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More detail here. Apparently an ABC journalist verified that there were burn marks on the carpet.

True to type, yr story is cooked up.
The real one is here :
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lm/stories/s111098. htm

Ahem. Apollo computer != Saturn V computer.

The Saturn V computer was developed years before the Apollo computer. They were like night and day compared to each other. The Apollo computers were Integrated Circuits (as you said), was developed by MIT, and weighed a "mere" 30 kg. It even had early real-time multitasking capabilities. (Which were put to the test when the radar was accidently left on during descent resulting in a 30% loss of computational power.) It was easily one of the most advanced computers of its time. Read more here.

This is quite different from the computers used in the Saturn series of rockets, which the IBM link suggests go back to the earliest Saturn work. (Which would have been 1960-1963.)

How hard did you look for this on American news?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s14566 50.htm

...in which case, I'm betting on the 9 tonne, 14m monster recently unearthed by the Peruvians.

Quetzalcoatlus

Malcolm Turnbull has called for the Government to give every Australian their own email address for life.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s14566 74.htm

Then there's also the double entendre of the "banana republic" comments made by a certain Australian treasurer, and their recent revival.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/wings/episode5.htm

The above link is an interesting discussion/review from a perspective of innovation, that suggests that sex appears to have driven some tech. Perhaps not from nothing (big bang reference not fully squelched) into existence, but certainly the direction of the tech. Some tech listed in the discussion included the Polaroid camera, the low light settings on video cameras, phone sex, interactive sex CDs/games, and teledildonics. Yes you read that correctly. Think Internet connected body suits for long distance sex sessions.

The Holodeck is far off in the ST:NG universe. But did we really think Picard only played Film Nior Mystery games in there? Would the average user?

Most of the games I play with my computer today are not that prurient. Perhaps after a quick fling in the Holodeck, like most people I bet, the reigning obsession would be the hero in Battlefield 2 or a great mage in the World of Warcraft or Diablo universe.

Sure perhaps after winning the big battle or after a hard day of magic, I might want to have a bevy of buxom beauties (or a hill of handsome hunks) surrounding me, but only until the next real challenge in the Holodeck.

Any of this sound reasonable?

There is a parasitic wasp that paralyzes and lays a larva on a certain kind of spider. The larva survives by feeding off the fluids of the spider. When it comes time to mature, the larva induces a spider to spin a different kind of web that better supports the wasp cocoon. It then, of course, consumes the spider.

I hate to break it to you, but this is a real problem is the USA, and it isn't a problem in most of the rest of the western world.

No, I got it from a very respected scientist, actually

Actually, they had to retract that after it was found that there was a mistake in the calculations.

The new colour was actually give the name "Cosmic latte", APOD had an entry about it.

Holden (GM In Australia) lost $6 million AUD in production due to the virus.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s14404 73.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/ancient/Ancient Republish_917882.htm

The improtant point is the one about the shotguns though.

"Privitization is just a money grab for the friends of politicians. You can bet they already know who will own the thing."

The split is nothing new, it's just a formality for the sale. Telstra has been regulated to operate as wholesale/retail for many years by "competion laws" (they were dragged into competition kicking and screaming). I am more interested in who gets to spend the $3,000,000,000(AUD) "deal sweetner" and how is the taxpayer compensated for the loss of "universal access" benifits.

In the case of the sale of the first half of Telstra the entire country was mass mailed a prospectus, mums and dads around the country invested for as little as $1000, it was the first time I had bought shares and I made ~$6000 out of the float. The litmus-test for this being a money/power grab is how they handle selling the second half. Will it stay scattered amoungst hundreds of thousands of small investors or will the sale give some media mogal a controlling intrest.

Economic ideology dictates selling a fertile cow that still gives plenty of milk?

One to provide Wholesale Telecoms and the other to provide Retail Telecoms services.

This is so horribly over due!

We may be on the verge, finally, of seeing some real competition in the Australian teleco market place.

Telstra naturally are not very happy about what is now an approved [by cabinet] package, which will force them [Telstra] to create seperage network and retail divisions, with separate premises and management but under the same company structure.

If all goes to plan, the government (coalition) could steamroll ahead and sell its majority share holding ( 51.8 per cent stake ) in Telstra before the end of next year. Something which has been high on the governments agenda for some time now.

