The players were required to perform certain "team actions" which are healing, resupplying, repairing, reviving, spotting and assisting. With the exception of assisting all of these actions are simple and require no aiming or other complex action to perform, put simply push button, receive medkit.
3) This was a count of collective actions of a community not averaged over the individual. The same tournament held between various PC OSes would have resulted in Microsoft crushing Linux's gamers simply because there are more of them on the PC platform.
Yes, but you're logic is flawed. I would bet there are slightly more players on Console then on PC as DLC tends to sell better on consoles. This has less to do with the number of gamers and more to do with the way gamers on the respective platforms work together. PC gamers tend to be less "STFU NOOB" and more working as a team. I've played BF BC2 for a while and I've yet to suggested to perform any sexual acts on my progenitors. I mean the other day this guy accidentally ran over me with a tank as I was getting out, he even apologised.
Players with superior input devices do better. More as this story develops.
Ordinarily I'd agree with you but I'd say that it has little to do with the input devices and more to do with the skill level, courteousness and ability of the players to work together in this case which gives the PC no intrinsic advantage.
Players had to perform 69 million team actions, which include spotting, performing repairs, and healing, reviving and resupplying. Given the push button, receive medkit nature of these functions there's no difference between console and PC. If it were based on number of kills then we'd be able to say that the PC's input dev has a great advantage. The difference we have is in the kind of people who choose these respective platforms. PC players tend to work together, healing and resupplying others as they go, console players tend to be a lot more selfish, going after other players on their own rather then working as a team.
For all the/. whining about camera's in public places not one word of protest is raised about the many hundreds of thousand private security cameras installed in the same type of places. The shopping centre (you yanks may call it a mall), super market, local chippy all have security camera's installed for two reasons, 1. the prevention of crime by notifying potential criminals that they are on film*. 2. To catch a criminal when a crime has occurred. This may sound familiar because it's exactly the reason CCTV camera's are installed.
So for all the caterwauling I hear about London's CCTV cameras I hear nothing, not a single whimper about the many thousands more CCTV cameras operated by private organisation. In my city, Perth there are few hundred public CCTV cameras in places where people tend to get mugged or beaten up after dark, but there are many thousands of private CCTV cameras in every Coles, Woolworths and Big W in the city alone.
Oh, but it's teh evile gubbermint I hear ringing in my ears, that old chestnut. You do know that all the Met (Metropolitan Police) have to do to get privately recorded footage from Mr Blackwell the butcher is ask for it with probable cause. Which is exactly what is needed to access London's public CCTV footage. SHOCK HORROR, the same rules have to be obeyed, in fact seeing as the system is logged and audited they have to be obeyed more stringently and it's not like corporate entities have a history of selling private information, OH WAIT, they do.
So I still don't hear a single murmur of protest against private CCTV networks. Anyone?
Perhaps that is because we've been under CCTV surveillance for a very long time, decades before the first public CCTV camera went up in London and they have proven to be an effective crime prevention and evidence gathering tool in solving crimes in shopping centres. More so I still don't have a telescreen, my house is over 15 KM's from the nearest public CCTV camera and Perth is not a big city. I'd bet a lot of money on the fact that someone wants to put cameras into my home, but it's not the government, it's the bastards who want to make money by selling my private info.
* Criminals are by definition cowards given courage by anonymity, remove that and they revert to their craven state.
Parent should be modded down,
Not one of those links contained relevant information, they're just links to a few blogs run by bobbies and judges. The parent did not link to one bit of corroborating information.
Sure they're entitled to their say in everything (provided that they respect the rules their job with various bits of sensitive info). It's not like the government dictates what they say.
Sorry if this doesn't jive with non-British/.er's impression of a completely locked down Britain, V for vendetta was a movie, not a bloody docco. Go watch BBC news, then Fox news, decide which one is trying to get you to believe in arrogant political dogma.
For that matter, Google's ultimate video strategy is unclear, quite possibly because they don't actually have one.
The reasons behind buying On2 were obvious, it was to get out from under the thumb of MPEG-LA and it's constituents, many of whom are actively working against Google.
The payoff just from eliminating MPEG licensing would be huge for YouTube. Greater profit by lowering costs, raising revenue is not the only or necessarily best method of increasing profitability.
