Aussie Government
There's only one thing you can say to the likes of O'Connor and Conroy - "Oh do fuck off". Best accompanied by some subtle and dismissive hand waving.
3432 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
Are a disgrace and should need an explicit opt-in by the customer for any contract of any kind. Insurance companies are absolute arseholes at this - "we thought we'd automatically renew your insurance at a highly inflated new premium level for your convenience unless you send us engraved tablets 3 weeks in advance telling us not to".
You're missing a very big point - the Aussies buy straight from the yanks because they have zero options - there is absolutely no way they could ever build a combat aircraft without resorting to sticking a gattling gun on a Cessna and both of these would have to be bought from overseas.
I think Asus do a little eeebox unit with nVidia Ion technology and an Atom processor. It's likely far better suited to this role - small cramped box, plenty of heat generation (and Paris icon). Also I'd happily forgo an inbuilt dual tv-tuner as a usb one will suffice given an inbuilt will probably not be DVB-T2.
Just curious as to why you'd have a DR VM and not use a movable machine? Or do you mean half run in your prod datacentre and half in your BCP/DR datacentre which would seem more likely?
If not, maybe I'm missing something but I'm pretty sure my DR is my Prod VM flipped to the BCP hosting (or alternative node in prod cluster) automatically. Machine is SAN stored and replicated.
"Apple have the right idea, produce a limited number of models and just make sure they are good. They have one phone and one tablet."
Except they don't. You can get 16,32, and 64GB iPads with or without 3G. Technically 6 models. Same for the iPhone with the 3GS still available in 8GB size. Maybe Dell is just making an extra memory variant, maybe not?
I think the competition in the OS space from Apple's iOS and OSX and Google's Android (along with improvements in Linux distros) has been fantastic for the end user as it has finally provided a mighty size 11 boot up the arse of MS and forced them to actually produce some decent stuff - I'm no fanboy but I think Windows 7 hits the mark. It's not perfect but it's much appreciated.
"So if these cyclists in London happen to be the City Banking type that earn mega money and huge bonus's, then they probably pay a lot more tax than the delivery driver in his van even taking into account VED etc"
City bankers don't pay tax, or at least not too much. Read the articles on Barclays corporate taxation for indications of the principles.
When you say combination of do you mean RAR in a truecrypt container or some in RAR, others in truecrypt - I'd be interested to know as I'm assuming brute-forcing AES-128 inside cascading Truecrypt would be bloody difficult. Any ideas of hidden container or not?
Does anyone know what passphrase length could reasonably be implied for a cascading truecrypt (or AES -128 or AES-256) container to hold out for 9 months? Just wondering whether this dude just used the right tools incorrectly or not.
When I first came to Oz I was surprised by the vast number of highly inefficient V6 and V8 cars on the roads - think cheap and thirsty US lumps rather than expensive and lean German engines. For this reason alone I cannot see electric car use taking off. I also thought there is/was a rule governing the minimum distance a vehicle can travel between refills here which, if true, would absolutely knacker EV rather than hybrid vehicles.
Other than the ITIL-centric management twats I mentioned in my previous post you have the self-serving theoretical crap espoused by external (and internal) auditors to thank for your access woes. Audit says blah having access to abc is an issue. We must clear up all our audit points. You can;t have access etc etc. Yet another group of pillocks that have never cut code or operated in the real world at the pointy end. Yes, I hate auditors too.
Ah cars, that old favourite. You'll be pleased to know that I looked into the pricing of a BMW M5 (can't afford one, just a good example of an import).
UK driveaway was GBP60k (less than $120k at the time).
AU base was (IIRC) $180k. Luxury car tax added about $40k. Then a few other bits and you had about $225k driveaway.
From above you could basically buy it, ship it, and pay your dues and save a fortune.
Cars, as you indicate, are one of the worst areas. No competition, no worries.
Has Conroy not noticed that retail doesn't rely on uber-fast broadband to succeed? It's about retailers selling what people want for prices they want to pay and the connection speed doesn't have to be that great for it to happen. The actual problem is the lack of web presence that he notes - advertising the NBN as a cure-all is typical BS. Even large companies like Harvey Norman never used to list anything on their websites until recently but, like many others still do, instead had a link to "the latest catalogue". How quaint in 2011. In the UK you've been able to order online from large businesses (at your convenience) for years. Retailers here need to learn that the rip the customer off thieving bastard business model has gone.
PS Australia cannot lose it's international competitiveness because it would first need to get some as witnessed by the fact I can buy goods from the US or Europe, get them shipped, pay any taxes and still have change to spare (and plenty of it) over the local price.
"The fact that some of these services are already available elsewhere ("why don't you just use your PHONE, idiot") is not an argument; why would I use multiple services when one site can provide them all adequately for me?"
Are we to presume therefore that you do not have a phone as you wouldn't use multiple services and only communicate through the f-word from a PC/Laptop/etc? No need to respond - I'm being facetious.
"Yes, privacy is an issue and facebook's attitude to it bothers me but doesn't outweigh the benefits of it for me."
Trouble is that when it does outweigh it it'll be too late to do anything about it. Account deletion becomes irrelevant if the troublesome private bits are cached/stored all around the web by then.
Although many may not agree, I believe the biggest problem with teaching is the pay structure (block pay bargaining and unionism). I know that bonuses were given in the past, for instance, to attract males to early school teaching and to attract maths teachers to take them above the normal pay-scale but that's not enough.
We have to face facts in that, although many do the job for the love of it (I myself could never entertain the thought) it is still cold hard currency that keeps the roof above your head. I see no reason why a brilliant maths teacher (or any other subject) should live a shit life because they teach. I know there are those that state "if you want better pay then work in private industry" - I used to be one before I had kids - but that ignores the fact that you will therefore be sentencing kids to either a shit education or a costly one and society will reap the outcome of this. Good teachers and those in much needed areas should be separated from the abhorrent bullshit that is the "you've been teaching for 8 years so you're at this level" crap that goes on.
Why should someone who may be crap earn more just because there's a couple more years on the dial? Can't see it happening though.
Did you choke on your humble pie, sat on your soap box as you ranted away whilst reading the daily mail?
Given the recent financial crisis you should be glad contractors exist as most would have got the bullet first saving your unambitious arse from landing on the street. Why don't you go and explain to them where their redundancy payments went to seeing as you're so sure they're employees?
Where's a fuckwit icon when you need one?
It may well seem logical to you that mobile complements the fibre userbase rather than cannibalises it but that is before you take into account that Aussie providers charge like a wounded rhino and the vast majority will choose one or the other. I accept your statement over wireless flakiness and posit that they will choose NBN. They may have NBN + 3G (as you need something for your phone and it's hard to get less) but I believe it will be quite some time until 4G becomes so rudimentary that users will have both on cost grounds alone.
In relevance to the article, Telstra are pricks and charge the most for both services especially when they get a sniff of being practically a sole provider in an area. An example being their NextG network. When I got my mobile contract the same service (calls + data) on NextG was almost twice the price. As far as I'm concerned it may be fast but they can rapidly shove it up their arse unless the price is right (for once).
I live in Oz and, trust me, other than the "innit, like" brigade the grasp of the language here is decidedly sub-par with one delightful privately educated colleague using the term "deers". Outsourcing needs to come with a massive cost saving to justify the shit you have to put up with and you won't be finding that in the supposedly lucky country.
Then the answer is to have a system like Australia's BPAY system whereby you have a biller code and reference number. Allocation is therefore automated as they gave you the two numbers in the first place. I always remember paying my bills via bill payment on my HSBC online account required a reference number with an input mask - I would seriously doubt that involves manual allocation on account of the human error factor.