Telstra is the Australian telco monopoly. It's a bit like BT in the UK, but without the customer dedication, commitment to upgrades or ethics, fairness, and sense of social responsibility of its management team. The new government sacked the board of NBN Co and has stacked the new board with ex- and current Telstra insiders. It's pretty obvious that once the NBN Co has finished rolling out the fibre network, the plan is to sell it to Telstra. This will ensure a fairer outcome for all Telstra shareholders, but may be a drag on the rest of the country.
Telstra was like that when it was Telecom Australia but back in the early 90's the last Liberal government under John Howard sold it off to make his economic credentials look good.
Now Telstra is a private semi-monopoly as they own all of the copper but not all of the services. Telstra is forced to sell their copper at fixed wholesale prices (which they are continually trying to increase) to other service providers.
1. Much of the existing copper is in bad condition and would need to be replaced anyway anyway to deliver decent VDSL speeds and reliability. Telstra, responsible for managing the copper network, has publicly stated that they consider the copper network at end of life.
I have three questions:
1. Does Telestra still own the copper?
2. As part of the NBN, does Telestra have to lease their copper to anyone that wants to provide service over it?
1. Yes.
2. Short answer: No.
2 Long answer:
Telstra is obligated to provide access to that coper under the a previous service agreement but the federal government is attempting to bypass this because it makes their FTTN project more expensive than existing ADSL or the Labor governments FTTH project. What happed was that the previous government negotiated a contract with Telstra for access to their pits and ducts in order to lay fibre to the home alongside copper an the copper network would be retired. The current government thinks that they will get ownership of the copper (and I see this going to the high court).
2. The Liberals' plan, compared to the original Labor plan, would only result in cost savings of 20-30%, yet deliver an outcome that is a lot more than 20-30% worse (in terms of speeds, reliability and future capacity for growth and upgrades).
I recall reading a few months ago that Rupert Murdoch was trying to screw with the elections so that Rudd (Labor) would lose and his 90%+ FTTH plan would die and be replaced by FTTN.
3. So how did it come to pass that Rudd won, yet Labor's FTTH plan died and got replaced by the Liberal Party's FTTN?
Unfortunately Labor didn't win, they lost by the narrowest of margins primarily due to some really dodgy preference deals.
The Liberal party thinks this gives them the right to rule by fiat, the NBN is only one of their abuses. They have broken the school funding promise (Gonski) they made before the election, they are running a military operation targeting asylum seekers that has no oversight, no reporting to the public and is completely ineffective as indicated by the asylum seekers that were living on a beach on Christmas Island for a week before being discovered by the locals and finally, after making such a big song and dance about Labor's debt, have increased the debt ceiling for themselves.
Australia has realised its mistake and Tony Abbott's popularity has dropped like a brick shaped asylum seeker boat. Sadly it realised its mistake too late
Fortunately, the Liberals dont take control of the senate for several months, so we have the hope of a double dissolution election and beyond that, minor parties will control the senate.
Not sure what you are calling a "typical suburb"? Fibre optic to the home is common in the major cities,
I dont know what you call common but if you dont live in expensive parts of Sydney or Melbourne, you have no cable.
Over 90% of the urban areas inside major cities (300,000+ population) have no cable, let alone fibre and are on ASDL which is at best 24 mbit down and 1 mbit up however the average is much lower, around 5 Mbit down for ADSL.
Fibre optic is not common in the major cities.
The 1990's cable rollout "race" by private telco's
This laid no fibre to the home. What they used was copper coaxial cable for connecting the last mile and this coverage is extremely limited.
Wheeler: "Netflix might say, "I'll pay in order to make sure that my subscriber might receive the best possible transmission of this movie."
Huh, that's funny. I though I ALREADY PAID the ISP to get the best possible transmission.
Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted to buy access to ALL of the Internet? You only bought basic Internet. That simply doesn't include Netflix. But it includes Youtube now that Google ponied up some cash. You need to pay the premium rate to get Netflixs. Plus an extra surcharge for Wikipedia because they said something nasty about us once.
