AusPoliGAF |OT| Boats? What Boats?

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Candescence said:
Data retention is pointless, is actually not very useful for law enforcement (and in some cases actually detrimental to law enforcement due to the sheer volume of information merely making a larger haystack) and easily circumvented. The only thing it does is breach privacy.

Seriously, mass digital surveillance is useless. Actual criminals and terrorists will use much more secure means of communication, if not avoid the internet altogether. There are terrorists in the Middle East who get cheap SIM cards for the express purpose of making a call in the middle of nowhere and then dispose of it immediately after.
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That's not exactly applicable in Australia. As a country we actually already have fairly invasive and controlling powers for our regulatory and law enforcement agencies (we have a fairly solid censorship regime for a western country and LEO have warrantless access to huge amounts of data already, including things like your recent SMSs). Though their enforcement is balls. In theory you can't purchase a SIM here without filling out a form with a bunch of identifying data, in practice given a couple of trips to a supermarket and a disposal prepaid card from the post office you probably can.

We are a very weird country in terms of our regulations and police powers and have a really screwed up relationship with them too. People bitch whenever they get caught speeding but complain about not being tough enough on crime whenever $BadThing happens and are incredibly unsympathetic to criminal suspects, despite our long history of pervasive corruption in our Police Forces.
 
Elaugaufein said:
That means that the value of housing is actually somewhere between its utility (in "early" retirement) and its market value (in "later" retirement).
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Owning a house means you own an asset that will in most cases track with the value of shelter generally, and shelter is something you will always need. If you're anticipating a general downturn in house prices, the house should still retain it's relative value to a unit in assisted living or some such. I could see the argument that the health care component won't drop with real estate values, but it should still form a significant percentage of the cost and therefore drop along with a general downturn.

Noting that we're comparing it to the average super fund with far too conservative settings and far too many fees, I don't think it's really throwing good money after bad.


Elaugaufein said:
This is particularly true for that group most likely to have to sell their house to fund this stuff (those without significant wealth i.e. poor people), which are also the people most likely to have to take advantage of this to get into the housing market.
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Honest question, if people have high enough income to have a mortgage approved, are they poor? I hate typing that because it sounds pretty ignorant, but I don't know the answer. The problem that "super for house deposits" wants to solve seems more towards people with a decent income that haven't saved in their younger years, and then upon deciding that they'd like a house, calculate how long it would take them to save a 10% deposit and go "oh fuck" and give up on the idea. Not for people with already low incomes. Martin argues that getting those higher income, lower savings people into their own house could reduce competition for rents and potentially make rental property more affordable for those that can't reasonably afford the mortgage repayments.
 
Fredescu said:
Owning a house means you own an asset that will in most cases track with the value of shelter generally, and shelter is something you will always need. If you're anticipating a general downturn in house prices, the house should still retain it's relative value to a unit in assisted living or some such. I could see the argument that the health care component won't drop with real estate values, but it should still form a significant percentage of the cost and therefore drop along with a general downturn.

Noting that we're comparing it to the average super fund with far too conservative settings and far too many fees, I don't think it's really throwing good money after bad.
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A significant part of my experience was in home supervised care (in a relatives house), so not really affected by real estate value. But I had failed to consider that it would likely generate a down turn in the costs of things like retirement homes and thus a knock on decrease in the cost of residential nursing homes for low care facilities. I doubt the cost of high care would change much but there's significant government assistance available in that area (and its highly restricted already).

Fredescu said:
Honest question, if people have high enough income to have a mortgage approved, are they poor? I hate typing that because it sounds pretty ignorant, but I don't know the answer. The problem that "super for house deposits" wants to solve seems more towards people with a decent income that haven't saved in their younger years, and then upon deciding that they'd like a house, calculate how long it would take them to save a 10% deposit and go "oh fuck" and give up on the idea. Not for people with already low incomes. Martin argues that getting those higher income, lower savings people into their own house could reduce competition for rents and potentially make rental property more affordable for those that can't reasonably afford the mortgage repayments.
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I guess that depends on how we define poor and also "housing". The median income is ~$39 000 , for the purpose of getting into the housing market we can probably double that, since a house (rather than a unit) is a family thing , so I guess that'd give us ~$78 000 a year.

