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Eureka stockade was a failed revolution of criminals against the govt.

Failed? They achieved their objectives. The leader was elected to the legislature. That's some failure! By the way, those men were found not guilty by juries of their peers, by what authority do you declare them to be criminals?

I do not know even one person in .au who thinks a the general population should be armed.

Well I assure you there is more than one. The ABC's reporting of Queensland senate election results shows the initial allocation of votes includes 55,222 for the Liberal Democrats (LDP) whose policy is to legalise firearms ownership for self-defence including concealed carry and 42,669 for the Shooters and Fishers party. NSW had 95,752 for LDP and 96,638 for the Shooters and Fishers party. Victoria had 59,116 for LDP and 44,639 for Shooters and Fishers. SA 5,584 for LDP and 11,425 for Shooters and Fishers. WA 14,517 for LDP and 7,459 for Shooters and Fishers. NT 4,640 for Shooters and Fishers.

That is 230,191 votes for the LDP (pro concealed carry) and 207,470 for the Shooters and Fishers party in the initial allocation, more with preferences. Over 430,000 pro firearms votes.

It is YOU who have no idea of the opinion of the general pubic.

My reference to the public opinion was not intended to refer to my opinions on firearms, which I know are not mainstream. It was supposed to be specific on the issue of whether "armed conflict is the worst possible outcome". I should have expressed that better.

In the the interview in question, he claims that the filter will not have any impact on speed (he names a few countries as examples):

"In Finland, in Sweden, in a range of western countries, a filter is in place today and 80, 90, 95 per cent of citizens in those countries when they use the internet go through that filter. It has no impact on speed and anybody who makes a claim that it has an impact on speed is misleading people. If you want to be a strict engineer, it's 170th of the blink of an eye but no noticeable effect for an end user. So there is no impact and the accuracy is 100 per cent. "

Anyone got any stats on this?

Yeah, it's shocking that my old laptop stuttered when I tried to play Crysis on it. Clearly they should never have supported DirectX on that laptop at all. If even one game might not perform well clearly the entire technology should be banned from the platform.

Different devices have different capabilities. Nobody is pretending that is not the case. I bet all these sites he went to tried to send high quality video down in encodings that are not well supported on Android. Given my experience (about 75% of fash sites work very well, the rest vary from poor to not at all) I strongly suspect the author spent some time "researching" to find particular sites that happen to work badly.

I can tell you I have watched many, many flash videos on my Nexus that performed wonderfully - as good or even better than the desktop experience. For example, I watch many programs on the local TV station's web site here and they all work smoothly and perfectly.

So vote Green. Particularly in the Senate. Greens will support the NBN, but they will oppose the bloody filter. But what will the Libs do? Will they treat their current opposition to the filter as a non-core promise and drop us in the poo anyway?

What is with the Australians

I suspect that, on average, Australia is a lot less prudish than (for example) the USA. Our national broadcaster's "Youth radio station" for example frequently plays songs with swear words in them, including "fuck", though I think "cunt" is still "out of bounds" despite some more recent attempts and discussion.

As for why some parts of our government occasionally seem to get on their high horse, this song from last nights TV probably explains it best.

Vampires, Pirates and Aliens is apparently an ABC (Australia) cartoon based on a series of books. Dunno how many *boom* Headshots! there are per episode, but probably not that many. http://www.abc.net.au/abckids/shows/prog176.htm

"faith based filtering" = ?? Julia & Conroy are offering us censorship, did you miss the debate on this topic?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/web-filter-to-block-internet-nasties-will-compromise-nbn-say-providers/story-e6frg6nf-1225811143407
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/07/2893687.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/21/2879345.htm

"all they did was stall adsl2, milk the international interconnects, keep exchanges difficult to access, charge use up and down by the mb and muddy any NBN press."

Telstra was the product of both Labor & coalition governments spread across several terms. The Monopoly that was changed into the system we have today is less than perfect. The reality is we now have other private companies investing in infrastructure and providing competitive service. For example - TPG have invested in exchanges and sell monopoly access to their infrastructure. No security of investment results in no investment.

Creating a new monopoly (NBN) will result in a repeat of the original Telecom problems. Any investment in infrastructure will demand a return on investment. Any politician/government that fails to subject to accountability will be accused of vote buying (pork barreling their electorate).

I'm all for open debate. Please justify & expand on your claim "Tony is offering Australia more of the worst of a US Bell system".