Dont forget the DLC, where you can get the parts of Wikipedia that we're holding back until you cough up $20.
The UK BS 1363 connector is well designed, well over designed.
The need to put the fuse in the plug makes the plug large, heavy, unwieldy and frankly, a complete pain in the arse to carry around. It might not fall out of the socket and after the effort it takes to put it in you'd expect that.
The Australian AS/NZS 3112 connector is far better, polarised in a 2 or 3 pin configuration, impossible to put in backwards, capable of staying in the socket unsupported without being a problem to plug in or remove and a 6 port powerboard isn't the size of a small boat. The Chinese adopted a similar design for their domestic plug.
I agree...developer and gamers. And finance, engineering, graphic design, manufacturing/planning, the list goes on and on.
The problem isn't that usage is in decline, usage is fine.
Sales are in decline, partly because of the bad financial situations in most of the world but mostly because desktop advancement plateaud years ago. I'm a gamer, I have a gaming rig that I first built in 2009. Since then it's received exactly 3 upgrades to keep it current (technically only 2 were really needed), doubling the RAM to 8 GB, an SSD and a new mid level video card (GF 660). There isn't a game I cant play on it, since getting the 660's there isn't a game I cant play with the graphics maxed out at 1920x1200.
I've got no need to get a new case, motherboard or even more RAM and definitely no need for a new CPU. Most non-gamers have no need for a new GPU either.
There is no evidence that this action is anything but voluntary.
Come back when these journalists are actually being restrained.
Actually when it's voluntary, that means you've already made the transition from free state to authoritarian state.
When journalists afraid to discuss topics because they're worried that the government will find out and they'll be punished via secret means (arresting them is not necessary when you can get them sacked and blackballed from the industry in a society where there's no safety net and the only jobs they can get will be well below the poverty line) you aren't in a free country any more.
A good dictator controls via coercion, a bad dictator controls via force. But to the person on the receiving end, the threat is still the same.
Hey, isn't your capital city the one that's literally blanketed in high-tech surveillance equipment,
Most of it is privately owned.
You'll find the same level of surveillance in any city as you would in London if you included all the private cameras in the statistics. At least in London they have to notify you that you're being survived. I recently walked into an LA shopping mall and found 14 security cameras at the entrance.
For all the cameras in London, nothing comes close to the abuses of the NSA. Cameras might accidentally catch you doing something, the NSA is actively looking for things to use against you.
The same UK whose government is, right now, running your so-called 'free' press through the ringer for the Snowden disclosures?
The UK is big on accountability, they're still dragging Newscorp through that very same ringer for the voicemail "hacking" scandal. The thing with inquests in commonwealth countries is that they're run by non political organisations and politicians have to accept the result even if it's the complete opposite of what they wanted.
But lets compare this to the US government who has for years, conducted an illegal war started with fabricated evidence, imprisoned and tortured people including citizens of allied countries in secret prisons and on the subject of Snowden, has pretty much declared him guilty and sentenced him in absentia.
As an Australian, in order to gain entry I had to provide the US with more information than I had to provide the Australian government to get a National Police Clearance or the Canadian government to get a work permit. In fact the US has been the only nation I've travelled to where I've needed apply in advance to enter or declare where I'm staying to the airline before I even get on the plane.
So really, the UK looks like a bastion of freedom compared to the US (Despite the attempts of the Conservatives to ruin it and sadly, they're trying to do the same thing in Oz).
Apply for a job without having to prove my citizenship. [...] Go to Canada without having to carry my passport like we could do for 99% of American history.
Shall I go on?
These two have nothing to do with the US government.
Having to prove your citizenship to get a job is a reaction by the market to the number of non US citizens applying for jobs in the US.
Two, Canada is a fucking sovereign country and have every fucking right to ask for your passport if you aren't a citizen. Do you think it's acceptable for Mexicans or Dominicans to enter the US without a passport?
