The conundrum:

Current government is incredibly totalitarian in its data retention and censorship policies, but is funding the rollout of a national fibre broadband network... making the task of achieving their former policies definately non trivial and probably impossible...

Other side is lead by a foaming at the mouth christian but we dont quite know where they sit on censorship and data retention (although we can perhaps add one and one there...), but they will cancel the funding of the national broadband network... making sure we get stuck wandering around with out pants around our ankles as the former state owned monopoly continue to monopolise telecommunications and, coincidentally, make sure it is slightly less impossible to implement a totalitarian information dictatorship.

The real question; is a giant cluster of fat glass pipes enough sugar to make me eat a guaranteed dose of big brother or risk a possible dose of bush scale christian extremism along with the bigbrotherness that accompanies it... or are there other issues to decide this election on (we haven't seen them roll out this terms big wedge issue yet, although there are a few hints).

Perhaps we could use a third party?? No, USA, we dont want to borrow Nader!
Damn democracy, pity all the alternatives are even crapper!
just my $0.02.
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jak.

Indeed... If a person placed a note under my door threatening my family in the middle of the night would be cause for concern regarding the behavior of deranged and possibly violent people who stalk my house. I just do not see what this has to do with gamers. I can't think of any way in which the alleged commission of any crime can be caused by your enjoying video games.

I mean, they arrested a shotgun wielding bandit in Adelaide recently and he had a drivers license and lived in a house... so are we to be scared of drivers and people who aren't homeless now because they will all shoot us in the face with a shotgun??? or should we perhaps reserve that particular fear for shotgun wielding bandits regardless of their hobbies?

It is a gross overstatement to tar all people who share a hobby with the acts of a single individual who claims to share that hobby but cannot prove it.

I could go on to discuss the base rate fallacy in this context but I feel my point is made.
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jak.

Simply listing ALL software that is used, the vendor and the cost. This is then not an endorsement, simply informing the public.

If it happens that alot of the software is open source and cheap, then that is just fact; not endorsement.

Just my $0.02
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jak.

Spot on... if the form factor of the netbook is much larger than my moleskin then I cant carry them both in the same hand and will have to start encumbering myself with bags and crap. 9" is ideal, 10" is acceptable... 12" is approaching the size of my huge arse slate... just not readily portable unaided and regular notebooks already well serve this portion of the marketplace.

just my $0.02
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jak.

Actually, it is as excess agricultural production increases labour is freed up from the demands of subsistence and can now be deployed to other activities. This eventually leads to the creation of 'wealth' by trading that excess labour created by excess food. The rest, health care, sanitation etc; these are just engineering solutions to maximising the effectiveness of urbanisation.

Well, that is a gross simplification; still... economies have grown on this basis for at least 3,000 years.

The problem is we don't have another paradigm... and if climate change (man made or otherwise), population growth (well, this has to be man made) or some other factor starts to reduce the excess agricultural production; well, then, those of us who aren't farmers will no longer be able to get the food required to keep us off the farm and being useful in other areas...

Scary, neh?
Just my $0.02
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jak.

...the map is not the landscape.

This is a compelling model in that it significantly differs from the form of modelling used in Macro economic forecasting, which makes it useful for debate.

This is still, however, a process model that grossly simplifies the system and is therefore subject to the same limitations as all models; that they are not reality. You can use them to determine relative weightings between different situations but cannot use them to predict the future.

I applaud the concept of introducing different modelling techniques into economic (indeed any) debate; but do not make the mistake of drawing long term conclusions from the results of any one technique, no matter how appealing.

The sad thing is that Academic publication is so insular that a paper such as this did not get play in economic journals... in the same way that an economists take on super symmetry would never get published in a physics journal. The mono-disciplinary goggles that most journals apply is the real danger to progress in almost every field of science. It is more important that we consider the merits of the views and arguments of those who disagree with us than wrap ourselves in a comforting blanket of people who agree with us completely, as they do not inform us.

Just my $0.02.
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jak.

and the sentiment is no less true.

My observation is that we shaven monkeys that make up the human race are fundamentally incapable of maintenance in any sense. Rather than maintain something in as-new functional condition (maintenance) so it does not fail, we choose to either fix it (fixenance) or replace it (buyenance) when it does.

A factory that makes plastic widgets is just as likely to make these same mistakes in relation to their machinery.

Just my $0.02
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jak.

