Slashdot Mirror

Try this one.

http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s603070.htm

How does changing the color hurt counterfeiters?

The colours on money are chosen to try to scramble colour scanners and photocopiers. The intent is that if you get one colour on the bill right, you'll mess up another. This is why you see certain colours over and over, like the funny purple and turquoise that appear on so many notes. The new Canadian $5 note, for example, is a distinctive blue, but also has "funny purple" highlights.

Brightly coloured notes sometimes have unexpected effects, like noting in an Australian TV show that a small-time armed robber had netted $50 (two reddish-orange, one blue).

...laura

we don't need to worry about that the public broadcaster (owned buy the government) has been getting themselves in a spot of trouble lately for political bias towards the opposition party and not the party in power

and by far all forms of the media are evil and the public broadcaster has a great program that catches them all including their own news services mediawatch

Stromatolites must have also caused a climate change as they removed C02 from the atmosphere. Has anyone studied this change in relationship to what is happening now?

See this page for a timeline of atmosphere activity including the introduction of oxygen. Was there a climate change during that period?

Nuclear energy isn't a viable alternative either, not until we come up with a good way to dispose of nuclear waste. The chance of it getting into the environment accidentally is bad enough, but with the possibility of terrorists getting their hands on it and spreading it around on purpose, the attendant risks and security costs make nuclear a non-starter. Not to mention that nuclear energy shares one of fossil energy's problems: it's running on a non-renewable fuel. When they dig up the last of the uranium, what then?

If you want a real innovative solution, how about a solar chimney? It combines the best parts of wind and solar power to give us cheap, clean, reliable energy 24/7/365.

Try listening to TripleJ. Brought to you by the tax payers of Australia.

Try listening to TripleJ. Brought to you by the tax payers of Australia.

There is also a professional rule among barristers, known as the 'cab-rank rule', which is intended to prevent them taking on only those cases which they think they will win. The rule says, in effect, that provided a barrister has sufficient time and the necessary expertise, he or she will take on any case which is offered; like a taxi-cab at a rank.

Chief Justice Phillips: The Cab Rank Rule shortly stated, is that it's the advocate's duty to act for and to do the very best for a client regardless of any personal feelings, and it really has its origins in the conduct and writings of a very famous 18th Century advocate in England, Thomas Erskine. Erskine was briefed to defend the famous pamphleteer Thomas Paine who was charged with sedition because he'd written some very rude things about the King.

Erskine thoroughly disapproved of Paine and his writings but he was determined to represent him because he thought it was his duty to do so. In fact the King put a lot of pressure on Erskine to return the brief, and he refused, and the King punished him because he removed from him a very valuable office that he held of Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales.

And I think, although other people had been acting in a similar way up to that time, it was Erskine's eminence - he was the most brilliant English advocate of the 18th Century - which brought about the universal acceptance of this ethical duty.

TONY JONES: Given what you're saying about the brutality of the occupation, do you think the Palestinian suicide bombers are freedom fighters or terrorists?

PROFESSOR NOAM CHOMSKY: Terrorists - they're both, actually. They're trying to fight for freedom, but doing it in a totally unacceptable immoral way. Of course they're terrorists and there's been palestinian terrorism all the way through. I have always opposed it. I oppose it now. But it's very small as compared with the US-backed Israeli terrorism. Quite typically, violence reflects the means of violence. It's not unusual.

The chemicals which make the motherboard inflammable account most AFAIK and the "rare" to highly poisonous elements within the the chips add a little "taste". Burning it together with it's plastic parts gets the most out of it. :-(

And then there are the chemicals we don't know enough about yet to call them "safe" or the ones we allready suspect to trigger the Mad Cow Desease in animals or the Creutzfeld Jacobs Desease in humans, like AF101

citing from: The National Poison center of Malaysia

A similar "computer prion", dubbed AF101, is suspected of being the "mad com" agent. ... AF101 is found to reside in the CPU, ... and the computer integrated circuit.

And a prion cannot be easily destroyed; sterilization doesn't work, normal biological decomposition leaves it intact, while the plants take it up from the soil.

For a more scientific explantion see also The Computer Prion

Greetings to the Cult of the Mad Cow ;)

Okay, so, everyone has been crowing at how "Fellowship University" isn't listed on Google. Fine.