A quick look on google suggests total costs for a (mortgaged) home is ~$29 000 a year for a family of 4. Which means that a separation is likely to tank things pretty hard, right off the bat even for someone who's on an "average income". So yeah, you're probably right that you need to be significantly above poverty level to get an approval.

A similarly quick look at rental costs suggests that you're not saving a lot by renting either (~$150 / week) , so saving a deposit is going to be very difficult for 1 person and is a risky investment for 2 people in a relationship given the odds of separation in the time it'd take to save a deposit.

Basically a median family can do it, fairly comfortably, but they are likely a fairly high risk given separation rates (because a median single person is probably going to drown).

ETA - It won't reduce the competition for rent either, if the people are buying the house they'd otherwise be renting, since its effectively just permanent rent from an availability point of view. It only decreases rent pressure if new housing is built.
 
Did anyone post this already

That mainstream media have completely ignored the story is remarkable, given what the leaked transcripts reveal:

1. Scott Morrison played a video to asylum seekers telling them they would never be settled in Australia, regardless of whether or not they had a legitimate claim for asylum. It sparked widespread outrage amount detainees, numerous incidents of self-harm, including among children, and protests that lasted several weeks.

2. As protests intensified, Morrison became “shit worried” that he would have another Manus Islands on his hands – a reference to the violence in the Papua New Guinean detention centre six months earlier which saw an asylum seeker, Reza Berati, beaten to death by guards paid to protect him.

3. The most senior bureaucrat at the Department of Immigration responsible for the welfare of asylum seekers (Mark Cormack) told Morrison he would compile a list of names of Save The Children workers who he suspected may be involved in assisting asylum seekers in their protests.

4. 10 Save The Children workers were subsequently ordered off the island, although the bureaucrat conceded they may never know if they identified the correct workers.

5. Cormack told Moss that they needed to be “very careful” about what they said the Minister did in relation to establishing the Moss review
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New Matilda has begun advertising the story via social media – we’re investing $1,500 in Facebook advertising this morning, to try and spread the story more widely. That level of advertising will put the story directly into the news feeds of around 1,000,000 Australians
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PhantomZone said:
I'm 30 and don't think it's real :P
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Does this help?

11_50.jpg
 
The idea that the content providers have done their part is pretty hilarious. We still get delays , crappy exclusivity agreements, jacked up prices and limited catalogues (especially for stuff that came up before they started taking digital distribution even mildly seriously). They've improved from abyssmal to merely crappy.
 
munchie64 said:
I am kinda interested in how effective the three strikes thing will be (simply cause very little is gonna stop Australians doing it), but that is just lol worthy.
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Personally I'd like this solution if it worked. Certainly I'd rather this than having content companies blackmailing or dragging through the courts individual users. Especially when its combined with the ramp up in legal streaming options.

I know its used in the uk. i wonder what the experience is there. Maybe it has impacted the casual piracy rates.
 
The effort to increase copyright terms to infinity, as distribution becomes easier, makes me deeply skeptical of that. Especially given the potential loss of pieces of history because they remain locked up for decades after their commercial viability expires (especially in the area of gaming).
 
PhantomZone said:
Perhaps if people didn't pirate we wouldn't be in this mess.
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People wouldn't illegally download pirated content if the pirates didn't offer a better experience.
Gaben said:
“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work,” Newell said. “It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates.”
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As long as people have to pay $35 per month to Foxtel just to watch Game of Thrones, while also having several other shows and channels forced upon them as part of a "special deal for Game of Thrones fans", there will be piracy.
 
PhantomZone said:
I know it' s like a double edge sword, if companies released things earlier in our market people may not be so tempted to download things.
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I think if it was better than it is now 10 years ago that might work. As it is now there's so much inertia any efforts they make aren't going to cycle out of culture for long enough that I don't see them working in what content providers consider a reasonable timeframe.
 
Part of it is that they aren't really interested in providing the level of service that it would take to complete. Steam is impressive, Ultraviolet despite being (significantly newer) is ridiculously bad, its like whoever designed it looked at Steam or Amazon (or pretty much any successful online merchant) and decided to do the exact opposite.
 
