they just lost. That's all. I'm sure they fought mightily to avoid paying.
To be honest, would you pay tax that you didn't have to.
Don't get me wrong, I dont at all advocate tax evasion but you've got to be mad not to be trying to minimise your tax.
The big difference between Uber and AirBNB is that AirBNB tried to fight, yeah it was a forgone conclusion (I fought the tax dept and the tax dept won) but Uber is not even trying to fight the system at all, they're trying to ignore the system. This never works as the system won't ignore you. Its a toss up over whether Uber will go down for something like tax evasion or get sued into oblivion by insurance companies.
You people who believe you'd run a functioning society without taxes and the things it pays for are completely deluded.
In a taxless society, there would be no one to run it other than those with wisdom and experience. But they wouldn't "run" the society as we understand it today.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha,
LoL, "Wisdom and Experience".
No, the people that will run it are those with the desire for power and the force to defeat all the others with the same idea. We have a word for this, despotism.
All the societies you quote lived as pre technology civilisations. You may notice I used the past tense, none of them exist any more as independent people. The Native Americans had quite a few wars. Unless you expect every single American to divide into small tribes and live off the land you're going to end up with a government forced on you by others... Just like what happened to the Native Americans or Australian Aborigines. We've been doing this since the Roman times.
Awaken from your dreamy state Libertarian, what you claim will not work in reality. Any attempt at what you propose will end up as a series of dictatorships at best, outright fascism at worst.
My Nexus 5 is pretty thin. I don't use a case with it. The screen has not broken. I haven't gone out of my way to be especially careful with it, either.
It's just not that damn hard to use a phone without breaking it, unless you're ridiculously careless.
Same with my Nexus 5. It's 1.5 mm thicker but that 1.5mm is just because of a larger battery that affords it 25% longer life to an Iphone 6.
However thinness is pretty much all they have, the Nexus 5 we have has better specifications (higher res screen) or at worse, is the same as an Iphone 5 (both have 80211.ac). Lets ignore the Nexus 5 was released in October 2013.
So I'm happy to let the Iphone have that one. It's thin. Enjoy your 1.5mm tiger.
The problem with non-online only games, is that you can't prove that you accomplished anything in it, since it is so much easier to cheat.
And to whom, exactly, do I need to prove anything?
I play video games to relax, unwind, and kill a few hours. It's recreation. I'ts diversion. It's play.
This.
I play X3 Terran Conflict on occasion. I also use Cycrow's cheat script because, well because I like the game but dont want to spend umpteen thousand hours flying cargo around. People who complete missions like the Hub without cheating must have the patience of a saint and no life (and no doubt they're out there). I find 95% of the game fun, I like flying around, exploring, combat but hate the repetition and grinding.
Also, if you've got a big monitor, you can get a mod that lets you play the TC missions in AP so you get the bigger and more eye friendly interface.
But you know the really great thing about Skyrim? You can pretty much ignore the story and just wander about on your own and play it how you like.
You're not constrained by a linear story, you can go anywhere at anytime, and you can do things however you like. There's no set sequence to it.
It's the same with Fallout 3/NV...Whoda thunk they were made by the same people.
I haven't played Skyrim, but with Fallout you had lots of little stories in addition to the main story. Story wise it always felt like you were progressing even though the stories weren't presented in a linear fashion.
Multiplayer, on the other hand, is a spastic experience which seems to be dominated by obsessive players with endless time to practice. The reward for the average player is not mastery, but rather learning to die a little less often.
Well said. Multiplayer games are nice for teenagers who have too much time on their hands and can master the game completely
To master a multiplayer shooter it just means memorising the map and twitch mashing buttons, that takes about 30 minutes. There's little strategy or forethought involved (there are a few notable exceptions like World of Tanks, not that your average team of red Seatards bothers with strategy or forethought). Mostly its about running, jumping and shooting, you dont even need to aim with auto-aim doing that for you.
However with the shooters in the last few years it's just been about showing up until you unlock the upgrade and then pwning everyone who hasn't got them. I played Battlefield 3 for 30 minutes before realising a lot of upgrades like the heavy barrel were stupidly overpowered and gave up on the game (and uninstalled Origin) after 3 days. I'm sure you can pay to bypass the "dying a lot" part of getting the upgrade too.
