djsherly

macguy85 said:

loopless said:

The current conservative government in Australia is self-destructing just like the Republicans in the US, hopefully the next government will change this stupid law. 
And don't knock Australia's democracy, it is a far more democratic country that the US. No gerrymandering, no dis-enfranchisment of minorities, and a far greater percentage of eligible voters actually get out and vote (on a weekend!) And far, far fewer guns. Oh, and universal healthcare. But I digress...

You obviously do not understand Australia Law.  Australian, by law, have to vote.  If they do not show up at the polls they receive a fine from the government.  That's why it's held on a weekend.  In fact, it unfortunately throws of their economy within the country leading up to an election because Australians will typically not travel at that time so they can vote without a fine.

Australia is a fantastic country, but to think they don't have their own issues is a gross assumption.

I’ve never heard of this criticism of compulsory voting. I think there are two points to make.

1. You have to turn up at a polling place and have your name marked off the roll. You then get a ballot paper and you get to vote in secret. Hint: who said you had to mark the paper A good percentage of votes are informal, deliberate or otherwise

2. If you know you are travelling you can do two things: pre-poll ballot, they’re available for a period of time before the poll date. Or you just turn up at a polling booth where you are and get the form for your electorate. In any event, the fine is $20 and can be waived.

This legislation passed because there were two bills before the parliament (specifically the senate) on the last sitting day of the year. One was to compel the government to treat sick asylum seeking children in Australia based on doctor’s advice (rather than at the discretion of the minister responsible for immigration), the other was this piece of shit. Both of these bills had to be discussed in the Senate.

The opposition and the government were both playing games.

The opposition had agreed in principle to this encryption bill but had wished to make amendments. These had to be debated in the senate before they became law.

The government did not want to have to deal with the refugee bill because passing in the senate would send it to the lower house, where it would have lost a vote - it would then become law. This would have signalled a loss in the confidence of the government. In a traditional situation, a government would dissolve parliament and cause an election. This is because the government has lost the power of a significant piece of legislation. A significant party of the ruling party’s platform is based on managing refugees, if you want to use a term loosely.

So the government filibustered the vote on the refugee bill until the lower house shut down for the year. In the ordinary course of events, and it happens often, a movement is made to the extend the hours of the lower house. No such movement was made. The government would rather not deal with refugees, or their loss of confidence that would ensue, and as a consequence, they were prepared to risk not passing the encryption bill.   

In the meantime, the government wedged the opposition on the encryption bill, claiming terrorists and pedophiles were going to run riot on whatsapp over Christmas. So the opposition crumbled and waved the bill through without considering the amendments.

So that’s why we can read your messages. It seems like a bit of a Trojan horse to be honest. It allows us to provide state aid to those other states who seek it. Including those states whose maximum penalties for offences is death. This is also at odds with australia’s Moral stance on capital punishment.

All in all, a really poor showing by our government and opposition. 

sflocal said:

My friend is a Surface Book fan and when we went on a diving trip a couple years back, bringing our respective mobile devices (I brought my MacBook Pro), his Suface Book was so unreliable, would randomly freeze that at one point, he literally slammed his mouse on the display in frustration that I thought he was going to break it.  

Just pieces of junk.  People must really hate Apple to its core to defend their Microsoft purchases.  

Sample size of one. My friends surface book has been rock solid since day one. There’s always going to be QC issues. 2 of the three MacBooks I’ve owned were replaced by apple because they were defective. Doesn’t mean they weren’t my favourite computing platform. 

22july2013 said:

This article says it works with my TV, and then says the Hue Sync app can synchronize the light to what's playing on the TV. How does an app know what's on my TV? There could be several explanations, like the TV must be a computer monitor, or it might have to be an Apple TV monitor, or it might have an optical sensor that you place in front of the TV. Lots of possibilities, but which one is the right one? 

Right now, theres a hue app which you can install on your pc/mac which measures the screens 
Light/color output and adjusts the lights you have configured for hue play/entertainment. For instance you may have a bulb either side of your monitor, it will output light on those bulbs to match the screen.

problem is that for streaming like netflix, the software intercepts the video stream. Netflix interpets thats as some kind of hdcp violation and netflix plays a black acreen. so, you get no picture, also no lights....

not sure if this new thing is any different....

claire1 said:

nunzy said:

Samsung has already copied taking away the home button. They have no shame..

Because the stupid USPTO puts patents of big companies up on public display. Samsung has been doing this for a decade.

So you do understand that’s the whole point of a Patent? You disclose your invention to the public in exchange for protection of said invention?

There’s no part in the article where this is all googles fault. I must have missed something. 

But seriously, the connections here between themes are a bit of a stretch.