Internet in Singapore:



-PB

No need to complete with countries like Singapore.

Srs? Why not?

They're the best kind, this century.

I'm not but some like rusty believe that.

I'm not but some like rusty believe that.

[size=6]Flinders Street Station redesign unlikely to go ahead: Victorian Government[/size]
Mon 5 Jan 2015, 10:27am


PHOTO: The winning design for Flinders Street Station looking from Federation Square. (Supplied)


The Victorian Government has said it is unlikely to go ahead with an idea to redevelop Flinders Street Station, despite at least $1 million already having been spent on the project.

The former Coalition government commissioned a design competition to reimagine the station and put together a business case in 2011.

A team of local and Swiss-based architects from HASSELL, Herzog & De Meuron was chosen as the winner from more than 100 entries in August last year.

The firm was behind the design of London's Tate Modern gallery and the National Stadium in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games.

The final business case had not been delivered, but the Government said the project would cost about $2 billion, and only 20 per cent of that could be funded by commercial interests.

Treasurer Tim Pallas said a decision had yet to be made on the redevelopment but it appeared to be a lot of money for little gain.

"The previous government put millions of dollars into a design competition, we were quite critical of it when we were in Opposition and we said that design competition didn't accord with the community's priorities," he said.

"It would be an inordinate burden upon taxpayers."


PHOTO: Hassell, Herzog and de Meuron's redesign idea was chosen from more than 100 entries. (Supplied)

At the time of the competition, then-premier Denis Napthine said the Government would look into whether the project was viable, but there was no guarantee it would be built.

In the lead-up to November's state election Victoria's National Trust urged both parties to allocate $50 million to repair Flinders Street station because the iconic city landmark was "neglected".

Mr Pallas told the ABC the competition was "nothing more than a drawing project".

"Rather than spend billions of dollars on an edifice in the centre of the city, our view was that that money could be better spent delivering better public transport for Victorians," he said.

"We don't see it as our priority and never did.

"That money could be much better spent effectively delivering on the things that Victorians voted for.

"Improved public transport, improved arterial road connections in our suburbs and regional areas and our Westgate distributor being up and running and operational within the first term of government."

Looks like a megachurch.

I love the iconic look of Flinders Street as is. Leave it alone other than maintenance and restoration.

also should get some company to pressure wash the urine smell .

But that's the smell of Melbourne for me :lol:

Pretty much ;)

Hehe thanks for picking that up. Fixed :lol:

[size=6]Why are young Australians turning their back on the car?[/size]
5 JAN 2015 - 7:55AM
Source: The Conversation 5 JAN 2015 - 6:58 AM UPDATED YESTERDAY 7:55 AM
By Alexa Delbosc, Monash University


Australians have long had a love affair with the car. Car ownership and use has increased every decade since its introduction to Australia. The car has fundamentally shaped the urban form of Australian cities – not just through investments in roads, highways, bridges and tunnels but also by facilitating the spread of Australia’s suburbs and activity centres. The car has provided significant social and economic benefits and helped generations of young adults break free from their parents.

Recently, however, Australia’s love affair with the car has begun to cool. For the first time in Australia’s history, young adults are becoming less likely to get a car license than their parents. Where baby boomers couldn’t get enough of their cars, an increasing number of millennials (the generation born from the mid-1980s onwards) have had enough of them.

Putting the brakes on driver licensing
In Australia, the decline in driver licensing has been recorded in New South Wales and Victoria. Australia is one of the few countries that doesn’t compile national licensing rates. In Victoria, the decline has been slow but steady. Licensing rates for people under 25 have dropped from 77% to 66% since 2000-01.



Australia isn’t alone in this trend. A review of youth licensing rates in 13 countries found declines in the US, Canada, UK, Japan and much of Europe.

All over the developed world millennials are turning their back on the car. But why is this happening and what does it mean for Australia’s future?

What’s driving this trend?
Research into this trend is still unfolding, but a range of explanations are being explored. Recent changes in driver licensing regulations cannot be overlooked. All Australian states and territories have gradually introduced more restrictions on learner permits and driving licenses. Most notably, depending on the jurisdiction, millennials are now required to log up to 120 hours of supervised driving before applying for a provisional license.

How many baby boomers would have put off getting a license if they were expected to spend that much time driving with their parents? However, this explanation cannot fully explain this shift. In Victoria, the decline in youth licensing was documented at least as far back as 2000, seven years before the 120 hours requirement came into force.

So if driver licensing regulations aren’t all to blame, what else could be turning millennials away from the car? One complex but significant shift in recent years is how the life course of millennials has changed compared to previous generations.

In the past, many young Australians quickly transitioned from secondary school to full-time work, marriage, mortgage and children. Today’s young Australians are more likely to attend tertiary studies, work part-time, live with parents and delay marriage, mortgage and children. All of these changes mean that young adults have less need for a car in their teens, but also have less money to pay for one.

This raises the question of whether the cost of motoring has discouraged young adults from getting a car. This is a more complex issue as even though fuel prices have certainly increased in recent years, overall the relative cost of motoring has actually decreased.

Finally, there’s some suggestion that the attitudes and lifestyle of millennials have caused a cultural shift where the car is no longer king. The car has long held a cherished place in Australian culture, especially for the baby boomer generation. But recent research suggests that for millennials, the car is less a symbol of status and pride and more a symbol of adult responsibility – a responsibility that not everyone is ready for.

In the words of one 22-year-old research participant: "A car to me symbolises commitment, financial responsibility and to some extent becoming an adult."

Instead, it has been suggested that gadgets and mobile phones have replaced the car as the new status symbol, hobby and means to keep in touch with friends.

