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Or you could compare it to something similar:

The original University of Queensland's HyShot hypersonic tests were done for less than $2 million. Even better well-funded followup flights were around $4.5 million.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1127540.htm

A new analysis of pollution data for the Port Augusta region contradicts reassurances from the South Australian Government that smoking can be blamed for high lung cancer rates. Residents of the region have long complained about health problems they link with two power stations, Playford and Northern, which burn highly-polluting brown coal.

The lung cancer rates around Port Augusta are said by medical experts to be double the expected number.

I wonder if it's anything like the Foreign Correspondent episode that aired last week in Australia: http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2012/s3557618.htm

What's strange about this is that the ASB are a self-regulated *COUGH* *COUGH* group from the advertisers which are infamous for dismissing complaints by the public. The scuttlebutt with self-regulation of advertisers, medical professionals, lawyers, anybody, is the hope that if you pretend to do the job yourself the government won't do it for you. Their investigations inevitably end with: "Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board dismissed the complaint."

But don't take my word for it. Their determinations are online here:
http://www.adstandards.com.au/casereports/determinations/standards?browse

There have been many stories published accusing the ASB of being biased towards advertisers:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-29/advertisers-blamed-for-increasing-child/2701322
http://vimeo.com/2788853
http://mumbrella.com.au/asb-investigates-lynx-dry-ads-featuring-women-who-look-hot-wet-27383
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2287201.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3029145.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2598826.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q="media+watch"+"advertising+standards"&site:abc.net.au

The crazy thing is the standards are voluntary so there is no penalty even if they do catch you out. Here they did catch Subway for passing off manufactured meat as fillet, but the penalty was, ummm... nothing. Subway said they would change the menus. That was it. (This article says it could be referred to the ACCC, but they are a statutory body and can do that anyway without the ASB. You can complain directly to the ACCC anyway. The ASB has the same legal status that you and your footie mates head out to a game.) http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/06/27/food-companies-asked-to-apply-for-government-money-2.html

Advertisers take advantage of the weak penalties by doing such bad taste ads they're bound to get reported and get a 6:30PM news story asking "Has XYZ gone too far with this sexy ad? stay tuned and we'll show you after the break." Most infamous was the blow jobs for shoes ads: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/240602_s4.htm

So why on Earth has the ASB come down hard on Facebook? For a fervently pro-advertiser organisation this is quite weird. I doubt it's because they're suddenly "siding with the consumer". I think there is something more going on here. Perhaps it's because advertisers hate losing ad revenue while firms start advertising directly on the Internet? Perhaps this is an chance to scare wayward customers back into their arms?

And there is the punchline: The ASB has no power anyway, so despite the buzz this news story has created Carlton Breweries can flip them the bird and keep using Facebook. Must suck when Self-regulation comes back to bite you, eh, ASB? ;-)

What's strange about this is that the ASB are a self-regulated *COUGH* *COUGH* group from the advertisers which are infamous for dismissing complaints by the public. The scuttlebutt with self-regulation of advertisers, medical professionals, lawyers, anybody, is the hope that if you pretend to do the job yourself the government won't do it for you. Their investigations inevitably end with: "Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board dismissed the complaint."

But don't take my word for it. Their determinations are online here:
http://www.adstandards.com.au/casereports/determinations/standards?browse

There have been many stories published accusing the ASB of being biased towards advertisers:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-29/advertisers-blamed-for-increasing-child/2701322
http://vimeo.com/2788853
http://mumbrella.com.au/asb-investigates-lynx-dry-ads-featuring-women-who-look-hot-wet-27383
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2287201.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3029145.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2598826.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q="media+watch"+"advertising+standards"&site:abc.net.au

The crazy thing is the standards are voluntary so there is no penalty even if they do catch you out. Here they did catch Subway for passing off manufactured meat as fillet, but the penalty was, ummm... nothing. Subway said they would change the menus. That was it. (This article says it could be referred to the ACCC, but they are a statutory body and can do that anyway without the ASB. You can complain directly to the ACCC anyway. The ASB has the same legal status that you and your footie mates head out to a game.) http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/06/27/food-companies-asked-to-apply-for-government-money-2.html

Advertisers take advantage of the weak penalties by doing such bad taste ads they're bound to get reported and get a 6:30PM news story asking "Has XYZ gone too far with this sexy ad? stay tuned and we'll show you after the break." Most infamous was the blow jobs for shoes ads: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/240602_s4.htm

So why on Earth has the ASB come down hard on Facebook? For a fervently pro-advertiser organisation this is quite weird. I doubt it's because they're suddenly "siding with the consumer". I think there is something more going on here. Perhaps it's because advertisers hate losing ad revenue while firms start advertising directly on the Internet? Perhaps this is an chance to scare wayward customers back into their arms?

