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Little Johnny took to the streets of America recently in order to strengthen his name.


(right hand side, apologies for realplayer video)

Here's a few things I can remember about Natasha:
1. Someone at the Government pay office thought she was a politician's staffer, when she went to collect her paycheck.
2. She has worn Doc Marten boots into Parliament.
3. She has often been a guest on the popular nationwide alternative radio station Triple J

According to this page, Murphy's law is named after Air Force Captain Edward A. Murphy, Jr. for some 1949 medicial research involving strapping a person into a rocket powered sled. According to this page, Murphy worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, but the incident for which his "law" is named occurred, at Edwards Air Force Base, in California, which I believe is about 200 miles from Lawrence Livermore National Lab. The projects are vaguely similar: California, the military, testing, explosive materials. It's an off chance, but somehow this makes me wonder if the Michael Murphy managing this project might be related to the Murphy from Murphy's law.

why don't you tell me who you believe attacked the ... Bali nightclub full of Australians and that hotel in Indonesia a few days ago?

I think you'll find that in both cases, it was Jemaah Islamiah, which, while being a terrorist group, is only linked to Al Qaeda because now *all* terrorist groups are linked to them. Its an easy catch-all for the media and government to say that Osama is behind everything - helps convince people that he is a bad man. I'm not disputing that he's a bad man, but do you seriously think that he said to the JI people "hey, why don't we bomb the Marriot hotel in Jakarta?" I don't and wouldn't.

Oh and dont forget that of the 202 people killed in Bali, only 88 were Australian and about half of them were Indonesians, but I guess in the world of worthy and un-worthy victims, an Indonesian life isn't as important as an Australian or other "western" life.

Space.com
abc.net.au
Telescopes-Astronomy.com - lots of details about suitable telescopes etc.

As an aside, about an earlier event fromThe Universe Today:
A rare astronomical event will occur in May 1999- Mars will be the closest it ever gets, only 52.8 million miles. In addition, the Red Planet is in opposition, which means its face is completely lit up by the Sun. Amateur astronomers will be able to see normally obscure features like the polar caps and canyons.

found some hard figures for those interested ... ... Well roughly at the moment the wholesale price of a litre of diesel is around 90 cents per litre of which you'd pay 39.5 cents in tax, in excise, and then there's the GST on top of that," he said. ...

[Fuel costs bring high political price]
Reporter: Peter Lewis, ABC LandLine - First Published: 25/02/01 - read down to the Pricing diesel subtopic.

The Dish

Better yet, lets get some "real" info about this:

40 Years of the Dish

Sydney 2000 ... "best Olypics ever"

Look what we do about our, sometimes dodgy media ... and it is shown on the Government owned, national TV station :

Media Watch - top right - real player required unfortunately.

What is even better .. the host is a journo on un-paid leave from the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the newspapers the show gets into if they do something wrong. I hope he doesn't want his job back in the future ...

Sometimes our media tries to do the right thing ... here is the answers, and a number of questions, set to the Australian Recording Industry Associate (Oz RIAA), regarding recent survey results ARIA published about file swapping / stealing music.

ARIA refuses to answer queries about survey

Yes, I did (specific and related), but I could not see how it those articles specified clearly that any bias towards the purchase or acquisition of open-source solutions was a mandate.

My original question was posed because I wanted background as to what, if any, Arthur Charles-Evans might be promoting as an indivdual cause. I googled a search on him and skimmed a couple of interesting articles, but I would not pretend to think that a cheap google search would grant me genuine insight regarding the situation; my question was genuine.

It seems he has an issue with the delay and/or protocol regarding release of information. I like the fact that he has an issue with it. I want to know more.

I've also hacked my own copy of icecast2 to accept connections over IPv6, and now listen to TripleJ and various other Sydney-based radio stations regularly online.

Just playing my part to support the adoption of IPv6..

My IPv6 Ogg Vorbis stream keeps me sane!

Or for those without AAAA DNS working:

http://[2001:618:400::cb12:26db]:8000/live.ogg

Slashcode doesnt support IPv6 html links it seems :(

• But, regardless of age, the great minds who married virtually kissed goodbye to making any further glorious additions to their CV. Within five years of making their nuptial vows, nearly a quarter of married scientists had made their last significant contribution to history's hall of fame. (This taken from the mentioned atricle)

I just don't cosmic ray variation would account for more than half of the 20th century's climatic change. The variation just wouldn't be that great given the fact that the solar system simply hasn't moved very far in 100 years.

I'm just waiting for the antiscience republicans to jump on this. "See? Here's a study that says that cosmic rays cause climate change. Not greenhouse gases! See we were right to censor the EPA's report that global warming was primarly caused through human activity. Now let's continue with our report on how nicotine is not addictive, and creation science in our schools".