One enjoys EVE Online if and only if he/she also enjoys spreadsheets.
Really, it is Excel with double-clicking to move around!
If you enjoy Excel with an interface but dont like other people, you've got the X series of games (X Beyond the frontier, X2, X3, X3 Terran Conflict), X3:TC is still played by many.
The industry isn't dying; it's just facing many of the same problems that the movie industry faced in the late '60s through the early '80s.
The problem is slightly different.
The problem with the games industry is that quantity has outstripped quality and that major publishers believe that massive marketing campaigns and paid for reviews will make up for a games blandness, bad gameplay or lack of content. It's not just Madden/NBA sports games, there's a new COD every year with minimal changes just to make people buy the new one (sports games at least have the excuse that teams and players change each year). Publishers are afraid to try new ideas, marketing budgets have outstripped production budgets, deadlines are more important than releasing a working product and this is to say nothing of using DLC to fleece the consumer by releasing half the game and selling the rest piecemeal.
It's the same problem Hollywood is facing now. Too many sequels and recycling of old ideas. Too much emphasis on cash cows, not enough experimentation or evolution.
Without a radical shift from the major publishers the games industry is doomed... but gaming isn't, eampires will fall but gaming will live on. Already in the PC world, small and indie publishers are showing the big boys how to make a great game and make money (not treating your customers like dirty thieving criminals helps a lot, in the age of bit torrent, the good will of the community is the best copy protection you can get).
Absolutely. I was going to buy Destiny but waited for the initial reviews. and there are a LOT of people pissed off because it's unplayable if you don't have a super fast internet connection.
I got a little excited about Destiny until I realised it was console only. If they cant be bothered making a PC version it's not worth playing.
I prefer PC for multiplayer games precisely because you get fewer 13 yr old squeakers. People with proper gaming rigs tend to be older and mentally stable.
I keep hearing "greed" but that is a copout. Greedy people do not refuse to license their products for decades.
Its not the license sellers that are greedy here, its the companies who bought the licenses that are greedy. Companies like Nine and Foxtel in Australia paid for an exclusive license and will hold the licenser to that agreement. Foxtel especially hates competition, they are presently scrotum deep in trying to get ISP's in Australia to start policing users for them (ISP's are blocking this at every turn).
Quickflix's biggest shareholder is an Nine Entertainment, which appears to be their ticketmaster and clearchannel equivalent. They don't appear to be a telco but they do seem likely to be in bed with them.
Nine Entertainment is closer to Time Warner than Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster is our Ticketmaster.
I wish someone would invent a CCTV system for cars that was low power enough to run while parked. It would only need to record when an accelerometer detects that the car was bumped.
They have (Australian taxi's have them installed recording 360 degree views) but they aren't cheap. Even to get an ADR (Australian Design Rules) approved dashcam it's near enough to A$500. The problem is you need a lot of cameras to reliably get the entire side of your car and some cars paint is so soft, it wont even set off the accelerometer.
The problem I have with my current scratch is that it's on the rear left hand side quarter panel (that's the passenger side in Australia and the UK for the Americans playing along at home) and I dont look at that panel every day so it could have happened any time in the last week.
I normally park as far away from others as I can... but there's always one tosser who sees a nice sports car and has to park their crap hatch right next to it.
I figured as much; but don't knock that. Talk to anybody who has wrecked the plastic on their sport motorcycle. If you could print that stuff at a reasonable price, that wold be HUGE.
Not just motorbikes. Today I noticed another scratch on my quarter panel (Perth, this is why we cant have nice things). If I knew I could replace the thing for less than $100 I wouldn't care so much (then again, the people who think it's OK to bang their door carelessly against my car might become even more reckless).
If bigot Yankees wouldn't have started to teach Creationism at school, or open the Creation Museum, or all the bizarre stuff I periodically read about religion in the US, maybe atheists would not have felt the need to "fight back" in that way...
The Creation Museum was founded by an Australian.
Not any more... he had to give up his Australian citizenship to get US citizenship.
Sorry this whole story is some attempt to fill a boring summer void.
The pedant in me desperately wants to point out that Spock is half human and feels emotions too.
The pendant in me desperately wants to point out that the Vulcans have emotions, they just control (suppress) them and because of his Vulcan upbringing, Spock learned to do the same.