Sure that's going to make them a truck load of money, it's (the sale of 51.8% of Telstra is a lot of share value) going to do that no matter how you look at it.

What does all this mean for Australia?

Well we could perhaps look just accross the Tasman to the windy city of Wellington, in New Zealand, for an example of just what a completely deregulated teleco marketplace can do if you allow it.

Businesses and individual end users in Wellington, can gain access to Data and Voice services that the rest of the world ( except perhaps for Singapore with their Interent Corridor ) dreams of.

With 10 megabit and 100 megabit, and even gigabit connections for tens or hundreds of dollars a month, zero data usage charges, and peering for one and all if you want it, Wellington has shown that a completely deregulated telecommunications industry can work, and will work, if you allow it to.

We won't in the near future, say the next five years even, see the likes of what NZ has been able to achieve here in Australia, well not from what I can see gazing into my crystal ball anyway, as there's a legacy culture to be left behind before we can see Australia make major leaps forward.

I'm hoping that with Telstra now having to form a legitimate Wholesale arm, freed up and allowed to sell outside of it's previous one and only customer, being Telstra itself ( oh and the occasional carrier and ISP when they had time of course ), Telstra Wholesale may be allowed to sell core services at prices that would allow 3rd party providers, in particular the DSL providers, or the Broadband market at least, provide now ADSL 2+ services of 22 megabit speeds, throughout the country at prices equal to what we now pay for 1.5 megabit links.

What does the general media have to report? Here's a few links for further homework on the topic:

• Whirlpool News
• ABC Online
• The Australian
• News.com.au
• Australian IT
• The Age

Let's hope that with new management, and a sense of responsibility to the nation, the new Telstra's can both give back a little of what they have so easily come by, and finally deliver on the government's Digital Nation promise.

More to come on the temp home of Dez's Blog at http://mosman.no-ip.com

If you need a well-written email to do phishing, some email that you want to spam to try and phish people, well, you just go here to this anti-phishing.org site because they have a library of all phishes that have been sent around the world.

This option was considered, but dismissed by both the government and the opposition after a parliamentary inquiry in 2003.

It would be interesting to know why the current plan is more efficient, if not for more cynical reason of raking in a few billion to bribe voters in marginal electorates with when all of the infrastructure is sold off...

If Telstra is going to be split, that's wonderful news and what I've wanted all along.

It does not look like today's news stories agree with this statement, however.

We already have another scumbag making money in in dubious ways.

No really.

that do not mind this at all

see www.indy.tv

www.irateradio.com

for a random selection

(I have kept well over 1000 tracks from listening to these for example)

or even places like radio stations

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/listen/mp3s.htm

A "Current Affair" can be more accurately described as a "That guy's a welfare cheat, therefore all people on welfare are cheats"-type of infotainment show. I am more concerned at the lack of action from the RTA than the possibility that a precedent has or has not been set. Oh - The ABC reports on the issue, it must be true. http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s14344 78.htm ----- I haven't been caught by a speed camera since I sold my car.

A constant barrage of government propoganda asserting that speed cameras are perfectly reliable has dulled peoples outrage of the fact that "blackbox" style machines are generating a massive amount of money for state governments.

There has been major incidents where;

1. In victoria many cameras were proven to be faulty, showing trucks, busses and old beat up cars doing absolutely rediculous speeds.

2. Just now 180 speed cameras in Queensland have been withdrawn, because they are faulty.

3. Speed camera operators have been shown regularly ignoring the usage guidelines and parking in spots that will provide improper results, near signs, suburban areas where there a metal garage doors in the line of sight of the radar, on corners, etc.

How many people have lost their licenses because of faulty cameras, or been hit with massive fines? (in NSW it's $1400 for 40km/h over the limit). I mean if you're a young mail (under 30) you wouldn't have a hope in hell of disputing one of these, the judge would laugh you out of the courtroom.

As another poster mentioned many states have these operations outsourced to private companies, private companies with profit as a motive to fine people. I would enjoy hearing the rabid free marketeers argue that that having a private company with little oversite and no accountability to the average person is superior in this case.

