That was the big failure of telecom privatisation in Australia. The gov't gave away the whole thing, company and network, instead of either keeping the network as a gov't entity or selling it off as a completely seperate company (with controls in place to ensure the two entities couldn't re-merge in future).
The result was a government entity morphing into a public company monopoly, all funded twice by taxpayers - once through their taxes and once through their shares.
Within a few years, Telstra had changed from compliant gov't entity to a company virtually flipping the finger at the gov't, reminding them that they're a company now and don't need to care about unprofitable areas (such as remote customers, farmers, etc). The gov't blustered and publicly attacked the company's direction, but could do absolutely nothing any longer.
Hilarious to watch, in its way, but sad for the nation.
What about all the Quake games, UT, WoW and so on? Sure, Windows has more games but you're just trolling when you omit the world's most popular games and throw out games so old, even Mac users don't play them any longer.
Unless you're urinating on your hands, the sterile nature of urine is not an issue. What does matter is that you're handling a body part that is usually kept very warm - ideal conditions for bacteria growth.
The French had the right to ask for the activists to be detained, or to stop them as soon as they entered French territory. They never had the right to plant a bomb in another country. No-one has ever argued they had this right (until now, oddly enough), and there's no law on Earth that allows for this.
And the whole "countries do this all the time" bit doesn't make it any less of a crime. Those countries are just as culpable and just as stupid for executing foreign nationals without trial. In some ways, those actions greatly helped make the world a more dangerous place.
I can't believe we're in 2008 and people still argue over these things.
Were Greenpeace responsible for the stop in their use? I'm not aware of that, but I'm happy to be wrong if you can provide something to back up those claims.
As for putting stuff into food, many countries have pretty stringent regulation and testing on that one. Have Greenpeace contributed to this? Are they active in the countries where that is most needed (poor countries, third-world countries, etc)?
Lately all I see of Greenpeace is a loose group of people who are dedicated anti-development and anti-technology. They make statements that are either outright lies or show a complete failure to understand the topic (look at previous posts for links to statements about nuclear fission as an energy source, for an excellent example).
The stated goals of Greenpeace are noble goals, worthy indeed. The actual practice of the group has degenerated to simply saying "No" at every opportunity. They need to return to the science of environmentalism.
I use Google for searches, but I could easily switch to Yahoo, AltaVista or even MSN.
Until Google start doing things to stop people using other search engines, there's no problem. If people object to the dominance of Google, they must either campaign for users to move to other engines, or create a better engine and gain marketshare.
b) That we should ignore the less technical who are still buying songs from the iTunes store with no knowledge that if they switch away from Apple, their legally purchased music library is utterly useless.
A few points on this bit:
* There was no purchase - people licence the music. It's an important point, and while people generally don't like or want restrictive licences, it needs to be understood that it is a licence.
* It's a good thing in the long term if people move to another player and realise their DRM-wrapped music won't play. It's not good for the person, but the situation will help force companies away from DRM.
I won't get into the rights and wrongs of your point, except to note that your version of "the exact same business tactics" actually means "quite different business tactics used to reach a different goal."
If you're going to use terms like "exact same" you should at least be certain that the situations are identical.
People keep saying Apple are the same as Microsoft. Well, no, they're not. Apple's a hardware company while Microsoft is a software company. That alone changes how they can and cannot be the same.
I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
Get back to us when Apple are leveraging a monopoly to stop other companies selling any non-Apple OS. And are convicted of such.
Or did you mean that other sort of "exactly," the sort which means "in the broad category of things I don't approve of, but which encompasses a massive range?"
I knew the whole "customer is always right" thing was just so much bullshit the day a guy lied to my face while demanding a refund on a remote-control car he bought the day before. The unit was scratched badly on all sides and he's calmly telling me it came out of the box like that.
The manager gave the refund. I knew then that retail was not for me.
The customer is not always right. Their needs are critical to your business, but they'll lie cheat and swindle you if you allow them.
Mac locks down their software just as much as Microsoft
"Mac" is a product. Apple is the company selling it.
Apple don't lock users into software. Look at every Apple application. All the file formats are open formats. Hell, most of them are gzipped text or XML files.
The OS is locked to Mac hardware through the weakest of chains, so there's some truth to your comment.
I find the whole "Apple is as bad as Microsoft" meme pretty sad. People have forgotten the criminal acts of Microsoft, and assuming that Apple would do the same. Not that the company is completely without any stains, but seriously people, think before you post!
Slashdot Mirror
Although I think Senator Conroy is an ignoramus of the highest order...
Off-topic, but what is it with tech-ministers in this country? We had the Worlds Biggest Luddite for years, Helen Coonan and now this Conroy bozo.
Do they have to take a test of ultra-basic IT literacy, and only the real no-hopers get the job?
That was the big failure of telecom privatisation in Australia. The gov't gave away the whole thing, company and network, instead of either keeping the network as a gov't entity or selling it off as a completely seperate company (with controls in place to ensure the two entities couldn't re-merge in future).
The result was a government entity morphing into a public company monopoly, all funded twice by taxpayers - once through their taxes and once through their shares.
Within a few years, Telstra had changed from compliant gov't entity to a company virtually flipping the finger at the gov't, reminding them that they're a company now and don't need to care about unprofitable areas (such as remote customers, farmers, etc). The gov't blustered and publicly attacked the company's direction, but could do absolutely nothing any longer.
Hilarious to watch, in its way, but sad for the nation.