I'm a citizen of a commonwealth nation, therefore can get work in Canada and gain citizenship there a hell of a lot faster than you could and I have no issue with providing them with my Australian passport because it's Canada's right to ask.
I agree with the arrest, you don't get to plug in your car or arc welder into someone else's outlet
Why has society become so dumb/antisocial?
Ask first, most people dont have a problem with you borrowing a few KW of electricity if you're polite about it. If they do, you know beforehand so you either dont do it (or dont be surprised when they call the cops).
For a long time we've know that demonstrations lie.
Any demo indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently rigged.
I fail to see why anyone is surprised by this, Nvdia do it, Intel do it, Apple do it, everyone lies with demonstrators and all demonstration machines are rigged up to their eyeballs. IBM spends money making sure the lights on their demonstration machines blink in unison for crying out loud.
Which is why anyone with half a brain does not base purchasing decisions on a vendor's product demonstration.
I'll tell you what's a right: due process. The govt appears to be denying that to a witness in a trial for their own benefit. Let that sink in a sec and decide if the issue here is whether or not she can drive to court.
This,
Driving is not an inalienable or natural right, it's a privilege.
What the US govt did wrong was interfere with this persons "freedom of movement" as we call it in Australia which allows a citizen free and unfettered movement between all states and territories as well as the right to leave and re-enter the country at any time. The problem here is that:
1) The no-fly list does not just apply to air travel but also to other forms of travel. She was not simply denied flying, she was denied entry into the United States (as a US citizen as well).
2) The person in question purchased a legal ticket for travel, had all the required documentation and had committed no crimes or was even accused of committing a crime in either the destination or the origin of the flight.
This is completely different to holding a drivers license, which is a privilege that people abuse far too often.
Pull your tunes out of their service if you don't like it.
You do know that most "artists" dont have that control.
The reason writers and singers are getting screwed has nothing to do with Spotify, rather it's the system set up by the music industry to ensure that most cant profit or control their own works.
Spotify is the player, however it is the game that's rigged.
1) I'm not a West African frog. Humans don't have gender agility.
-1,000,000
Failed to get reference.
2) There are physical and mental aspects to gender and sexuality. They can evidently be inconsistent in diverse ways.
No.
First off, gender is different to sexuality.
Secondly sexuality is a social construct. You need to go look up the meaning of the word because you seem to think it has something to do with the location of physical parts instead of how they're used.
For number 3, again, you need to go look up the definition of sexuality. You're wrong.
North Korea was enslabed by... a north korean dictator, or by China, but certainly not by Russia!
Are you serious? Are you familiar with the history of Korea post WW2 and leading up to the Korean War? Japan occupied Korea until the end of WW2. After their surrender, the US and Soviets split occupation at the 38th parallel (much like how Germany, whose history I hope you are familiar with, was divided). In brief, the Soviet Union installed the Communist system and Kim Il-sung in power.
North Korea could not have been more directly enslaved by the Soviet Union.
With Soviet planes being flown by Soviet pilots in the Korean war.
This is why the MIGs never left North Korean airspace, they didn't want the Americans finding out it wasn't Chinese or Korean pilots shooting down their bombers.
The issue is that many people who run from the police when chased for a minor traffic violation are not running to avoid the the ticket. They are usually running because they are wanted on another, much more serious, charge. By not chasing we would let serious criminals get away. For example,serial murderer Ted Bundy who killed over 22 women, and the Atlanta child killer, Wayne Williams, who killed 28, were apprehended because of traffic stops.
And no-one is suggesting they simply let them get away. What we are suggesting is that its safer to intercept than to pursue and with modern police technology, it's now more feasible. Most people who run from the police are apprehended within a few hours.
But then again, he was a cop with a lot of driving experience.
He also drove a big block V8 (based on the Australian designed Ford Falcon XB).