So I decided to go to Google and hold my own little Safari of Fun.

I'll list to you all the links I followed [and apologize in advance if I kill anyones' sites]. It took awhile before I got anything out of google. My first mistake was searching for "Fellowship University" -- all you get from that is the ability to hate search engines for not allowing you to exclude punctuation marks from a quoted string. I know why, I understand lexigraphical indexing (mostly), I still don't like it, and a second-pass process for punctuation marks should still go fast. So nya! Are you listening, Google?

Anyhow, my first paydirt didn't hit until I used a search of:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_qdr=all&q=Ba ptist+anti-Christian

Toward the bottom, I got this link (to the australian broadcast servers):
http://www.abc.net.au/compass/explore/anti.htm

Amusingly, they have both the Landover site, and then this other "anti-anti-baptist site" which links to:
http://www.ilovejesus.com/myhome/jimcarlson/

Now, unfortunately, www.ilovejesus.com (which I'm very familiar with, it's NOT a hoax site, more's the pity) says that jimcarlson is a 404. Does that mean ilovejesus found out about him and booted him?

How about "Mt Fellowship Baptist" (which is a good quote from their own pages) ???
http://www.google.com/search?cat=&q=%22Mt+Fellowsh ip+Baptist%22

That gives us the OBJECTIVE links and this:
http://www.orgsites.com/mi/cudi/news.html
Read down to 03/07/2000 for the pertinant info:

"It is unacceptable that innocent and impressionable children should be exposed to the sort derogatory depictions of Christians that are becoming all too common on the 'Net," stated Dr. Andrew Miller, pastor of Mt. Fellowship Baptist Church and a member of a group opposing the Landover site, "It is imperative that we as Christians act now to keep these people in check before another incident like the one that happened at Wedgewood Baptist Church happens again.".

More than that, there's a link to the "OBJECTIVE: Ministries" on that page.

But, well, let's face it. As Abercrombie and Fitch learned to their supreme disgruntlement, two Wongs do NOT make a White. Two other sites may have been easily duped by this hoax. Or I might have better evidence that it's real. Goddamnit (no pun intended).

Hmm... but there WAS a link to "OBJECTIVE: ministries" right? Okay, let's grep the internet for that:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Objective% 3A+ministries%22

Besides the CUDI links the only other useful link is from www.metafilter.com and had to be gotten from the googlecache, but it's just talking about that site as hoax:
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:kvVdd74wwaoC: www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/16547+%22Objectiv e:+ministries%22&hl=en

Okay, let's try http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_qdr=all&q=Ba ptist+anti-Christian+objective

And we get:
http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:SO6eFb9I3YAC: www.geocities.com/hands_off_lb/index_old.html+Bapt ist+anti-Christian+objective&hl=en
"Hands Off Landover Baptist" (google cache)
If the OBJECTIVE: site is a troll and a hoax, here's your index of all the other ones to go have fun with! (Also lists CUDI on there, w00t) (I think this would be properly described to be an anti-anti-anti-Baptist site?)

Okay, one more Run through the Google Sprinklers:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_qdr=all&q=%2 2jim+carlson%22+landover

The good link from there is:
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/ninglun/fundamental ist.html
Here's some correspondence with the author of the site with Carlson. Of course, this also has a letter back from the Landover people, calling Mr Carlson a 16 year old kid. Which is fine... except 16 year old kids don't make nice happy websites like that. If they do, I want to hire him as an intern. [DON'T SEND ME EMAIL, THAT'S A !@!?! JOKE, YA MOPE]

Luckily for me, I can remember some of the ``offtopic`` pages well enough to find them in google cache: http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:V9xvB3hZdYcC: members.truepath.com/objective/progress.html+Fello wship+Baptist+-Medical+Jesus+anti-Christian&hl=en

They list there that they were once on the ilovejesus page, and had to flee. So at the worst, we could write the ILJ freekies and ask them for the real poop. But that's too much like real work.

Anyhow, even more vaguely-subtle "quite probably hoax but not quite sure" stuff on that page. Like changing the purple bear to a rainbow bear to keep people from thinking it's homosexual.