There is no doubt that these technologies are a major part of the lifestyle of many millennials, but the jury is still out as to whether technology is reducing the need for face-to-face contact (and therefore reducing the need for a car). Preliminary research suggests that young people who maintain frequent contact with friends through technology are actually more likely, not less, to see their friends in person.

Where to from here?
There are many factors that influence how young adults travel, and further research is needed to better understand these decisions.

There are still important questions that need to be answered. Are these young adults forgoing cars entirely, or merely delaying a few years before they get behind the wheel? Are young adults actively choosing a more sustainable lifestyle, or are they being forced out of cars due to unwanted circumstances? The societal benefits of fewer cars are obvious, but are car-less millennials suffering significant negative consequences?

We can react to this change in car use in one of two ways. We can sit in the back seat and passively enjoy the benefits of fewer cars on the road, slowing the growth of emissions and congestion by a small amount. Or we can take the wheel and actively support this change, putting in place policies and structures to support and encourage young adults who are deciding between L-plates or a new bicycle, car keys or an annual public transport pass.

Once someone shapes their life, work and home around the car it is far, far harder to persuade them not to use it.



Alexa Delbosc has received research funding from Public Transport Victoria and Metro Trains Melbourne. She is a member of The Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management.

Thought this might have been threadworthy in itself, raises some interesting trends:

[size=6]Internet speeds: Australia ranks 44th, study cites direction of NBN as part of problem[/size]
By Samantha Donovan


A US study has delivered an unwelcome finding about Australian internet speeds, finding that they are well behind the international pack.

One engineering expert said the nation would continue to tumble down in world rankings if the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) continues in its current form.

The State of the Internet Report from cloud service provider Akamai ranks Australia 44th for average connection speed.

The US-based company produces the quarterly report looking at connection speeds and broadband adoption around the world.

Dr Mark Gregory, a network engineering expert from RMIT University, said the Akamai report was a reputable review.

"In the latest report, Australia has dropped a couple of places down to the 44th position, which is a pretty big drop really over such a short period of time," he said.

Dr Gregory said Australia's relative decline was because many other countries were moving forward apace with new and upgraded networks.

"The drop is happening because a lot of other countries over this period are moving towards fiber-based access networks, or they've already completed rollouts of what we would call the multi-technology mixing/mixed networks," he said.

"Whatever way you look at it, what it means is that the average speeds that Australians are enjoying are slowly becoming less than most of our competitors around the world."


Copper-based network slowing Australia down: expert

Dr Gregory said the Federal Government's decision to switch from fibre-to-the-home to a mixed fibre/copper network was part of the reason for the decline.

"One of the reasons is that we're falling down the list [is] that we're moving towards utilising a copper-based access network," he said.

"Whereas previously, under the Labor government, we were moving towards an all fibre-based network, which is what most of our competitors are now doing.



"And we're also seeing this drop because, as we keep changing direction with the NBN, we're putting in large delays before the rollout is actually occurring."

New Zealand is one of the nations now ranked ahead of Australia, with faster average internet speeds.

Dr Gregory said that was largely because it has stuck with a fibre-to-the-home network.

"The key difference between New Zealand and Australia is that New Zealand made the decision to do fibre-to-the-premise, they've stuck with that decision," he said.

Even though Australia is much larger geographically, Dr Gregory said fibre-to-the-home should be financially viable for a network to cover the vast bulk of the population.

"Fibre-to-the-premise is viable in Australia, mainly because most Australians are clustered around the coast," he said.

"If you look at the density of Australians, then really we don't differ very much from most other countries in the world, we're just a large country, but with the technologies that we've got today to actually roll out fibre systems, the cost is not that different from most other countries in the world."


Quality of streamed video 'much lower' than overseas

Dr Gregory said many households will notice the deficiencies in Australia's internet when they try to watch television over the internet, such as through the Netflix service coming to Australia this year, or its local rivals.

"Even though the suppliers say they are giving us high definition of 4K steaming, to actually be able to stream over Australia's connection and our connections will be a lot slower than the rest of the world," he said.

"What they will do is that they will increase the compression ratio on the video.

"Even though they are saying that we are getting high definition, or 4K TV, the actual compression will be far more in other countries and therefore the quality of the video that we are viewing at home will be much lower."

Dr Gregory added that another development may push Australia even further down the rankings for internet speed.

"The most important change is occurring in the United States where the FCC chairman - and that's their body that looks after telecommunications - has decided to redefine broadband to 25 megabits per second download speed," he said.

"So what that means is that, in Australia, the Government has been saying that they're going to provide every Australian with high-speed broadband.

"In the future they'll be able to say that they're providing Australians the bare minimum broadband under the new FCC determination on what broadband will be called.

"For many other countries around the world of course, they're moving towards gigabit broadband now and that is super-fast broadband under the new definitions."

Meh just some videos on the intertubes.

Lefty Gen Y kids now days should worry more about working harder and longer hours and paying more taxes then shit like entertainment on their Nintendo PlayBox.

-PB

My job is making videos but, lol.

I hope you're holding your breath for the government to run fibre to your business because you need it.

Would have been super handy, my business partner and I could do post production from our own places, even on the same day as shooting, or more easily employ another Australian editor/s to do it. Oh well, it's not like Tone leads the party that purports to champion small business.

Also, my business partner and I are both in safe Labor seats in Melbourne's west, I can't hold my breath that long!

Sums up the last year of the NBN well :lol:

Sums up the last year of the NBN well :lol:

sums up how it was started as well when you implement a fleet of L300 shit boxes

So you're saying when you're making important infrastructure investments, you shouldn't cheap out in the onset to avoid future problems? :-k :-k :-k