It seems unlikely that the gov't needs to be punishing Telstra on this. The company simply failed to deliver one of five mandatory parts of their bid.
Automatic disqualification.
Telstra seems to have bluffed and been called on it. Sometimes a 900lb gorilla can't sleep anywhere it wants to.
Marathon.
What about all the Quake games, UT, WoW and so on? Sure, Windows has more games but you're just trolling when you omit the world's most popular games and throw out games so old, even Mac users don't play them any longer.
My MacBook Pro has 4GB of RAM installed. OS X sees it just fine. Vista doesn't. It's the 32-bit version of Vista, and I get only 3GB available.
It's been a while since I checked that, but I'm not aware of any patches that correct this software issue.
There are a few brave sites risking censure by speaking out against dihydrogen monoxide.
http://www.dhmo.org/
Come on people! It's dangerous!
Unless you're urinating on your hands, the sterile nature of urine is not an issue. What does matter is that you're handling a body part that is usually kept very warm - ideal conditions for bacteria growth.
Madness?
This.
Is.
SPARTA... ...cus.
said Hanrahan, before the year is out.
Until Microsoft starts doing things to stop people using other operating systems, there's no problem.
I seem to recall some issues around this... was there a trial..?
Nice rewording of my post, but it's a shame that you reinforced my message while you thought you were knocking my point down.
The French had the right to ask for the activists to be detained, or to stop them as soon as they entered French territory. They never had the right to plant a bomb in another country. No-one has ever argued they had this right (until now, oddly enough), and there's no law on Earth that allows for this.
And the whole "countries do this all the time" bit doesn't make it any less of a crime. Those countries are just as culpable and just as stupid for executing foreign nationals without trial. In some ways, those actions greatly helped make the world a more dangerous place.
I can't believe we're in 2008 and people still argue over these things.
We all know it!
You mention asbestos and lead-based paint.
Were Greenpeace responsible for the stop in their use? I'm not aware of that, but I'm happy to be wrong if you can provide something to back up those claims.
As for putting stuff into food, many countries have pretty stringent regulation and testing on that one. Have Greenpeace contributed to this? Are they active in the countries where that is most needed (poor countries, third-world countries, etc)?
Lately all I see of Greenpeace is a loose group of people who are dedicated anti-development and anti-technology. They make statements that are either outright lies or show a complete failure to understand the topic (look at previous posts for links to statements about nuclear fission as an energy source, for an excellent example).
The stated goals of Greenpeace are noble goals, worthy indeed. The actual practice of the group has degenerated to simply saying "No" at every opportunity. They need to return to the science of environmentalism.
Once you use an ivory iPod, you won't want anything else.
And that leopard print case... well it's no 'print'.
I use Google for searches, but I could easily switch to Yahoo, AltaVista or even MSN.
Until Google start doing things to stop people using other search engines, there's no problem. If people object to the dominance of Google, they must either campaign for users to move to other engines, or create a better engine and gain marketshare.
Of course, I use neither Safari nor Firefox.
And yet you post about how Apple are bad for doing this, how Apple's "minions" have unswerving loyalty, blah blah blah.
You're not even affected.
Ah! I see - you're trolling here. Foolish of me not to have spotted that earlier.
b) That we should ignore the less technical who are still buying songs from the iTunes store with no knowledge that if they switch away from Apple, their legally purchased music library is utterly useless.
A few points on this bit:
* There was no purchase - people licence the music. It's an important point, and while people generally don't like or want restrictive licences, it needs to be understood that it is a licence.
* It's a good thing in the long term if people move to another player and realise their DRM-wrapped music won't play. It's not good for the person, but the situation will help force companies away from DRM.
I won't get into the rights and wrongs of your point, except to note that your version of "the exact same business tactics" actually means "quite different business tactics used to reach a different goal."
If you're going to use terms like "exact same" you should at least be certain that the situations are identical.
People keep saying Apple are the same as Microsoft. Well, no, they're not. Apple's a hardware company while Microsoft is a software company. That alone changes how they can and cannot be the same.
I'm not sure why you'd think going to Apple would be any better. You get the exact same business tactics, just a slightly more stylish computer.
Get back to us when Apple are leveraging a monopoly to stop other companies selling any non-Apple OS. And are convicted of such.
Or did you mean that other sort of "exactly," the sort which means "in the broad category of things I don't approve of, but which encompasses a massive range?"
They should have looked there first then.
That always works for me.
I knew the whole "customer is always right" thing was just so much bullshit the day a guy lied to my face while demanding a refund on a remote-control car he bought the day before. The unit was scratched badly on all sides and he's calmly telling me it came out of the box like that.
The manager gave the refund. I knew then that retail was not for me.
The customer is not always right. Their needs are critical to your business, but they'll lie cheat and swindle you if you allow them.
Really? In the OS and not the application layer?
Can you give some examples?
"We think you'll be really thrilled with not being able to do that.
Boom!"
Mac locks down their software just as much as Microsoft
"Mac" is a product. Apple is the company selling it.
Apple don't lock users into software. Look at every Apple application. All the file formats are open formats. Hell, most of them are gzipped text or XML files.
The OS is locked to Mac hardware through the weakest of chains, so there's some truth to your comment.
I find the whole "Apple is as bad as Microsoft" meme pretty sad. People have forgotten the criminal acts of Microsoft, and assuming that Apple would do the same. Not that the company is completely without any stains, but seriously people, think before you post!