And there is the punchline: The ASB has no power anyway, so despite the buzz this news story has created Carlton Breweries can flip them the bird and keep using Facebook. Must suck when Self-regulation comes back to bite you, eh, ASB? ;-)

What's strange about this is that the ASB are a self-regulated *COUGH* *COUGH* group from the advertisers which are infamous for dismissing complaints by the public. The scuttlebutt with self-regulation of advertisers, medical professionals, lawyers, anybody, is the hope that if you pretend to do the job yourself the government won't do it for you. Their investigations inevitably end with: "Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board dismissed the complaint."

But don't take my word for it. Their determinations are online here:
http://www.adstandards.com.au/casereports/determinations/standards?browse

There have been many stories published accusing the ASB of being biased towards advertisers:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-29/advertisers-blamed-for-increasing-child/2701322
http://vimeo.com/2788853
http://mumbrella.com.au/asb-investigates-lynx-dry-ads-featuring-women-who-look-hot-wet-27383
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2287201.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3029145.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2598826.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q="media+watch"+"advertising+standards"&site:abc.net.au

The crazy thing is the standards are voluntary so there is no penalty even if they do catch you out. Here they did catch Subway for passing off manufactured meat as fillet, but the penalty was, ummm... nothing. Subway said they would change the menus. That was it. (This article says it could be referred to the ACCC, but they are a statutory body and can do that anyway without the ASB. You can complain directly to the ACCC anyway. The ASB has the same legal status that you and your footie mates head out to a game.) http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/06/27/food-companies-asked-to-apply-for-government-money-2.html

Advertisers take advantage of the weak penalties by doing such bad taste ads they're bound to get reported and get a 6:30PM news story asking "Has XYZ gone too far with this sexy ad? stay tuned and we'll show you after the break." Most infamous was the blow jobs for shoes ads: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/240602_s4.htm

So why on Earth has the ASB come down hard on Facebook? For a fervently pro-advertiser organisation this is quite weird. I doubt it's because they're suddenly "siding with the consumer". I think there is something more going on here. Perhaps it's because advertisers hate losing ad revenue while firms start advertising directly on the Internet? Perhaps this is an chance to scare wayward customers back into their arms?

And there is the punchline: The ASB has no power anyway, so despite the buzz this news story has created Carlton Breweries can flip them the bird and keep using Facebook. Must suck when Self-regulation comes back to bite you, eh, ASB? ;-)

What's strange about this is that the ASB are a self-regulated *COUGH* *COUGH* group from the advertisers which are infamous for dismissing complaints by the public. The scuttlebutt with self-regulation of advertisers, medical professionals, lawyers, anybody, is the hope that if you pretend to do the job yourself the government won't do it for you. Their investigations inevitably end with: "Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board dismissed the complaint."

But don't take my word for it. Their determinations are online here:
http://www.adstandards.com.au/casereports/determinations/standards?browse

There have been many stories published accusing the ASB of being biased towards advertisers:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-29/advertisers-blamed-for-increasing-child/2701322
http://vimeo.com/2788853
http://mumbrella.com.au/asb-investigates-lynx-dry-ads-featuring-women-who-look-hot-wet-27383
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2287201.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3029145.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2598826.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q="media+watch"+"advertising+standards"&site:abc.net.au

The crazy thing is the standards are voluntary so there is no penalty even if they do catch you out. Here they did catch Subway for passing off manufactured meat as fillet, but the penalty was, ummm... nothing. Subway said they would change the menus. That was it. (This article says it could be referred to the ACCC, but they are a statutory body and can do that anyway without the ASB. You can complain directly to the ACCC anyway. The ASB has the same legal status that you and your footie mates head out to a game.) http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/06/27/food-companies-asked-to-apply-for-government-money-2.html

Advertisers take advantage of the weak penalties by doing such bad taste ads they're bound to get reported and get a 6:30PM news story asking "Has XYZ gone too far with this sexy ad? stay tuned and we'll show you after the break." Most infamous was the blow jobs for shoes ads: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/240602_s4.htm

So why on Earth has the ASB come down hard on Facebook? For a fervently pro-advertiser organisation this is quite weird. I doubt it's because they're suddenly "siding with the consumer". I think there is something more going on here. Perhaps it's because advertisers hate losing ad revenue while firms start advertising directly on the Internet? Perhaps this is an chance to scare wayward customers back into their arms?