Dear god.

March 24, 2000, however....

Okay, who is good at spotting badly photoshopped text on signs? (sigh)

I love this guy.

I hate this guy.

He makes my head hurt.

And I mean that in only the best way.

Have I fallen for a troll? Do I care? I wonder if he'll marry me?

How about if he'll feed and support me because I didn't get enough work done tonight and I got fired for having so much brainfire over this silly little site?

I suppose the whole point is that we're all more than prepared to accept that these people really DO exist even when we don't want them to.

Oh well. For a bonus, if you don't mind waiting for the site to log (it's now late enough that the site is readable again if you're patient), here's all his groovy advertising links. Afaict, a random sampling mostly match against WHOIS registrations. But I'm lazy, so don't take my word for it.

http://members.truepath.com/objective/ads/

(Anybody want to research the CUDI site for hoax-or-notahoax? I'm tired and going to sleep)

Just to test who all is bothering to pay attention to all my slaving hard work and effort I've put into this damn article, I'll throw in one more punchline from google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22OBJECTIVE% 3A+Christian+Ministries%22

Click on the THIRD link on the page (served through "turn.to"). The cache entry doesn't work, but the current entry comes in LOUD and CLEAR (if I need to be more obvious: "don't follow those links if you're at work").

Cheers, folks!

mig

You might want to ask yourself whether selling a monoculture to the Third World to replace indigenous crops is really a good thing.

You might want to ask yourself what kind of pesticide, fertilizer etc. support these high yield first world crops need in order to grow.

You might want to ask yourself how many people you're ready to kill in your efforts to save them from having third-world level food supplies, which they generally do have.

You might want to read what this Indian scientist has to say on the matter. IP-wary slashdotters will be particularly interested as, in her talk, she covers her experience of an American company patenting an indigenous crop of her valley, Basmati rice, which grew in India for centuries. Reading her is amazing, she is so familiar with the intimate details of how 'globalization' is screwing India and destroying their economy. And well she should as she lives in India- but it behooves the rest of us to have SOME clue as well, or we'll just parrot off what we're told to believe, even if it kills people.

Sorry. But I've never been able to forget the reality of that 'better strain of rice' meme once I got a clue about it.

This is really old news. I remember seeing this back in June of last year. But since we're bringing it up again, here's a nice article.

Its too bad the Boston Globe article was the only one posted in this story. It does not go into any detail on his actual ideas. I suggest reading:
USA Today
ABC News
Mallett's Personal Homepage

Scientists knew that all the elements that make up the universe - the galaxies, the planets, even the air we breathe and the bones in our bodies - were all first made inside stars.

... but the mystery is: if the stars make all the elements then what made the very first stars?

The answer has to lie in those cosmic Dark Ages of the dawn of time. What scientists have now realised is that the gamma ray bursts may be a way of seeing into those Dark Ages.

On that note, I heard Jim Gray give a talk the other day (5th Turing Award winner I've heard talk) on the database/scalability aspects of SSDS. Cool stuff.

I guess it may be tricky to analyze multiple wavelengths via CCDs... my guess is they would need some sort of splitter to guarantee that pixel (37,52) on the near-infrared CCD corresponds to the same light as pixel (37,52) on the far-infrared CCD. A quick google search seems to indicate that some Australian dudes did some work with this stuff: news story

Feet and inches are certainly better suited to efficient everyday use.

See here for an Australian account of why imperial units are better for day-today use.
See here for a Dutch one.

The Imperial system is reproduceable.
The metric systems premise is to be based on the length of the arc from the north pole to the equator (1 metre = 10^-7 of the length of the arc) Only trouble is that the arc isn't uniform OR constant. And their measurements were off by 30 metres. Try and reproduce the metric system, and you might have some trouble.

How would you feel if I insisted that you speak English, under pain of a fine or a prison sentence for non-compliance?

Oh, and while you're thinking about that, try and measure out 1/3 of a metre.

security boar... - Is that like a guard dog? £100 fine.
evoluting - Now at least the last one was amusing, but this isn't even a word : £500 fine.