An issue that is rarely highlighted in these discussions is the psychological and emotional development of the game user.

As a well balance, happy, and stable adult (honest), I think most people would agree that there is very little danger that my psyche will be irreperably damaged by playing violent and immersive games.

However, years ago in the days of the original Doom my little brother (around 6 at the time) would sneak into my room and play Doom if I had left it running. With the unique perspective of a self-absorbed teenager, I assumed it would have as little effect on him as it would on myself.

Imagine my surprise when he was sent home from school for threatening another child that he would "...chainsaw him in half...".

A realistic threat? Perhaps not. But it was certainly a potent reminder that the power of all media; be it TV, print or computer based; lies not in the medium, but in the minds of the consumers.

I strenuously object to anyone who dares suggest that I am so impressionable that I should allow someone else to vet my viewing for me (and kudos to those Australians like Margaret Pomeranz of SBS Television who risked arrest in Sydney this week: fighting censorship of the film Ken Park).

And so the conclusion. Games do not a killer make.

Please, let us all use a modicum of common sense and avoid the usual media hyperbole.

P.S. And help support Ken Park - even if it is not a movie that you want to watch, defend your right to choose!

Q.

In their suits I think they wear catheters (spel?) for urinal excretions and I found this link after a little insert-verb-that-means-same-as-Googling-but-withou t-using-trademark.

Space Toilet Picture

Space Toilet Description.

Saffron (a spice made from crocus flowers) is more costly than gold!

Have you ever read Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, how about ? How about any of the good weblogs? Or KSR Mars trilogy, Jules Verne

People don't care about science, they don't understand science for the most part. People understand people, they like to read stories about normal people in extraordinary circumstances, that's why `reality tv' is so popular.

The first (hu)man on Mars landing on Mars would be hugely important for human curiosity, the journey to Mars would be even more important, imagine doing a part `reality tv' show and part science/education show from the Mars-bound shuttle. Do it right and everybody would watch.

The probes would still do the science, people haven't done any scientific measurements for a while now, since the invention of computers, people don't measure accuratly enough for our level of understanding anymore.

When your probe says gravity 0.4G, pressure 15mbar, T=259K, F=22.5W/m2, your scientists could tell you the probe was broken, very few places on mars would get those conditions anyway

...but you'd likely get images of astronauts jumps about with suits weighing twice their body weight with silvered visors and planting flags, that's the money shot, as long as it's not a Nike flag (unless they pay for the whole damn thing) nobody would really care which flag it was, it was manmade

One of the most important things to come out of the Moon landings didn't involve landing on the moon, it was Frank Borman's photograph of earthrise. The probe wouldn't think of doing that.

For the scientists, who do care about the science. The people who land on Mars would do so in the knowledge that they are there for about a year until the planets align again, keeping 6 people alive without any external help for 24 months isn't easy (or possible yet). The biosphere project wasn't completely succesful because of the leaky window seals and the double glazing which blocked too much sunlight.

On Mars, we won't have the luxury of pumping more oxygen in, it'll will likely need to be extracted from the ferrous soil or grown in inflatible greenhouses. The technology to maintain this human habitat in an environmentall neutral way would have huge impact on the way we live on Earth...sustainable farming and production, recycling waste products, space ice cream (well I like it :)

BB

Fortunately for them, they lend wide-screen TV's to guys like the Prime Minister and Senator Luddite so I doubt they'll cop anything more than a slap on the wrist, as per bloody usual.

Getting on the triple j playlist.

Each Wednesday morning the triplej djs and music staff listen to the new releases that come in, and decide which ones get put on the playlist, and how high the rotation should be. If there's a song which we reckon is really good it'll get played across the week more often.
source

I think that paragraph pertains to the entire playlist selection process - no mention of record company money or managerial pressure there though!

More on the music selection process can be found here.

The selection process you linked to only applies to the Oz Music Show (which is supposed to play new Australian music), not to regular programming (which plays the usual guff).

But you're right about the music director.

Even on Australia's 'indie' radio station TripleJ, the DJs themselves get the option to play 3 tracks of their choice in a 3 hour shift. The rest is dictated to them by managament, which in turn is dictated by how much the labels are willing to pay the station. Payola is well and truly still alive.

That is a rather bold (and i'm guessing unsubstantiated) claim.

Firstly you will find that music is choosen by the triple j music director, not management. More on the music selection process can be found here.

If inappropriate behaviour was being exhibited in this area it would be against abc editorial policies (triple j is part of this government funded body).

Evidence please?