So it is essentially a land yacht. Its weight limits its handling whilst it has enough power to go fast in a straight line, its weight also strangles it's acceleration (it may develop a lot of torque, but it requires that just to move it's bulk). Realistically a lot of modern I4's (inline 4 cylinders) would be faster than the 70's Falcon XB V8.
At low speeds, these cars have two particular challenges for the driver; a huge amount of torque in the lower gears...
So skip first (and second, and maybe third) gear -- problem solved.
I think I need to point out you're talking to people who dont know how to drive a manual, therefore are unfamiliar with these numbered gears you speak of.
I, along with most other "enthusiasts", wholeheartedly appreciate all the electronic gear and realize that a lot of it does make for outright faster lap times - but at the same time, I'd like to be able to switch it off should I choose. There's something to be said for hanging the ass out with a healthy jab at the throttle and shrieking around a parking lot trailing smoke, or slip-sliding around a corner on an empty gravel road in the boonies. OTOH, with extensive winter driving experience, there's also something to be said for having every driver aid known to man spinning a set of Blizzaks in the middle of a wicked nor'easter - all that skulduggery has gotten me home with far less stress than my reflexes and skills alone. There's a time and a place for everything, but a lot of manufacturers these days are eliminating the choice.
This,
But the real problem with electronic safety features isn't that they're their or even that in some cars they cant be turned off, rather it makes bad drives even more complacent.
A blindspot check alarm only goes off after you start moving into another lane (by then it's a bit late). A blindspot check will tell you that there's car in your blind spot before you start moving. Most of these systems are backups, designed to compensate during a moment of inattention because they are 100% reactive, it's still up to the driver to be proactive about safety. However most drivers are using them in lieu of actually being a safe driver, as with the blindspot alarm, fewer people are actually looking over their shoulder because they believe the driver aid will do it for them automatically.
These technologies are nowhere near as good as a competent driver (let alone a good driver) but they are having the negative effect of coddling bad drivers into depending on them.
Things like ESC are nice (so's AWD) but realistically I can drive just as safely without them and dont depend on them. Drivers who depend on them to save them from potentially dangerous situations are the problem as they get themselves into these dangerous situations instead of avoiding them.
Can anybody give me a reason not to have stability control where that reasons does not contain “fun” or “because”? (which might be sufficient – just looking for any other reasons.)
'Cause, uh, it's a sports car designed for racing?
Mid-engined cars are designed solely to get around corners fast, and they're extremely unstable compared to your average Ford or Honda. The problem is that many are bought by people who have no clue, and end up in a ditch the first time they take their foot off the gas in a corner.
This isn't true, Mid engined cars are more stable and controllable than front engined cars. What makes them more dangerous is that they are designed to be lighter, ergo faster with less power. If it were economically and ergonomically feasible to make mid engined family cars they would be safer than front engined cars (but even using a Subaru flat 4 your rear seats would be way too high).
Now none of this applies to the Porsche because its a rear engined car.
With mid-engined cars, you're trying to keep as much of the weight between the wheels as possible, this creates a platform that is more stable, even at speed. Given that the engine is a very heavy part of most cars (doubly so for sports and performance cars) for best handling and performance you put this between the wheels. What Porsche did with the 911 is put all that weight over the rear wheels which throws out handling making the car too rear heavy (thus losing the back end is very easy), and for the last 40 years Porsche have been trying everything to fix that instead of admitting they were wrong and moving the engine forward. As the old joke goes, they named the 911 that so that Americans would know what to call when they crashed it.
The 911 is a fun car to drive on a track, but I'd never get one as a daily driver because they are a handful just to drive.
Slashdot Mirror
Telstra is the Australian telco monopoly. It's a bit like BT in the UK, but without the customer dedication, commitment to upgrades or ethics, fairness, and sense of social responsibility of its management team. The new government sacked the board of NBN Co and has stacked the new board with ex- and current Telstra insiders. It's pretty obvious that once the NBN Co has finished rolling out the fibre network, the plan is to sell it to Telstra. This will ensure a fairer outcome for all Telstra shareholders, but may be a drag on the rest of the country.