I think part of what you're pointing out is that atheism is not a belief system, and so people shouldn't expect atheists to all think the same way or believe the same things.
This,
People who dont understand what the word "atheism" means dont know that atheism describes everyone from the non-religious to LeVayan Satanists to Buddhists (yep, Buddhism is an atheist religion, they dont believe in a god or gods).
Exactly. I get so tired of being asked "Then what *do* you believe?" with the emphasis on the do. My usual response is "Concerning what?" And there the questioner typically falters because they simply cannot wrap their minds around divorcing that question from some supernatural belief.
By all means, not all religious people are like that. My ex's father was a prof emeritus with five friggin' degrees in theological studies and we got along and understood each other just fine. He was, however, exceptional.
People who spend a lot of time studying beliefs are the ones that are typically most accepting of others who dont share their beliefs. Its the lay preachers and blind believers that are intolerant of any viewpoint except their own. I think this is because they haven't thought about why they believe what they believe and find any idea that challenges their blind adherence to be uncomfortable and must be silenced.
A theist who commits themselves to study their own faith will find the flaws of it pretty quick. This does not mean they'll stop believing, but it makes them more rational when dealing with people who dont share their faith.
Like in any situation, knowledge of the system is a must for doing this sort of thing. In the USA it's pretty easy to sue in small claims, and normally speaking if your claim is tossed out in small claims that doesn't disallow you from 'appealing' it right into the normal court system, which is what I was talking about.
In Australia it's pretty similar with small claims and appeals. Our legal systems have the same historical basis.
Vexatious litigation is reserved for people who have repeatedly made frivolous cases with the obvious intent of trying to harm the other party (be it financially, reputation or otherwise).
I wasn't actually talking about repeatedly suing them for the same thing. I was talking about doing the usual procedure - sue them in small claims, then elevate to the civil courts. The trick is that the normal response to a letter written by a lawyer is another letter written by a lawyer, and this can get quite expensive quite fast, but quite a bit of back and forth via official documents isn't unusual before an issue ends up going to the courts.
It doesn't matter if it's the same thing, multiple frivolous cases are considered repeatedly suing even if they're for different things. For the times where you legitimately (or even could legitimately) have a problem with the police, the court wont think twice, but making a claim for every single time you get in trouble with the cops and the court will notice. In Oz we take police corruption very seriously.
I know someone who thought it was a good idea to fight every ticket. After their 10th court appearance when they were obviously guilty (the cops always had photo or video evidence) he had his license cancelled and declared a vexatious litigant. He's got his license back after his suspension period (and subsequently lost it again due to a pair of reckless driving charges) but any appeals he wants to make now have to be launched on his behalf by a public notary (lawyer, justice of the peace, holder of public office and so forth) which he's failed to do.
Point in short, abuse your right to sue in Oz, it will be taken off you... but it takes a lot for that to happen.
This is actually something I've written to my representatives about. I know it's screwed up, I don't like it, and want to see it stopped. You Aussies, going by statements from Australian citizens I've had conversations with on other boards, have your own issues that are seriously FUBAR.
Yep, Hoon laws.
We have a few dumb laws but less corruption. All in all, I prefer our brand of madness:)
I certainly understand that there is no need nor is it prudent to surrender more information than necessary to the police but trying to play smart arse with the cops is asking for trouble.
So the way it goes down in Australia
Officer: Good evening sir. Me: Officer. Officer: How are you tonight sir? Me: Not bad. Officer: Have you had anything to drink tonight. Me: No. Officer: Where have you come from tonight. Me: Work. Officer: Please breathe into this until I tell you to stop. /breathing until the machine beeps Officer: All OK sir, thanks for your co-operation. /I drive off.
Plus it leaves the cops in a good mood so if you blow slightly over (say 0.01) they'll tell you to go and sit down for half an hour when they'll retest you again instead of booking you right away (half an hour where your body gets rid of the alcohol in your system).
If you start getting cagey or trying to use laymans legalese on them they'll get suspicious and hold you on that.
I prefer Australia's breathalysers because they're much faster than roadside sobriety tests (and not court admissible, if you blow over you have to have a blood test which gives you extra time to metabolise the alcohol) and means there is a minimum evidence requirement above the officers word that he or she smelled beer on your breath.