Apart from that their video strategy is clear, provide advertisement (which is revenue on planet Google) whilst not providing content.
It's been 22 years since the commemorative first note was issued. They did not go into general circulation until 1992, 17 years ago.
They aren't indestructible but they are damn well near it,
Not sure if you're talking about the old paper notes or the polymer ones, but if you manage to tear a polymer note which are very hard to tear, it will tear in half unless you're careful with it. As a side effect, you'll see a few $5's with celo-tape around them to prevent further tearing.
I also don't know where you got the nicknames for the notes
Those nicknames are older then the polymer notes sunny Jim.
It seems to me that, provided the "old" currency formats continue to be acceptable payment (think twenty-year-old $20 USD bill), why bother counterfeiting the new styles? Just continue to counterfeit the older style bills.
it's been a bit over 15 years since the polymer notes were introduced into Oz, seeing a paper note, genuine or not is a rarity. For the most part they are part of someone's collection and not in general circulation.
The US mint cycles notes does it not, every 2 years or so? How long would it take to get the old notes out of circulation enough to make forgeries too difficult to pass off. In OZ, this happened over about 5 or 6 years. Banks basically refused to hand out new paper notes after the introduction of polymer notes. Paper notes became instantly suspect after a short time.
The Greenback has serious problems, ignoring the ergonomic ones (they are the same colour and size, if you're blind or blind drunk you cant tell the difference between a 1 and 100 USD note, the diff between a lobster (bright red A$20 note) and Pineapple (bright yellow A$50 note) is readily apparent) they are too easily forged, thus making them the worlds most forged currency. Exchanging USD in other nations becomes a problem, there are entire batches of US$ 100 notes that wont be accepted, some exchangers will reject notes because they've been folded. However with my polymer Aussie notes as well as polymer Malaysian and Euro notes I've never had so much as a second look at them.
*laugh* Dude, you're currently moderated as "insightful and troll". That rocks!
I think that pretty much sums up how polarized things are wrt Apple these days.:-P
Welcome to the/. moderation system. It may not be perfect but it's better then most other systems.
Really? I must have missed the agenda item on the City Council docket for "allow Muslim laws to supersede the rest of this stuff".
No, you didn't miss it.
This is just more BS propaganda from the BNP/One Nation parties. "Teh evil immigrants are destroying the $NATIONS national identity and blergh", just an excuse for racism and bigotry to make up for their own fears and failures. GP should not have been modded up. Muslims are a convenient target because there's lots of negative propaganda around them already. When you consider the overwhelming majority of Muslims live in non-sharia countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Indo is right up there for religious diversity too) and that most Muslims have taken great lengths to integrate themselves into western society (particularly in OZ) it's not as bad as the ultra-nationalists make out.
But this doesn't stop them from being used as a bogeyman to scare people who dont know any better.
Have you been reading Slashdot lately? It's nothing but screeching monkeys and poo flinging at the merest mention of Apple.
Have you been reading the same slashdot as I have?
It's being used as a platform for all kinds of Apple evangelism, any mention of Win Phone 7, Meego or *gasp* Android will launch a flurry of attacks against from Apple evangelists.
Now, granted, Google's done a lot of stuff out of the goodness of their hearts. But when you have a chance to stick to someone (Oracle) who's suing you, and also get PR points in the process, why not?
Now stabbing your enemies in the stomach is not the definition of evil.
Not being sarcastic, Google and Oracle are embroiled in a serious fight and this is far from the dirtiest trick in the book.
It's not just France, though. There's also the Great Firewall of China, the Great Australian Firewall, the US Department of Homeland Security shutting down domains (with COICA in the works to make take-downs even easier), and probably others I'm not aware of.
Google, on the other hand, requires a device to have most of the features of a phone, including a camera and a GPS,
Bollocks.
You can develop against the Android emulator that comes with the Android SDK. You dont even need a device to test GPS, the emulator will simulate it for you (although an actual device is advised for testing).
You fanboys are terrible. Please learn about Android development before commenting on Android development. Unlike Apple you aren't required to own a Google computer and Google phone before being granted access to the SDK.
before Google will let the device onto its Market
Google does not vet applications. It's a simple process of:
1. Paid US$25 fee.
2. Get listed.
The GP was right, only Apple fanboys care, talk about or even notice Android fragmentation.
