Woz Applying For Australian Citizenship Because of the NBN 385
An anonymous reader writes "It's a well known fact that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is a fan of Australia and now we know why. He supports a national broadband network — a scheme being rolled out by the Australian government to provide fibre 'for everyone' — so much he's applying for citizenship, the Australian Financial Review reports. You can be assured that he's not giving up his American citizenship though, he told Brisbane radio."
And for U.S. citizens: "Despite his status as a technology icon, Mr Wozniak said he was not connected to a broadband service in his home in California, classing the options available to him as a 'monopoly.' 'There’s only one set of wires to be on and I’m not going to pull strings to get them to do something special for me,' he said .... 'I've sat with our FCC commissioner and told him that story in his office, but it’s not going to happen. We just don’t have the political idea to bring broadband to all the people who are 1 kilometer too far away.'"
Re:Thats no way to be a good citizen (Score:3, Interesting)
Being a good citizen means fighting tooth and nail for what you want for your country. It doesnt mean jumping ship because it doesn't have this one thing you want. There is a lot not to like about America but to simply move to a whole different country after just some talks with local government? Seems like an overreaction.
America won't have 100Mb/s broadband until the cable and telcos have finished squeezing ever last cent they can out of copper. (Or until someone comes along and starts taking their future profits away by building it now.)
Re:How is he going to become a citizen? (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought Australian immigration requires anyone to be of at least 1 or 2 years (depending on few factors) as a permanent resident before they can apply to become a citizen, and becoming a PR in itself takes a while. Maybe easier to get the PR status for him due to his status and wealth, but citizenship is entirely different, I think? Possibly also requires certain amount of stay in the country to earn it. Would appreciate if any /.er has better detail on immigration requirements.
Because otherwise this just sounds like a really early non-news. Good on him for coming over to this side of the oceans though.
Well, the downside is they'll censor everything he likes about the internet. That's the major problem with the Aussie government, they don't feel like people should have rights.
Re:Thats no way to be a good citizen (Score:2, Interesting)
What's wrong with pledging allegiance to the Queen? She's pretty cool and chill.
Would you rather pledge allegiance to 350 million random other people?
Democracy is overrated. Monarchies are always better.
Re:Thats no way to be a good citizen (Score:5, Interesting)
In the US we have our "Red Necks" which come in assorted flavors including "Shit Kickers", "Skin Heads", "Hill Billies" and "Hard Hats". We here actually have a bit of a warm spot for our Protohominid brethren, and though "Red Neck" is a pejorative, its usually said with a smile. For example there is the entire catalog of Red Neck jokes to be enjoyed by our country's favorite Red Neck Comedian, Jeff Foxworthy [youtu.be].
Our bigotry has a long and illustrious history. It seems we had many episodes if racial discrimination in our past as well. The most commonly pointed to are obviously Black Slaves, and Slaughtered Native Americans, but even the Irish had their day. During the Potato Famine, the Irish fled to America by the Millions. They were not welcome when they got here. They were put to tasks that you wouldn't humanely put animals to. They were used to drain the swamps of New Orleans, which were infested with mosquitoes carrying malaria and yellow fever. They wouldn't use slaves to do this work because slaves were valuable live stock, whereas Irish men were considered gun fodder. Along the same lines Chinese were used to build be cross continental railroad, and thousand died along some of the more challenging sections, and then upon completion, we deported them back to China. As much as we dislike Irishmen, we despised brown people (and today we bomb them for fun and profit.)
So I guess that makes us alike in one more way, we have our Bogans too.
NBN looks great, until you read the fine print (Score:2, Interesting)
and realize there is download cap. As an European I dont even know what a download cap is.
WHY would you put it on a national fiber network????? I could understand download cap on connections leaving NBN, but no. It counts all traffic. Something like streaming birthday party in HD Video for few of your neighbors living 100m away will result in reaching cap.
It is totally retarded to cap traffic that doesnt leave your own backbone.
Re:That's like applying to be Canadian... (Score:4, Interesting)
"left/liberal/egalitarian society" ...and borderline far right governments.
How exactly does that happen? why are two such liberal left leaning countries currently sat with governments that lean so far to the right?
I never really got why over the last decades the people of both Canada and Australia have seemingly had governments that are at such odds to their national mindset.
I have a theory, judging by Canada's experience at least, that it's because the government that represented them got so complacent that it became corrupt and so there ended up no choice but to vote for the guys on the right. Is that the case in Australia too?