> Robert wrote:
> > The interesting point here is that whilst I was in
> > the US working with major IT companies (Red Hat's
> > strategic partners), our acceptance of new
> > technology was about the only thing they knew about
> > Australia.
>
>
> My eyebrows are raised at this, to be honest. All figures for
penetration
> and usage of consumer devices show higher rates in the US, with trends
> typically 12 to 18 months ahead of Australia. PC's, consoles, phones,
> everything.
I've just moved to the US from Australia (or "Awe-strilia" as it's known
over here :) and have had lots of opportunities to reflect on the
differences between the two countries. Frankly the move has not been
easy, and there were a few surprises.
In a lot of situations I have found that technology is more widespread
in Australia than here in the US. A good example of this was signing my
car insurance contract - it was the first time I had seen a real piece
of carbon paper in years! I almost fell over backwards...
Also I have seen enough variations on the spelling of my name over the
last few months to be convinced that there is still a lot of manual
retyping of information done here in the US. Of course my name is
sufficiently unusual here in the US to make errors more likely here for
the same amount of manual retyping in Australia.
Direct deposit is a thing we take for granted in Australia. I love the
ability most Australian bank have to do a direct deposit into someone
else's account over the internet, with an accompanying description. In
fact I have carried out conversations with people this way, transferring
small amounts each time (OK so I'm a geek :). Such a facility is not
available at all in the US, at least not with such convenience.
I could go on, and probably will at some point.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:10:04 EST