If there were more taxis again in Paris, there would be some competition, price would go down and quality of service increase.
Reality disagrees with your assertion.
Quality is the first thing that goes in a race to the bottom and that's exactly what you're proposing. I've lived in places where there was an oversupply of taxi drivers. Eventually you reach a point where there are so many taxis they start to resort to any number of dirty tricks. These range from grabbing you and manhandling you into a cab to dodgy meters to forming gangs and enforcing turf.
One thing that is consistent is that the quality of driver is very, very low. This is consistent from my experience with Phuket's Tuk Tuk drivers to the Dominican Republics Motoconchos to Filipino trike drivers. Quality always suffers when its a free for all. Its like saying that a buffet will be better quality than made to order because it's cheaper.
If it wasn't profitable to be a taxi as there could be more supply than there's demand, people would switch to a different job and it would regulate automatically.
Every place with deregulated taxis disproves this assertion. The system does not regulate automatically, if the government does not regulate it, someone else will. Typically when regulation is left to the drivers they form gangs, establish turf and are pretty violent in enforcing it. Its not the clean, rational system you imagine.
Also, self regulation leads to higher prices, not lower prices. A taxi in well regulated Bangkok is very cheap, 400 Baht from the airport to the city centre. A taxi in unregulated Phuket is extremely expensive, they wont turn on the engine for less than 200 baht.
Outrage is almost always a sign that someone is trying to manipulate you (either for page views, or something else).
This, and social media is just the latest form of doing it.
For a long time this kind of manipulation has been the domain of major news agencies. They'd print inflammatory statements and headlines with the express intent of stirring up public outrage, trial by media such as the Chamberlain case is a classic example. With social media its gotten worse as a single person can fabricate enough half truths, exaggerations and outright lies to create the same kind of outrage.
On one hand, people should be more sceptical and mistrustful of random news sources, on the other hand humans are emotional and irrational creatures. The one unintended and good side effect of regular false outrage that we're experiencing is that people are developing a resistance to outrage, which explains why newspapers like the Daily Mail which relies on creating false outrage to sell hate social media outrage.
I would guess that the answer is "yes" we are too quick to act on media outrage (no matter if it is social or traditional) but that's human nature.
The catch is whether to trust anything at face value. Don't take the Daily Mail article at face value, just like you don't take Ms. St-Louis' comments at face value.
The thing is, ironically the Daily Mail is trying to point out that we should be more sceptical when the DM in itself is one of the publications which is most deserving of scepticism.
The DM may be having one of it's "broken clock" moments, but even then you can bet there's an agenda behind it.
Point in short, you should never take the Daily Mail at face value.
Accusation is enough to justify burning someone at the stake.
Progressives are essentially puritans, only without explicit mention of a god.
Utter bollocks.
I dont know when it became popular for people who are racist, sexist or homophobic to claim they're persecuted when someone points out their obvious flaw, but it's complete bullshit and a really poor attempt to poison the well.
I guess it's just a slightly more advanced effort than prefacing a racist statement with "I'm not racist but...". It's childish, immature and it doesn't work.
But running around naked is illegal on its own right. It has nothing to do with unauthorized rental of homes or airbnb.
Public nudity isn't illegal in Spain. Please stop assuming everywhere in the world has the same laws and prudishness as your homeland.
However people having a rowdy party every 2-3 nights right next to your sleepy casa is a serious problem. This is one of the big reasons that hotels are typically not put in residential areas.
Yes, and I don't care for that one bit. Though with previous consoles, PC Gamer "masterrace" types claimed that the ability to patch was an advantage.
It can be, but it doesn't turn out that way due to laziness or being rushed.
We were referring to the ability to add new content after release which used to be quite common for the PCGMR.
Only since the plague of consolisation have major releases been shipped broken. Console peasants put up with it, the PCGMR does not and realistically with the Steam sales being over and picking up over a dozen functioning PC games for under A$200, I really couldn't care less about this crappy port.
There's no reason why the infotainment system can't have read-only access to the engine control module (with write access physically prevented by the hardware). You won't be able to modify the engine management without physical access to the car, but that's the way it should be anyway.