And there is the punchline: The ASB has no power anyway, so despite the buzz this news story has created Carlton Breweries can flip them the bird and keep using Facebook. Must suck when Self-regulation comes back to bite you, eh, ASB? ;-)

What's strange about this is that the ASB are a self-regulated *COUGH* *COUGH* group from the advertisers which are infamous for dismissing complaints by the public. The scuttlebutt with self-regulation of advertisers, medical professionals, lawyers, anybody, is the hope that if you pretend to do the job yourself the government won't do it for you. Their investigations inevitably end with: "Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board dismissed the complaint."

But don't take my word for it. Their determinations are online here:
http://www.adstandards.com.au/casereports/determinations/standards?browse

There have been many stories published accusing the ASB of being biased towards advertisers:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-29/advertisers-blamed-for-increasing-child/2701322
http://vimeo.com/2788853
http://mumbrella.com.au/asb-investigates-lynx-dry-ads-featuring-women-who-look-hot-wet-27383
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2287201.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3029145.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2598826.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q="media+watch"+"advertising+standards"&site:abc.net.au

The crazy thing is the standards are voluntary so there is no penalty even if they do catch you out. Here they did catch Subway for passing off manufactured meat as fillet, but the penalty was, ummm... nothing. Subway said they would change the menus. That was it. (This article says it could be referred to the ACCC, but they are a statutory body and can do that anyway without the ASB. You can complain directly to the ACCC anyway. The ASB has the same legal status that you and your footie mates head out to a game.) http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/06/27/food-companies-asked-to-apply-for-government-money-2.html

Advertisers take advantage of the weak penalties by doing such bad taste ads they're bound to get reported and get a 6:30PM news story asking "Has XYZ gone too far with this sexy ad? stay tuned and we'll show you after the break." Most infamous was the blow jobs for shoes ads: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/240602_s4.htm

So why on Earth has the ASB come down hard on Facebook? For a fervently pro-advertiser organisation this is quite weird. I doubt it's because they're suddenly "siding with the consumer". I think there is something more going on here. Perhaps it's because advertisers hate losing ad revenue while firms start advertising directly on the Internet? Perhaps this is an chance to scare wayward customers back into their arms?

And there is the punchline: The ASB has no power anyway, so despite the buzz this news story has created Carlton Breweries can flip them the bird and keep using Facebook. Must suck when Self-regulation comes back to bite you, eh, ASB? ;-)

Every single online stream for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for instace, i snow a endless loop saying "During the London 2012 Olympics, we are unable to bring you regular ABC programming in your location. This is due to the Olympic Broadcast Agreement."

Try any of the streams at http://www.abc.net.au/radio/listenlive.htm#directlinks All blocked if you're outside Australia.

Assholes. Not just sport. EVERYTHING from Australia's main broadcaster is off the air for weeks because of the fucking Olympics.

You are quite correct. I based my original comment on a TV news story that I vaguely remembered: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-13/australian-laser-threatens-nuclear-security/2570568.

I do note that the process is being developed by one of the existing refiners, so it will be interesting to see if it results in significantly cheaper fuel rods.

Rapidly declining advertising revenues continue to be the industry’s core problem. The losses in 2011 were slightly worse than those of 2010 – 7.3% compared to 6.3%. Ad revenues are now less than half what they were in 2006.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/business/media/quarterly-profit-falls-12-2-at-times-co.html

The New York Times Company reported on Thursday that its fourth-quarter profit declined 12.2 percent as rising subscription and digital advertising revenue at its largest newspapers could not offset the continued drop-off in print advertising.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120703-702076.html

Mediaset SpA (MS.MI), Italy's largest private broadcaster, expects advertising revenue in its home market to decline in the first half of 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/08/itv-advertising-sales-drop

ITV expected to report first decline in ad revenues for 18 months

http://www.exa.com.au/articles/autumn_09/

Meanwhile, free to air broadcasters have experienced multi-million dollar dives in profits and are writing their assets down as worthless. Channel 7, 9 and 10 are crippled by debt and funding problems in the face of declining advertising revenues and changing trends. Likewise, print media is experiencing huge decreases in both readership and advertising revenue.

http://www.filmneweurope.com/news/romania/declining-ad-revenues-at-romanian-tv

The deficit of the Romanian's public TV, SRTV (www.tvr.ro), decreased by 0.71% in 2011, to €36.7 million Euro, while revenue from advertising was 7.4 million euro in 2011, down 24.06% from 2010.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-15/sbs-admits-financial-trouble/3830502

SBS battling falling ad revenue

http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/digital-transform/print-editions-decline/

A steady decline in print circulation and a precipitous drop in advertising revenue in 2008 and 2009, especially classified advertising, have taken their toll on newspapers and newspaper chains.