PhantomZone said:
I know it' s like a double edge sword, if companies released things earlier in our market people may not be so tempted to download things.
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I fixed that for you.


(as someone who only just tried to purchase a number of books from the 80s for his Kindle but was blocked from doing so - as an Australian - by the publishers)
 
Elaugaufein said:
Part of it is that they aren't really interested in providing the level of service that it would take to complete. Steam is impressive, Ultraviolet despite being (significantly newer) is ridiculously bad, its like whoever designed it looked at Steam or Amazon (or pretty much any successful online merchant) and decided to do the exact opposite.
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So what is so bad about Ultraviolet? I certainly like the idea (though the new Disney only system in the US seems better)..I just find putting a backup on my PC and streaming it from my PC to devices on my network better.

That said I do have the lone Ultraviolet disc I own registered and it seemed to work OK I guess. Didn't seem particularly bad.
 
DrSlek said:
As long as people have to pay $35 per month to Foxtel just to watch Game of Thrones, while also having several other shows and channels forced upon them as part of a "special deal for Game of Thrones fans", there will be piracy.
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And yet now we have HBO themselves offering their one channel for $20/month in the US. I'm not sure people here would be any happier paying 20$ + GST here just for the channel Foxtel has GoT on any more than they are the current $35.
 
r1chard said:
I fixed that for you.

(as someone who only just tried to purchase a number of books from the 80s for his Kindle but was blocked from doing so - as an Australian - by the publishers)
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And here's where I grumble about being forced to import CDs from Japan just to hear the music I'd like to hear as no digital service will sell/stream it for me. Something fucked up about that in this day and age.
 
Quasar said:
And yet now we have HBO themselves offering their one channel for $20/month in the US. I'm not sure people here would be any happier paying 20$ + GST here just for the channel Foxtel has GoT on any more than they are the current $35.
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If people could pay for just the show they want and only that show, delivered digitally at the time of airing in the US or shortly after, I'm sure that would cut down a lot on piracy.
 
Quasar said:
So what is so bad about Ultraviolet? I certainly like the idea (though the new Disney only system in the US seems better)..I just find putting a backup on my PC and streaming it from my PC to devices on my network better.

That said I do have the lone Ultraviolet disc I own registered and it seemed to work OK I guess. Didn't seem particularly bad.
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The last time I used it was when the Veronica Mars Movie came out but it involved going through 3 different websites to redeem my code for it. If its improved thats only a good thing.
 
Elaugaufein said:
The last time I used it was when the Veronica Mars Movie came out but it involved going through 3 different websites to redeem my code for it. If its improved thats only a good thing.
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Certainly when I registered mine, all I did was do it at one site. Having to use a separate app for them is a bit annoying, and thats one area where the new Disney service was improved. You have a Disney account that's linked to iTunes or Google play and you just download the content from those stores and so you use those players.
 
DrSlek said:
If people could pay for just the show they want and only that show, delivered digitally at the time of airing in the US or shortly after, I'm sure that would cut down a lot on piracy.
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Just having up to date digital delivery has significantly reduced my use of CFW and flashcards for the purpose of convenience, my flashcard was my go to on my DS but I've barely used the 3DS I use for my Gateway (its pretty much purely dumps of stuff that hasn't had an Eshop release). I'd probably have my cross region stuff on there too but I imported a 3DS for that years ago). Convenience and Availability are big things.
 
r1chard said:
I fixed that for you.


(as someone who only just tried to purchase a number of books from the 80s for his Kindle but was blocked from doing so - as an Australian - by the publishers)
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I had the same problem with audible. A bunch of books I had lined up in my wishlist to buy suddenly became unavailable in my region as the year rolled over. I cancelled my subscription because there was nothing left that I wanted to read and could also download :/
 
Its not a debate is a speech.

If you get sad at speeches to empty rooms at parliament, you haven't really been following politics... at all.
 
I think it's time to accept piracy is gonna exist no matter what and the only solution is having content delivery being easier.

From what I've read recently, the three strikes law doesn't work in France and New Zealand and the website block law doesn't work in the UK.
Shitty policies seem to be be almost needed though.
 
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