abrimo

I agree! My reply would never be endorsed either!

You're trying to blame the victim, which is troublingly common when someone has been raped or sexually harassed but it is never the right response. It is traumatising when these things happen, it is personally demeaning and it is never acceptable.

Justine is brave for coming forward and we should encourage everyone in a similar situation to do the same and support them when they do.

The deeper cultural problem here is that your comment has been voted to the top.

Yea it really is - I have nothing to do with these fellows but I found it interesting nonetheless so I posted it.

When you board a commercial airline you have to show that you have a valid visa/passport for your destination however that is not technically checked until you go through that country's immigration service.

So would it be possible for a private jet to pick up Snowden and drop him in Ecuador where he could officially apply for asylum? It sounds like the main issue is that he has to be in Ecuador to apply.

The university is paid upfront by the federal government so it can still cover all of it's costs. The taxation office then collects the repayments, which are just taken out of your income.

There are risks for the government. For example, lots of Australians work overseas and unless they return to Australia to work, they won't pay back the debt. http://theconversation.edu.au/expat-workers-have-cost-austra... But that's probably not a huge percentage of outstanding debt.

I grew up in the US however I'm Australian and attended university in Australia.

The Australian system (HECS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education_fees_in_Aust...) of managing higher education costs seems very fair. I studied two degrees at a leading university over 5 years. The accumulated cost for five years was about $30-35,000 for Engineering and Politics (some degrees are more expensive). My degree cost the university more than I paid with the remainder being covered by international students (thanks!), government subsidies/grants and donations.

All local students entering a university automatically go into this system. Each year you get a statement that lets you know how much debt you've accumulated and how much is left to pay. If you want to pay upfront then you receive a discount (10-20% off or something). However almost no one does because your debt is interest free and only indexed to inflation.

You don't start paying it off until you earn over $49,000/year (http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.aspx?doc=/content/...), at which point you pay about 4% of your income until you've paid it off. If you earn more then you pay it off more quickly and at a higher percentage.

This system has enabled me to work on my startup right after finishing uni without the burden of a debt that needs to be repaid immediately. It also let me focus on enjoying university without upfront costs. I think it also removes the cost barrier for students wanting to go to uni, as all universities cost the same and are all covered by HECS. You can decide where to go based on convenience, degree and anything else without worrying about the cost.

Lots of people here still complain about the cost and the system could surely be improved a bit. But it's quite a good solution and I'm glad the article mentioned it.

That's 28 months - not weeks. So assuming you would normally upgrade every 2.5 years then it's about the same cost. If they release a new version each year then the subscription service would win easily.

More importantly, creative suite is now affordable for a huge range of people. Freelancers, students and small businesses can now afford a legal and full version.

This reminds me of the article gruber wrote late last year about the types of companies that make future concept videos.

http://daringfireball.net/2011/11/companies_that_publish_con...

Asimo seems quite a bit more advanced overall than those robots. They are designed for quite specific purposes and domain - it's hard to tell but they also don't seem autonomous. With Asimo, Handa is going for a general purpose robot that can emulate a human while Boston Dynamic appears to be going for more specific military needs with things like BigDog.

I remember someone on Silicon Beach said they went through it. It sounded good so I had a look and called up about it however you aren't allowed to launch your business until you complete the program. It also seems geared towards small local businesses (e.g. businesses must be 'not competing directly with existing businesses').

However I like the idea behind it. I was even thinking of some program similar to the way university is funded (HECS scheme) that provides interest free capital (maybe right after you finish uni) to explore starting a business. After spending 4 years at uni, an extra year to learn and explore business ideas would be very rewarding even if you end up working after that.

Thanks, great job on trying to change Tourism Australia - some of the campaigns I've seen from them are just embarrassing. It really does feel that those startups which have been successful have done so in spite of being in Australia, not because of it. I, like you, am determined to try and do it on my own.

Yea I was hoping they would reallocate the money they are currently spending. For example, they give over 60m a year to private VC firms which 'manage' the money by making very few investments. They've also committed almost as much to Commercialisation Australia which doesn't seem to go anywhere.

The current government programs are costly and not yielding many results. I'm hoping they could take a fraction of that for programs such as the ones in Singapore or Chile and get far better results.

I've attended one of Stallman's talks and it was more of a comedy than anything else. I don't actually take him seriously, he did some great work in the past but the world has moved on.

I love that speech, back in the early 80s he spoke to the Academy of Achievement which was also great to listen too: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/pagegen/brochure/p3.html (search for steve jobs)

I completely agree. Although it might seem like we work hard and are fairly rewarded, the fact we have the skills and opportunities that we do is through no doing of our own.

President Kennedy gave a great speech about the role and responsibilities of educated people in society. 'Increased responsibility goes with increased ability, for "of those to whom much is given, much is required."' http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/aZ0Im5s0mUqPJlFNs6iO4...