Wait wait wait.

Your argument is that there are less than 1 million porn sites, and you cite an article that examines ONLY one million sites. Do I even need to point out the flaw in that reasoning?

Still, let's suppose that your 42,000/1,000,000 figure is true. There are somewhere between 300,000,000 and 6,800,000,000 websites, total, which (using naive extrapolation) gives between 13,000,000 and 290,000,000 pornographic websites. And I for one would bet that porn tends more to the "many sites with low traffic" style than average.

In any case, this source lists 4.2 million sites, and this study lists 260 million porn pages online as of 2003 - do your own estimates for average pages per site and extrapolate towards today if you wish.

Part of the proliferation is just how the business works. They tend to buy up many domains, one for each "series" almost, and combine them into one "package". They commonly refer to this as "affiliate" sites. So that inflates things a bit. Then there's the rather large number of free sites that just rehost content. Then all the camwhore sites. And some "dating" sites are classed as pornography for obvious reasons.

tl;dr there's a TON of porn out there

So ... this looks more like that MS engineer trying to make a name for himself

Maybe.

But I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to experiment with the Backfire Effect in their marketing. It's been in the news a bit lately, so it'd be topical for them.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4111544.html

Actually, as with most situations where humans dump heaps of something somewhere without worrying about the consequences too much, the buildup of salt in the ocean potentially can have significant harmful effects on sea life.

This is a major issue near where I live at the moment - we have no water (driest state in the driest continent on Earth) so we are keen on desalination, but the planned desal plant may kill a unique local form of giant cuttlefish because we are going to pump heaps of salt into a gulf that doesn't flush out quickly:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-04-16/cuttlefish-at-risk-from-desalination-plant/2243198

I guess it'd like fish deciding that pumping a few percent of extra CO into the local atmosphere won't be a problem for us because the atmosphere is so big. At a certain point you don't want to be too near the outlet.

A sentence from an article I read here in the local media (Australia) about this this morning:

"Few issues in America prove to be more complex or bafflingly partisan than healthcare. America is the only industrialised country in the world that doesn't have some form of universal healthcare so for those of us who have come from elsewhere sometimes the arguments can seem perplexing to say the least."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-29/brissenden-obamacare/4099580

That pretty much sums it up. The rest of the world can't understand this at all - how can anyone be against this stuff? Universal health care enjoys solid bipartisan support from left AND right wing governments and everything in between, in almost every country I can think of. And yes I understand that Obamacare isn't actually universal health care - it's mandated private insurance - but it's a step in the right direction, surely? (Recognising the fact that it's going to be difficult in the US to literally throw the whole health system out and start from scratch again ... need to take baby steps instead)

Not trolling here or necessarily saying it's bad that America is like this. But just to convey to our American friends know that really, the rest of us look in complete bewilderment at this issue. It's like you guys live in a parallel universe or something and we find it very hard to understand.

When James Cook ran the Endeavour aground on a shoal in north Queensland on June 11, 1770, (18 years before the first convicts arrived in Sydney) his men went ashore for 7 weeks to make hull repairs. They met the Guugu Yimithirr people and collected a long list of words including "Kangooroo - the leaping quadrapod". (And because Slashdot doesn't support Unicode I can't show you the pronunciation - look at Unicode-capable Wikipedia).

The account of the encounter is quite fascinating and very interesting with the hindsight we have now in the 21st century. The Aborigines did not want their chickens or pigs and burnt fires around their tents. We now know that the peoples of the Pacific did not want pigs because they would dig up tubers - taking away food and causing environmental damage. They were also likely aware of diseases.

Shades of Sean Gorman Batman! Anyone remember the uproar over his dissertation on critical infrastructure based on analysis of publicly available information. Almost 10 years ago.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/buzz/us-critical-infrastructure/3633190

Oh god, I hate Radiolab and their psychadelic, annoying and inane take on broadcast radio. Give me The Science Show on Oz's ABC Radio any day over Radiolab.

I just want to be able to concentrate on what's being said, so I can learn something, not be "entertained" or be treated like an ADHD sufferer in danger of losing interest if only one person is talking at a time or something.

I imagine no worse than peeling a roll of sticky tape... will they ban these evil inventions as well?

Only if you can peel it in vacuum, you can't get x-rays from peeling tape in atmosphere.

I imagine no worse than peeling a roll of sticky tape... will they ban these evil inventions as well?

Well they already have loops of cables behind servers to ensure that no one could have a possible advantage. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-11/kohler-high-frequency-trade-parasites-at-heart-of-asx/3943052

Anyone with a mind set in reality will understand how didiculous that is!