That's why I have a personal policy of always costing them more money than they seize from me. You confiscated $400 from me? I'm going to arrange to use more than $400 in police resources. I will mail you enough letters that you'll spend more than $400 just responding to them. I'll sue in small claims court so you have to send a representative to get it tossed out, then hire a lawyer to send fancy letters forcing the department to hire another fancy lawyer to send responses back.
In Australia that will have you listed as a vexatious litigant and you'll be denied access to the small claims and civil courts unless the court decides your claim has merit.
The most famous case of vexatious litigation in Australia was in the 70's where a person repeatedly sued the government of Australia claiming they did not have the right to issue paper money.
Then again in authoritarian Australia, we have this silly law that the police cannot seize cash unless they have a warrant to seize evidence (I.E. if a house is raided as part of a warranted drug raid, large amounts of money can be seized) and they are not permitted to keep it (even if proven to be proceeds of crime, the money goes back to the state or federal coffers).
I've seen it in the UK. The first time appeared to be a couple of Americans in a rental car going one way around the roundabout while about twenty other cars were trying to go the opposite direction.
Fair enough.
We get fewer Americans in Oz and they generally dont drive very far because of the drop bears, hoop snakes and land sharks.
I think the part about other drivers was the dmv claiming that failure to navigate a roundabout is not grounds for failing a human applicant. This report does more to illuminate how low the bar is set for any driver, machine or human.
I think its saying that the DMV has been paid for a specific result, regardless of the actual events.
In order to pass a driving test, an autonomous car must not only be able to complete a random course without assistance from the assessor (in Australia interference or assistance from an assessor is an instant fail) it must be able to take natural language instructions from the assessor.
In a (Western) Australian driving test, you do not know the route in advance, the assessor will literally tell you where to go as you go (I.E. "Please take a left turn at roundabout" or "Take a left turn at the lights and move into the right hand lane"). Right now natural language interpretation requires it to be trained to your voice and is still very inaccurate. Basically:
You: "Car, dont take the parkway."
Car: "Calling your mother now. Beep"
We can make the other systems good, but also need the interface to be usable and accurate (I.E. dont let Apple anywhere near it).
I have seen perfectly sober drivers go the wrong way on a roundabout.
I have never seen this. Ever, not even with blind drunk drivers. Not even with the ditziest of SUV drivers and Australia has a hell of a lot more roundabouts than the US.
Slashdot Mirror
they just lost. That's all. I'm sure they fought mightily to avoid paying.
To be honest, would you pay tax that you didn't have to.
Don't get me wrong, I dont at all advocate tax evasion but you've got to be mad not to be trying to minimise your tax.
The big difference between Uber and AirBNB is that AirBNB tried to fight, yeah it was a forgone conclusion (I fought the tax dept and the tax dept won) but Uber is not even trying to fight the system at all, they're trying to ignore the system. This never works as the system won't ignore you. Its a toss up over whether Uber will go down for something like tax evasion or get sued into oblivion by insurance companies.
I'll give it a go.
You people who believe you'd run a functioning society without taxes and the things it pays for are completely deluded.
In a taxless society, there would be no one to run it other than those with wisdom and experience. But they wouldn't "run" the society as we understand it today.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha,
LoL, "Wisdom and Experience".
No, the people that will run it are those with the desire for power and the force to defeat all the others with the same idea. We have a word for this, despotism.
All the societies you quote lived as pre technology civilisations. You may notice I used the past tense, none of them exist any more as independent people. The Native Americans had quite a few wars. Unless you expect every single American to divide into small tribes and live off the land you're going to end up with a government forced on you by others... Just like what happened to the Native Americans or Australian Aborigines. We've been doing this since the Roman times.
Awaken from your dreamy state Libertarian, what you claim will not work in reality. Any attempt at what you propose will end up as a series of dictatorships at best, outright fascism at worst.
My Nexus 5 is pretty thin. I don't use a case with it. The screen has not broken. I haven't gone out of my way to be especially careful with it, either.
It's just not that damn hard to use a phone without breaking it, unless you're ridiculously careless.
Same with my Nexus 5. It's 1.5 mm thicker but that 1.5mm is just because of a larger battery that affords it 25% longer life to an Iphone 6.
