Its a myth that SUV's are safer. Even though larger cars are marginally safer than smaller cars (and this is marginally), they're talking about large sedans like a Toyota Camry vs a small car like a Toyota Yaris (or things like the Aygo we dont get in Oz). SUV's have additional risk in the fact that they're so top heavy they're more likely to roll in an accident which increases the risk of head and neck injuries which are the real killer in car crashes.

A lot of Australian states have been stupidly banning novice drivers from high powered cars but research from Curtain University in Western Australia has demonstrated that high powered cars (cars in excess of 125KW per ton) not highly represented in fatal crashes, in fact the vehicle type most represented in young driver fatalities were 4x4's.

No you're not.

Like many people I also have a job, life and girlfriend, but I also play games.

But I do have one objection. Many multiplayer games are mature and tend to attract mature people. Step away from the COD and Halo twitch shooters and get into something a bit more tactical like World of Tanks or War Thunder where someone who thinks is more effective than the fastest person on the button. In fact, step away from the console and get onto PC, the PCGMR tends to attract more mature people and has a lot of communities target older gamers who run their own servers (I.E. like the TOG (The Older Gamers) clan in Australia).

the only thing new was the source engine, the game half-life 2 by it self wasnt any marvel of its time, but it had a great story and was well made, but frankly it doesnt and didnt stand up to bring in new things into game play mechanics for its time

If we pick on any single aspect of the game, there were far superior games released at the same time. There were games that looked better, games that played better and games with better stories. The problem was that these games only excelled at one thing. Half Life and Half Life 2 bought all of these factors together. It had great graphics, it had great gameplay and it had a great story all at the same time.

Above this, HL and HL2 both mastered the art of unobtrusive storytelling. The transition between playing and storytelling was so seamless you didn't even notice that you'd stopped playing and started listening, What makes it truly amazing is that they did the whole thing without a single cutscene that restricted the player (excluding the start cut scene), it was masterful direction that kept the player focused on the story when they still had free reign. 10 years on from HL2, few other games can do the same thing and still what sets the Half Life series apart.

Uber is tracking where both drivers and passengers are, and the fact that a passenger has booked with a particular driver...

And you think that is a good thing.

But if that driver decides to stop and assault you, tracking them will do nothing as it's still a he-said/she-said case in court.

OTOH, taxis in my city are fitted with CCTV cameras inside and out. In the unlikely event the footage is unavailable (the companies have never hesitated to turn it over because it gets them off the liabilty hook) it still counts in my favour.

How does telling the PSAP (public safety answering point) that cellular 911 service is out save lives? How does the PSAP tell people who can't call in that they can't call in?

It tells the local police to send out more officers on patrol, patrolling officers can be instructed to keep an eye out. Calls direct to the station will be taken more seriously.

I'm sure the local emergency services have a contingency plan for then PSAP goes down.

So you dont care how a product is made, as long as it's served to you nicely?

Well you are an Apple fanboy.

The problem is, every Uber car I've ever gotten into has been a terrible mess, unwashed and bad smelling, much like the drivers. The last one was a Pug 208 deisel that looked like it had never been cleaned since the dealer got rid of it (and it looks like the dealer got rid of by chucking it out with some food scraps). It looked, smelled and sounded like a farmyard. Compared to this where all the taxis in my city are modern clean cars, either Camry hybrids, Prius or on LPG (so they're all quiet as a whisper), cleaned daily by the taxi company, provide you with a legitimate tax receipt (I can claim a lot of my taxi journeys), pay tax, have knowledgeable drivers and above all else, aren't run by sociopathic idiots.

Uber can keep ripping off their drivers because when they get sick of it, there's a bunch of starry-eyed hopefuls right behind them ready to sell their dignity for a pittance. Eventually they'll run out of suckers and the only people working for them are the ones who have literally been banned from most other jobs though.

Neither side actually wants to implement this stuff, the only reason either party bring up these ideas and have long running inquiries is to buy the votes of independent senators on other matters, particularly those senators from the far right minority parties

Its not just parties like Family First but also factions of their own parties.