Referring back to the guy who was prosecuted for selling bananas by the pound, he was prosecuted on the idea that the 1972 European Communities act overrules the 1985 Weights and measures act. How can a law be overruled by one 13 years its predecessor? Surely then the 1972 EC act is countermanded by the 1963 weights and measures act?

Metrication has been forced on the UK population without any consent - the metric system has in this way set itself up as the enemy of democracy.
The only argument for exclusive metrication is a unified international system. When I go to a metric pub, I could ask for a half-litre/500ml of beer. Or I could ask for a pint, and get less than a pint. Or I could come up with a word which means "half-litre". But that wouldn't fit in with the standardized system, would it?

If efficiency is your goal, and you'll never reach it worshipping the metric system, then why not make language more efficient. Get rid of unnecessary verbs - you only ever need to say "more" or "less" "something". We'll use plus and minus, shall we? So "very stupid" becomes plusstupid, "extremely stupid" becomes double-plus-stupid etc. Now we can rid ourselves of the those nasty, inefficient antonyms, through negation. So double-plus-clever becomes double-plus-un-stupid. And we can get rid of synonyms too - how many different ways do you need to say the same thing? "Stupid" has in excess of a dozen (hehe) synonyms - out they go - we don't need them. Likewise "clever".

So the word-phrase "double-plus-un-stupid" covers what normal English could have an inefficient 144+ phrases for ("extremely" has ~12 synonyms, as does "clever") Remove the "un" and you've covered the same number of opposite phrases. We can take out unnecessary and inefficient qualifiers such as pronouns and conjunctions too. I'm going to go with my mate Orwell here and call this Double-talk. Why not take it further? "double" is such an inefficient way of saying "double" after all - why not replace it with a particular syllable - say "oo". We can leave "un" as it is - its quite efficient. "Stupid" has two syllables - we'll make that "stoo" to make it more efficient. So we've managed to get "extremely clever" to the syllables "oounstoo".

Thought apes stupid - plusunright. Apetalk doublepluseffective.

Sorry to tell you, but this has been and is currently a widely used Western Science technique. Read Here or Here

Oh, certainly! The original article. Donald must be quite the stud, huh? Hope this helps!

Real Audio

Wednesday, 13 February 2002

Michael McKinley explains what the DSD is and why it would be monitoring the Tampa communications anyway...

DSD stands for Defence Signals Directorate and is a top secret intelligence agency. They monitor communications in the name of Australia's security.

Michael McKinley is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Strategy at the Australian National University.

If an immigrant has no respect for our immigration laws, why would they respect any other laws?

This comment is peculiar considering Australia's history as a penal colony. Indeed, one of Australia's national heroes was an outlaw.

You'd think that Australia is a test case to prove that the wretched of the earth can form a free and prosperous society when they are no longer persecuted for being poor.

See The Huge Duck Cock!! (@_ _ ____) @@

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I bestow upon thee the famous Penis Bird

-Metrollica

I can see why a politician would think that gross copyright infringment would be a BadThing(tm). After all "The entertainment business is the largest US export. It is its largest export by one third." After all entertainment is the only thing we still do make our selves. So if the entertainment industry suffered a melt down our already-up-shits-creek-with-a-turd-for-a-paddle economy could continue its spelunking extravaganza. Think about it, I don't have official numbers (and anyone claiming to is a liar), but I would not be one bit surprised if Napster caused more copyright violations in 2 years than all the copyright infingment since the law was enacted until Napster, put together. I'm not really for the proposed law but I can see why some one would be. If we really don't want the law passed we should try and convince our representatives that it is in the countries best economical intrest to not pass the law, ie no one ever won by stifling technology (except M$). We should convince them that even IF the entertainment industry kernel panics (there's no garuntee it will) then the US will still thrive (maybe foreigners dig the lo-fi shenanigans of shows like jack-ass). What it really sounds like to me is that Hollywood is claiming that the internet/software/computer industries created a "bad toy" and now the entertainment industry wants a recall. When in fact the i/s/c industries created a new revolutionary, all encompassing medium that Hollywood can't wrap its stodgy, old-fart, mind around so it's sluffing of it's own responsibilities on some one else. Just my $.02

There is also a story in the press today about some Japanese researchers who have developed eyes biologically.