The biggest reason the infotainment system cant (or more accurately, wont) have read only access is the fact that a lot of cars use the infotainment system to adjust things in the engine, suspension, braking systems, throttle response and so forth. BMWs and Mercs are especially bad for this but other manufacturers are catching up.
So the problem is not that "it is not hard to find a bare bones vehicle" but that I can't find the model I want with limited electronics: I want xenon lights, "oh, well, that comes with the comfort package that also comes with lane departure and blind spot alarms and remote start".
Thats when you tell the dealer you only want Xenon lights.
If he says no, you thank him for his time and leave. He'll call you back in a day or so telling you that he's "pulled some strings and got it done" (which like everything that emerges from a car dealers mouth, is utter bullshit, he always could do it but he was hoping you'd cave in to the more expensive package).
You can also always go aftermarket which wouldn't be any more expensive than going through the dealer, even in the EU.
And those electronics are probably going to be one of the biggest issues with keeping that car going.
Depends on the car. People are still making replacement electronics for enthusiast models like 80's and 90's Skylines and Supras. I can still find an aftermarket ABS unit for an S13. Hell, it's not hard to find an original ABS controller for a R32 Skyline still in its original packaging (car manufacturers have to stock 10 years worth of parts when they discontinue a mode, often they stock more than that). Add to this that manufacturers tend to use as many common parts as possible across different product lines.
Japanese cars, I wouldn't be so concerned about as they're built to last. A Euro, well the late 90's was when BWMs and Mercedes quality went to pot, but after 15 years of continual repairs and gremlins I suspect the GP wouldn't be planning to keep that car for the rest of his life.
We don't need wi-fi, remote unlocking or push-button start or any of that other unnecessary nonsense.
There's nothing wrong with these features. The problem is when you can reach the brake system from the bluetooth in the radio. There is no reason why these systems could not be separated, even air gapped.
I agree with your principle, but you cant have remote start without having the remote system attached to the ignition system.
However the auto industry has always taken a very lax attitude to safety until lawmakers forced them to pay attention. Seatbelts weren't in most cars before laws forced them to be, same with immobilisers and OBDII connectors (technically not a safety issue, but OBDII standardisation is one of the best things that lawmakers have done for car owners). I expect the same story to unfold here.
Thats not unusual these days. Almost all Android applications are getting pretty bloated. On my Android 5.1.1 phone, Chrome is 101 Mb, Facebook is 200 Mb, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are 70 Mb a piece and even a simple forum viewer for Whirlpool is 10 Mb.
Long gone are the days of applications being under 1 Mb. Seems like more than just 3 years ago though.
Install office with very limited use on a mobile, and you lose half a Gig of internal storage on your smartphone and still might have to pay for an Office 365 subscription.
That being true, this move is a clear sign that Microsoft is fearing the other office compatible products on Android, especially since Google have been pushing their own office products (that can read Office files, but saves them under Googles format).
The problem with Windows is that it auto-installs a lot of viruses or allows the user to install something without prompting for elevated privileges. They then changed it so that everything is asking for elevated privileges so now users just type it in regardless.
2001 called, it wants it incorrect argument back.
For a long time, even pre-SP2 XP malware relied upon social engineering to be installed. Even the dumbest users didn't open an email attachment without a reason in the 90's unless it said something like "Denise Richards naked with hot grits". Social engineering has always been and still remains the number one infection vector for malware and since the mid 2000's it's been the vector for 99% of Windows malware.
We did warn people about the LNP before they were elected but the Murdoch press drowned out any voice of reason by repeatedly shouting "BOATS" and "BUT LABOR" and sadly this worked on the uneducated masses (voting is mandatory here, this is the best argument against it).
Sadly, things like this are completely off peoples radar because of all the damage the LNP are doing to other things like industry, employment and the economy. It also doesn't help that the LNP are trying to use the bogeyman of Terrorism to keep people distracted from everything else they're fucking up. We've elected our own George W Bush but in Australia's defence, Tony Abbott will only see one term however the damage will last beyond 2017.
I know saying "I told you so" is little consolation, but I'm planning to skip the country and head to England.