See recent news about the black market for guns, shootings on the rise, and now guns being stolen from houses and farmers, possibly using the Gun Registry information.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-01/scores-of-guns-stolen-from-nsw-homes/4046140
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/fears-that-nsw-is-under-the-gun/story-fn7y9brv-1226377827009
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/cops-fear-gun-showdown/story-e6freoof-1226333751536

So, no, it doesn't work. All it means is that the only people walking around the streets armed are the criminals.

Name me one instance where that has happened. And before you start dragging out the Schmeiser case, no, I don't mean instances where someone violated their contracts or intentionally selected for the transgenic trait. i want to know of just one case where Monsanto up and sued someone simply for being cross pollinated. People keep making that claim, that Monsanto likes to go around suing farmers (because the one thing a seed company wants is less farmers /sarcasm), but when I ask for actual examples of it happening no one can give them, although I can think of the opposite happening.

The headline is disingenuous, the servers belonged to the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and whilst they are funded by the government, they are independent due to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act of 1983. ABC's Corporate Structure and the Charter of Independence and Accountability.

The headline is disingenuous, the servers belonged to the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and whilst they are funded by the government, they are independent due to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act of 1983. ABC's Corporate Structure and the Charter of Independence and Accountability.

Doctors cite lung cancer worries at Port Augusta
Posted May 03, 2012 11:48:28
A new analysis of pollution data for the Port Augusta region contradicts reassurances from the South Australian Government that smoking can be blamed for high lung cancer rates.Residents of the region have long complained about health problems they link with two power stations, Playford and Northern, which burn highly-polluting brown coal.The lung cancer rates around Port Augusta are said to be double the expected number.The independent analysis has been presented in Adelaide at a briefing for state parliamentarians organised by Doctors for the Environment Australia. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-03/doctors-cite-lung-cancer-worries-at-port-augusta/3987432

Doctors for the Environment Australia website has a longer article titled Illness and Pollution at Port Augusta; Doctors Prescribe Solar Thermal Treatment. Now clearly this body has a green bias, but their position paper contains some useful links to check the facts http://dea.org.au/images/general/Briefing_paper_on_coal_2011.pdf

A nuclear power station, located only 250km South of the world's largest uranium mine (Olympic Dam) sounds like a much safer option to me.

Unless someone comes up with something clever again.

Well, apparently you can turn a single atom into a transistor but I don't really see anybody being able to do anything about the size of atoms. Perhaps you can do some other wizardry that'll give us terahertz processors or something but the transistor density won't get denser than this.

The discovery that the bacteria inside insects' guts finds human-made (often very toxic) insecticide "tasty" can actually be a good news for all of us ---

We can tap the ability of those bacteria to "digest" away many of the toxic waste produced by industries

And allow the said industries to produce other flavors of toxic waste, only cheaper?

Whether you like it or not, the industrial complex has been producing, - and is producing - millions and millions of tons of toxic waste every single year. toxic wastes that are very difficult - and very un-economical to un-toxic-fy

If there are bacteria which can "digest" those toxic waste and break-down the chemicals in such that the resultant by-products lose their toxicity - we should tap into the abilities of those bacteria to clean up the environment

And your point being ... ?

My point: for the time being, those bacteria requires a gut to function.

I won't volunteer my gut for it and various experiments of the past make me wary of attempts involving evolution and ecology (take TFA for an example of the law of unintended consequences in ecology).

You do realize the prions that cause mad cow are not JUST in the brains and nerves. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/07/07/1681124.htm

0.5mg/L is twice the safe level for all mammals, before it was a cost problem, now it is whatever level
industry ^H^H^H^H^H government believe it can get away with ^H^H^H^H legislate.

Cited from
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/problems-with-desalination-plants/3796870

Food for thought below:

Sea water is difficult to desalinate to make potable water using filters. All sea water contains boron, mostly as boric acid. The boric acid molecule is about the same size as a water molecule.
Boron occurs in the sea at a concentration of at least 4 milligrams per litre or over 20 times a safe drinking level of 0.2mg/L where it is safe for all mammals and plants. Tests in the US show that boron in dam water is 0.047 mg/L on average. Boron is tasteless. Membranes used to filter sea water under pressure are not efficient at reducing boron and their ability to remove boron diminishes with use.

Even in order to get the boron level down to 0.5mg/L (twice the safe level for all mammals) will require the RO filters to be changed every six months an increase of 12% in the operating cost. Usually RO plants are small and are used for short periods to produce permeate (or manufactured water) for use on installations like oil rigs or mixed with fresh water to dilute boron to safe levels.