Even on Australia's 'indie' radio station TripleJ, the DJs themselves get the option to play 3 tracks of their choice in a 3 hour shift. The rest is dictated to them by managament, which in turn is dictated by how much the labels are willing to pay the station. Payola is well and truly still alive.

That is a rather bold (and i'm guessing unsubstantiated) claim.

Firstly you will find that music is choosen by the triple j music director, not management. More on the music selection process can be found here.

If inappropriate behaviour was being exhibited in this area it would be against abc editorial policies (triple j is part of this government funded body).

Evidence please?

Even on Australia's 'indie' radio station TripleJ, the DJs themselves get the option to play 3 tracks of their choice in a 3 hour shift. The rest is dictated to them by managament, which in turn is dictated by how much the labels are willing to pay the station. Payola is well and truly still alive.

That is a rather bold (and i'm guessing unsubstantiated) claim.

Firstly you will find that music is choosen by the triple j music director, not management. More on the music selection process can be found here.

If inappropriate behaviour was being exhibited in this area it would be against abc editorial policies (triple j is part of this government funded body).

Evidence please?

The University of Western Australia publishes a report located here.

The basic conclusion that they reached was that genetic migration from their GM canola plants was only about .03%. I guess you could still make a fuss over that, but it doesn't sound like these GM plants are 'over-running' their 'native' counterparts.

The virus is a genetically engineered strain of the herpes virus from a mouse, and has been modified to induce an immune reaction in female mice around the egg, causing them to become infertile for around 6 months.

Obviously this virus is targeted at mice only, and is aimed at reducing (if not eliminating) the frequency and severity of mice plagues in Australia.

If successful it would remove the need for the literal tonnes of highly poisinous rodenticides that are now applied around farms, grain silos etc. Not to mention the economic benefit from an increase grain harvest quantity and quality.

The results of an unsuccessful trial are left to the imagination of the reader ..

They are now nearly at the stage where a permit is to be applied for that would allow for field trials of this virus.

Of note is that last time similar field trials were undertaken (of a Calaci (sp?) virus) for rabbits, the virus escaped from the control area and rapidly spread across the entire continent. Luckily it appears to have had no adverse affects on native wildlife, although several childen lost pet rabbits to the virus (a vaccine is now available to protect the "Fluffys" of this world).

You can read more about the virus in this transcript from a local Science show.

Should make for interesting debate when/if the permit application becomes reality.

is if these things actually get out in the wild.

"Fish", you ask. "How could they get out in the wild?"

Simple. People flush them down the toilet. Where I live, Carp are a big problem. Our lake is full of them, they disturb all the mud and turn the lake into more of a mud-puddle. How did they get there? People flushing goldfish down the toilet, apparently.

Now, that's bad. But imagine if The Great Barrier Reef got a couple of these genetically engineered monsters onto it. It's biological integrity would be instantly compromised; who knows what will happen with these fish in 5, 10, 50 years time?

-- james

Solar has a large energy investment and the panels, batteries etc are hard to recycle. Oil and coal are environmentally devastating in production as well as use (our largest local (Muja) coal station burns 12 tonnes a year of uranium, to say nothing of releasing radon etc); gas is better but shipping all of those big bombs around the country's just gotta have a sudden, loud environmental impact one day, hopefully not near any serious population. Wave and tidal generators muck around with the local ecosystem something chronic (as does Ocean Geothermal, but if you integrate fish-farms you at least get roughly twice the industry for the same amount of intervention). Nukes are quiet, clean, low-profile and produce small amounts of straightforward-to-manage waste.

If we were allowed to build proper nuclear rockets as well (get Burt Rutan to design them, not NASA), we could fling hundred-tonne loads of waste into the sun (or better still store it in a safe place (orbit/moon etc) for later re-processing) for an extremely low environmental cost. This is a question which has been studied to death, the answers are all to hand.

Stand by for a flock of "-1, Outrageous" mods from people who call themselves "green" but never actually think about the issues. They drive old, cheap, smoky, polluting cars and track dieback through the native forests they claim to protect. Here's a better way of approaching these things.

I got billed $800 on a Dial-Up account because I went over their "Unlimited" 500 meg limit.
Then I switched to IPrimus, who, for dial-up anyway, are pretty decent, I mean they let me get away with this which is nice for the most part.
The end result of this is now I don't have anything to do with telstra whatsoever, my phoneline is through someone else, my internet is through someone else, the only thing I do use them for is when their wires fail to work and I need them repaired. In the city at least they fix these problems.

They're working on it.

Actually from what I can tell it is essentially the same as the Picard Maneuver or at least has the same effect - that the bogey (be it predator or prey) thinks you are stationary when in fact you are moving.