There are actually places that license pyschics. I have no idea what would have to happen to lose your license to practice.
Sounds like a good idea.
Psychics take money from idiots, a license fee will be collecting from this revenue. Its like an optional tax on stupidity with the added benefit of cutting down on the amount of charlatans operating in the area.
In British Columbia, the media is not allowed to report poll results within 30 days prior to an election. Politicians can have a poll done, but they can't reveal the findings. I'm sure that that two-edged sword, the U.S. Bill of Rights, would never permit such a "free-speech" restriction in the U.S.
As far as I'm concerned, polling is a tool used to sway voters and manipulate voter turnout. Imagine my disgust way back in 1980 when driving to the voting 1/2 hour before opening time to hear over the radio that NBC had declared "Raygun" the next president of the U.S. Many of my (then) young friends told me that they hadn't even bothered voting because they didn't think that their vote would count given the polling numbers that were flooding the media.
This is pretty much the case in Australia.
Many of the polls are controlled by the Murdoch media and the Murdoch media has a vested interest in keeping the Liberal/National Party in power. The problem that Murdoch has is that the LNP has become massively unpopular. In order hide this Murdoch games the Newspoll by claiming a "3% margin of error" and applying the 3% in favour of the LNP. Other polls such as Ipsos or the Morgan poll have a far more grim view for the LNP. However this means that the best the Newspoll can claim is that the LNP will lose by a smaller margin.
However I dont believe that even these polls are reflecting the real situation. Most Australians are sick of the media's manipulation of polls and news during elections and we're definitely sick of the LNP. Right now the Labor party is looking at a landslide victory in 2017 that will dwarf Kevin Rudds victory in 2007. The bad news is, we've got another 2 years of Tony Abbott.
Because roundabouts consume a lot more land and are not that much safer for pedestrians.
Roundabouts actually consume the same amount of land as an intersection of similar traffic, they're also self regulating and dont require power. They're also more efficient and help the flow of traffic, with a crossroad or traffic light, you can only be using a maximum of two lanes, with a roundabout you can use all four at once.
The drivers are busy looking for traffic going around the circle and not compelled by personal protection to look both ways like they are at intersections
But it seems that it requires a higher quality of driver than is typical of your area.
At a roundabout you look both ways as you would for any intersection, not just for pedestrians but because people dont follow the rules. Think of it this way, when you're turning right at a T junction, do you only look for traffic approaching from the left?
This guy suggests they're going about it the wrong way. It's counterintuitive, but he found that making things more ambiguous causes people to use more caution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yes but this guy obviously didn't consider ego and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Remove all the road signs and make the rules unintelligible and you'll end up with a problem with attitudes like "I have right of way, am perfectly safe doing eleventy thousand KPH and can drive on the phone" making up their own rules which will make things more dangerous.
" Swift is an artist who could afford to shoulder the cost of three months of not being paid by Apple, but she has chosen to make a stand and stick up for those who are less fortunate."
As always when people tell us, it's not about the money, it's about the principle, it's about the money.
Yes, but what about the artists who aren't as big as Taylor Swift. Granted that these artists wont be making any money off recordings (they make almost all their money from touring) but the principle is still the same.
I have to admit, I'm having a hard time feeling any sympathy for either Apple or Tailor Swift in this scenario. Apple is an evil megacorp with a serious sociopathic bend and Taylor Swift is a cookie-cutter, factory farm, mass produced pop star with no talent designed to be as inoffensive as possible.
My initial advice would be to not purchase any Apple products, they've got contempt for both their customers and their suppliers, but also dont buy anything made by Taylor Swift. Go see a decent performer like the Foo Fighters or go see a local band that plays at a pub every Friday and Saturday night who really appreciates everyone who spends a dollar on seeing them.
Let's assume that 30% of all revenue is being cashed in the first 3 months. The rest of 70% is spread over the 94 years and 9 months of copyright remaining. The artist gets the thick of it in the first 3 months and then everything else it trickling down as crumbles.
Labels are greedy and can wait. An artist might not be able to wait that long, let alone still be alive 50 years from now.
An easy (and capitalist) solution is to simply make copyright free for the first year and start charging per year after that.
