As is Australia.

As much as this may be beneficial to scientists, I feel that in the case of publicly-funded institutions, it would set a bad precedent for the overall cause of public sector transparency. It has been a long, hard fight for increased transparency in government (FOI laws and such) and I think creating an exception for scientific agencies doesn't send the right message.

This story displays an incredibly low understanding about what a QR code even is, let alone how you would write a QR code reader for a secure environment. I'm surprised this even got accepted.

In Australia, for most purposes we still use paper ballots. (There are a few exceptions - ACT territory elections have *optional* computer-based voting, and NSW state elections have an *optional* online voting system for some absentee or disabled voters.)

On election night, officials at every polling place - who are required to sign a declaration, under penalty, that they are not politically active - do an initial hand count of first-preference votes (yes, we have IRV and STV ballots here) and the votes for the top two front runners. These are the numbers that make their way to the internet in a matter of minutes and are used for the election night media coverage - but they actually have no legal significance at all, they're basically purely for the media coverage.

The real counting happens the week after election day, when all ballots are transported to the local electoral office for counting. For elections that use IRV ballots (e.g. the federal House of Representatives), the ballots are all hand counted. For STV ballots (e.g. the federal Senate), they do use computer based counting, however the paper ballots are retained and a hand count can be done if necessary. If there are any issues that arise, the Returning Officer has the discretion to order a recount as necessary, without necessarily needing court orders or anything like that.

The *entire process* - opening the polls, conducting the polling, closing the polls, the first count, the second count, and any recounts - takes place in front of candidate-appointed scrutineers (not quite as good as being public, but it's close enough). Every candidate can appoint scrutineers to witness the whole process and make objections.

And this is how Australia has elections that are virtually unchallengeable - for a typical federal election, there will usually be at most one serious dispute, and only in districts with the tiniest of margins where they need a judge to make the final decision. Heck, we're experimenting with computer-based and internet-based voting systems, and no-one's raising concerns because the Electoral Commission has such a high reputation for integrity and accuracy.

In the US, sure. Outside of the US, US government works may very well be covered by local copyright laws. In many countries, government works are protected by copyright, and it may very well be the case that the same provisions apply to US government works within their jurisdiction.

If you look at the court records, it wasn't actually AFACT that sued - it was its member companies (Roadshow, Universal, Paramount etc). AFACT wasn't actually party to the case.

Agreed. I'm Australian, and I'm enrolled in a CS major - but I do my classes along side IT and SE students... as far as I'm concerned, all three terms are fairly close, just with some subtle differences. The umbrella term for everything, whether it's programming, consulting, sysadmin, etc. is 'IT'. This American differentiation between IT and CS just confuses me...

I'm a university student, and I send and receive less than 5 a day, on average. (That's including events such as Humans vs Zombies week.) Then again, I'm the sort of nerd who spends his time on Slashdot...

Here in Australia, the financial year runs from July to June. Tax returns must generally be filed by the end of October or so, either through filling out the paper form with the aid of the 200-odd page TaxPack manual, or doing it online with their proprietary Windows-only software. The exact complexity of return forms depends on whether you qualify for a short return form, the normal return form, or in my case, the normal return form plus supplementary forms. Taxes here are often called high, but apparently we're quite low compared to many parts of the OECD. Income tax ranges from zero when you earn $180,000. The average is something like 30% or so I think. Other than income tax, we have a Goods and Services Tax (otherwise known as a VAT) on mostly everything, which is 10%. This is applied federally, and the revenue is paid by the feds to the state governments. We've also got a Medicare levy and Medicare levy surcharge which is administered on top of your income tax for certain people depending on income and health insurance status, and there's a few other taxes on various things as well. I don't generally think we're taxed too high - the revenue is needed to fund our health and welfare systems. That said, our state governments are pathetic when it comes to service delivery and there's proposals for federal takeovers of hospitals and things like that which I hope will make things more efficient. As for myself, I'm a student who merely has complex tax affairs due to a combination of welfare payments and self-employment, so I pay no tax at all, get no tax refund, and still have to fill out supplement business forms. :/

My tax year doesn't end until June 30, and then I don't have to file until about October. Although being me, I'll probably have it done by July 3 at latest :P