From 2003 to 2009 0.5mg/L of boron was considered to be a safe level for drinking and is the maximum boron amount specified in the Wonthaggi contract. Records from Australia’s Gold Coast and Kurnell plants show that boron has not been kept at levels below 0.5mg/L and the level exceeds 0.5mg/L after about six months. The Kurnell plant which is currently up for sale by the NSW government is mixed with water held in the large Warragamba Dam to dilute the boron to safe levels, apart from the suburbs of Prospect, Ryde and Potts Hill which receive unmixed water for pressure reasons.

The toxicity tests entailed feeding a group of pregnant rats increasing amounts of boric acid to the point where the average foetal weight loss was 5% compared to a control group. The World Health Organisation then used this standard formula to establish safety guidelines for humans based on water consumption, boron retention and adult body weight. On this basis the WHO set the 0.5mg/L safety guideline which was adopted by Australia.
It was only when reverse osmosis plants began to replace distillation plants that the WHO guidelines became of more than academic interest to the water industry. In 2008 the Harvard Medical School undertook an exhaustive survey of boron literature which concluded that additional boron exposure above the background level in drinking water should be avoided by children under 18 years of age.

The original boron safety standard of 0.5mg/L is costly to meet. One way of reducing that cost is to relax the guidelines.

Despite the lack of new laboratory or population research in 2009 the WHO increased the safety guideline to 2.4mg/L and the Australian guidelines were increased to 4mg/L in 2004 just before Australia’s first large desalination plant was approved. The 400% increase in the WHO guidelines and the 800% increase in the guidelines for Australia are not based on published toxicology or epidemiology. This apparent regulatory capture has international as well as national implications for the development of public health standards.

Sorry if this is tl;dr but this is not slashfox

There are perhaps 1-2% who care enough to decide properly, hence most aussie elections go down to the wire 49-50 between labor and liberal.

You're obviously not a Queenslander - Labor had their asses handed to them on a silver platter just a few weeks ago in a 87-7pc split (the rest were independents). I guess the people had enough of Anna Bligh selling off government assets, sending politicians and their guests to football games at taxpayer expense, and spending $300,000 a day on election advertising (at least that was at party expense). And they're still in the news accused of shredding files on their way out no less.

There are perhaps 1-2% who care enough to decide properly, hence most aussie elections go down to the wire 49-50 between labor and liberal.

You're obviously not a Queenslander - Labor had their asses handed to them on a silver platter just a few weeks ago in a 87-7pc split (the rest were independents). I guess the people had enough of Anna Bligh selling off government assets, sending politicians and their guests to football games at taxpayer expense, and spending $300,000 a day on election advertising (at least that was at party expense). And they're still in the news accused of shredding files on their way out no less.

let your MP know on this single issue you will vote against them...
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/find-your-local-mp.htm

wonder how many people actually will... worth twittering/emailing/commenting on the MP in question

regards

John Jones

Australia is a good place to do this in the eye of the MPAA because they feel that they can bully and buy the result

Bully and buy the result, in Australia? Seriously? If they thought that then they don't know Australian's, their politicians or their ISP's for that matter. As has now been borne out. 4+ years, still no result, the government hasn't stepped in and the media and public opinion is lined up against them.

By the way, you might like to ask the Tobacco companies how easy it is to bully and bribe to get a result in Australia. We are the first on the planet to introduce plain packaging laws. They've tried well funded media campaigns, astroturfing campaigns where their convinced small shop owner associations to be their mouthpiece, and are currently carrying out their threat to challenge it on constitution grounds in our law courts. They brought suits against the Australian government in foreign courts over treaty violations. Again, so far, no result. The law has passed both houses and will be enforced shortly.

That cultural misunderstanding aside, you are just plain wrong. They have tried to pull this stunt in numerous places with some success in the US, France and NZ off the top of my head. In no way was Australia singled out.

Hey Canada, I don't hear music companies down here in Australia jumping up and down complaining about commercial-free ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission)-broadcast radio services such as http://abc.net.au/triplej, the ABC's commercial-free music video program http://abc.net.au/rage or free on-line streaming services such as http://triplejunearthed.com/.

There are also a number of 'community' radio stations in Australia that have blanket licenses to permit them to broadcast copyright work as they please. None of these have had a particularly negative effect on the Australian music industry -- quite the contrary, you have a much better chance in Australia as an independent musician getting your music heard than in Canada or the US, and this has arguably led to the much more dynamic and thriving music culture in Australia.

The for-profit labels seem content to wait for new artists to become known through these non-commercial, ABC-funded arenas -- Triple J, rage and so forth -- then approach them for commercial distribution and concert promotion. Many big international Australian acts gained their start this way.