The only issue with this I can think of is that it may encourage some no talent artists (I.E. most of them) to blatantly copy old works and sell them as their own, but this is easily fixed by having a longer automatic copyright term for commercial purposes only.
nope, it means the game was refused classification and it is illegal to sell it or import. Even after they opened up the classification laws we still have a range of games that will never be legal to be sold here, anything that shows illegal drug use, violence on woman etc etc. The summary makes it sound like the bans have gotten worse, in actual fact the laws have become far more relaxed here in the last few years with the introduction of an R classification, just the proliferation of people trying to cash in on cheap gimmick apps to attract immature buyers has increased 100 fold.
This is also something that is never and realistically can never be enforced.
By the sounds of it, most of the games are mobile games (I still have trouble accepting mobile games as proper games, they're the modern equivalent of the old flash games I used to play in a browser in the early 00's) so a lot of the sales will never take place in Australia, the method of distribution doesn't take place in Australia and the method of distribution is pretty much unstoppable. This is just government bureaucracy trying to say it's doing something.
However this is the kind of shit that happens when elect an ultra conservative government. As an Australian this wasn't even on my radar and realistically, still isn't because we have so many other problems such as the government trying to make it possible for them to strip citizenship (in the name of fighting teh terr'sts), trying to neuter the ABC, trying to strip the public health and education systems, increasing unemployment and destroying the economy. Australia elected it's own George W Bush in Tony Abbott and yes, we were warned.
Instead of charging extra per bag, ihey should charge on the total weight (of passenger, carry on and checked bags)
since its the wieght that is the main cost for the modern airliner.
You honestly think airlines haven't considered that. They figured out it costs more than it will save.
Besides that, do you think an airport rent-a-cop is going to tell Mr SteroidJunkie that he has to pay and Mr Tubby gets through for free he weighs more than the Chubster?
BTW, when you fly on light aircraft in commercial service like a Dash-8, you do get weighed because that plane has a very low MTOW. There's a reason they know it's unworkable.
(c) Less of those godforsaken small regional jets (EMB 120s, 175s and CRJ 200s and 700s in particular) that have tiny overhead bins. The proportion of flights in the US (and Canada) that these aircraft amazes me. You get them even between major (4M+ population) cities. You'd never get anything smaller than a 737 or A320 in Australia between major city pairs.
Virgin still operates the EMB 190's between some cities on low volume flights. They're slowly being replaced by A320's and 737's though. But regional flights are still dominated by small jets, 717's Fokker 70's, Dash 8's and even old BAe146's.
The Regional jets aren't bad if they're being used correctly. I've flown between Panama and Santiago, DR on a EMB 190 and it was fine but COPA are actually a decent airline (checked baggage, free seat selection, food and drink) but that was only a 3 hour flight (as a fellow Aussie, you'd know that's a trip to the shops where we come from) and wasn't packed in like sardines. They had a 2-2 configuration in the seats so they were the same size as the ones on a 737. Airlines that try to cram a 2-3 or even 3-3 into an EMB E-Jet or 717 are insane.
If too much carry on luggage is a problem, then stop charging for checking a bag. When everyone got a checked back for free, there was plenty of overhead storage space, not to mention loading and unloading passengers was a lot faster because people weren't blocking the isles dealing with their carry ons. Now everyone tries to carry on as much as they can so they don't have to pay.
Pretty much this.
However this means that they will have to allocate storage for baggage instead of selling that storage for cargo... Erm, which means ticket prices go up.
You can fly from LA to DC for $170 If you would like to remember how bad prices used to be, feel free to come to Australia where Perth to Sydney (roughly the same amount of air time) is around $400.
Realistically US airlines are going to need to do something about oversized carry ons but they're probably going to go along the same route as budget airlines in other parts of the world. Weight and size restrictions for carry ons.
As a side note, this is one of the reasons I prefer to fly Southwest when in the States. Having travelled from Australia I'm going to have a checked bag regardless of if I'm only spending a few days at my destination.
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If there were more taxis again in Paris, there would be some competition, price would go down and quality of service increase.
Reality disagrees with your assertion.