Finally for some fun reading, it does read a bit "there out to get us", but the information and statistics seem reasonable. Showing that speed cameras have done very close to nothing in Australia to prevent road deaths.

Yes, well, they are also heavily looking into doing more unmanned missions.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1432901.htm
(don't know if this is a good or bad thing - probably safer for astronauts)

the horrific conditions at Gitmo:

Harry Potter popular with Guantanamo detainees: report

Yup. The torture never ends.

This doesn't mention emperor penguins, so I really don't know about their monogamy, but penguins in general are not really more monogamous than we are. At least not according to Lloyd Spencer Davis:

Narration:
It turned out that under the enormous pressure of penguin parenting, many relationship were headed for breakdown.

There's the fishing to be done, the long climb to the nest, the careful scheduling of handing over chicks as each parent takes their turn at sea. Penguins won't tolerate a partner who can't pull their weight.

Lloyd Spencer Davis:
So they essentially change partners.

...

Lloyd Spencer Davis:
It gets worse yeah because we then started really watching. And what we found is every now and then, the female would go off and essentially have a quickie. We call it extra pair copulation.

Every science geek should listen to Dr Karl's podcast on triple j. Dr Karl has degrees in physics and medicine and is great at answering all those science / medical / engineering questions we all have - and his answers are entertaining to boot (if I had kids, I'd force them to listen to it - and they'd love it too). Brilliant stuff - it's on my iPod every thursday morning. (he's also on five live in the UK an hour after his triple j show, but noon Aussie time translates to 3am UK time unfortunately). To quote from the website: Once a week for a magic hour, Karl is Live on Air on triple j. It's an hour devoted to the collective exploration of some of the great mysteries of life, such as "why does the water in the shower slow down just when it gets hot?". Sorry this has turned into a Dr Karl ad, but it's a great listen.

triple j too.

Seems like some "Big Radio" stations in Australia are embracing podcasting; ABC Radio National at least is offering some of its programs as podcasts here, and it appears to be going very well for RN...

You find people who aren't mind numbed by american style top 40 over here tend to not have a clue what australian bands are doing well in america.

However, Here's a link to the latest top 100 countdown from tripleJ (apparently it's the biggest top 100 countdown in the world, no idea where those numbers come from though)

Maybe there's a few Aussie bands in there you might know Hottest 100 2004

Some of my favorites atm are Jet, Machine gun fellatio, Regurgitator, spiderbait etc etc, have you guys heard of any of these?

Payola, while unpleasant, is nothing to people who are carefully creating radio to only be sports, 80s hits and right wing shock jocks.

But, fortunately, there is satelite with some variety but above all else the internet.

Australian radio, in contrast to US radio, is vibrant, brilliant and is a good industrial subsidy for the Australian music industry (ever wonder where INXS, Midnight Oil and many others got their start?).

If you want to check it out over the net check out JJJ, RRR, 3PBS and enjoy some streaming quality alternative interesting radio for a change.

...says our "Justice" minister

So now Australia is a copycat police state...how pathetic

Bill Gates knows they will say this because he (if I may cut you off here) is trying to get whatever profit he can from the country while those evil Communist psychos still let them operate in China in the first place. After all, what semi-sane company wants to disrespect a belligerent, nuke-brandishing government who wants to blow up their corporate country of origin, nevermind extinguish all free speech in their own spaces?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureitems/s1 410301.htm

are there any other examples of this yet?

This is an example of a person (in Australia) who has been doing work to try and make things a little better for people who had a bleak future. Perhaps not dealing with problems like what is being taught, but using education to try and make a difference.

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2004/s121275 3.htm

--

A large problem I see with education is that while the bulk of people get an ok education, many many people are failed by the system. It's amazing that in this day and age that there are people out there who come through the education systems basically illiterate. And something like this is a result of something as simple as not picking up an eye sight or hearing problem when the child is young.

Another problem is see is that the education has been established on a foundation of a particular way of learning. That being, individual learning based on listening to lectures then taking an exam at the end to determine how much was retained. While this style does work for some people, including myself, that's not how things work in the real world and not the way a lot of people can learn.