Maybe the Canadian music labels need to look down under, and stop being dinosaurs. Having the public broadcaster promote music has contributed heavily to Australia becoming the international force in music that it is today.
 

Hey Canada, I don't hear music companies down here in Australia jumping up and down complaining about commercial-free ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission)-broadcast radio services such as http://abc.net.au/triplej, the ABC's commercial-free music video program http://abc.net.au/rage or free on-line streaming services such as http://triplejunearthed.com/.

There are also a number of 'community' radio stations in Australia that have blanket licenses to permit them to broadcast copyright work as they please. None of these have had a particularly negative effect on the Australian music industry -- quite the contrary, you have a much better chance in Australia as an independent musician getting your music heard than in Canada or the US, and this has arguably led to the much more dynamic and thriving music culture in Australia.

The for-profit labels seem content to wait for new artists to become known through these non-commercial, ABC-funded arenas -- Triple J, rage and so forth -- then approach them for commercial distribution and concert promotion. Many big international Australian acts gained their start this way.

Maybe the Canadian music labels need to look down under, and stop being dinosaurs. Having the public broadcaster promote music has contributed heavily to Australia becoming the international force in music that it is today.
 

Flora would like to meet you again!

From our experience packet flooding attacks are rare, most are application layer attacks because they're cheaper:

- If your landing page is dynamic chances are a small site can be choked at the database from a few hundred zombies, and it's much harder to detect the zombies from the genuine clients in a safe automated fashion
- If you don't have a lot of CPU at your firewall layer you can't create long enough rule tables to stop the bad traffic as you detect it
- Often you can simplify your rules but just starting by blocking China, Russia, Korea, then smaller countries that are hosting bots.

If they are genuine flood attacks:

The idea that your ISP will block a "list of addresses" is comical, it's not nearly responsive enough, and if you're lucky your ISP will agree to block countries and only if you have a business account which you're paying over the odds access fees for. Some will even null route YOUR IP instead of the attackers to save their own infrastructure: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2009/s2658405.htm

ANDREW FOWLER: The Russian cyber attack was so sustained it backed up through Telstra's network, knocking out the whole of Alice Springs, part of Adelaide, and Telstra central in Sydney.

DAN CRANE, FORMER TECHNOLOGY MANAGER, MULTIBET: And that's when they sort of started to panic a bit I think because all of a sudden it wasn't just a, you know run of the mill attack, this was a pretty hardcore attack because that's when it started, that's when it took out Alice Springs, that's when it degraded Adelaide and that's when it melted their routers in Sydney so that's when they said that's it, we don't want a bar of it.

ANDREW FOWLER: According to Dan Crane, Telstra stopped accepting any of Multibet's internet traffic from entering Australia.

Not to mention even creating this list is a continual task. Botnets rent out "so many connections", but the computers that are active at any time rotate in and out of the pool. We saw probably around 1000 computers at a time hitting the firewall, but from a pool of more like 100,000 addresses we discovered over the course of a week. We initially took a strategy of programmatically blocking individual IPs as they came in at a response rate of about 5 seconds with some scripting, but soon moved to blocking entire countries that we didn't do business with and doing some daily post processing of the IP list as well to consolidate IPs into /27s and sometimes as far as /24s

Our last client to have this issue used Black Lotus and they seemed to do a good job for the price and be quite responsive, though they were still learning their trade at that time... I don't think they were terribly cheap. And botnets are much much cheaper, so unless you're lucky and it's someone that loses interest and not a competitor attacking you it can end up making your web hosting very expensive.

Found the Catalyst story from 2009, Wifi Windfall

This is happening in Australia right now. A farmer lost his organic certification due to cross-contamination of his crop from a neighbour that was using GM seeds, and so is suing the neighbour.

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/telegraph/content/2012/s3470966.htm

of April?

This may be true...

It's the 2nd of April here in Oz and it's been reported on ABC news

I dont think that even Ashton Kutcher is a big enough douchebag to do proper homage to Jobs.

nobody was tricked into buying an iPod or iPhone

But on the other hand, the iPad...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-28/apple-offers-ipad-refunds/3917440

ABC's Media Watch mentioned this as part of a larger look into media coverage of the new iPad release. Summary doesn't quite make clear that 4G is available in Australia, it's just that the iPad won't support it.