Telstra was like that when it was Telecom Australia but back in the early 90's the last Liberal government under John Howard sold it off to make his economic credentials look good.
Now Telstra is a private semi-monopoly as they own all of the copper but not all of the services. Telstra is forced to sell their copper at fixed wholesale prices (which they are continually trying to increase) to other service providers.
1. Much of the existing copper is in bad condition and would need to be replaced anyway anyway to deliver decent VDSL speeds and reliability. Telstra, responsible for managing the copper network, has publicly stated that they consider the copper network at end of life.
I have three questions:
1. Does Telestra still own the copper?
2. As part of the NBN, does Telestra have to lease their copper to anyone that wants to provide service over it?
1. Yes.
2. Short answer: No.
2 Long answer: Telstra is obligated to provide access to that coper under the a previous service agreement but the federal government is attempting to bypass this because it makes their FTTN project more expensive than existing ADSL or the Labor governments FTTH project. What happed was that the previous government negotiated a contract with Telstra for access to their pits and ducts in order to lay fibre to the home alongside copper an the copper network would be retired. The current government thinks that they will get ownership of the copper (and I see this going to the high court).
2. The Liberals' plan, compared to the original Labor plan, would only result in cost savings of 20-30%, yet deliver an outcome that is a lot more than 20-30% worse (in terms of speeds, reliability and future capacity for growth and upgrades).
I recall reading a few months ago that Rupert Murdoch was trying to screw with the elections so that Rudd (Labor) would lose and his 90%+ FTTH plan would die and be replaced by FTTN.
3. So how did it come to pass that Rudd won, yet Labor's FTTH plan died and got replaced by the Liberal Party's FTTN?
Unfortunately Labor didn't win, they lost by the narrowest of margins primarily due to some really dodgy preference deals.
The Liberal party thinks this gives them the right to rule by fiat, the NBN is only one of their abuses. They have broken the school funding promise (Gonski) they made before the election, they are running a military operation targeting asylum seekers that has no oversight, no reporting to the public and is completely ineffective as indicated by the asylum seekers that were living on a beach on Christmas Island for a week before being discovered by the locals and finally, after making such a big song and dance about Labor's debt, have increased the debt ceiling for themselves.
Australia has realised its mistake and Tony Abbott's popularity has dropped like a brick shaped asylum seeker boat. Sadly it realised its mistake too late
Fortunately, the Liberals dont take control of the senate for several months, so we have the hope of a double dissolution election and beyond that, minor parties will control the senate.
I dont know what you call common but if you dont live in expensive parts of Sydney or Melbourne, you have no cable.
Over 90% of the urban areas inside major cities (300,000+ population) have no cable, let alone fibre and are on ASDL which is at best 24 mbit down and 1 mbit up however the average is much lower, around 5 Mbit down for ADSL.
Fibre optic is not common in the major cities.
This laid no fibre to the home. What they used was copper coaxial cable for connecting the last mile and this coverage is extremely limited.
Wheeler: "Netflix might say, "I'll pay in order to make sure that my subscriber might receive the best possible transmission of this movie."
Huh, that's funny. I though I ALREADY PAID the ISP to get the best possible transmission.
Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted to buy access to ALL of the Internet? You only bought basic Internet. That simply doesn't include Netflix. But it includes Youtube now that Google ponied up some cash. You need to pay the premium rate to get Netflixs. Plus an extra surcharge for Wikipedia because they said something nasty about us once.
Dont forget the DLC, where you can get the parts of Wikipedia that we're holding back until you cough up $20.
Let the British design the next standard. I have yet to see anyone pick up a BS 1363 and not figure out which way to insert it.
Nonsense, millions of people per year accidentally insert it into their foot the wrong way.
AS/NZS 3112 FTW.
Yes, they are well designed.
The UK BS 1363 connector is well designed, well over designed.