And it does have military implications thought I would think they are limited in that fooling a biological eye is now of little concern - its fooling electronic eyes that is the current challenge, and I can't see how this can be applied to foil them.

Here's the museum peice its going to replace.

Inflation?

Yeah, that's the problem!

--Joey

Why buy an old aircraft carrier when Sadam already has a number of modern Assad-class corvettes?

You see, there is a lot of very good content on radio nowadays, but generally you have to avoid the commercial stations. They tend to have the interesting stuff because they know that people want more than the spoon fed commercial junk.

Myself, I often listen to Triple J which is a government-owned national broadcaster in Australia. They have a lot of diverse programs usually aimed at under-25 audiences (but still have stuff for over 25s).

I'm living in Europe now, but I still wanted to listen to some JJJ shows, so I set up a Linux box in Sydney with a BT878 based FM card, a cheapie sound card, some scripts, and oggenc. Now I get regular recordings of various shows each day that I download and listen to. The bonus of a BT878 type card is that I can tune to any other local station as well.
And I can also live stream too, at much better bitrates than the stations' own 'online streaming' at some unlistenable bitrate.

Whitworth what? Are you from England? The Whitworth thread hasn't been used since WW II
Here is how it got wiped out. The US saves the world, again.

Funnily enough, there *was* an Apple-related company at one point in the past called Snapple. They were a group of independant Australian Apple resellers who joined together for the "synergies".

Unfortuantely for them, they hadnt really thought it through and they went broke. On the plus side, there's a really interesting documentary running around on the short life of Snapple. You might be able to source it from ABC or sbs

Plankton, pffft I want fish to rain down from the sky.

we already have natural clones, they're called twins.

so we already know how alike and how different clones might be. There are lots of clones in the plant world too, every time you make a new plant by striking a cutting, you're dealing with a clone.

It's when we start doing it artificially that things get weird. There is already some evidence to suggest the cloning technique used for sheep will never work on humans or monkeys because our eggs are different.

What scares me about gene splicing is that we can introduce toxic complications without really knowing. That can happen naturally too but not nearly so quickly.

The other thing that really annoys me about gene tech is that the big companies like Monsanto claim ownership of the "pattern", and if their plantings cross pollinate with the next field then they may sue the neighbouring farmer for seed "piracy". Hopefully that will be difficult to enforce. It isn't exactly fair if Monsanto don't do anything to prevent the cross pollination.

http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/ - slightly older kids maybe 10+
http://www.abc.net.au/outthere/stuff/animal01.htm educational


from here http://www.abc.net.au/kidsabc kids
Sesame streethttp://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/
Play Schoolhttp://www.abc.net.au/children/play/home.htm


my favourite beginners site. Not specifically aimed at kids but steers well clear of nasty stuff.

Lots of computer links

http://www.blackstump.com.au/

From the black stumphttp://www.blackstump.com.au/kids.htm

at this point you are never going to run out of links, theres links of links

zoo flash extra cool with sounds http://www.oac.schools.sa.edu.au/oes/zoo/

http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/ - slightly older kids maybe 10+
http://www.abc.net.au/outthere/stuff/animal01.htm educational


from here http://www.abc.net.au/kidsabc kids
Sesame streethttp://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/
Play Schoolhttp://www.abc.net.au/children/play/home.htm


my favourite beginners site. Not specifically aimed at kids but steers well clear of nasty stuff.

Lots of computer links

http://www.blackstump.com.au/

From the black stumphttp://www.blackstump.com.au/kids.htm

at this point you are never going to run out of links, theres links of links

zoo flash extra cool with sounds http://www.oac.schools.sa.edu.au/oes/zoo/

http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/ - slightly older kids maybe 10+
http://www.abc.net.au/outthere/stuff/animal01.htm educational


from here http://www.abc.net.au/kidsabc kids
Sesame streethttp://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/
Play Schoolhttp://www.abc.net.au/children/play/home.htm


my favourite beginners site. Not specifically aimed at kids but steers well clear of nasty stuff.

Lots of computer links

http://www.blackstump.com.au/

From the black stumphttp://www.blackstump.com.au/kids.htm

at this point you are never going to run out of links, theres links of links

zoo flash extra cool with sounds http://www.oac.schools.sa.edu.au/oes/zoo/

http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/ - slightly older kids maybe 10+
http://www.abc.net.au/outthere/stuff/animal01.htm educational


from here http://www.abc.net.au/kidsabc kids
Sesame streethttp://www.sesameworkshop.org/sesamestreet/
Play Schoolhttp://www.abc.net.au/children/play/home.htm


my favourite beginners site. Not specifically aimed at kids but steers well clear of nasty stuff.