"faith based filtering" = ?? Julia & Conroy are offering us censorship, did you miss the debate on this topic?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/web-filter-to-block-internet-nasties-will-compromise-nbn-say-providers/story-e6frg6nf-1225811143407
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/07/2893687.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/21/2879345.htm

"all they did was stall adsl2, milk the international interconnects, keep exchanges difficult to access, charge use up and down by the mb and muddy any NBN press."

Telstra was the product of both Labor & coalition governments spread across several terms. The Monopoly that was changed into the system we have today is less than perfect. The reality is we now have other private companies investing in infrastructure and providing competitive service. For example - TPG have invested in exchanges and sell monopoly access to their infrastructure. No security of investment results in no investment.

Creating a new monopoly (NBN) will result in a repeat of the original Telecom problems. Any investment in infrastructure will demand a return on investment. Any politician/government that fails to subject to accountability will be accused of vote buying (pork barreling their electorate).

I'm all for open debate. Please justify & expand on your claim "Tony is offering Australia more of the worst of a US Bell system".

some critical commentry from an ABC reporter.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2983739.htm
I had hoped someone would pick up on my comment about net neutrality and the censorship issue that many feel strongly about.

some extracts from the abc reporter

"There has been no detailed cost-benefit analysis published by Treasury on why the NBN is the best possible use of up to $43 billion of taxpayer's cash. There has been no independent Productivity Commission Inquiry determining the amount of money that the nation should use to subsidise high-speed broadband, and whether, in fact, comparable technology, such as WiMax or ADSL2+, could be supplied at no additional cost to taxpayers via the private sector."

Upgrading a design plan is easy, building it costs money. I expect these election promises to be costed properly, you should also.

"this choice does not need to be binary; all or nothing. We can support the private sector in the development of better broadband technology. We just don't need to make a very risky $43 billion punt on one specific solution. "

I use Linux (Ubuntu to be exact). I have no worries streaming Windows Media Player things. I listen to Radio National quite often. I've booked marked the stream and it just opens up in Media Player. I've got it set to open in the browser, but you can make it open as a separate window as well if you like.

MS Windows. For chumps.

(And for others, but you might think you have a need for MS Windows that can actually be fulfilled by Ubuntu or another *nix distro. If you aren't willing to check it out, you're a chump.)

I use Linux (Ubuntu to be exact). I have no worries streaming Windows Media Player things. I listen to Radio National quite often. I've booked marked the stream and it just opens up in Media Player. I've got it set to open in the browser, but you can make it open as a separate window as well if you like.

MS Windows. For chumps.

(And for others, but you might think you have a need for MS Windows that can actually be fulfilled by Ubuntu or another *nix distro. If you aren't willing to check it out, you're a chump.)

That's only in the ACT (which is the default option on btl.org.au, so you might not have intended it)
The ACT senate election is a bit peculiar (see http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/07/the-act-senate-contest.html), but I'm still surprised (and disappointed) at the Dem's decision there.

July 2010, deadliest month in iraq in 2 years

The surge is a sham, a failure, a propaganda campaign to secure more of your tax dollars. There will never ever be victory in Iraq. Who the hell told you it worked? Wheverer there's a 'surge' the Al-CIA-duh blends back into the normal populace until troops leave.

Please stop spreading this misinformation. You definition of victory can't be dozens of troops killed.

Does this explain why getting married kills productivity in men? http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s900147.htm

A wise person votes both above and below the line. If you do that and stuff your below the line vote up then your above the line vote gets used instead.

See http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/07/how-to-vote-guide.html, in the last section titled What happens if I vote both above and below the line? .

In the senate you're allowed three sequencing mistakes before you paper is thrown out. Anthony Green's election guide is a pretty good starting point for those wanting to better understand our voting system. He also has pretty good guides of how much the voting has to swing for seats to change hands - Senate and House of Reps

In the senate you're allowed three sequencing mistakes before you paper is thrown out. Anthony Green's election guide is a pretty good starting point for those wanting to better understand our voting system. He also has pretty good guides of how much the voting has to swing for seats to change hands - Senate and House of Reps

In the senate you're allowed three sequencing mistakes before you paper is thrown out. Anthony Green's election guide is a pretty good starting point for those wanting to better understand our voting system. He also has pretty good guides of how much the voting has to swing for seats to change hands - Senate and House of Reps

It's not ok for google to inadvertadly capture minute packets of useless information, but it's ok for the government to direct ISPs to intercept data illegally.