The need to put the fuse in the plug makes the plug large, heavy, unwieldy and frankly, a complete pain in the arse to carry around. It might not fall out of the socket and after the effort it takes to put it in you'd expect that.
The Australian AS/NZS 3112 connector is far better, polarised in a 2 or 3 pin configuration, impossible to put in backwards, capable of staying in the socket unsupported without being a problem to plug in or remove and a 6 port powerboard isn't the size of a small boat. The Chinese adopted a similar design for their domestic plug.
I agree...developer and gamers. And finance, engineering, graphic design, manufacturing/planning, the list goes on and on.
The problem isn't that usage is in decline, usage is fine.
Sales are in decline, partly because of the bad financial situations in most of the world but mostly because desktop advancement plateaud years ago. I'm a gamer, I have a gaming rig that I first built in 2009. Since then it's received exactly 3 upgrades to keep it current (technically only 2 were really needed), doubling the RAM to 8 GB, an SSD and a new mid level video card (GF 660). There isn't a game I cant play on it, since getting the 660's there isn't a game I cant play with the graphics maxed out at 1920x1200.
I've got no need to get a new case, motherboard or even more RAM and definitely no need for a new CPU. Most non-gamers have no need for a new GPU either.
There is no evidence that this action is anything but voluntary.
Come back when these journalists are actually being restrained.
Actually when it's voluntary, that means you've already made the transition from free state to authoritarian state.
When journalists afraid to discuss topics because they're worried that the government will find out and they'll be punished via secret means (arresting them is not necessary when you can get them sacked and blackballed from the industry in a society where there's no safety net and the only jobs they can get will be well below the poverty line) you aren't in a free country any more.
A good dictator controls via coercion, a bad dictator controls via force. But to the person on the receiving end, the threat is still the same.
Most of it is privately owned.
You'll find the same level of surveillance in any city as you would in London if you included all the private cameras in the statistics. At least in London they have to notify you that you're being survived. I recently walked into an LA shopping mall and found 14 security cameras at the entrance.
For all the cameras in London, nothing comes close to the abuses of the NSA. Cameras might accidentally catch you doing something, the NSA is actively looking for things to use against you.
The UK is big on accountability, they're still dragging Newscorp through that very same ringer for the voicemail "hacking" scandal. The thing with inquests in commonwealth countries is that they're run by non political organisations and politicians have to accept the result even if it's the complete opposite of what they wanted.
But lets compare this to the US government who has for years, conducted an illegal war started with fabricated evidence, imprisoned and tortured people including citizens of allied countries in secret prisons and on the subject of Snowden, has pretty much declared him guilty and sentenced him in absentia.
As an Australian, in order to gain entry I had to provide the US with more information than I had to provide the Australian government to get a National Police Clearance or the Canadian government to get a work permit. In fact the US has been the only nation I've travelled to where I've needed apply in advance to enter or declare where I'm staying to the airline before I even get on the plane.
So really, the UK looks like a bastion of freedom compared to the US (Despite the attempts of the Conservatives to ruin it and sadly, they're trying to do the same thing in Oz).
Apply for a job without having to prove my citizenship. [...] Go to Canada without having to carry my passport like we could do for 99% of American history.
Shall I go on?
These two have nothing to do with the US government.
Having to prove your citizenship to get a job is a reaction by the market to the number of non US citizens applying for jobs in the US.
Two, Canada is a fucking sovereign country and have every fucking right to ask for your passport if you aren't a citizen. Do you think it's acceptable for Mexicans or Dominicans to enter the US without a passport?
I'm a citizen of a commonwealth nation, therefore can get work in Canada and gain citizenship there a hell of a lot faster than you could and I have no issue with providing them with my Australian passport because it's Canada's right to ask.
If you wouldn't have done it at a random stranger's house, why would you do it at your children's school without asking?
The same reason I'd take a piss in the school restroom without asking, but not in yours.
Because you're too short to use a regular height urinal?