Australia isn't too bad when it comes to language :) Triple J (Youth National radio station, run by ABC [our version of the BBC]) often has 'bad words' in songs, like "Every Fucking City" by Paul Kelly, and "You Shit Me to Tears" by The Tenants.

They could just as easily connect to other backbones AAPT, Worldcom (UUNET), route the figgin traffic elsewhere!

If they are losing money, pricing broadband the way they are right now compared to competitors (oh wait...what competition???...oh wells that's just Telstra's license to "screw the customer" for more $$$) is not going to help them bring more customers in...therefore there's going to be less cash coming in and therefore hey presto, Telstra gets the medicines it deserves!

Let me tell you redcliffe, I do whole-heartly support an Acceptable Usage Policy like what Optus has, at least they could implement a system like it! Hey if they are not making money, because they have to pay $$$ out for their competitors backbone link, then don't you think there are serious questions to be addressed? You don't just implement a 3Gb CAP to cover your costs...mate...That's not the SPIRIT of broadband!! Simple as that and customers are going to react!

Ever heard of "Consumers voting with their $$$"? It's going to be interesting when exisitng Telstra Broadband user's contracts expire...I think they'll get a fair few who will refuse to renew...."Oh wells..." as they say.

I've been waiting years for the BBS to return... This story has some interesting history of the BBS and how it has progressed over the years

Whoops, when I said the ABC I meant the Australian Broadcasting Commission

Mr Packer believes that the Kimberley can best replicate the huge savannahs of Africa - without the constant threat of poachers who threaten the extinction of several species.

• Tasmania has a long history of electing Greens so in 1998 our "major parties" put aside their pretentions of difference and attempted to send the Greens extinct by reducing the number of state poiticians.
• More than fifty years before the last thylacine died in captivity, the last full blood Tasmanian aborigine died, a race that had been isolated from the rest of humanity for more than ten thousand years.
• Thirty years ago, the Tasmanian environmental movement was galvanised by the ultimately unsuccessful campaign to stop the then all-powerful Hydro Electic Commission from building a dam which would drown the remote and ultimately iconic original Lake Pedder. Proposals to drain the dam and restore the original lake persist.
• A decade later, a similar campaign against the proposed Gordon below Franklin dam was successful and South West Tasmania gained World Heritage recognition, including the aboriginal art in Fraser Cave named for our then Prime Minister in an attempt to enhance his environmental awareness.
• In the last few months it looks as though another predator, the fox, might be trying to get established in Tasmania. I'm sure I heard a report of some more recent evidence that they may indeed have a breeding population which defies thinking about given today's level of environmental awareness.
• The Tasmanian government recently retreated from its undertaking to support the outcome of the Tasmania Together process with respect to the unpopular logging of old growth forests to support huge (by Tasmanian standards earnings from wood chip export.
• On the other side of Bass Strait, there is growing environmental opposition to the Basslink Project to connect the Tasmanian electrical grid to the Australian mainland grid.

here here here here and here

The SBS World Guide is pretty good.

It's a service of the Australian SBS broadcasting network, a multi-ethnic/cultural/language & world news network. Its owned by the Australian govt & is a sister network to the ABC, Australia's equilivent to the BBC.

t.

Then you can look at Vandana Shiva's talk about free-market's assault on India: everything from the destruction of indigenous jobs by heavy subsidizing of imported soya oil to companies patenting and attempting to forbid Indian farmers to grow crops that the Indian farmers themselves had developed! Basmati, Neem: natural products developed in India, but patents were taken out on these things by U.S. companies. Ever heard the name Monsanto? Unless you try and take a closer look at what people in India are saying, you won't: you're not going to hear about this from U.S. media- or 'globalized' media, for that matter. When was the last time you heard the name Bhopal? And yet more people died at Bhopal than in the WTC terrorist attack- by now, more than twice as many. Bhopal was caused by intentional negligence motivated by a desire to cut costs and economize, the better to compete in the global market... to this day, the reaction of Union Carbide has been to hush it up, even to the point of refusing to specify the poisons involved, which would help medical relief efforts that are _still_ relevant... but saying what was in the poison gas would be bad PR and possibly lead to some form of liability, so silence is still kept...

Yes- do please take a closer look at these things. The more you look, the more you see- and it matters.