Quality is the first thing that goes in a race to the bottom and that's exactly what you're proposing. I've lived in places where there was an oversupply of taxi drivers. Eventually you reach a point where there are so many taxis they start to resort to any number of dirty tricks. These range from grabbing you and manhandling you into a cab to dodgy meters to forming gangs and enforcing turf.
One thing that is consistent is that the quality of driver is very, very low. This is consistent from my experience with Phuket's Tuk Tuk drivers to the Dominican Republics Motoconchos to Filipino trike drivers. Quality always suffers when its a free for all. Its like saying that a buffet will be better quality than made to order because it's cheaper.
If it wasn't profitable to be a taxi as there could be more supply than there's demand, people would switch to a different job and it would regulate automatically.
Every place with deregulated taxis disproves this assertion. The system does not regulate automatically, if the government does not regulate it, someone else will. Typically when regulation is left to the drivers they form gangs, establish turf and are pretty violent in enforcing it. Its not the clean, rational system you imagine.
Also, self regulation leads to higher prices, not lower prices. A taxi in well regulated Bangkok is very cheap, 400 Baht from the airport to the city centre. A taxi in unregulated Phuket is extremely expensive, they wont turn on the engine for less than 200 baht.
Outrage is almost always a sign that someone is trying to manipulate you (either for page views, or something else).
This, and social media is just the latest form of doing it.
For a long time this kind of manipulation has been the domain of major news agencies. They'd print inflammatory statements and headlines with the express intent of stirring up public outrage, trial by media such as the Chamberlain case is a classic example. With social media its gotten worse as a single person can fabricate enough half truths, exaggerations and outright lies to create the same kind of outrage.
On one hand, people should be more sceptical and mistrustful of random news sources, on the other hand humans are emotional and irrational creatures. The one unintended and good side effect of regular false outrage that we're experiencing is that people are developing a resistance to outrage, which explains why newspapers like the Daily Mail which relies on creating false outrage to sell hate social media outrage.
I would guess that the answer is "yes" we are too quick to act on media outrage (no matter if it is social or traditional) but that's human nature.
The catch is whether to trust anything at face value. Don't take the Daily Mail article at face value, just like you don't take Ms. St-Louis' comments at face value.
The thing is, ironically the Daily Mail is trying to point out that we should be more sceptical when the DM in itself is one of the publications which is most deserving of scepticism.
The DM may be having one of it's "broken clock" moments, but even then you can bet there's an agenda behind it.
Point in short, you should never take the Daily Mail at face value.
Sexism/racism/homophobia are the new witchcraft.
Accusation is enough to justify burning someone at the stake.
Progressives are essentially puritans, only without explicit mention of a god.
Utter bollocks.
I dont know when it became popular for people who are racist, sexist or homophobic to claim they're persecuted when someone points out their obvious flaw, but it's complete bullshit and a really poor attempt to poison the well.
I guess it's just a slightly more advanced effort than prefacing a racist statement with "I'm not racist but...". It's childish, immature and it doesn't work.
But running around naked is illegal on its own right. It has nothing to do with unauthorized rental of homes or airbnb.
Public nudity isn't illegal in Spain. Please stop assuming everywhere in the world has the same laws and prudishness as your homeland.
However people having a rowdy party every 2-3 nights right next to your sleepy casa is a serious problem. This is one of the big reasons that hotels are typically not put in residential areas.
Yes, and I don't care for that one bit. Though with previous consoles, PC Gamer "masterrace" types claimed that the ability to patch was an advantage.
It can be, but it doesn't turn out that way due to laziness or being rushed.
We were referring to the ability to add new content after release which used to be quite common for the PCGMR.
Only since the plague of consolisation have major releases been shipped broken. Console peasants put up with it, the PCGMR does not and realistically with the Steam sales being over and picking up over a dozen functioning PC games for under A$200, I really couldn't care less about this crappy port.
There's no reason why the infotainment system can't have read-only access to the engine control module (with write access physically prevented by the hardware). You won't be able to modify the engine management without physical access to the car, but that's the way it should be anyway.