However thinness is pretty much all they have, the Nexus 5 we have has better specifications (higher res screen) or at worse, is the same as an Iphone 5 (both have 80211.ac). Lets ignore the Nexus 5 was released in October 2013.
So I'm happy to let the Iphone have that one. It's thin. Enjoy your 1.5mm tiger.
By MILF, I assume you are referring to the Media Input Lense Feature.
We are still talking about Apple, right?
Closer to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
However there is a big difference between a terrorist and a Mac user.
You can negotiate with a terrorist.
And to whom, exactly, do I need to prove anything?
I play video games to relax, unwind, and kill a few hours. It's recreation. I'ts diversion. It's play.
This.
I play X3 Terran Conflict on occasion. I also use Cycrow's cheat script because, well because I like the game but dont want to spend umpteen thousand hours flying cargo around. People who complete missions like the Hub without cheating must have the patience of a saint and no life (and no doubt they're out there). I find 95% of the game fun, I like flying around, exploring, combat but hate the repetition and grinding.
Also, if you've got a big monitor, you can get a mod that lets you play the TC missions in AP so you get the bigger and more eye friendly interface.
Sure it does.
But you know the really great thing about Skyrim? You can pretty much ignore the story and just wander about on your own and play it how you like.
You're not constrained by a linear story, you can go anywhere at anytime, and you can do things however you like. There's no set sequence to it.
It's the same with Fallout 3/NV...Whoda thunk they were made by the same people.
I haven't played Skyrim, but with Fallout you had lots of little stories in addition to the main story. Story wise it always felt like you were progressing even though the stories weren't presented in a linear fashion.
Multiplayer, on the other hand, is a spastic experience which seems to be dominated by obsessive players with endless time to practice. The reward for the average player is not mastery, but rather learning to die a little less often.
Well said. Multiplayer games are nice for teenagers who have too much time on their hands and can master the game completely
To master a multiplayer shooter it just means memorising the map and twitch mashing buttons, that takes about 30 minutes. There's little strategy or forethought involved (there are a few notable exceptions like World of Tanks, not that your average team of red Seatards bothers with strategy or forethought). Mostly its about running, jumping and shooting, you dont even need to aim with auto-aim doing that for you.
However with the shooters in the last few years it's just been about showing up until you unlock the upgrade and then pwning everyone who hasn't got them. I played Battlefield 3 for 30 minutes before realising a lot of upgrades like the heavy barrel were stupidly overpowered and gave up on the game (and uninstalled Origin) after 3 days. I'm sure you can pay to bypass the "dying a lot" part of getting the upgrade too.
One enjoys EVE Online if and only if he/she also enjoys spreadsheets.
Really, it is Excel with double-clicking to move around!
If you enjoy Excel with an interface but dont like other people, you've got the X series of games (X Beyond the frontier, X2, X3, X3 Terran Conflict), X3:TC is still played by many.
Overall the video game industry is dying
The industry isn't dying; it's just facing many of the same problems that the movie industry faced in the late '60s through the early '80s.
The problem is slightly different.
The problem with the games industry is that quantity has outstripped quality and that major publishers believe that massive marketing campaigns and paid for reviews will make up for a games blandness, bad gameplay or lack of content. It's not just Madden/NBA sports games, there's a new COD every year with minimal changes just to make people buy the new one (sports games at least have the excuse that teams and players change each year). Publishers are afraid to try new ideas, marketing budgets have outstripped production budgets, deadlines are more important than releasing a working product and this is to say nothing of using DLC to fleece the consumer by releasing half the game and selling the rest piecemeal.
It's the same problem Hollywood is facing now. Too many sequels and recycling of old ideas. Too much emphasis on cash cows, not enough experimentation or evolution.
Without a radical shift from the major publishers the games industry is doomed... but gaming isn't, eampires will fall but gaming will live on. Already in the PC world, small and indie publishers are showing the big boys how to make a great game and make money (not treating your customers like dirty thieving criminals helps a lot, in the age of bit torrent, the good will of the community is the best copy protection you can get).
Absolutely. I was going to buy Destiny but waited for the initial reviews. and there are a LOT of people pissed off because it's unplayable if you don't have a super fast internet connection.
I got a little excited about Destiny until I realised it was console only. If they cant be bothered making a PC version it's not worth playing.
