Well, recently parts of Queensland really have been like the third world. Yet friends in Rockhampton, Yepoon and Bundaberg reported to me no degradation or loss of service from Optus while every other phone carrier lost it. Not that I necessarily recommend Optus.

Oh, most comparisons don't work but some do. I once lived in a (mining) town where if you had drawn a circle of a hundred miles radius there would only have been about 5,000 people inside that circle. Internet was dial up at about 6 bits per second. But nowadays it has good cellphone coverage. Within a few more years everyone who does not have fibre to their home will have a radio equivalent with less than satellite lag. (Google "Australia NBN"). Oh! And nine tenths desert would probably be more accurate than fifty percent. Depends on what you call desert I guess.

But what I was originally alluding to is the comment about Europeans coming to grips with size and distance. I once heard a pommie in a pub mention he was a long haul lorry driver and seem proud of it. When I joked that he must have a lot of stamps in his passport he replied than no, he had never needed a passport. Apparently a hundred miles was a "long haul". In many places in Australia that wouldn't have got you to the next petrol (gas) station. Check out "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Highway" you might find it entertaining.

That never occurred to me. All those different standards. We did have CDMA here also for a while but it never really caught on and (I think) that the government eventually took back its spectrum.

There are some advantages to having the government in control of some things. Every function that has been returned to or sold to private enterprise has suffered. We now have toll roads, electrical failures are common, public transport is too expensive to use etc, etc., ad nauseam. There are some advantages to government monopolies and regulations in some areas.

We had a government toll bridge in Melbourne once and they collected tolls for several years - until they figured out that ninety percent of the tolls were spent on collecting it. So they just dropped it. Improved traffic flow increased its carrying capacity and sped up transport considerably

Turns out that government inefficiencies are often better than private enterprise efficiencies and profit.

Actually I am "overage". But nevertheless I don'y find coverage bad here. Okay, so in lots of places when you are off the main roads or halfway up a mountain the roadside coverage is spotty or bad but when I am playing tourist I don't really care. In the towns or main roads coverage is pretty good considering "the tyranny of distance". What carrier are you using? I have noticed that some are vastly better than others.

I am in Australia. I have a minimal plan. Found overage wherever I want to go. Australia is the size of the USA (possibly excluding Alaska) but has less than one tenth of the population. We seem to do OK.

But have you succeeded? There are different definitions of success. And what makes you think that people in other countries are stupid or lazy?

My point stands. Even in the USA "most" people do not have the "luxury" that you do. And day by day fewer people will be able to maintain that state of "luxury". Remember, karma is a bitch.

It seems to me that nothing is more stupid than playing a negative sum game, win or lose.

An example of this is that our politicians (not yours) built a desalination plant recently - powered by fossil fuel. You cannot solve a problem by making things worse long term. It just compounds the problem for everyone

Overconsumption is a negative sum game. It always was and always will be. It just reduces the size of the pie for everyone. Keep it up and there won't be any pies left for anyone.

Leaders, particularly world leaders should set good examples not bad ones. It is in their own best interest and everyone else's too.

Fair enough. I was intemperate to a degree. But I was getting fed up with people crapping on apple for what I see as no good reason. My three kids have iPhones. One is now four years old and none have battery issues. Do e a favour and ask the people who do have the battery issues if they took Apple's advice and fully discharged their phones at least once a month from new. My guess is that they did not and thus reduced the batteries life by not doing this. Most rechargeable batteries have their flaws or idiosyncrasies.It is wise to follow the manufacturers recommendations to maximise battery lifetime. Apple recommends (on their website) that for maximum battery lifetime you fully discharge at least once a month. The advice I gave my kids and follow myself is that the first time the battery gets low each month is to play video on full brightness until it karks it (dies) and then to charge it to full. They do this and none of us has had any issues.

I am sorry that I was offensive.

Most people (on this world) don't get enough to eat. But I guess they are not real people to you. And the fact that you are consuming their part of the world to support your unconscionable waste doesn't bother you? I've got news for you. It isn't your freedoms they hate you for.

Turn screen brightness to 40 to 50 percent. Turn on automagic brightness. Enjoy.

Go to electronics or auto store. Get a Cigarette lighter to USB thingie. Get a battery holder big enough for a collection of nicads to deliver 12 volts. Rip apart and combine the two devices. If you are going on camping trip get solar-cell charger for nicads.

Twenty, maybe twenty-five bucks. Never have problem again. Uh-oh. Unless you spend two weeks spelunking maybe.

There is no perfectsolutions. After all the sun could stop shining

Yes, it does depend on the phone. I see all these people decrying Apple because you can't remove the battery and replace it. Lol. Never needed to. Six days normal use, 2 days intense use. No battery fading within two years. So, people are not buying iPhones just so they can have this "battery problem? Caveat: I have only used iPhone 3S and 4S. But neither of these have had battery issues. Ever.

If you want to maximise battery life the biggest offender is screen brightness, Mine is par.ked at 50% and then set to automatic adjustment. Same for volumes. Then I only have to worry about dodgy service that cuts in and out as the power needed to connect seems far more than that required to maintain a connection.

I am not saying that there cannot be times when battery life is a problem but for most occasions it is the user's understanding of and interaction with the phone that is the issue.

Christianity, Judaism Islam, they are all pretty much the same. The Abrhamaic God was a vengeful God. When you start with that basis you are going to have problems. Supposedly Christ's god was a loving God but his following was and is tainted by his predecessors.

Why would any God worth his salt want to be "worshipped"? Any God I worship is going to have to be worthy of worship. I have yet to find one of those in any religion in the world.

All religions are a threat. People may not like what I have to say but I do feel threatened when I hear national Catholic archbishops declare the "atheists are making war upon the church" in response to complaints about the handling of priestly pedophiles.

I would consider Bhuddism fairly widespread. Paraphrasing the Dali Lama, where science disproves a bhuddist belief then it is Bhuddism that must change not science.

The song contains the line, IIRC, nineteen for you and one for me. The actual numbers don't seem that important to me. Just that taxation should asymptotically approach income.

Ummm... What is the HIPAA fine per page? All I am saying that if people think that it is secure they are wrong. Very little is secured or can be secured. That is just a fact of life. Any body who talks a bout a secure server of a secured network is someone who you might want to reconsider hiring.

Security is an active process that needs constant monitoring. Then who watches those who do the monitoring?