The Australian Labor party have time and time again broken their promises, Barging ahead with Policies that their citizens do no want and completely fucking up things they tried to achieve

The only reason Google are in hot water is because they stood up to Senator Conroy and he got upset about it.

I for one will be making my vote count this year and I urge all fellow Australian slashdotters to do the same.

If you really are against Labor, it works better to vote parties that are least for the parties. There's a most opposing parties method that will put Labor senators last to get votes so you don't have to understand the big list of candidates and preferences.

Disclaimer: My website

Colin Hay defends the song saying (emphasis added):

"It is no surprise that in over 20 years, no one noticed the reference to Kookaburra. There are reasons for this. It was inadvertent, naive, unconscious, and by the time Men At Work recorded the song, it had become unrecognisable," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/05/2811671.htm

Yet in the music video for "Down Under" a flute player is shown playing the quotation while sitting in a gum tree.

Pure coincidence?

But was it an old gum tree?

Colin Hay defends the song saying (emphasis added):

"It is no surprise that in over 20 years, no one noticed the reference to Kookaburra. There are reasons for this. It was inadvertent, naive, unconscious, and by the time Men At Work recorded the song, it had become unrecognisable," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/05/2811671.htm

Yet in the music video for "Down Under" a flute player is shown playing the quotation while sitting in a gum tree.

Pure coincidence?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/06/2945781.htm

Not according to him in his interview with Andrew Denton

SPF 70+ and a hat.

That explains the Michael Jackson-esque pallor: http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201006/r589684_3766014.jpg

A transcript of an Australian doco on the US space business "The High Frontier"
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1358430.htm
The contracts to help the DoD show real growth for some with connections. Some interesting numbers and private sector deals with the US DoD are listed.

Ah, I forgot about coles/woolworths*. But still, I'd rather have someone who deals with the problem half the time than nobody to hold them accountable at all.

*For the non-australian reader, these are the two large grocer chains in Australia. They have a very bad track record (a good summary of what goes on can be found here ) in terms of playing fair.

Makes up for the last space news of note from Australia, when the Howard government withdrew the funding for unidentified near earth object tracking.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/08/2385111.htm?section=australia

Rudd has to call an election soon, but what a choice it will be: Either Conservative-Christian Kevin Rudd or his opponent Conservative-Christian Tony Abbott. Abbott has refused to speak out against the net filter. Secretly, I would say he quite likes it and will go along with it.

> "I think that it makes sense to try to ensure that the homes of Australia aren't invaded with pornography via the internet," said Abbott. "On the other hand I don't want to see wider censorship and I don't want to see the internet destroyed as a tool for people's education or as a tool for people's businesses." Talk about fence sitting.

> What it came down to was a question of whether it was technically feasible, according to Abbott. Yet he wasn't willing to air his thoughts on the matter. "I just don't know enough about it at this stage to have an opinion on that," he said.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/abbott-drawn-into-filter-debate-339300089.htm

Given his conservative position on everything else he ever talks about, I'd say he *does* have an opinion on it... but he wants to cash in on the Rudd protest vote. At the end of the day we get to choose between two political parties... near identical... both headed by conservatives who like the idea of a net filter to stop the unwashed masses looking at boobs and bottoms, and to get them back into church. Pic related:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2010/03/31/tony-abbott-and-political-catholicism/
http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1362997.htm
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=19151

The level of understanding of Internet issues displayed by the Australian Communications Minister is stunning.

Ted Stevens: the Internet is a series of tubes.
Stephen Conroy: unsecured wireless access points are transparent tubes that it is a deep invasion of privacy to look through.

Dear Minister: Driving past a house and picking up traffic on an unsecured wireless network is like walking past the house of a stupid person who is using his hands-free phone by standing on the roof of his house and shouting a conversation down to where his phone is lying. You are bound to hear something that ought to have been private had the person not been communicating in a stupid way.

But this privacy beatup has caused the Minister to bring forth this gem, taken from Conroy slams "creepy" Google:

"I think that the approach taken by Mr Schmidt is a bit creepy, frankly," Senator Conroy said.

"When it comes to their attitude to their own censorship, their response is simply, 'trust us'. That is what they actually state on their website: 'Trust us'."

Indeed. Well, I think the approach taken by Stephen Conroy to Internet censorship is a bit creepy, frankly.

When it comes to his attitude to the Australian Government's own censorship scheme and its secret list of forbidden sites, his response is simply, 'trust us'.

It is increasingly clear that we can trust Minister Conroy to act on his gut feelings.

