BL> the Internet - that has nothing to do with Gates and M$ anyway

 JG> Bob, you know that and I know that. PK doesn't and neither do
 JG> most of the idiots out there buying PCs at the moment. When
 JG> Windows 95 is released, if it has Internet access software,
 JG> they (the idiots) will read about this great gateway to the
 JG> Information Highway. They'll see the Telecom and Microsoft
 JG> names and think, "shit, this is great, I'll sign up". They
 JG> won't realise that it's costing 10x as much as someone down the
 JG> road :-( 

  Yair... pollies have a strange attitude towards PCs and BBSs. I saw
that dickhead Lavarch going on about kiddies access to pornography,
bestiality, and child molestors. Bloody hell! He seems to think that
every 12-year-old is a hacker capable of crashing the internet because
they know how to turn on a computer.

 JG> Yeah, Bob Carr is a fuckwit - "We'll deny access to those
 JG> areas". That's not really possible if you want to give the kids
 JG> a chance to find the information they're looking for by
 JG> themselves. Of course you can feed them the information, but
 JG> then you can do that with books without spending millions on
 JG> connections to the Internet and then denying access. 

  I think it is sad. Bob Carr would make a good education minister,
but he is miles out of his depth as a leader. It is shit-easy to
restrict kids' access to the Internet: just control the feeds and
limit them to working through nodes set up in schools or somewhere.
No kid is going to be able to afford his own $6,000 connect, so what's
the problem? Kids are not supposed to have total freedom anyway.

  The pollies are just using it as an excuse to restrict access to
this thing they call the "superhighway" that scares the shit out of
them. I worry that they'll do what I suggest, turning the Internet
into a local net controlled by politicians and bloody bureaucrats -
for *all* of us.

 BL> Freedom of information frightens them. They actually believe
 BL> that information is power. What a heap of crap that is!

 JG> The right information is power Bob. You've just got to know who
 JG> to blackmail :-)

  That's *knowledge*, Jeff. Information is just rubbish unless you
know how to use it, blackmail or not. Twenty years ago, we might have
thoght that a Prime Minister rooting a bimbo was blackmail material -
now he sells it to 60-minutes live on TV.

 JG> Yep, everybody expects software to be buggy. Look at all the
 JG> warnings given about x.0 versions.

 BL> Bloody hell! Here's a guy who sues companies for a living, and
 BL> he's quite happy to get screwed over buggy software.

 JG> I don't know if suing them would get anywhere though. Do the
 JG> laws even covers things like that?

  This is my point. If his new BMW M3 kept cutting out and BMW told
him they were all like that, so stiff shit - he'd sue them so fast
their head would spin. But he doesn't understand software and everyone
accepts that it is buggy anyway, so he doesn't sue. No one does.

 JG>> That is one thing that I've noticed does annoy people. Being
 JG>> out of date so quickly and the software company no longer
 JG>> supporting your old version of their product.

 JG> Yes, I'd do the same also. It's a legal way to make a very
 JG> large profit. Most major software companies make their profits
 JG> from upgrade sales nowadays.

  Incredible, isn't it? They sell a product with no warranty, no
returns, no backup, and they make it obsolete it in 6 months... by
playing on the ignorance of politicians and lawmakers.

Regards,
Bob

   
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