The Fire Ants that have shown up appear to be from two different parts of the world. What makes this article stand out is that it shows how the authorities in Queensland are planning on dealing with the problem. Also it shows the reports of how the Fire Ants have affected the lives of some people already. It is possible that the BBC ariticle was based upon some of the sources that were used to produce this one.

Personally I hope that they reduce this problem to an "acceptable" level. Given that erradication is going to be near impossible. Queensland already has problems with "cane toads", which were originally indtroduced to deal with something else (it was a plant from memory). All 3 levels of Government (local, state, federal) are fully aware of that mistake and the affect it has made.

Crusade, translated, becomes Jihad. Hence, the translation of the phrase "crusade against terrorism" becomes "jihad against terrorism". If Bush had said "crusade against silly walks" it would become "jihad against silly walks". The point is that, when translated the word crusade becomes jihad. I didn't work this out myself, but was informed of this while listening to a professor of middle eastern studies (IIRC) on JJJ's morning show.

It is not a reflection of my perception of a person's intelligence (I usually judge that based directly on a particular person's actions or lack thereof).

I take exception to your "numbers".

Think about those numbers for a second, in terms of PEOPLE. Each one of those people had lives, affected others lives. If you took just a second to think about how many people were affected in a geometric progression outward from the actual people killed, you'd realize the affect of the attack in New York is far worse than isolated killings anywhere in the world. Your attempt to contrast the killings with two unrelated politically defined areas and situations makes me ill.

What would happen if you compared against the population of New York City and re-worked your numbers (a bit more realistic comparison though still quite unfair)? I think you'd be a bit more enlightened.

Can you honestly say that every one of those deaths in Palestine were innocent people? Many may have been, but you cannot claim all are. Every one of those 5500 deaths you list (which I note you rounded down from the current estimate - how caring of you) were people just going about thier lives, some working to save other people.

As a side note you talk about innocent until proven guilty - as far as I can tell that still goes. They seem to be trying to provide solid proof before taking action, and will have to convince the world of that proof to gain international support for what we do as a nation. But then I imagine that no degree of proof short of Bin Laden coming over, shoving an ice-cream cone in your face and saying "hey, it was me!" will satisfy you.

My solution was to listen to this great news station in Australia, ABC NewsRadio, hehe, we even have a newsradioaddicts list on yahoo :) I't great actually, part of the govt. funded radio network over here, and, IMHO, puts BBC in second place of my listening preference. For all of you people out there that are too far away from .au to hear, there is a live net stream on there web site: www.abc.net.au/newsradio.

I admit, I have been addicted to radio news for years, then newspaper, followed by tv, mainly because radio is so much more convenient than all other types of media, other than having it sent to your <insert hand held mobile remote data device here>, but I still like radio more.

I don't know about other countries, and other networks, but I am also an avid shortwave radio listener, and I also listen to BBC, RNW, VOA and a few others, if anyone knows of more, reply to this comment, and I might put a page together of radio news addict resources around the world.

You want really cool?

How about a computer using a simulated environment to evolve a simulated robot, then using a 3d printer to build the robot, and it works!

Now THAT is cool.

Not that this doesn't fill me with a certain sense of irony. The US courts have been quite happy to extend their jurisdiction in civil cases to whereever it pleases them in the past. So one could say that the precedent has already been set.

Examples?

For example, the Absolut Beachwear case.

As a member of the Australian Labor Party, I got the following passed by ACT Labor and Australian Young Labor this year:
Bill of Digital Rights and Responsibilities

This branch recognises that global electronic communications have created a defacto standard for free speech online. ACT Labor further recognises that it is not a coincidence that the most dynamic and enduring societies and economies are those that foster freedom of expression.

Recent and proposed legislation relating to digital communications has acted to erode legal certainties and rights. This trend should be decisively reversed.

This branch calls upon the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, once in Government, to commence public debate on a Bill of Digital Rights and Responsibilities, to be legislated using the Commonwealth's electronic communications powers under the Constitution.