This is exactly why iPad type "computers" are the coming thing. Locked down in a walled garden and simple to use
You forget that we tried this before, many times and each time the general purpose computer won out because...
A large number of people only use 10% of their computers but it's never the same 10%. People require different things and it's always been cheaper and easier to do it with a "jack of all trades" device then try to flood the market with 100 different devices and OS's that never meet that 10% exactly.
Trying to tell me that computers will be made safer by taking away their function is like trying to tell me that cars can be made safer by removing their ability to turn right (we drive on the left hand side of the road here). In theory this does make our roads safer by stopping people from crossing over oncoming traffic but in practice all you end up with is most people doing dodgy manoeuvres to turn right when they need to. This is why most people jailbreak their iDevice, because it can't do what they need it to.
So the Ipad is doomed, either by a more functional tablet or lack of actual need for a tablet. Neither will it be safe with a large majority willing to open up security holes just to do what they want with it.
Apple sued HTC first. HTC responded, Motorola responded. Apple shot first, they were the belligerent party and now we are all paying for a futile patent war.
One of the reasons I chose Android in the first place so I didn't have to overpay for a phone.
Not quite true - a bunch of politicians in WA (where I am) are pushing for their AG to oppose the R18 classification.
I still think nothing will come of it.
It's just a bunch of extremist right nutbars (the Nationals are involved) making sure everyone knows they're thinking of the children. The Greens made huge gains in WA in the last federal election, the Coalition risks losing votes over this.
it's still a little surprising that the federal Labor government has announced today that they support the move for an adult R18+ rating for video games in that country."
Why is this surprising?
The only thing stopping R18 was Michael Atkinson, Atkinson has since lost his position as Attorney General. The other six voted yes last time and the new AG for South Australia has voiced his support for the R18+ argument since his appointment. We are just waiting for the next time the AG's bring this up for debate. Most of Labor's backbenchers supported the introduction of R18+ for games.
The Labor government, in fact both parties lost a lot of votes to minor parties and independents in the last federal election, a fairly clear message that people wanted the major parties to be punished. In Atkinson's electorate of Croydon, there was a 15.6% swing against Atkinson in what was considered one of Labor's safest seats in South Australia, this was almost twice the average swing against Labor in SA (7.8%). Labor leader Mike Rand had the perfect opportunity to "resign" Atkinson from the position of Attorney General at that point.
I'm confused. The study says there's no conclusive link, BUT they support the 18+ rating (which now allows these games instead of banning them). How is this a bad thing?
Summary was trying to be overly melodramatic and fails.
R18+ was blocked by one man, former Attorney General Michael Atkinson. This was incredibly unpopular. Atkinson was removed from his post (resigned is a nice way of saying you're fired in politics, actual resigning is called retirement) when it was politically convenient for the South Australian Labor party (after a major swing against Labor in Atkinson's electorate).
Now no-one is opposing R18+, not even the tool who want to filter the internet. Green's have sway the senate, they've been pushing for R18+ since this whole mess started.
R18+ is going to be passed now the one stumbling block (Atkinson) has been removed. It didn't require guns, revolution or radical action, it was done via patience and rational action.
The race to the bottom is about the platform itself, not about a few individual manufacturers and their high-end models based on Android. If it turns out in a few years that you have 95 craptastic el-cheapo Android phones on the market for every 5 high-end ones, you guess what most people will be buying.
And this is what is wrong about the argument.
This has not happened in the PC market nor in the current mobile phone market. There has been a slight shift towards high end devices of late. Despite Manufacuters like Acer making PC's "to a price" high end sales continue (Sony VAIO, Dell Latitudes, HP Envy's and so on). The thing is that the low end and high end markets exist as different entities in computers, so I think the same will happen with phones.
I understand your augment but I still think it doesn't apply. It's not like toasters where fancy boutique toasters were eliminated by $15 toasters made in bulk in China, there is value in quality when it comes to computers and similar devices and more importantly, people see value in quality in computers.
The Nokia 3310 has not dominated the market for the same reason the $500 Acer Travelmate has not dominated the market, because there are different markets with different needs and expectations. The existence of a low end segment does not cheapen the market when there is a big enough difference in what the market wants.