Lots of computer links

http://www.blackstump.com.au/

From the black stumphttp://www.blackstump.com.au/kids.htm

at this point you are never going to run out of links, theres links of links

zoo flash extra cool with sounds http://www.oac.schools.sa.edu.au/oes/zoo/

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/03/10387129 28734.html

Even though there are some articles saying this is not true.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/s740789.htm

Though supposedly scientists now think men have biological clocks too...it's women who are 'famous' for have 'ticking' gotta-have-kids clocks. In both sexes, it's designed to get you to reproduce while you're healthy, but women face a rather finite deadline...with guys, it's not quite as....uh...firm...

Of course, you all seem to have forgotten that the Jolly Green Giant HAS a kid already- 'Sprout'. further proof you can find anything on Google :-).

What a good role model, though- I've never seen a Mrs. Giant around. Maybe the food companies are trying to brainwash the american public into a lack of family values! Quick, someone tell the religious right to boycott vegetables! :-)

It was Australia, a few years ago, Rugby League. It was the Sydney Dialy Telegraph newspaper.

Your description is correct, they did leave the thumb behind which rather gave it away. I think it was Mediawatch that found it, but I can't find a reference to it on that site.

What's best for Iraq? or What's best for Bush's friends?

USA is not the only ones "paying" for this and yet there are no open tenders, even within the USA economy, stuff is going directly to the republican cronies of GW Bush.

Eg Cheney's company Halliburton has the oil well capping project already, nobody else got a look in.

Surely if the USA people are paying for this (which I dispute that they are the only contributors), then shouldn't they be getting the best value for money available - which usually means some form of tender process, even if evaluation is fast tracked. This stuff shouldn't be automatically awarded to Bush's mates.

So what the hell happened to the "best interests of Afghanistan" after they were "liberated"?

USA global domination manifesto These people want to stop anyone anywhere from acting against their interest. So the only interests allowed will be their own. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Presently the rest of us who are not "against the USA" will be paying tribute taxes just to be left alone.

Read this. Notice that I picked the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, not an American media outlet.

To make a long story short, Iraq currently makes about $10 - $12 Billion a year selling oil. With the embargo lifted they might be able to make as much as $20 Billion with their currently badly damaged infrastructure. Making more money than that will require massive investments. The U.S. will almost certainly help Iraq secure the credit they will need, but they will make the bulk of the profits.

Yes, the U.S. will probably get some oil out of the deal, but we aren't going to get anywhere near enough oil to pay for this mess. Anyone that thinks otherwise simply doesn't know what they are talking about. What the U.S. is interested in is stabilizing the region, a happy Iraq is our goal.

Whether or not you can do two things at once depends on how scarce the resources are. The pharmaceutical companies say that they are in fact strapped for resources, which is one reason why medication is so expensive. There are only so many pharmaceutical companies out there, and every drug they create has to be a winner, lest they hemorrhage enough money to kill their company. (This is related to the long and involved process it takes to get a drug approved by the FDA, bribery non-withstanding.) So in a sense, pharmaceutical R&D is close to a zero-sum game. Research one thing, and your company probably won't have time or money to research another. But this is all hearsay. I don't know, maybe you're right about legislators, though. Maybe they can argue about cel phone standards at the same time they argue about what kind of humanitarian aid to send to Iraq. (I can see it now, a draft of a bill for a post-Iraqi cel phone standard, with a humanitarian aid package tacked on.)

Now we come to even more hairsplitting: As for SARS, the likely etiology is a coronavirus, but even then, some scientists are skeptical that there really is a single agent. It depends on who you believe, but most textbooks say that most colds whose etiologies are known are caused by rhinoviruses. A smaller, though significant, percentage are indeed caused by coronaviruses. But if I had to bet money, I would guess that the putative cure for the common cold would be targeted against rhinoviruses.

I find the apathy on this site towards the possible gagging of a media organization disturbing. On a TV report this week, I learnt a lot about al-Jazzeera. Yes, they are pan-Arabic. Yes, they are critical of the US. They've also been threatened by every single Arab country in the region - closed down, ambassadors recalled, physical attacks. And it was bombed by the US in the first Gulf War when it reported the killing of civilians in a supposedly military target.

You can't have it both ways, even in a war. The Net is being used for some of the most blatant propaganda I've ever seen, but shutting down the Arab side of the argument isn't going avoid bigger problems later.

Looks like that link has roled off - this one should work.

well, the aussies are OK

It says the only thing missing when the bombs start dropping over Iraq will be the thumping crescendo of the 1812 Overture