The biggest reason the infotainment system cant (or more accurately, wont) have read only access is the fact that a lot of cars use the infotainment system to adjust things in the engine, suspension, braking systems, throttle response and so forth. BMWs and Mercs are especially bad for this but other manufacturers are catching up.
So the problem is not that "it is not hard to find a bare bones vehicle" but that I can't find the model I want with limited electronics: I want xenon lights, "oh, well, that comes with the comfort package that also comes with lane departure and blind spot alarms and remote start".
Thats when you tell the dealer you only want Xenon lights.
If he says no, you thank him for his time and leave. He'll call you back in a day or so telling you that he's "pulled some strings and got it done" (which like everything that emerges from a car dealers mouth, is utter bullshit, he always could do it but he was hoping you'd cave in to the more expensive package).
You can also always go aftermarket which wouldn't be any more expensive than going through the dealer, even in the EU.
Depends on the car. People are still making replacement electronics for enthusiast models like 80's and 90's Skylines and Supras. I can still find an aftermarket ABS unit for an S13. Hell, it's not hard to find an original ABS controller for a R32 Skyline still in its original packaging (car manufacturers have to stock 10 years worth of parts when they discontinue a mode, often they stock more than that). Add to this that manufacturers tend to use as many common parts as possible across different product lines.
Japanese cars, I wouldn't be so concerned about as they're built to last. A Euro, well the late 90's was when BWMs and Mercedes quality went to pot, but after 15 years of continual repairs and gremlins I suspect the GP wouldn't be planning to keep that car for the rest of his life.
We don't need wi-fi, remote unlocking or push-button start or any of that other unnecessary nonsense.
There's nothing wrong with these features. The problem is when you can reach the brake system from the bluetooth in the radio. There is no reason why these systems could not be separated, even air gapped.
I agree with your principle, but you cant have remote start without having the remote system attached to the ignition system.
However the auto industry has always taken a very lax attitude to safety until lawmakers forced them to pay attention. Seatbelts weren't in most cars before laws forced them to be, same with immobilisers and OBDII connectors (technically not a safety issue, but OBDII standardisation is one of the best things that lawmakers have done for car owners). I expect the same story to unfold here.
104Mb download just for Word on its own.
Thats not unusual these days. Almost all Android applications are getting pretty bloated. On my Android 5.1.1 phone, Chrome is 101 Mb, Facebook is 200 Mb, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are 70 Mb a piece and even a simple forum viewer for Whirlpool is 10 Mb.
Long gone are the days of applications being under 1 Mb. Seems like more than just 3 years ago though.
Install office with very limited use on a mobile, and you lose half a Gig of internal storage on your smartphone and still might have to pay for an Office 365 subscription.
That being true, this move is a clear sign that Microsoft is fearing the other office compatible products on Android, especially since Google have been pushing their own office products (that can read Office files, but saves them under Googles format).
The problem with Windows is that it auto-installs a lot of viruses or allows the user to install something without prompting for elevated privileges. They then changed it so that everything is asking for elevated privileges so now users just type it in regardless.
2001 called, it wants it incorrect argument back.
For a long time, even pre-SP2 XP malware relied upon social engineering to be installed. Even the dumbest users didn't open an email attachment without a reason in the 90's unless it said something like "Denise Richards naked with hot grits". Social engineering has always been and still remains the number one infection vector for malware and since the mid 2000's it's been the vector for 99% of Windows malware.
Maybe you shouldn't elect those people.
Easier said than done.
We did warn people about the LNP before they were elected but the Murdoch press drowned out any voice of reason by repeatedly shouting "BOATS" and "BUT LABOR" and sadly this worked on the uneducated masses (voting is mandatory here, this is the best argument against it).
Sadly, things like this are completely off peoples radar because of all the damage the LNP are doing to other things like industry, employment and the economy. It also doesn't help that the LNP are trying to use the bogeyman of Terrorism to keep people distracted from everything else they're fucking up. We've elected our own George W Bush but in Australia's defence, Tony Abbott will only see one term however the damage will last beyond 2017.
I know saying "I told you so" is little consolation, but I'm planning to skip the country and head to England.
There are actually places that license pyschics. I have no idea what would have to happen to lose your license to practice.