Samsung, LG, HTC, Moto et al. seem more interested in a race to the top providing the best high end phone. Even in Wintel land, its a race to the top with Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and so forth competing for the best product in each price category. Heuwei and others seem more interested in providing the best low end phone possible.
Sorry but your argument is bad.
Competitive environments don't support races to the bottom, only highly restricted environments support products that are deliberately underpowered, striped of features or just not fit for purpose
This isn't good for consumers. the Android software ecosystem WILL suffer
No, it isn't good for certain one-size fits all competitors. It's excellent for Android customers. UI's sort themselves out as some thrive, some die and orders establish themselves in the same way that various technologies fought on Windows, all can co-exist but one or two become dominant. I'm not a liberatard but the market really will sort this one out.
custom UI skins will be more bloated and useless, apps will become more and more fragmented
Try saying fragmentation a few more times, at least you wont sound like more of a fanboy. The fragmentation myth has been disproved time and time again, I mean tweetdeck had all of two android developers for the hundreds of handsets (in reality they coded for 4 versions of Android, 1.5, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2). If you don't know how interpreted code works and why android uses this model you shouldn't be participating in this conversation.
In the end it still comes down to "do or not do". Wintel is still on top because it does more then any other OS (Linux rules the servers because it does more then any other *nix). Windows does nothing, well lets not kid ourselves, its a bloated, buggy, unreliable piece of crap but it runs all my work programs, games and anything else I throw at it. This will be the same on mobile OS's, in a years time there will be a lot that Android does that other mobile OS's don't do, already my Moto Milestone w/Android 2.2 is more like a desktop machine in a form factor that is convenient to make phone calls on.
If you can have sex with two women who will later regret it, can I kill a few hundred thousand Muslims and take a big hairy shit on the Constitution and International Law? Awesome!
Does religion really matter in this?
Would it be (_)BETTER/(_)WORSE if they had of killed a few hundred thousand Baha'i. Well OK, there wouldn't be many Baha'i left so lets use Hindus or Russian Orthodox as a better example, does which invisible sky man they believed in make any difference?
The overwhelming majority of the people killed in the war on terror didn't give a shit about things like that, they just wanted to work, feed their families, have kids and perhaps have a few luxuries like a car.
It would be more like the government requiring car manufacturers to do something about car theft, since an 'infected computer' is essentially out of the user's control.
Ultimately the government made this decision not only because it was the only real right decision as you've pointed out but it's the only real practical decision. How can an ISP tell the difference between a botnet and home email server without doing some kind of snooping that they are currently very reluctant to do.
Better off the block port 25 until the user requests it to be opened (this can easily be done via the web control site that all ISP's have to give each customer to monitor download limits, I believe iinet already does it).
And yes, the Australian government DOES require all cars to have an immobiliser.
That would be more like the AU govt mandating that Anti-virus be pre-installed on every Computer sold in Australia. Not only would the Mac Fanboys have a kitten but it's nowhere near as useful as it sounds (nor particularly enforceable). Unlike immobilisers it wont deter the bad guys one iota as it doesn't cut off their attack vector.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, but it's a fairly popular game.
The players were required to perform certain "team actions" which are healing, resupplying, repairing, reviving, spotting and assisting. With the exception of assisting all of these actions are simple and require no aiming or other complex action to perform, put simply push button, receive medkit.
Yes, but you're logic is flawed. I would bet there are slightly more players on Console then on PC as DLC tends to sell better on consoles. This has less to do with the number of gamers and more to do with the way gamers on the respective platforms work together. PC gamers tend to be less "STFU NOOB" and more working as a team. I've played BF BC2 for a while and I've yet to suggested to perform any sexual acts on my progenitors. I mean the other day this guy accidentally ran over me with a tank as I was getting out, he even apologised.
Ordinarily I'd agree with you but I'd say that it has little to do with the input devices and more to do with the skill level, courteousness and ability of the players to work together in this case which gives the PC no intrinsic advantage.
Players had to perform 69 million team actions, which include spotting, performing repairs, and healing, reviving and resupplying. Given the push button, receive medkit nature of these functions there's no difference between console and PC. If it were based on number of kills then we'd be able to say that the PC's input dev has a great advantage. The difference we have is in the kind of people who choose these respective platforms. PC players tend to work together, healing and resupplying others as they go, console players tend to be a lot more selfish, going after other players on their own rather then working as a team.
