Posts by sms123

*Cough* - From wikipedia:

"On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion."

The only thing that the reversal did was pass responsibility back to the US states to regulate. I'm not making any judgement on if it's right or wrong (I am not USAian) but facts actually do matter.

and: "thinking a law written in the 18th century on the right to have a gun, has any relevance in modern society."

It's not an 18th century law it's part of the US constitution. The process of changing the US constitution is not exactly easy (especially for this issue). From: https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-government/the-constitution/

"An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification."

Given that one side of politics has control over >50% of the state legislatures even if they can pass the proposed change federally they aren't going to get 75% of the states to agree.

If it was a law I expect that it could have already been repealed**

**But probably not since the democrats had a super majority during at least some of the Obama years and had control of the house and senate for the last two years and have always promised to actually codify Roe v Wade into law but never actually did it. You almost think that they continually ignored as a future wedge issue to fire up the base if ever reversed (they are politicians you know).

If that happened the supreme court could not have reversed Roe v Wade - or would probably have refused to look at it as it would have been moot if there was a federal statute that codified it.

Re: "acting within the rights granted"

I think you can drop at least Red Hat from that list, they do not ship or support ZFS (registration and support subscription required):

https://access.redhat.com/solutions/79633

Re: Wait...what?

With a little google search:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcasting_contracts_in_cricket

The country cricket boards and sometimes the ICC sell the rights (they own them). The Indian cricket team doesn't own the rights to their broadcast matches (BCCI does in India). New Zealand's cricket board is able to sell the rights for matches occuring in New Zealand to whomever they wish.

The above URL does have some extra information about India but if Amazon only has streaming rights (even if live and on-demand) it will still be shown on terrestrial broadcast TV (perhaps only live though - who knows unless you want to find extra information about the actual contractual agreement).

In terms of: "this is exactly what Google is doing." I beg to disagree. I regularly look at news.google.com.au (being in Australia and all) and it does not show any part of an article. It gives you sections containing only the headlines and clicking on any link takes you to the news web site.

That may be diffferent on mobile and who knows what happens when AMP pages are being shown (the news on android usually takes you to an AMP version of the site). I would hope that the original web site gets the ad revenue for the AMP version. If not you may have a point but the desktop web browser version of google news doesn't at all show you any article text or attempt to pass off the original web sites content as having anything to do with google.

I have FTTH it just depends on where you live.

Re: blow torch... pfft

This:

https://india.mongabay.com/2018/09/06/new-antivenom-could-be-a-gamechanger-in-treatment-of-snakebites/

Suggests that number is ~1000 per year, accounting for population (which india has about 53x the population) would be the equivalent of 19 people a year in australia dying. Instead very few people die in Australia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_snake_bites_in_Australia

The important part is: "Wide access to antivenom and adequate medical care has made deaths exceedingly rare with only a few fatalities each year.". 5 people died in 2018 making it ~4 times less likely to die from a snake bite here compared to India.

Re: There's an easy solution to this stupid law

If you're using those apps you are using the wrong apps. Skype already has a backdoor for interception and facebook is under pressure to do the same (if they haven't done so already). You want an app from a company that only does that one app where the reputational loss of caving would end the company if found out.

Alexa hears shouting and a dropped knife.

Says: Would you like me order you a shovel, lye, and a body bag from Amazon Prime?

Re: Ripe for ridicule

It's OPM (Other Peoples Money - aka the taxpayers) what does any government care.

Re: ADSL2 user here (wave)

Fingers crossed, we have a RFS date of the 15th of December (Outer eastern Melbourne). They're pulling new HFC cable underground at the moment (we never had it before) and running it through the existing phone conduit to homes.

Re: How teensie weensie exactly?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser

"... while maintaining the relative outer mold line-6.9 m (22.5 ft) in length with a wingspan of 5.5 m (18.2 ft), ..."

Re: Move to charges based on contention instead of mb/s

| The post assumes that plans should include unlimited data.

No, that's your assumption.

