Beyond that, there hasn't been a particular increase in broadband deployment in Australia recently, although broadband take-up is apparently incresaing. However, I suspect that broadband's impact on file sharing would be mostly affect the sharing of large files, like software or movies, rather than music - music file sharing has been big in Australia for about as long as it has been in the US.
Also, what legislative changes were you asking about? I can't think of any legislative changes recently that would make much impact on file sharing or record sales.
Or if you still want to go anyway, and you want a way to avoid the import tax/duty and you don't want to use a forwarding agent: go to NY and buy it, then mail it to yourself and mark it as a gift. You don't pay import tax on gifts.
I don't imagine that the shipping will be particularly cheap, but it sounds as though you could get the holiday in NY, the laptop and pay the shipping, all for about the same price you would have paid for the laptop in the UK.
To introduce a religious analogy - that's what Christianity says about the laws in the Old Testament: they're there to show you that you can't follow them (i.e. you're not perfect, and you can't 'work' your way to God by following them.)
Slashdot Mirror
Another thing to consider is that, at least in the case of movies, things that re rated R18+ in the US (and maybe in Europe) often only get an MA15+ rating in Australia. From what I understand, the US R18+ covers all the content that the Australian MA15+ and R18+ categories cover.
In general, I get the impression that Australia has a reasonably liberal stance on what movies are permitted to be shown (Ken Park and Baise Moi being notable exceptions), although a less liberal stance on computer games (ref. GTA: Vice City).
I just feel sorry for all the bears who gave their arms to keep your country free and ready for revolt against corrupt governments.
So, one can safely assume Mr. Ishii is not a fan of like say Slipknot?
Likewise, we can assume that you are a fan of like say tautology.
Ah, if true then disappointing but not unexpected
In other words, "we want you to pay for the priveleg of finding out whether or not we fixed the scene with Greedo and Han".
Thank goodness for Slashdot - for sure there will be a review up the day they are released, and the first thing everyone on Slashdot who buys it will check is, "did Greedo still shoot first?". Of course, the second thing they check will be Princess Leia in the slave-girl outfit...
Best. One-liner. Ever.
Wish I'd come up with that one
In our current post-modern, whatever climate, the Olympics are seen to be about bring people together, I guess because out and out competition is not politically correct.
I don't think they are originally about that though - the motto, "Faster, Stronger, Higher" shows that it is about individual performance, and about bettering yourself and being better than others. The whole thing about sharing cultures is just a modern tack-on to an old competition that is about being better than everyone else in the world.
Actually, funny you should mention that. There have been studies (I can't find a reference just at the moment though) that show that bookmakers and betting agencies are better at predicting things, such as the outcome of an election, than most other forms of prediction (e.g. those taking into account past performance, statistical analysis, etc). I guess that people, taken as a population, really are very careful about what they do with their money.
Actually, I'm sure it breaks compatibility with some applications for reasons other than there being a firewall turned on. For example, I noticed that Endnote 8 is not compatible with it, but older versions are. This wasn't listed on the Microsoft sites linked to above as being a firewall issue.
Of course, it's possible that this could be a problem associated with 'bad coding' or whatever in Endnote rather than SP2.
And in this case, Apple won't be selling a 12 song device, but will be licensing their iTunes-compatible software to a company who will use it in a phone.
That said, it's still a fairly big move for Apple to start licensing their software to someone else since they are, traditionally, a hardware company. Not that this will hurt their market share in the way of iPods at all. However, it would likely mean more sales from the iTunes store, particularly if you can purchase and download directly from your phone.
I can just see it - people listening to a song on the radio or at a night-club, hear a song they like. They find out the title and log onto the iTunes store directly from wherever they are and grab the song for only 99c. The next step would be for the iTunes store to incorporate sound recognition, so you hold your phone up to a muic source, the online service tells you what the track is called and then prompts you to purchase it. Imagine the possibilities!
Of course, purchasing directly to the phone probably won't happen, because if it's anything like the iPod you won't be legally/theoretically able to copy the songs back onto your computer, in an attempt to curb illegal file sharing. Unless, of course, only DRM-enabled tracks could be transferred back. Interesting concept anyway...
Now add the ability to control iTunes remotely (say from a Palm or PocketPC) and we've got a product.
I think you should check out Salling Clicker
As for the pricing and features list - yes, it's a shame that Apple makes a product with a feature set and at a price that sells well (80,000 pre-orders, apparently), but that you don't like. Maybe you should email Steve Jobs and see if he can create a different version and price it specially just for you.
UK English? Isn't that just English?
And 'nick' as slang for stealing is also common in Australia - but then we probably got it from the 'motherland' as well.
The Ask Slashdot from March 2000, linked to in the article summary, contained this comment from Neilsen in response to a question on Linus/Unix usability and 'prettiness' of interface:
I know that Slashdot readers don't want to hear this, but the very first question is whether it is even possible to create a truly good user experience on top of Linux. Many other companies have tried to make Unix easy to use and many very talented designers have worked hard on these projects for several years without very good results.