What Americans might find difficult to understand is that our parties aren't divided on left and right lines (there are no left win parties left in Oz, even the Greens are extremerly centrist these days). Our major parties (Liberal and Labor) have both left and right elements. Whilst the Liberals tend to be more socially conservative the Labor party has a sizable Christian contingent that are just as backwards. So often legislation like this is introduced to keep the extremists happy even though it'll never pass because the majority of the party will vote against it.

G'day,

This is the kind of bollocks that the government has been talking about since day one. Mostly driven by the deplorable ACT Attourney General, George Brandis.

The first thing I should point out is that it's just talk. They're talking about introducing legislation to parliment. They haven't done anything but talk.

The second thing is, the Libs face a hostile senate. The Liberal party are our conservatives BTW. Whilst they can pass it in the lower house, it will fail in the upper house.

The third thing is, they will face a revolt from their back bench, many of whom are facing re-election in the next 18 months in an environment where the Liberal party is losing almost every election they're coming up against. So a lot of them are thinking of their own good over the parties.

Finally, ISP's are a powerful lobby over here and you can bet they dont want to turn customers to smaller ISP's who will skirt the laws.

So I'm not worried. the LNP (Liberal/National Party) haven't been able to do much of anything and what they have done has earned them a severe backlash.

Not quite, The analysis demonstrated that if you've gone a little bit out of your way to get a certain type of pen, you're more likely to be a good writer.

Having worked in a call centre and knowing many others who have. It isn't the repetition or mind numbingness that causes dissatisfaction. Its the constant abuse from unreasonable callers that makes the job so unpalatable that you'd rather work in a real cesspool. It stems from the fact that most people are ignorant, arrogant, unreasonable and uneducated arseholes that are only ever constrained by the fact that someone will punch them for being such an arse to their face. When given a safe distance, they're itching to become the wankers they know they can be.

Working in a call centre really destroys your faith in humanity.

It was an unfinished buggy mess and if you buy the DLC, it becomes a slightly less unfinished but still completely buggy mess.

I've been playing Civ since before Civ had a number and Civ V is the only time I've actually gone back to the previous version because it was better. Civ sequels have always been evolutionary. A refining of the original idea. Civ V was a dogs breakfast of dumbed down non-civ games with a Civ coat of paint thrown over the top and used the name to try to make it sell.

Beyond this, the beyond awful AI. I mean what world leader says "Look at the wide open land, ready for an empire to expand. I will build two cities and no more" because that's exactly what happens in Civ V.

EA screwed Civ like they screwed SimCity. All we need now is for someone else to release Call to Power 3 that is basically Civ IV with an updated graphics engine.

The bar likes it because they don't have to handle the cash.

Actually the bar hates it because they're now having to pay merchant fees where as with cash, they didn't.

This means they have to raise prices, raising prices means they will lose customers. Its a total loss for them.

It was actually my sister who asked me to buy it.

So I wish upon you that your children place you in the dodgiest pensioners home that they can find on 60 minutes.

Yep. Great system, though a little awkward when tipping and they're standing over you staring as you go to push the 10- no, 15- no, [gulp] 20% button. Maybe that's why they don't tip much in Europe.

They dont tip much in Europe because everyone is paid a wage they can live off. I know, what a novel idea.

However with tipping a fix to that is easy. Just add the tip to the end of the bill before putting it into the machine. If you go the same route as the rest of the world this is what you'll have to do as the EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer, Point Of Sale) device will not be able to change the value of the transaction once it has been entered or passed through to the device.

Also the waiter doesn't stand over you. They give you the device then walk away like they currently do with bills, at a good restaurant wait staff will only step in like a well trained butler if you need assistance.

Often I find kids will eschew high tech toys in favour of a simple cardboard box. I gave my nephew a simple electronic drum kit for Christmas (it was to help with developing his co-ordination and to give him better musical tastes than his parents, so there was some thought into the gift) but he spent the entire day running around with the box it came in and having a ball. You wouldn't have been able to pry that box off him with a crow bar.

You dont need to get high tech toys for kids, they'll enjoy lego, blocks, matchbox cars and the like just as much as I did when I was a kid. Hell, one of the best things you had to play with was a large refrigerator box.