For all the /. whining about camera's in public places not one word of protest is raised about the many hundreds of thousand private security cameras installed in the same type of places. The shopping centre (you yanks may call it a mall), super market, local chippy all have security camera's installed for two reasons, 1. the prevention of crime by notifying potential criminals that they are on film*. 2. To catch a criminal when a crime has occurred. This may sound familiar because it's exactly the reason CCTV camera's are installed.
So for all the caterwauling I hear about London's CCTV cameras I hear nothing, not a single whimper about the many thousands more CCTV cameras operated by private organisation. In my city, Perth there are few hundred public CCTV cameras in places where people tend to get mugged or beaten up after dark, but there are many thousands of private CCTV cameras in every Coles, Woolworths and Big W in the city alone.
Oh, but it's teh evile gubbermint I hear ringing in my ears, that old chestnut. You do know that all the Met (Metropolitan Police) have to do to get privately recorded footage from Mr Blackwell the butcher is ask for it with probable cause. Which is exactly what is needed to access London's public CCTV footage. SHOCK HORROR, the same rules have to be obeyed, in fact seeing as the system is logged and audited they have to be obeyed more stringently and it's not like corporate entities have a history of selling private information, OH WAIT, they do.
So I still don't hear a single murmur of protest against private CCTV networks. Anyone?
Perhaps that is because we've been under CCTV surveillance for a very long time, decades before the first public CCTV camera went up in London and they have proven to be an effective crime prevention and evidence gathering tool in solving crimes in shopping centres. More so I still don't have a telescreen, my house is over 15 KM's from the nearest public CCTV camera and Perth is not a big city. I'd bet a lot of money on the fact that someone wants to put cameras into my home, but it's not the government, it's the bastards who want to make money by selling my private info.
* Criminals are by definition cowards given courage by anonymity, remove that and they revert to their craven state.
Parent should be modded down, Not one of those links contained relevant information, they're just links to a few blogs run by bobbies and judges. The parent did not link to one bit of corroborating information.
/.er's impression of a completely locked down Britain, V for vendetta was a movie, not a bloody docco. Go watch BBC news, then Fox news, decide which one is trying to get you to believe in arrogant political dogma.
Sure they're entitled to their say in everything (provided that they respect the rules their job with various bits of sensitive info). It's not like the government dictates what they say.
Sorry if this doesn't jive with non-British
The reasons behind buying On2 were obvious, it was to get out from under the thumb of MPEG-LA and it's constituents, many of whom are actively working against Google.
The payoff just from eliminating MPEG licensing would be huge for YouTube. Greater profit by lowering costs, raising revenue is not the only or necessarily best method of increasing profitability.
Apart from that their video strategy is clear, provide advertisement (which is revenue on planet Google) whilst not providing content.
The article understands a Unix system and does not want to re-invent it.
The article wants developers to write to that specification.
It's been 22 years since the commemorative first note was issued. They did not go into general circulation until 1992, 17 years ago.
Not sure if you're talking about the old paper notes or the polymer ones, but if you manage to tear a polymer note which are very hard to tear, it will tear in half unless you're careful with it. As a side effect, you'll see a few $5's with celo-tape around them to prevent further tearing.
Those nicknames are older then the polymer notes sunny Jim.
it's been a bit over 15 years since the polymer notes were introduced into Oz, seeing a paper note, genuine or not is a rarity. For the most part they are part of someone's collection and not in general circulation.
The US mint cycles notes does it not, every 2 years or so? How long would it take to get the old notes out of circulation enough to make forgeries too difficult to pass off. In OZ, this happened over about 5 or 6 years. Banks basically refused to hand out new paper notes after the introduction of polymer notes. Paper notes became instantly suspect after a short time.
The Greenback has serious problems, ignoring the ergonomic ones (they are the same colour and size, if you're blind or blind drunk you cant tell the difference between a 1 and 100 USD note, the diff between a lobster (bright red A$20 note) and Pineapple (bright yellow A$50 note) is readily apparent) they are too easily forged, thus making them the worlds most forged currency. Exchanging USD in other nations becomes a problem, there are entire batches of US$ 100 notes that wont be accepted, some exchangers will reject notes because they've been folded. However with my polymer Aussie notes as well as polymer Malaysian and Euro notes I've never had so much as a second look at them.