I prefer PC for multiplayer games precisely because you get fewer 13 yr old squeakers. People with proper gaming rigs tend to be older and mentally stable.
I keep hearing "greed" but that is a copout. Greedy people do not refuse to license their products for decades.
Its not the license sellers that are greedy here, its the companies who bought the licenses that are greedy. Companies like Nine and Foxtel in Australia paid for an exclusive license and will hold the licenser to that agreement. Foxtel especially hates competition, they are presently scrotum deep in trying to get ISP's in Australia to start policing users for them (ISP's are blocking this at every turn).
Quickflix's biggest shareholder is an Nine Entertainment, which appears to be their ticketmaster and clearchannel equivalent. They don't appear to be a telco but they do seem likely to be in bed with them.
Nine Entertainment is closer to Time Warner than Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster is our Ticketmaster.
Also Nine Entertainment is going broke.
They have (Australian taxi's have them installed recording 360 degree views) but they aren't cheap. Even to get an ADR (Australian Design Rules) approved dashcam it's near enough to A$500. The problem is you need a lot of cameras to reliably get the entire side of your car and some cars paint is so soft, it wont even set off the accelerometer.
The problem I have with my current scratch is that it's on the rear left hand side quarter panel (that's the passenger side in Australia and the UK for the Americans playing along at home) and I dont look at that panel every day so it could have happened any time in the last week.
I normally park as far away from others as I can... but there's always one tosser who sees a nice sports car and has to park their crap hatch right next to it.
I figured as much; but don't knock that. Talk to anybody who has wrecked the plastic on their sport motorcycle. If you could print that stuff at a reasonable price, that wold be HUGE.
Not just motorbikes. Today I noticed another scratch on my quarter panel (Perth, this is why we cant have nice things). If I knew I could replace the thing for less than $100 I wouldn't care so much (then again, the people who think it's OK to bang their door carelessly against my car might become even more reckless).
If bigot Yankees wouldn't have started to teach Creationism at school, or open the Creation Museum, or all the bizarre stuff I periodically read about religion in the US, maybe atheists would not have felt the need to "fight back" in that way...
The Creation Museum was founded by an Australian.
Not any more... he had to give up his Australian citizenship to get US citizenship.
He's your nutbar now.
Sorry this whole story is some attempt to fill a boring summer void.
The pedant in me desperately wants to point out that Spock is half human and feels emotions too.
The pendant in me desperately wants to point out that the Vulcans have emotions, they just control (suppress) them and because of his Vulcan upbringing, Spock learned to do the same.
I think part of what you're pointing out is that atheism is not a belief system, and so people shouldn't expect atheists to all think the same way or believe the same things.
This,
People who dont understand what the word "atheism" means dont know that atheism describes everyone from the non-religious to LeVayan Satanists to Buddhists (yep, Buddhism is an atheist religion, they dont believe in a god or gods).
Exactly. I get so tired of being asked "Then what *do* you believe?" with the emphasis on the do. My usual response is "Concerning what?" And there the questioner typically falters because they simply cannot wrap their minds around divorcing that question from some supernatural belief.
By all means, not all religious people are like that. My ex's father was a prof emeritus with five friggin' degrees in theological studies and we got along and understood each other just fine. He was, however, exceptional.
People who spend a lot of time studying beliefs are the ones that are typically most accepting of others who dont share their beliefs. Its the lay preachers and blind believers that are intolerant of any viewpoint except their own. I think this is because they haven't thought about why they believe what they believe and find any idea that challenges their blind adherence to be uncomfortable and must be silenced.
A theist who commits themselves to study their own faith will find the flaws of it pretty quick. This does not mean they'll stop believing, but it makes them more rational when dealing with people who dont share their faith.
In Australia it's pretty similar with small claims and appeals. Our legal systems have the same historical basis.
Vexatious litigation is reserved for people who have repeatedly made frivolous cases with the obvious intent of trying to harm the other party (be it financially, reputation or otherwise).
It doesn't matter if it's the same thing, multiple frivolous cases are considered repeatedly suing even if they're for different things. For the times where you legitimately (or even could legitimately) have a problem with the police, the court wont think twice, but making a claim for every single time you get in trouble with the cops and the court will notice. In Oz we take police corruption very seriously. I know someone who thought it was a good idea to fight every ticket. After their 10th court appearance when they were obviously guilty (the cops always had photo or video evidence) he had his license cancelled and declared a vexatious litigant. He's got his license back after his suspension period (and subsequently lost it again due to a pair of reckless driving charges) but any appeals he wants to make now have to be launched on his behalf by a public notary (lawyer, justice of the peace, holder of public office and so forth) which he's failed to do.