I agree with the arrest, you don't get to plug in your car or arc welder into someone else's outlet
Why has society become so dumb/antisocial?
Ask first, most people dont have a problem with you borrowing a few KW of electricity if you're polite about it. If they do, you know beforehand so you either dont do it (or dont be surprised when they call the cops).
This probably happens more often than we think.
For a long time we've know that demonstrations lie.
Any demo indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently rigged.
I fail to see why anyone is surprised by this, Nvdia do it, Intel do it, Apple do it, everyone lies with demonstrators and all demonstration machines are rigged up to their eyeballs. IBM spends money making sure the lights on their demonstration machines blink in unison for crying out loud.
Which is why anyone with half a brain does not base purchasing decisions on a vendor's product demonstration.
I'll tell you what's a right: due process. The govt appears to be denying that to a witness in a trial for their own benefit. Let that sink in a sec and decide if the issue here is whether or not she can drive to court.
This,
Driving is not an inalienable or natural right, it's a privilege.
What the US govt did wrong was interfere with this persons "freedom of movement" as we call it in Australia which allows a citizen free and unfettered movement between all states and territories as well as the right to leave and re-enter the country at any time. The problem here is that:
1) The no-fly list does not just apply to air travel but also to other forms of travel. She was not simply denied flying, she was denied entry into the United States (as a US citizen as well).
2) The person in question purchased a legal ticket for travel, had all the required documentation and had committed no crimes or was even accused of committing a crime in either the destination or the origin of the flight.
This is completely different to holding a drivers license, which is a privilege that people abuse far too often.
I happen to agree with you, although next time try saying it in a less arrogant way. Just a tip.
Fair enough, I appreciate honest criticism.
But sometimes I just cant help myself. You have to admit the GP was just as arrogant and I tend to respond in kind.
Why bother? My bike works fine without an electric wheel.
So you can hold up a bus holding 50 commuters at 30 KPH instead of just 20 KPH, making them slightly less late for work.
Pull your tunes out of their service if you don't like it.
You do know that most "artists" dont have that control.
The reason writers and singers are getting screwed has nothing to do with Spotify, rather it's the system set up by the music industry to ensure that most cant profit or control their own works.
Spotify is the player, however it is the game that's rigged.
-1,000,000
Failed to get reference.
No.
First off, gender is different to sexuality.
Secondly sexuality is a social construct. You need to go look up the meaning of the word because you seem to think it has something to do with the location of physical parts instead of how they're used.
For number 3, again, you need to go look up the definition of sexuality. You're wrong.
North Korea was enslabed by ... a north korean dictator, or by China, but certainly not by Russia!
Are you serious? Are you familiar with the history of Korea post WW2 and leading up to the Korean War? Japan occupied Korea until the end of WW2. After their surrender, the US and Soviets split occupation at the 38th parallel (much like how Germany, whose history I hope you are familiar with, was divided). In brief, the Soviet Union installed the Communist system and Kim Il-sung in power.
North Korea could not have been more directly enslaved by the Soviet Union.
With Soviet planes being flown by Soviet pilots in the Korean war. This is why the MIGs never left North Korean airspace, they didn't want the Americans finding out it wasn't Chinese or Korean pilots shooting down their bombers.
The issue is that many people who run from the police when chased for a minor traffic violation are not running to avoid the the ticket. They are usually running because they are wanted on another, much more serious, charge. By not chasing we would let serious criminals get away. For example ,serial murderer Ted Bundy who killed over 22 women, and the Atlanta child killer, Wayne Williams, who killed 28, were apprehended because of traffic stops.
And no-one is suggesting they simply let them get away. What we are suggesting is that its safer to intercept than to pursue and with modern police technology, it's now more feasible. Most people who run from the police are apprehended within a few hours.
Option 2 stop chasing them? The FBI's research pretty much shows that they are simply dangerous http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/march-2010/evidence-based-decisions-on-police-pursuits they show that most chases are for minor offences and that the suspects will quickly return to safe driving after the chase is stopped. Pretty much car chases are cops getting an adrenaline rush at the expense of the public.