Sounds like a good idea.
Psychics take money from idiots, a license fee will be collecting from this revenue. Its like an optional tax on stupidity with the added benefit of cutting down on the amount of charlatans operating in the area.
In British Columbia, the media is not allowed to report poll results within 30 days prior to an election. Politicians can have a poll done, but they can't reveal the findings. I'm sure that that two-edged sword, the U.S. Bill of Rights, would never permit such a "free-speech" restriction in the U.S.
As far as I'm concerned, polling is a tool used to sway voters and manipulate voter turnout. Imagine my disgust way back in 1980 when driving to the voting 1/2 hour before opening time to hear over the radio that NBC had declared "Raygun" the next president of the U.S. Many of my (then) young friends told me that they hadn't even bothered voting because they didn't think that their vote would count given the polling numbers that were flooding the media.
This is pretty much the case in Australia.
Many of the polls are controlled by the Murdoch media and the Murdoch media has a vested interest in keeping the Liberal/National Party in power. The problem that Murdoch has is that the LNP has become massively unpopular. In order hide this Murdoch games the Newspoll by claiming a "3% margin of error" and applying the 3% in favour of the LNP. Other polls such as Ipsos or the Morgan poll have a far more grim view for the LNP. However this means that the best the Newspoll can claim is that the LNP will lose by a smaller margin.
However I dont believe that even these polls are reflecting the real situation. Most Australians are sick of the media's manipulation of polls and news during elections and we're definitely sick of the LNP. Right now the Labor party is looking at a landslide victory in 2017 that will dwarf Kevin Rudds victory in 2007. The bad news is, we've got another 2 years of Tony Abbott.
Roundabouts actually consume the same amount of land as an intersection of similar traffic, they're also self regulating and dont require power. They're also more efficient and help the flow of traffic, with a crossroad or traffic light, you can only be using a maximum of two lanes, with a roundabout you can use all four at once.
But it seems that it requires a higher quality of driver than is typical of your area.
At a roundabout you look both ways as you would for any intersection, not just for pedestrians but because people dont follow the rules. Think of it this way, when you're turning right at a T junction, do you only look for traffic approaching from the left?
This guy suggests they're going about it the wrong way. It's counterintuitive, but he found that making things more ambiguous causes people to use more caution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yes but this guy obviously didn't consider ego and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Remove all the road signs and make the rules unintelligible and you'll end up with a problem with attitudes like "I have right of way, am perfectly safe doing eleventy thousand KPH and can drive on the phone" making up their own rules which will make things more dangerous.
it is enforced and very successfully so,
How? They cant even get Apple and google to comply 100% of the time and bypassing this is simple.
Steam barely does anything and Gog completely fails to give a shit. I can buy games that have been banned in Oz for years (Postal series) on Gog.
You're definitely not Australian or you'd realise how much bollocks you've just posted.
" Swift is an artist who could afford to shoulder the cost of three months of not being paid by Apple, but she has chosen to make a stand and stick up for those who are less fortunate."
As always when people tell us, it's not about the money, it's about the principle, it's about the money.
Yes, but what about the artists who aren't as big as Taylor Swift. Granted that these artists wont be making any money off recordings (they make almost all their money from touring) but the principle is still the same.
I have to admit, I'm having a hard time feeling any sympathy for either Apple or Tailor Swift in this scenario. Apple is an evil megacorp with a serious sociopathic bend and Taylor Swift is a cookie-cutter, factory farm, mass produced pop star with no talent designed to be as inoffensive as possible.
My initial advice would be to not purchase any Apple products, they've got contempt for both their customers and their suppliers, but also dont buy anything made by Taylor Swift. Go see a decent performer like the Foo Fighters or go see a local band that plays at a pub every Friday and Saturday night who really appreciates everyone who spends a dollar on seeing them.
It's just capitalism inaction,
Not sure if accidental or a deliberate and clever pun.
Let's assume that 30% of all revenue is being cashed in the first 3 months. The rest of 70% is spread over the 94 years and 9 months of copyright remaining. The artist gets the thick of it in the first 3 months and then everything else it trickling down as crumbles.