The key point missing here is how many actual transactions that 20% of non pirates represents. That such a large proportion pirated it is interesting, but is there any harm? is there sales diversion (I think we may safely assume that someone who is willing to circumvent a fee of $3; $2 now apparently; can never be considered a lost sale; granted there may be a small subset who live in a region it isnt offered for sale or do not have a means of payment acceptable to iTunes.)? or is this noise obscuring the real signal, did the effort of developing the app and submitting it to iTunes store pay off?

It might be that an 80% piracy rate is a broadly unavoidable part of the system; are the two even comparable sets of data or do 100% of people who have heard about it and are willing to pay for stuff buy it and 100% of idiots who have heard of it and like to fill their phone with a bazillion things for no useful reason pirate it. The real question should be does it impact profits and return on investment and are the costs of preventing it ever going to be recouped with additional sales?

Personally I am firmly in the category where I would shell out $3 on the strength of a few screenshots without a demo, it just isn't expensive enough to worry about for me. Hell, I shell out much more than that on steam pre-orders just on the strength of who is developing a game. The question remains is this level of piracy even causing a problem?

I am not going to attack the morals or ethics here, you make your choices and takes your chances; Personally I am of the view that piracy can not be justified; it is something you do as a child before you have finished learning right from wrong. You want to make a free software stand, then do not use commercial software. You want something, buy it, build it or trade for it; not willing to do that, live without it. Sure, current business models may be broken and I am sick of being treated like a fscking criminal by every game publisher who isn't stardock, but that doesnt change my view.

Just my $0.02
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jak.

Dr. Tim Flannery is someone whose work I have introduced all of my young relatives too. He may not be as well recognised outside of Australian and I can honestly say I don't always share his viewpoint; but he conveys the points well and with great passion.

Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki has been doing a scientifically credible, entertaining and honest version of what the mythbuster's do on radio in Australia for donkeys years and is pure gold when it comes to making science fun and accessible.

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Jak.

You got the order wrong... Science has nothing to do with faith. It is about choosing the absence of faith. It matters not how strong your faith in an ordered universe is if there exists data that it is not so; as soon as out hypothesis is falsified, we must analyse it with a view to discarding it, no matter how much we want it to be true. If you have faith in science then it has become as dangerous as every other crackpot dogma. Simply, a superior approach to explaining observations rationally to our existing scientific method has yet to be discovered, our current hypothesis remains sound.

Science is about being willing to be wrong (well, it used to be... these days it is about getting published in A journals, sadly). It is about suggesting other than absolutes, about being willing to discard opinions and hypothesis as soon as there exists evidence which falsifies them. The instant your hovering apple is observed, repeated and verified; then we must consider changing or completely discarding the currently accepted hypothesis; if we had faith in this hypothesis, we could not.

To be clear, I have no problem with people having belief's in areas where it is not feasible to prove or disprove or where a falsifiable hypothesis cannot be constructed; I *believe* that is their right and freedom. Belief is not science and vice versa, although they can overlap. Faith is different, it is mutually exclusive, it allows us to justify ignoring data to retain flawed judgements. Faith is where idiots with explosives strapped to them and creationists come from.

**start rant
It is one thing to personally believe in the existence of a god, it is another thing to have faith that an anthropocentric supreme being shat out the universe in a 6 day marathon and turned people into salt and gave immaculate birth to a magical resurrection fairy so strongly that no evidence of the human tendancy to make up stories and write them down and speak falsehoods to maintain power will dissuade you from it.

Faith is the most dangerous thing a human can have, because it involves blinding ourselves to other views and evidence.
**end rant

I don't have faith in an ordered universe, for all I know there may be a deranged supreme being fiddling with everything we do for their own jollies; but I cannot offer data which supports such a hypothesis nor form an exclusive null hypothesis. However, the hypothesis that the universe is amenable to observation and measurement is supported by reams of data showing repeatable results from controlled methodologies.

Of course, this doesn't consider retrocausality! :)

Just my $0.02.
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jak.

Since when did Apple give a shit about the "Average Person"; for all their failings, what I will always respect is that Apple would rather make Dollars on one sale than cents on a hundred.

Their value proposition is aimed at the top of the top of the market with significant disposable income and a great interest in non technical attributes (such as brand, design etc...).

If average people or even "power users" buy them, thats just cream; but they will remain happy as long as they are the device of choice for the wealthiest slice of the market.

This is why they punch so far above their weight in terms of media coverage, sales margins etc. considering how relatively small a company they are.

No, that Ballmer doesn't get this should be truly worrying to Microsoft employees and shareholders.

Colour me amused.
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jak.