Such a Bill would include:

• A recognition that when communicating online there is the responsibility to not racially vilify or otherwise contravene the Commonwealth Racial Hatred Act or other Commonwealth Anti-Discrimination legislation.
• A less restrictive national definition of defamation, over-riding laws of the states and territories. The defamation laws would provide:
  • Freedom for non-malicious speech acts concerning corporations
  • Freedom for non-malicious speech acts concerning matters of public interest
  • That in the absence of malice no general damages be awarded.
  • The burden of proving malice would be with the complainant.
• A right to not be criminally prosecuted for any speech act made digitally that is of a purely expressive nature, with well-defined non-trivial exceptions. Also, a right to publish those speech acts on or by means of computers within Australia.
• Some guarantee of the opportunity for each Australian not just to access Digital information, but to publish it. The information super-highway must not be one-way: barriers to entry must be lowered as much as possible for the Australian with an idea on a small budget.
• A right to "fair use" of all digital intellectual property, restoring the original intent of copyright law.
• A right to not have substantive personal information transmitted from one's personal computer without consent.
• A right to use communications technology provided by an employer or educational institution for non-work or non-study purposes to a limited extent.

  Explanatory points:

  The relevant parts of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act are here

  The ideas for reforming defamation law come from "The Law Report" on Radio National, see here

  The section concerning criminal prosecution addresses many problems, present and potential. An example of how bad things can get is a bill before the SA parliament. See here

  The "fair use" of digital intellectual property could become a big problem in the future. Presently it is a crime to provide the means by which someone may decrypt encrypted digital data such as a DVD, without the authority of the publishers. This has the effect of restricting "fair use" of copyrighted works. Yet this does not prevent piracy.

  The right to use workplace technology for non-work purposes is important. Catch-all provisions can be placed in employment agreements that allow employees to be dismissed for trivial reasons or for their politics. There is also the possibility that by making non-work communications unauthorised, employees are criminally liable for "misusing" computers in the workplace.

So if very little money was being made, then the family shouldn't be compensated, but if a lot of money is being made, then the family should be compensated? I guess your philosophy is all about the money. If the pot gets big enough, you want a cut.

Did the patient or her family give permission for her remains to be used? No, they didn't learn about this for several decades after. That is unethical. It is deeply, deeply unethical.

What if the patient, or her family, had religious beliefs that conflicted with her body parts living on after her death, and being harvested?

Look at the turmoil stirred up about a year ago, over the case of Dr Dick van Velzen. Van Velzen was the senior pathologist at a children's hospital in the UK. And it appears he ordered the surreptious bottling and preservation of the organs of every baby who underwent a postmortem at his hospital. The press reports say this amount to something like 15,000 individual's organs.

Hospital rejects Van Velzen's claims
Van Velzen pleads guilty to improperly storing children's organs
UK Doctor Organ Harvest Outrage

You've got to get permission for stuff like this.

Yeah, that search came up with this page, which thoroughly debunked the story of the 25-hour day.

Hare-Clark is a 'quota-preferential' system which attempts to elect MPs to represent parties in Parliament in proportion to the vote achieved. To be elected, a candidate must achieve a quota of votes, which can be achieved either with primary votes or after the complex distribution of preferences.

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/hare.html
http://abc.net.au/public/elections/2001act/hare_cl arke.htm
http://polisci.nelson.com/electsys.html

and, of course,

http://www.google.com/search?q=Hare-Clark+electora l+system

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An exiled Chinese doctor says he had been forced to skin corpses of more than 100 executed prisoners and one convict who was still alive before escaping what he branded China's "evil" but lucrative organ harvesting trade.

Wang Guoqi, 38, a former army doctor and burns specialist, says in grisly testimony to a key United States congressional committee, that he was a member of teams of doctors who removed organs moments after convicts were put to death and passed them on for sale.

His testimony is the most public evidence yet presented in the United States by medical professionals and Chinese dissidents, of a practice which Chinese authorities insist is outlawed.

Full article

Having just completed a Master of Interactive Multimedia we did quite a bit of study around the nature of Art, Art Theory, Semiotics and everything else. But on ABC TV last night I saw this on The 7:30 Report. It was an interview with the new Australia Council boss discussing how New Media is the next revolution ...

As other /.'ers have mentioned, art is by defition what you define it as. There are a fwe art prizes around and orgainsation that will take your work, eg http://www.siggraph.org/.