• Snooping fragments of unsecured wireless comms feels like an invasion of privacy, therefore must be bad.
• Websites which offend against his sense of decency feels bad, therefore he must prevent as many people as possible from seeing them.
• AUD$43B National Broadband Network? Feels so good that a cost/benefit analysis is clearly superfluous.

Yeah, I'm getting a pretty good idea of what I can trust Minister Conroy to do.

Because there was a murder here recently linked to Facebook. Not that this button would have done anything to prevent it, but the cops have got to be seen to be doing something to address it.

He gets grilled (a bit) about whether the Australian Federal Police investigating the WiFi thing is just payback for Google being vocal about the proposed internet filter.

Classic pot meet kettle quote on Google vehicles

"collecting data ah, and, been collecting information from WiFis that aren't protected, and so conceivably [...] if you didn't have the password protection... and you were typing, er, you're doing your online banking, passing personal information in a transaction, ah, as they drove past, they could have captured that"

As opposed to totally, definitely capturing your personal information via a filter???
(std geek : let alone him not knowing about SSL or whatever)

From about 23 minutes into the mp3 available here http://blogs.abc.net.au/victoria/2010/06/train-passengers-pelted-with-rocks-afp-google-investigation-nothing-to-do-with-filter-fight-conroy.html?site=melbourne&program=melbourne_mornings

Most parts of the world try and fund their next generation and keep their basic infrastructure maintained.
So I hope the US gets some more weather sats up and continues providing data, short term and historical.
But the pager network sat does seem to show some views on redundancy and planning.
Build one good sat network, reposition/relaunch if and when needed vs some redundancy and ongoing support.
Some of the directions the US space networks might be moving into: The High Frontier (transcript link on right)
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1355604.htm

What these guys did was solve a problem that many companies were trying to solve throughout the world for some time with regards to wireless data transmission.
They found the solution told everyone about it and then had their technology replicated everywhere.

Watch the video link in my post just after this if you want to hear the facts about why they wanted compensation for solving an issue noone else could.

Here it is if you can't find my post: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm (apologies for posting it twice)

To anyone that really doesn't know how/why this all came about watch this 12minute news story on the case, its history and the players involved.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm

where does the environmental issue come in?

Waste in the form of brine.

Just today in Australia it has been reported that a bank's staff has been spying on its customers through a fake Facebook profile.

Australia has its own faith issues. A low profile, long term plan was used to inject their view deep into both main parties.
Try this http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1358912.htm
"Family First: A Federal Crusade" gives a basic guide into a few decades of political left and right infiltration by a powerful, tax free well funded, faith based network.
The part about "comment at a pre-polling booth that lesbians like Ingrid Tall should be burnt at the stake along with all the other witches. " and "implored Christians to pray to bring down Satan's strongholds including bottleshops, brothels and Buddhist Temples. " should be rather clear to most slashdot readers.

The ones that look like Family First how-to-vote cards? http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/20/2851472.htm

Call me a nerd, but I think he should have called this thing a torque transistor. Like a transistor, it allows small torque input to control the transmission of a much larger torque. Also like a transistor, it has three connectors - the big torque in, the big torque out, and the small torque in.

And finally the one of the more important figures in gauging how effective it is its gain - the ratio of the small torque to the large one. If the gain is huge - as in a small electric motor can control the output of a great honking diesel engine, then we have a winner. It is is closer to 1 to 1, then ho hum. I wish they had said what the gain was.

Here is a different video of it. It occupies the last 1/3 of the show: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/vodcast/newinventors_2010_ep10.mp4 The video is actually episode 10 from here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/video/video.htm Two of commentators are engineers, one of which was the chief systems engineer for FedSat, an Australian Satellite. I can't imagine doing a snow job on him would be easy.

Call me a nerd, but I think he should have called this thing a torque transistor. Like a transistor, it allows small torque input to control the transmission of a much larger torque. Also like a transistor, it has three connectors - the big torque in, the big torque out, and the small torque in.

And finally the one of the more important figures in gauging how effective it is its gain - the ratio of the small torque to the large one. If the gain is huge - as in a small electric motor can control the output of a great honking diesel engine, then we have a winner. It is is closer to 1 to 1, then ho hum. I wish they had said what the gain was.

Here is a different video of it. It occupies the last 1/3 of the show: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/vodcast/newinventors_2010_ep10.mp4 The video is actually episode 10 from here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/video/video.htm Two of commentators are engineers, one of which was the chief systems engineer for FedSat, an Australian Satellite. I can't imagine doing a snow job on him would be easy.