A myth. Whether a mussel opens or not depends solely on how strong the adductor muscles are, on the hinge of the shell, and has nothing to do with the meat inside.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/10/29/2404364.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-21/australians-pay-highest-power-prices-says-study/3904024

Your first link says that Australians are paying higher power prices than other countries. If this means that they have a lot of transmission lines to distribute electricity across sparsely-populated regions, few government subsidies for electricity (and hence lower taxes), and carbon quotas to decrease greenhouse gas emissions (particularly important for a dry country that's especially vulnerable to global warming) ... then yes, I would say that this is something that would happen in a country where the actions of the government are in the best interests of its people.

I haven't checked your other links - but I'm too lazy to, unless you provide some sort of indication that you're going to actually make an argument.

G'day Clive, you fat bastard! How are your "Greens are a CIA plot" claims working out for you?

Clive's clearly a loon, but he's just a symptom of the problem.

Check each of the links below and ask yourself "Would this be happening in a country where the actions of the government are in the best interests of its people".

Let me know your answer. I'll be interested.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-21/australians-pay-highest-power-prices-says-study/3904024
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3460798.htm
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/03/21/official-australia-the-best-place-for-miners-in-the-world-again/
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/billionaires-grow-fat-off-lazy-government-20120321-1vij7.html

G'day Clive, you fat bastard! How are your "Greens are a CIA plot" claims working out for you?

Clive's clearly a loon, but he's just a symptom of the problem.

Check each of the links below and ask yourself "Would this be happening in a country where the actions of the government are in the best interests of its people".

Let me know your answer. I'll be interested.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-21/australians-pay-highest-power-prices-says-study/3904024
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3460798.htm
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/03/21/official-australia-the-best-place-for-miners-in-the-world-again/
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/billionaires-grow-fat-off-lazy-government-20120321-1vij7.html

The whole story is one steaming pile of bullshit and crap. It's only aim to take over the internet and create a 1980 mass media version of it, where half a dozen corporations control what is allowed on it and 7 billion people are censored 24/7/365.

Want proof, http://www.castanet.net/news/Canada/72606/Experts-worry-over-household-debt, http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/3/20/business/10946706&sec=business, http://www.whocrashedtheeconomy.com/blog/intro/household-debt/, http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/27880.html. Stories from all over the world of household debt at record unsustainable levels.

Just were in the fuck is are those RIAA and MPAA dickwads meant to be getting that money from, who are the imaginary folk left to spend money on content instead of food, or rent, or clothing or medical expenses.

Quite simply there is no money left in the economy especially for parasitical parts of it. It is gone and based on current economic realities it is more than gone the ability to generate further personal debt is gone. So the question to bullshit politicians and governments exactly which parts of the economy do they wish to crash to feed the insatiable greed of the pigopolists.

These corporations are basically trying to launch an economic and political war on the majority of humanity. Establish a global big brother internet, where the monitor, censor and control every man women and child that is not part of their elite circle of psychopaths.

Integration of major government agencies - Medicare, Centrelink, DHS, CRS is a huge waste of money

Good reform.

Can't stop the boats

(they takin our jaaabs?)
Howard solved the problem by making everyone HATE us and think we are all racists, is that the sort of govenrment you want back ?

I think the Malaysia deal would have been good, but Libs wont sign up for that because they have their corrupt backroom deals to shovel heaps of money to Narau.

School 'building' scheme was a real waste of money in many places. Heart is in the right place, governance and oversight isn't

"The final report into the Building the Education Revolution (BER) scheme says about 5 or 6 per cent of the $16 billion program was not value for money." - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-08/nsw-victoria-rate-poorly-in-ber-report/2787644

Batts - Wonderful idea, very bad execution. A real rort in many areas. Bad governance.

I still dont see how its the governments fault that their are bad tradesman. Do you have figures of how much of it was waste ?

Carbon Tax

RTD tax

Agree, do gooders dont get it.

Labour signed ACTA

Probably their biggest mistake, almost as bad as the FTA with the USA that forces us to implement some of their stupid laws. I wish they would run these things past Scott Ludlum ;)

Depends on where it hits. One that big into the Indian Ocean could replicate Noah's Flood, which is probably what happened THEN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burckle_Crater

Sure. An inundation of the entire world for forty days and forty nights is no problem, all you need is a big enough impact. I take it this Holocene Impact Working Group has a religious agenda?

They don't actually come out and say it (as far as I can tell), but they have a very specific time estimate (2800-3000 BCE) with no actual dating procedures performed, and they admit that their hypothesis flies in the face of most relevant research ("The scientific community, I wouldn't expect 99.9 per cent of it to agree with us"). What's more, their research is generally clutching at straws and is easily repudiated by experts in the relevant fields. All this makes it reek of religious revisionism of science, itself disguised as science.

Why can't religious nutjobs just leave science alone?