Labels are greedy and can wait. An artist might not be able to wait that long, let alone still be alive 50 years from now.
An easy (and capitalist) solution is to simply make copyright free for the first year and start charging per year after that.
The only issue with this I can think of is that it may encourage some no talent artists (I.E. most of them) to blatantly copy old works and sell them as their own, but this is easily fixed by having a longer automatic copyright term for commercial purposes only.
nope, it means the game was refused classification and it is illegal to sell it or import. Even after they opened up the classification laws we still have a range of games that will never be legal to be sold here, anything that shows illegal drug use, violence on woman etc etc. The summary makes it sound like the bans have gotten worse, in actual fact the laws have become far more relaxed here in the last few years with the introduction of an R classification, just the proliferation of people trying to cash in on cheap gimmick apps to attract immature buyers has increased 100 fold.
This is also something that is never and realistically can never be enforced.
By the sounds of it, most of the games are mobile games (I still have trouble accepting mobile games as proper games, they're the modern equivalent of the old flash games I used to play in a browser in the early 00's) so a lot of the sales will never take place in Australia, the method of distribution doesn't take place in Australia and the method of distribution is pretty much unstoppable. This is just government bureaucracy trying to say it's doing something.
However this is the kind of shit that happens when elect an ultra conservative government. As an Australian this wasn't even on my radar and realistically, still isn't because we have so many other problems such as the government trying to make it possible for them to strip citizenship (in the name of fighting teh terr'sts), trying to neuter the ABC, trying to strip the public health and education systems, increasing unemployment and destroying the economy. Australia elected it's own George W Bush in Tony Abbott and yes, we were warned.
Instead of charging extra per bag, ihey should charge on the total weight (of passenger, carry on and checked bags)
since its the wieght that is the main cost for the modern airliner.
You honestly think airlines haven't considered that. They figured out it costs more than it will save.
Besides that, do you think an airport rent-a-cop is going to tell Mr SteroidJunkie that he has to pay and Mr Tubby gets through for free he weighs more than the Chubster?
BTW, when you fly on light aircraft in commercial service like a Dash-8, you do get weighed because that plane has a very low MTOW. There's a reason they know it's unworkable.
(c) Less of those godforsaken small regional jets (EMB 120s, 175s and CRJ 200s and 700s in particular) that have tiny overhead bins. The proportion of flights in the US (and Canada) that these aircraft amazes me. You get them even between major (4M+ population) cities. You'd never get anything smaller than a 737 or A320 in Australia between major city pairs.
Virgin still operates the EMB 190's between some cities on low volume flights. They're slowly being replaced by A320's and 737's though. But regional flights are still dominated by small jets, 717's Fokker 70's, Dash 8's and even old BAe146's.
The Regional jets aren't bad if they're being used correctly. I've flown between Panama and Santiago, DR on a EMB 190 and it was fine but COPA are actually a decent airline (checked baggage, free seat selection, food and drink) but that was only a 3 hour flight (as a fellow Aussie, you'd know that's a trip to the shops where we come from) and wasn't packed in like sardines. They had a 2-2 configuration in the seats so they were the same size as the ones on a 737. Airlines that try to cram a 2-3 or even 3-3 into an EMB E-Jet or 717 are insane.
If too much carry on luggage is a problem, then stop charging for checking a bag. When everyone got a checked back for free, there was plenty of overhead storage space, not to mention loading and unloading passengers was a lot faster because people weren't blocking the isles dealing with their carry ons. Now everyone tries to carry on as much as they can so they don't have to pay.
Pretty much this.
However this means that they will have to allocate storage for baggage instead of selling that storage for cargo... Erm, which means ticket prices go up.
You can fly from LA to DC for $170 If you would like to remember how bad prices used to be, feel free to come to Australia where Perth to Sydney (roughly the same amount of air time) is around $400.
Realistically US airlines are going to need to do something about oversized carry ons but they're probably going to go along the same route as budget airlines in other parts of the world. Weight and size restrictions for carry ons.
As a side note, this is one of the reasons I prefer to fly Southwest when in the States. Having travelled from Australia I'm going to have a checked bag regardless of if I'm only spending a few days at my destination.