Zuckenberg's strategy on privacy has long been to do something, see what the reaction is, then peddle backwards or forwards as appropriate. Then do it again. Creeping forward while they're not looking has worked brilliantly for Google. I hate the idea of their recording my search history and scanning my e-mail, but slowly I've learned (unwisely?) to trust them and so while those things bother me still, they don't bother me so much as they used to.

Look at Google's recent scanning of Wireless networks from the Streetview cars. Supposedly this was an accident. Oh LOL. But if they do it again in a few years maybe by then people won't mind. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/13/2898947.htm?section=business In most countries we even accept Google peeping over our fences, literally! When this news broke I remember some people (who presumably weren't employed by Google) vigorously defending Google's rights to do this: the public screaming for less privacy. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/google-to-reshoot-japanese-street-view-images-20090615-c9f1.html

We shot the messenger when Scott McNeally said we had no privacy - get over it, but he knew what we didn't: Never stand between a corporation and a pot of money.

'D-Drive' The New Inventors (Australia) Video

here is the problem:
"Chiropractors" refuse to clean house of non science mumbo jumbo

Some, not all.

Australia is about to install an infallible content filter.

I doubt it, the way things are going for the Government right now.

Actually, dead bodies are not as unhygenic as you'd think.

ROBERT HIRSCH, CONSULTANT US DEPT OF ENERGY: Basically, what they're asking us to do is to trust them. And, frankly, on something that's the lifeblood of our civilisation and the way we live, to trust somebody who won't allow any audits is extremely risky. I personally don't believe the numbers that are out there.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1683060.htm

Oh, and from the same 4 Corners webpage, we learn that SA's former head of exploration says there is a problem as well.

SADAD AL-HUSSEINI, FORMER DIRECTOR SAUDI ARAMCO: The easy oil has already been produced. The - the remaining reserves, as significant and substantial as they are, are going to be more expensive and gradually more demanding to produce. Therefore the future capacity is slower to come on stream than what it has been the traditional past.
JONATHAN HOLMES: Sadad Al-Husseini agrees with Robert Hirsch that the time for consuming nations to start worrying is now.
SADAD AL-HUSSEINI, FORMER DIRECTOR SAUDI ARAMCO: Well, I think in many of the major consuming countries, the leadership has been asleep on the watch. Everybody in the industry realises that oil and gas are the backbone of global economies. Somehow, I guess politicians felt that this was not going to be an issue on their watch, that it was too far into the future, and therefore didn't pay attention to it.

Saudi Arabia does not allow us to audit them, is promoting 'paper barrels', and yet the Western world trust in them. It will be our undoing. I give us 5 years before rationing starts.

The most recent offshore well "gusher" happened last year:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/24/2664927.htm
and
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aXeZj2cxULVU

This spill was just as big as the current Gulf spill in the US.
It took a couple of months to stop the flow.

Well, Exit International (the Euthanasia assistance group) are already training elderly people in how to bypass the filter. They run organised classes that makes sure people are not denied critical information. I salute them!

Why the hell would you elect someone you don't know? Did you know there's 21 federal parties such as the Liberal Democratic party? Non-custodial parents party? Here's a list of Political parties in Australia or officially from your independent electoral site: Current register of Federal parties

Our system is far better than USA with Preferential voting and Proportional representation. I'll give a quick example:

• Awesome party: 25% votes
• Excitement party: 35% votes
• Plain party: 40% votes

Guess who wins with USA's system? Plain party. With Australia's system, and Awesome party transfers 25% to Excitement party, Excitement party gets elected at 60%. A really good example in real life is 2007 Federal Election: South Australia

The independent electoral system works here. There's information provided if you simply google their websites. The media seems to not wish to report minor parties (probably because a few of them seem quiet). Voting for some unknown because you think you have no idea is just bloody stupid.

There's also a website to promoting awareness of other parties (Disclaimer: My website). There is:

• Federal parties list
• Issues Want to know party positions of MySchool.edu.au? It's there.
• Safe Seat One of the political articles.
• About [ShockSeat] I'm tackling the ridiculous apathy and there's a youth study that shows non-normative intentions are on the rise. Non-normative means non-peaceful protests.

I'm currently having trouble trying to get information from federal parties themselves. If you have any influence, ask them to respond to the contacts I have sent out. It may be because I have no power, or the like. I have only received one refused response so far. It would be greatly appreciated!

I implore you, please make a valid formal vote to a party that almost if not fully represents you.