This,
In Australia they've moved from pursuits to a policy of interception.
Its safer for everyone (cops, suspect, bystanders... everyone) if the cops back off, watch the suspect and corner them.
But then again, he was a cop with a lot of driving experience.
He also drove a big block V8 (based on the Australian designed Ford Falcon XB).
So it is essentially a land yacht. Its weight limits its handling whilst it has enough power to go fast in a straight line, its weight also strangles it's acceleration (it may develop a lot of torque, but it requires that just to move it's bulk). Realistically a lot of modern I4's (inline 4 cylinders) would be faster than the 70's Falcon XB V8.
So I doubt Mel's ability to handle a 911.
So skip first (and second, and maybe third) gear -- problem solved.
I think I need to point out you're talking to people who dont know how to drive a manual, therefore are unfamiliar with these numbered gears you speak of.
I, along with most other "enthusiasts", wholeheartedly appreciate all the electronic gear and realize that a lot of it does make for outright faster lap times - but at the same time, I'd like to be able to switch it off should I choose. There's something to be said for hanging the ass out with a healthy jab at the throttle and shrieking around a parking lot trailing smoke, or slip-sliding around a corner on an empty gravel road in the boonies. OTOH, with extensive winter driving experience, there's also something to be said for having every driver aid known to man spinning a set of Blizzaks in the middle of a wicked nor'easter - all that skulduggery has gotten me home with far less stress than my reflexes and skills alone. There's a time and a place for everything, but a lot of manufacturers these days are eliminating the choice.
This,
But the real problem with electronic safety features isn't that they're their or even that in some cars they cant be turned off, rather it makes bad drives even more complacent.
A blindspot check alarm only goes off after you start moving into another lane (by then it's a bit late). A blindspot check will tell you that there's car in your blind spot before you start moving. Most of these systems are backups, designed to compensate during a moment of inattention because they are 100% reactive, it's still up to the driver to be proactive about safety. However most drivers are using them in lieu of actually being a safe driver, as with the blindspot alarm, fewer people are actually looking over their shoulder because they believe the driver aid will do it for them automatically.
These technologies are nowhere near as good as a competent driver (let alone a good driver) but they are having the negative effect of coddling bad drivers into depending on them.
Things like ESC are nice (so's AWD) but realistically I can drive just as safely without them and dont depend on them. Drivers who depend on them to save them from potentially dangerous situations are the problem as they get themselves into these dangerous situations instead of avoiding them.
Can anybody give me a reason not to have stability control where that reasons does not contain “fun” or “because”? (which might be sufficient – just looking for any other reasons.)
'Cause, uh, it's a sports car designed for racing?
Mid-engined cars are designed solely to get around corners fast, and they're extremely unstable compared to your average Ford or Honda. The problem is that many are bought by people who have no clue, and end up in a ditch the first time they take their foot off the gas in a corner.
This isn't true, Mid engined cars are more stable and controllable than front engined cars. What makes them more dangerous is that they are designed to be lighter, ergo faster with less power. If it were economically and ergonomically feasible to make mid engined family cars they would be safer than front engined cars (but even using a Subaru flat 4 your rear seats would be way too high).
Now none of this applies to the Porsche because its a rear engined car.
With mid-engined cars, you're trying to keep as much of the weight between the wheels as possible, this creates a platform that is more stable, even at speed. Given that the engine is a very heavy part of most cars (doubly so for sports and performance cars) for best handling and performance you put this between the wheels. What Porsche did with the 911 is put all that weight over the rear wheels which throws out handling making the car too rear heavy (thus losing the back end is very easy), and for the last 40 years Porsche have been trying everything to fix that instead of admitting they were wrong and moving the engine forward. As the old joke goes, they named the 911 that so that Americans would know what to call when they crashed it.
The 911 is a fun car to drive on a track, but I'd never get one as a daily driver because they are a handful just to drive.