What I am trying to get across is that the formula used by the NBN is overly simplistic and doesn't deliver any reasonable outcome for anyone other than the NBN. CVC pricing could be based on a tier system such that providing less than 5Mb/s per user was penalised for example (warning made up figures change them to suit what you want):

1-4 Mb/s 15.75 per Mb/s

5-9 Mb/s 25.00 + 5.00 per Mb/s above 5

10-14 Mb/s 30.00 + 2.00 per Mb/s above 10

15-19 Mb/s 35.00 + 1.50 per Mb/s above 15

20-29 Mb/s 40.00 + 1.00 per Mb/s above 20

30-50 Mb/s 45.00 + 0.75 per Mb/s above 30

50-100 Mb/s 50.00 + 0.50 per Mb/s above 50

100+ 70.00 + 0.20 per Mb/s above 100

If as an RSP it was cheaper to provide 5Mb/s per user for CVC than 2Mb/s and perception of your service was significantly better why wouldn't you (assuming you had the backhaul from the POI)? You could also announce that the 1-5 tier would no longer be available for purchase from Jan 1st 2020 and as time moves on you drop off the lower tiers and lower the prices if the ARPU got past certain benchmarks.

For at least some ISPs that would probably provide a higher ARPU for the NBN and penalise someone who wanted to provide on 1Mb/s per user. If your AVC charge was $20 you'd get at least 35.75 per user at 1Mb/s per user and more than likely it would be 45 or 50 based upon someone choosing to provide 5Mb/s per user or 10Mb/s per user (which is better than it is currently - the ARPU that is).

If they come with NBN mandated quality of service descriptions (something other than the meaningless speed tier) you'd know what the provided CVC was for an ISP which would allow you to choose one that provided the CVC bandwidth you were willing to pay for. You can play with the values to provide different price signals that guided ISPs into providing something other really poor outcomes.

The only direction is up from what I can tell with ADSL 2+ that connects at around 3Mb (so that's the max I get ever).

Re: Remembering PINs is difficult

Why should you have to remember the PIN? In Australia you can have your PIN changed to be whatever you want (you aren't allowed ones like 1234). Assuming you haven't shared it with someone else or been robbed and been forced to give it to someone else you can keep the same PIN for life. My PIN hasn't changed since I first got some kind of card to use it with.

Re: Quotes

On a lighter note after reading http://www.trevorpott.com/about/

"My comapny is currently on sysadmin contracts for:"

This would be work you can do in your sleep (insert comedy drum rimshot here)?

Re: From 30GB per person to 110GB per person

Because it accurately reflects the state of broadband for most ISP customers.

Also it's rather advanced since not every place (in Victoria at least) had subscriber dialing until some time into the 80s. In a very small mallee town from 1979-82 our phone had a knob of the front that you turned to get the operator to answer and you told them what number you wanted to call or the town and number you wanted in the case of another manual exchange. The operator was a very nice lady who everyone knew because of the size of the town so you usually had a chat with her before your call went through.

Re: there's plenty of people willing to see ads

Not necessarily. I purchased a computer there for my mother and after a bit of bargaining they actually were the cheapest place to get it. You just won't get anything cheap there if you're doing the xx months interest free thing.

Re: Nothing wrong with Australian Internet...

Yes, and you probably live near the exchange and get 20+Mbps. You didn't stop to think about anyone else who may be further from the exchange (like me getting under 3Mbps down where a gig takes a long longer than you).

Basically you're saying "F everyone else I'm ok". Ever thought what may happen if you move and you find yourself unable to get cable, ADSL, or you're far enough from the exchange that you only get 2-3Mbps or (shudder) have to rely on 3 or 4G wireless at extortionate prices?

Re: I just want 5mbs, relaiably

I think you missed his point. He seems to be arguing that Akami has a better idea of speed than most. It's less about ISP service and more about physics some people live a long way from their exchange.

The ABS statistics while interesting are somewhat misleading. They measure "advertised" speeds - ADSL2+ is almost definitely lumped into the 8-24Mb range. I have ADSL2+ yet my sync speed is 3 down 1 up because I'm 4.9km from my exchange (despite the fact that there are two other exchanges within 2km of my home - I'm unable to get service from those exchanges or at least unwilling to make the switch because there's no guarantee that I will get ADSL2+ ports at those exchanges). There's no cable here because the estate where I live was created after the cable roll out.

It's not surprising that Akami's measurements are significantly worse than the ABS stats but the Akami stats are more likely to reflect reality that any advertised speed for broadband service.

Most people who bemoan the NBN do so because they live close to an exchange or are in a cable area and can get fast broadband (the amount of people who seem to think FU we don't need no NBN because I can get fast speeds therefore everyone else must be able to is astounding).

Re: Oh dear

> Not everything american is bad, that's a tad racist!

The comment is a tad daft.

The Americans are not a race of people. They are citizens of one country - the USA. Using the term racism in this way (by a lot of people) causes the term to lose it's impact and, to be honest, it's meaning.