Welcome to the /. moderation system. It may not be perfect but it's better then most other systems.
And I too appreciate the irony.
No, you didn't miss it.
This is just more BS propaganda from the BNP/One Nation parties. "Teh evil immigrants are destroying the $NATIONS national identity and blergh", just an excuse for racism and bigotry to make up for their own fears and failures. GP should not have been modded up. Muslims are a convenient target because there's lots of negative propaganda around them already. When you consider the overwhelming majority of Muslims live in non-sharia countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Indo is right up there for religious diversity too) and that most Muslims have taken great lengths to integrate themselves into western society (particularly in OZ) it's not as bad as the ultra-nationalists make out.
But this doesn't stop them from being used as a bogeyman to scare people who dont know any better.
Have you been reading the same slashdot as I have?
It's being used as a platform for all kinds of Apple evangelism, any mention of Win Phone 7, Meego or *gasp* Android will launch a flurry of attacks against from Apple evangelists.
Now stabbing your enemies in the stomach is not the definition of evil.
Not being sarcastic, Google and Oracle are embroiled in a serious fight and this is far from the dirtiest trick in the book.
One of these things is not like the others,
one of these things doesn't exist.
Where did you get that from?
I'd bet that it was your rectum.
Bollocks.
You can develop against the Android emulator that comes with the Android SDK. You dont even need a device to test GPS, the emulator will simulate it for you (although an actual device is advised for testing).
You fanboys are terrible. Please learn about Android development before commenting on Android development. Unlike Apple you aren't required to own a Google computer and Google phone before being granted access to the SDK.
Google does not vet applications. It's a simple process of:
1. Paid US$25 fee.
2. Get listed.
The GP was right, only Apple fanboys care, talk about or even notice Android fragmentation.
You forget that we tried this before, many times and each time the general purpose computer won out because...
A large number of people only use 10% of their computers but it's never the same 10%. People require different things and it's always been cheaper and easier to do it with a "jack of all trades" device then try to flood the market with 100 different devices and OS's that never meet that 10% exactly.
Trying to tell me that computers will be made safer by taking away their function is like trying to tell me that cars can be made safer by removing their ability to turn right (we drive on the left hand side of the road here). In theory this does make our roads safer by stopping people from crossing over oncoming traffic but in practice all you end up with is most people doing dodgy manoeuvres to turn right when they need to. This is why most people jailbreak their iDevice, because it can't do what they need it to.
So the Ipad is doomed, either by a more functional tablet or lack of actual need for a tablet. Neither will it be safe with a large majority willing to open up security holes just to do what they want with it.
But they didn't file first.
Apple sued HTC first, Motorola sued Apple some time later as a proactive defence. Apple was the belligerent party whether you like it or not.
Try reading the actual article rather than making up whatever you feel like.
Apple sued HTC first. HTC responded, Motorola responded. Apple shot first, they were the belligerent party and now we are all paying for a futile patent war.
One of the reasons I chose Android in the first place so I didn't have to overpay for a phone.
I still think nothing will come of it.
It's just a bunch of extremist right nutbars (the Nationals are involved) making sure everyone knows they're thinking of the children. The Greens made huge gains in WA in the last federal election, the Coalition risks losing votes over this.
Why is this surprising?
The only thing stopping R18 was Michael Atkinson, Atkinson has since lost his position as Attorney General. The other six voted yes last time and the new AG for South Australia has voiced his support for the R18+ argument since his appointment. We are just waiting for the next time the AG's bring this up for debate. Most of Labor's backbenchers supported the introduction of R18+ for games.
The Labor government, in fact both parties lost a lot of votes to minor parties and independents in the last federal election, a fairly clear message that people wanted the major parties to be punished. In Atkinson's electorate of Croydon, there was a 15.6% swing against Atkinson in what was considered one of Labor's safest seats in South Australia, this was almost twice the average swing against Labor in SA (7.8%). Labor leader Mike Rand had the perfect opportunity to "resign" Atkinson from the position of Attorney General at that point.