Point in short, abuse your right to sue in Oz, it will be taken off you... but it takes a lot for that to happen.
Yep, Hoon laws.
:)
We have a few dumb laws but less corruption. All in all, I prefer our brand of madness
The next line won't be "Okay, gtfo."
It'll be: "Sir, please step out of the car."
This.
/breathing until the machine beeps
/I drive off.
I certainly understand that there is no need nor is it prudent to surrender more information than necessary to the police but trying to play smart arse with the cops is asking for trouble.
So the way it goes down in Australia
Officer: Good evening sir.
Me: Officer.
Officer: How are you tonight sir?
Me: Not bad.
Officer: Have you had anything to drink tonight.
Me: No.
Officer: Where have you come from tonight.
Me: Work.
Officer: Please breathe into this until I tell you to stop.
Officer: All OK sir, thanks for your co-operation.
Plus it leaves the cops in a good mood so if you blow slightly over (say 0.01) they'll tell you to go and sit down for half an hour when they'll retest you again instead of booking you right away (half an hour where your body gets rid of the alcohol in your system).
If you start getting cagey or trying to use laymans legalese on them they'll get suspicious and hold you on that.
I prefer Australia's breathalysers because they're much faster than roadside sobriety tests (and not court admissible, if you blow over you have to have a blood test which gives you extra time to metabolise the alcohol) and means there is a minimum evidence requirement above the officers word that he or she smelled beer on your breath.
That's why I have a personal policy of always costing them more money than they seize from me. You confiscated $400 from me? I'm going to arrange to use more than $400 in police resources. I will mail you enough letters that you'll spend more than $400 just responding to them. I'll sue in small claims court so you have to send a representative to get it tossed out, then hire a lawyer to send fancy letters forcing the department to hire another fancy lawyer to send responses back.
In Australia that will have you listed as a vexatious litigant and you'll be denied access to the small claims and civil courts unless the court decides your claim has merit.
The most famous case of vexatious litigation in Australia was in the 70's where a person repeatedly sued the government of Australia claiming they did not have the right to issue paper money.
Then again in authoritarian Australia, we have this silly law that the police cannot seize cash unless they have a warrant to seize evidence (I.E. if a house is raided as part of a warranted drug raid, large amounts of money can be seized) and they are not permitted to keep it (even if proven to be proceeds of crime, the money goes back to the state or federal coffers).
... in line with the actual ideals US has embraced for its entire existence: to the victor go the spoils.
That's it! I'm naming my kid Victor.
Yes, but "spoils" are expired meat.
I've seen it in the UK. The first time appeared to be a couple of Americans in a rental car going one way around the roundabout while about twenty other cars were trying to go the opposite direction.
Fair enough.
We get fewer Americans in Oz and they generally dont drive very far because of the drop bears, hoop snakes and land sharks.
I think the part about other drivers was the dmv claiming that failure to navigate a roundabout is not grounds for failing a human applicant. This report does more to illuminate how low the bar is set for any driver, machine or human.
I think its saying that the DMV has been paid for a specific result, regardless of the actual events.
In order to pass a driving test, an autonomous car must not only be able to complete a random course without assistance from the assessor (in Australia interference or assistance from an assessor is an instant fail) it must be able to take natural language instructions from the assessor.
In a (Western) Australian driving test, you do not know the route in advance, the assessor will literally tell you where to go as you go (I.E. "Please take a left turn at roundabout" or "Take a left turn at the lights and move into the right hand lane"). Right now natural language interpretation requires it to be trained to your voice and is still very inaccurate. Basically:
You: "Car, dont take the parkway."
Car: "Calling your mother now. Beep"
We can make the other systems good, but also need the interface to be usable and accurate (I.E. dont let Apple anywhere near it).
I have seen perfectly sober drivers go the wrong way on a roundabout.
I have never seen this. Ever, not even with blind drunk drivers. Not even with the ditziest of SUV drivers and Australia has a hell of a lot more roundabouts than the US.