The most important stuff I have learnt about life I have learnt out side of school. There are a number of basic aspects of LIFE which really should be included into schooling. Things like managing money, budgeting, and repaying debt. Watching out for financial death traps (interest free purchases, short term loans), understanding basic contract law, and reading contracts before you sign them. Teaching kids about taking responsibility, the power of doing so and how responsibility relates to the law - a lot of people (Adults) just don't understand this. Communication skills - understanding different points of view and avoiding conflict? Understanding your individual learning style and how you can best influence the way you learn. There are just a heap of fundamental things which just are skipped, but are critical.

I am pretty interested in this area, and am involved at a local level of trying to induce some change. If anyone is also interested in sharing ideas, shoot me an email. amorpha_@hotmail.com Unsure how wise putting the email down here. Oh well! :)

This is an example of a person(in Australia) who has doing work to try and make things a little better for people who had a bleak future. Dealing with insane levels of absenteeism and illiteracy.

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2004/s121275 3.htm

Gee, It's a good thing no one in europe ever complains about sexual imagery on TV *cough*crazyfrog*cough*

While I don't have an answer for you, these people may have more information on the potential for this:

http://www.bendigotelco.com.au/
http://www.communitytelco.com.au/
http://www.itel.gil.com.au/
News article: http://www.abc.net.au/southwestvic/stories/s129818 6.htm

If wires are all too much, then wireless can be done too...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_community_ne twork#Australia_.26_Oceania

Yep. That's Australia

An artist can break rules in an inspired way and receive the highest praise for it--but sometimes only after they've been dead for a long time.

As a musician, I deal with lots of music from hundreds of years ago, and the best music often takes many years to reach its proper place in public opinion. The art of programming is relatively young, and only pioneering conceptual giants like Babbage (Lovelace?) and Turing spring to my mind as 'great' programmers (though I have never studied computer science).

For example, it's not obvious from a quick search whether any one person was instrumental in conceiving the multi-threaded Apollo Guidance Computer. Unfortunately this is probably the most glamourous computer built in the 1960s, and I fear the rapid pace of tecnological change will keep the art of programming focussed only on the present, relegating both inspired and dull programming to obscurity before proper judgements can be made.

A Russian astrologist who says NASA has altered her horoscope by crashing a spacecraft into a comet is suing the U.S. space agency for damages of $300 million.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s14066 93.htm
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/07/04/deep. impact.sues.reut/

Great to hear some good comments about Hollywood and remakes. So much cash, cpu power, world wide sales and yet they always totally fail with plot. How many ppl know of the SW Kurosawa link? There is a good interview with Steven Spielberg talking about War of the Worlds with a great line about remakes 'Why does Hollywood remake a classic? Because they didn't get it wrong the first time.' http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1 385190.htm

I think you will find that they do.

The one thing that irritates me about podcasts is that if I download the realaudio file for a 1/2 hour show, it's typically 11Mb or so in size - about the same when I convert it to mp3 (via mlayer or vsound) at 48kbps to listen to on my mp3 players. In general podcasters are making their mp3 files far too big. 48 kbps is fine for anything except music - for a podcast which is basically ephemeral 64 / 96 kbps is fine for music too.

The one thing that irritates me about podcasts is that if I download the realaudio file for a 1/2 hour show, it's typically 11Mb or so in size - about the same when I convert it to mp3 (via mlayer or vsound) at 48kbps to listen to on my mp3 players. In general podcasters are making their mp3 files far too big. 48 kbps is fine for anything except music - for a podcast which is basically ephemeral 64 / 96 kbps is fine for music too.

The one thing that irritates me about podcasts is that if I download the realaudio file for a 1/2 hour show, it's typically 11Mb or so in size - about the same when I convert it to mp3 (via mlayer or vsound) at 48kbps to listen to on my mp3 players. In general podcasters are making their mp3 files far too big. 48 kbps is fine for anything except music - for a podcast which is basically ephemeral 64 / 96 kbps is fine for music too.

The one thing that irritates me about podcasts is that if I download the realaudio file for a 1/2 hour show, it's typically 11Mb or so in size - about the same when I convert it to mp3 (via mlayer or vsound) at 48kbps to listen to on my mp3 players. In general podcasters are making their mp3 files far too big. 48 kbps is fine for anything except music - for a podcast which is basically ephemeral 64 / 96 kbps is fine for music too.

Then again, if you don't know what an exponential is, never mind.