Summary was trying to be overly melodramatic and fails.
R18+ was blocked by one man, former Attorney General Michael Atkinson. This was incredibly unpopular. Atkinson was removed from his post (resigned is a nice way of saying you're fired in politics, actual resigning is called retirement) when it was politically convenient for the South Australian Labor party (after a major swing against Labor in Atkinson's electorate).
Now no-one is opposing R18+, not even the tool who want to filter the internet. Green's have sway the senate, they've been pushing for R18+ since this whole mess started.
R18+ is going to be passed now the one stumbling block (Atkinson) has been removed. It didn't require guns, revolution or radical action, it was done via patience and rational action.
And this is what is wrong about the argument.
This has not happened in the PC market nor in the current mobile phone market. There has been a slight shift towards high end devices of late. Despite Manufacuters like Acer making PC's "to a price" high end sales continue (Sony VAIO, Dell Latitudes, HP Envy's and so on). The thing is that the low end and high end markets exist as different entities in computers, so I think the same will happen with phones.
I understand your augment but I still think it doesn't apply. It's not like toasters where fancy boutique toasters were eliminated by $15 toasters made in bulk in China, there is value in quality when it comes to computers and similar devices and more importantly, people see value in quality in computers.
The Nokia 3310 has not dominated the market for the same reason the $500 Acer Travelmate has not dominated the market, because there are different markets with different needs and expectations. The existence of a low end segment does not cheapen the market when there is a big enough difference in what the market wants.
Where is this happening?
Samsung, LG, HTC, Moto et al. seem more interested in a race to the top providing the best high end phone. Even in Wintel land, its a race to the top with Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and so forth competing for the best product in each price category. Heuwei and others seem more interested in providing the best low end phone possible.
Sorry but your argument is bad.
Competitive environments don't support races to the bottom, only highly restricted environments support products that are deliberately underpowered, striped of features or just not fit for purpose
No, it isn't good for certain one-size fits all competitors. It's excellent for Android customers. UI's sort themselves out as some thrive, some die and orders establish themselves in the same way that various technologies fought on Windows, all can co-exist but one or two become dominant. I'm not a liberatard but the market really will sort this one out.
Try saying fragmentation a few more times, at least you wont sound like more of a fanboy. The fragmentation myth has been disproved time and time again, I mean tweetdeck had all of two android developers for the hundreds of handsets (in reality they coded for 4 versions of Android, 1.5, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2). If you don't know how interpreted code works and why android uses this model you shouldn't be participating in this conversation.
In the end it still comes down to "do or not do". Wintel is still on top because it does more then any other OS (Linux rules the servers because it does more then any other *nix). Windows does nothing, well lets not kid ourselves, its a bloated, buggy, unreliable piece of crap but it runs all my work programs, games and anything else I throw at it. This will be the same on mobile OS's, in a years time there will be a lot that Android does that other mobile OS's don't do, already my Moto Milestone w/Android 2.2 is more like a desktop machine in a form factor that is convenient to make phone calls on.
He's definitely got the evil genius look.
I can see him operating a slow moving death machine and saying "Here's a leak for just you Mr Bond".
Does religion really matter in this?
Would it be (_)BETTER/(_)WORSE if they had of killed a few hundred thousand Baha'i. Well OK, there wouldn't be many Baha'i left so lets use Hindus or Russian Orthodox as a better example, does which invisible sky man they believed in make any difference?
The overwhelming majority of the people killed in the war on terror didn't give a shit about things like that, they just wanted to work, feed their families, have kids and perhaps have a few luxuries like a car.
Ultimately the government made this decision not only because it was the only real right decision as you've pointed out but it's the only real practical decision. How can an ISP tell the difference between a botnet and home email server without doing some kind of snooping that they are currently very reluctant to do.
Better off the block port 25 until the user requests it to be opened (this can easily be done via the web control site that all ISP's have to give each customer to monitor download limits, I believe iinet already does it).
That would be more like the AU govt mandating that Anti-virus be pre-installed on every Computer sold in Australia. Not only would the Mac Fanboys have a kitten but it's nowhere near as useful as it sounds (nor particularly enforceable). Unlike immobilisers it wont deter the bad guys one iota as it doesn't cut off their attack vector.