Heven Forbid
Heaven forbid we actually move to a system where you can't claim a "Mandate" because only 60% of the Uk population voted against your party.
2434 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jan 2007
Those pushing against PR are currently the big winners in a system thats gerrymadered so much to ensure that either the Labour Party, or Conservatives, sit at the top (if not run outright) any government.
There's a simple way to ensure that elected folk are representative... Big regions (maybe the size of an ITV franchise) with a number of seats based on population, elected PR/AV.
In Australia, they Vote on a saturday, close the polls at 5pm, have manditory voting (so 100% turnout all done before 5pm) , and you can go to any polling station in your electorate. Each polling station has a couple of copies of the roll to speed things up.
No staying up all night to learn who the PM is, you'll probably know by midnight.
How could this happen? After all, since the dawn of the 21st century, the system has been very simple: we just visit vote.gov.uk, tap in our unique voter number, and press a button to indicate which party we want to vote for. Voting closes at 10 pm - and the national result is declared some 60 seconds later.
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And here we build the tools of Tyrany. I think we've seen exactly (thanks to Diebold) what happens with electronic voting without a paper trail. One guy gets too many votes, and the other guy gets a negative number of votes.
There can be no true faith in our vote if there is not a physical vote to count. I'd have thought a technology news website would know all to well how easy electronic data can be manipulated. Guess I thought wrong.
Okay, so it costs what, $99 to join the app store, but after that, if you want, you can put 0 as the price for all your apps. So that's web retail space and storage forever for as many apps you like...
Yeah, real money spinner.
It's been said a billion times already but iTunes store isn't designed to be a profit spinner in it's own right, it's there to push hardware sales. Having free flash web pages doesn't effect that in any way, unless they cause a performance hit, which they seemingly do.
I think you're forgetting that these are businesses. They aren't "Internet for everyone" Charities. Their prime directive (despite their marketing campaign) isn't to look after you, its to look after the people that own the company ("Maximise Shareholder Value").
Why the heck should they spend millions on "their childrens' Inheritence" to subsidise your lifestyle? If they aren't going to make a profit on hooking up your homestead, then it would be irresponsible of them to do so.
Perhaps we do need a charity to look after country areas that can offer internet on a not-for-profit basis... But even then it still wouldnt be at the cheap prices that you get in the cities.
After the merger we still have:
Three mobile networks - t/3/o, Voda, O2
three big brands on the T/3/o network (3, Torrange and virgin)
Two big brands on the O2 network (o2 and Tesco)
another virtual operator to come (TalkTalk)
and about a squilliion smaller virtual operators.
Still plenty of competition, more than enough.
From the guardian:
The main concern was about the merger's effect on the future of 3, which has driven price competition in recent years. However, over the weekend, 3, which is owned by the Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, signed a new deal with T-Mobile and Orange, which will give it access to 3,000 more mast sites across the UK over the next few years, bringing the total to 16,000, the largest 3G network in the country.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/21/orange-t-mobile-merger
I don't think 3 have anything to worry about.
From how I understand the article to be positioned, The research isn't saying that chip and pin is bad and should be eliminated, just the "it's chip and pin so there's no fraud" attitude.
Anyone taking that attidue about any computer system should be shot.
All of these posts that say "the iPad sucks because it's not a laptop" only succeed in showing how well they fail to understand the point.
Repeat after me: The iPad is Not a laptop. There, do we feel better now?
The iPad isn't a computer as we've cone to use the term, it's an alternative computing device. To say that the iPad is crap because it doesn't have laptop features is like saying a Helicopter is crap because it doesn't go as fast as an aeroplane - well duh, different tools for different jobs. It's an alternative style to get some of the same things done, and some other things that your laptop isn't built to do well.
There are things that both factors will do well. Are there situations where the iPad will be easier and more useful than a netbook - yes; and vice versa.
Now can we please stop critisibg the apple because you can't use it to make orange juice? (pun unintended).
I can actually see a few situations where it might be useful. You want to be productive on the train/plane/Carpool and using a full fledged laptop is to uncomortable, or to shut up the kids with a mini media centre in the back seat.
Not for me, and I think the Analysts sales predictions are WAY off, but I think there is a market there.
I have an offer for Mr Chavez,
I note with interest that you've rolled out the "violent video games teach you to kill" line. Well Mr Chavez, I've recently been putting a lot of time into "trauma hospital" on the Wii. If for some reason you need a surgon, I'm happy to do it. I've not been playing on the hard level, so there's no charge for my services.
Jack Thompson, if you're out there, the offer applies to you too.
What I've seen online suggests that the nexus is no better than android phones already out there. So as an iPhone user I have to ask: what does it do that I don't already have, or do better than I already have.
The only answer I can see so far is that I can bypass the official app store if I want (and possibly open myself up to apps that do something other than advertised).
Me too! Isn't enough to be a hit (outside of Entertainment).
Apple are taking the malware issue proactively. If you havent made unauthorised changes to your phone, all your software is installed via the app store, which is reviewed and malware rejected.
If you have made unauthorised changes to your phone, well that's not apple's fault.
If you use the device, as directed, no anti malware program required!
To ensure an outright ban on children instead?
I mean if there are no children, there can be no child porn, whereas the availability of regular porn can't effect directly effect the level of kiddie porn.
It's easier for dirty mags to be passed through the black Market than children, it's also harder to hide children if you're raided.
(all comments made in jest to highlight the absurdity of the situation).