The only data points we have say that it can't be done.
Well, Mac OS X has basically proved him wrong.
Yeah, but aside from the snakes, spiders, sharks, box jellyfish, blue ringed octopus, crocodiles (they're only up north so you don't need to worry about them too much - but snakes and spiders are everywhere), etc. Aside from all those things, or in spite of all those things, Australia is the best place on earth. Don't believe me? Check the guide:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A53650
And don't panic!
This coming from an Australian company? Hardly suprising: us Aussies are always happy to get something for nothing. Getting away with it is always a boasting point and something akin to a national sport/pastime.
If I didn't like their stuff so much, I'd be so annoyed that they keep offering such good competitions in the US and leave Australians (and many other places, I'm sure) out to dry.
We'd be happy enough even just to have access to the iTMS - the competition would be nice too, but please at least let us use the store.
I used to work in a call centre and heard the story that someone had called in a bomb threat. The operator in the call centre tried to sound the guy out, then said, "I'm sorry - the line is breaking up. Can I get your phone number and I'll call you back" and the guy gave it to her.
Hey, I live somewhere close to that (although not quite there):
It's called Australia
And since Australia, en masse, already loves to hate America, this just adds to the mix. Oh, Australia will happily lap up US culture and music, but we do have an overall impression of Americans as ignorant imbeciles who don't understand sarcasm. This joke, for example, was quite popular down here (even if it is British in origin):
NEWS FLASH:
"American Discovers Sarcasm"
Bill MacKenzie Jnr was visiting London in the British Isles, when he discovered sarcasm.
'Yup. It was, like, really cool, you know ? I was standing in, like, the pouring rain on one of those quaint little streets they have in Britain. Maaan, it was really coming down. There was this pin-striped dude next to me and he said "Hey, nice weather, huh ?"
'I was stunned, coz, like, it sure wasn't nice, you know what I mean ?'
It then occurred to this astute US citizen, that he had actually unearthed this phenomenon previously horded by the UK - sarcasm.
'Of course,' said proud Bill later 'I now use it all the time. For instance, last week, at my Sunday BBQ. I mean I had burnt the crap outta my burgers, so I shouted "Hey " Nice weather !"
The forums on Australian broadband site Whirlpool show a good example of this. There's a sidebar you can open for watching the forums easily, but is not supported on IE. It's designed for Mozilla, but also works in Opera. And you gotta love the error message you get when you try to open it in IE...
Note: this doesn't break the site for IE users, but just denies them one piece of extra functionality
I don't know about all MPs, but Government Minister's pay the same attention to emails as to snail mail letters. Some will reply by email, some will reply by snail mail (if you include your address).
However, the same attention, in this context, means that they generally forward it to the Minister responsible for that matter or, if they are the Minister responsible, they get their Department to answer it - or their political staff if it's a purely political matter (as opposed to a policy issue).
However, it still pays to write sometimes. If there's enough opposition from enough sources, it can make an imapct. Even better than writing letters would be to get the story picked up in various newspapers. Sadly enough, politicians are more worried about negative press on the front page of the Australian or the SMH than they are about negative comments in any number of letters sent to them.
I agree, but the article FAQ says:
"1.2 Why would you do that?
A number of reasons, but mainly because its there."
But I think you're right overall - this seems a mostly pointless exercise to me
I think it would be very difficult to find details or statistics of P2P traffic on Australian backbones - mainly because it's quite a sensitive topic between ISPs and the record indutry. ARIA has been running a line that ISPs are soft on file sharing because:
1. Lots of file sharing = big bandwidth usage
2. Customers buy lots of bandwidth
3. Profit for ISPs and, ARIA argues, losses for record industry and poor, struggling artists, etc etc
So, the ISPs don't talk about file sharing.
Beyond that, there hasn't been a particular increase in broadband deployment in Australia recently, although broadband take-up is apparently incresaing. However, I suspect that broadband's impact on file sharing would be mostly affect the sharing of large files, like software or movies, rather than music - music file sharing has been big in Australia for about as long as it has been in the US.
Also, what legislative changes were you asking about? I can't think of any legislative changes recently that would make much impact on file sharing or record sales.
Or if you still want to go anyway, and you want a way to avoid the import tax/duty and you don't want to use a forwarding agent: go to NY and buy it, then mail it to yourself and mark it as a gift. You don't pay import tax on gifts. I don't imagine that the shipping will be particularly cheap, but it sounds as though you could get the holiday in NY, the laptop and pay the shipping, all for about the same price you would have paid for the laptop in the UK.
To introduce a religious analogy - that's what Christianity says about the laws in the Old Testament: they're there to show you that you can't follow them (i.e. you're not perfect, and you can't 'work' your way to God by following them.)