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http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/myblogs/archives/05-0 1-2005_05-31-2005.html#6321 on my blog.... never mind cringely...

How? Simple. Develop a group of nanoparticles that have particular functions. Insert them in the brain (injection, operation, whatever) in the right order, voila, neural connections!

i.e. inject a very particular bunch of NPs. Their only function is to bind to neurons at a synapse, for example.

A few weeks (or however long it takes for the first NPs to attach themselves) you inject the second course. These connect any two of the preceding NPs together, preferably follwing existing connections.

A few more weeks, next course of particles. These (for argument's sake) attach to any junction of NP1 and NP2 above that has less than three connections. Do the same with another NP that works on four or more junctions. Rinse and repeat until the correct complexity is achieved.

Next course builds the connections from those to the "electronics layer" nanoparticles. Add NPs to build the interface and electronics layer by layer.

We're talking nano bits here, so yes, there is plenty of empty space between the brain components to insert NPs, and also, you'd soon get used to carrying another kilo or so on your shoulders.

It would mean a course of hospital visits over the course of a long time, perhaps a year or perhaps even two. But it would give the person who has had the course, a complete, invisible connection to anything they want. Internet, networks, mobile phone, whatever future connection methods arise - anything...

A businessman with his eye on the big goal would do this so that he could be speaking to his prospect in person, unobtrusively collecting data on the prospect, and possibly transmitting the meeting to his "back-end staff" who could, in real time and quite unbeknownst to the prospect, be coaching and guiding the businessman.

"Pupil narrowing, you're losing him. Steer it back to yachts for a while. And by the way he has a yacht, the SV Grot. HTH."

That's one use.

Imagine an officer in the field, directing a whole squadron of Predators, a bunch of Fireant style ground vehicles, is in communication with all his troops, with his command post, with the Pentagon, and who "sees" in the infrared and u/v, and can also "see" a superimposed map of the area over the top of all that?

What I'm saying, to cut off all those people who say it'll never happen, is that those who do this will be uniquely equipped for survival. Countries that back this research and use it will have an edge. Hell, even criminals who have this operation will be more successful at what they do.

No matter to anyone who says "this is so immoral and sacrilegious" - they are barking up the wrong tree, because in the shadows, somewhere, someone will develop this because the prize is so valuable... Has anyone noticed that the various moratoria on atomic research or genetic research etc achieved precisely nothing?

So think about it you /.ers out there...

it just plain become a huge PITA with little return.

Wyndham is notoriously difficult to get wires to, is often overcast (bad for satellite) and regularly has weather which is... unkind to antenna towers. Then there's the crocodiles... but despite that I've been told by several unrelated people that it's a nice place to live.

Wyndham is notoriously difficult to get wires to, is often overcast (bad for satellite) and regularly has weather which is... unkind to antenna towers. Then there's the crocodiles... but despite that I've been told by several unrelated people that it's a nice place to live.

I won't pay to download the ISOs of Mandrake 9.2 either, when it arrives. I will send money to Mandrake (and some of the FOSS projects that they wrap) because I think they deserve it, not because they threw me over a barrel and demanded it. Yes, even if some of their advertising references someone other than MandrakeSoft now.

For a little ISP, ArachNet is pretty good for connectivity.

If you want a large ISP in WA, I recommend WestNet. They're a bit too big to still be really caring, but their reliability is a notch above iiNet's.

If you want an excellent quality smaller ISP in WA, choose ArachNet. They also have excellent colocation terms, and this bloke can sell you a dandy little rack box to colocate with (review coming soon). I use ArachNet myself. There are others.

If you want reliable DSL in Oz and damn the cost, try Request or Optus (nice picture). Everyone else has to go through Telstra to get their DSL (and these two will also if they have no DSLAM in the exchange), which costs you a big reliability hit.

Telstra account for your data as the sum of both directions. Most Oz ISPs will bill you for the max of in and out, or just bill you for in, but no, not Telstra. As a 'phone company, they're not too bad (their service actually works). As a "competitive" ISP, they suck.

If you want a large ISP in WA, I recommend WestNet. They're a bit too big to still be really caring, but their reliability is a notch above iiNet's.

If you want an excellent quality smaller ISP in WA, choose ArachNet. They also have excellent colocation terms, and this bloke can sell you a dandy little rack box to colocate with (review coming soon). I use ArachNet myself. There are others.

If you want reliable DSL in Oz and damn the cost, try Request or Optus (nice picture). Everyone else has to go through Telstra to get their DSL (and these two will also if they have no DSLAM in the exchange), which costs you a big reliability hit.

Telstra account for your data as the sum of both directions. Most Oz ISPs will bill you for the max of in and out, or just bill you for in, but no, not Telstra. As a 'phone company, they're not too bad (their service actually works). As a "competitive" ISP, they suck.

Be kind to it, only fetch if you're going to do something useful with the code. Some of the real mirror sites are still up (wayback is your friend) and may be faster if you're in the USA or Europe. Of course, if you're hitting my ISP from WAIX then ArachNet won't care about bytes, so go for it.

There was a proposal put forward by the Labor opposition last year to do something like this. The idea was similar to what the original post described, in that Telstra would be split into two corporations; but one of the would have been a government-owned monopoly which owned and maintained the telecommunications infrastructure. The other corporation was to be privately-owned and in the business of selling services.

It's a bit different to what you describe with Railtrack. When the UK Conservative government split up the rail industry, they privatised the whole thing, so the infrastructure was privately owned and run by people whose main interest was to return value to their shareholders. In the end it became a complete fiasco, as you describe. Perhaps the question is: would it have worked any better if they had kept Railtrack public and just privatised the bits that used the infrastructure, i.e. the train companies?

The problem with the situation in Australia is that there is one company, half public and half private, which has a monopoly on the infrastructure but is expected to compete and play fair with the other service providers, all of them relying on the resources that Telstra owns. And if it's a conflict of interest now, wait until Telstra becomes 100% public.

To split up Telstra in the way that Labor were suggesting would have cost Telstra billions of dollars, wiping about 20% off their share price, but I tend to think that it would be better to take the hit now, rather than pay in the long term by having a greedy monopolist in charge, that is quite happy to keep Australia's telecommunications systems lagging several years behind the rest of the world.

On the bright side--I'm quite happy with my ISP: 6 GB of peak time downloads per month and unlimited off-peak downloads over a 512/256kbps link for A$77/month.

I can't believe all these ridiculous figures I'm reading from users in Oz, didn't anybody think of shopping around?

I'm with a smaller I.S.P. for my broadband here in Western Australia and the plans speak for themselves - reasonable monthly fees for realistic traffic levels (given the costs imposed on the I.S.P. by the carriers) - all a bloody sight better than what I'm reading for Telstra and Optus.

Monthly excess can either be charged or a soft cap imposed - but still at higher speeds than dial-up. The other good part of the smaller I.S.P. is you don't get the "customer rep." if you have to phone for tech. support, you get the guys who run the place and can solve the problems without having to R.T.F.M!

Anyone who goes with the big guys down here is a mug - shop around, ask around or just plain Google it, there's plenty of good deals out there to be had.

I can't believe all these ridiculous figures I'm reading from users in Oz, didn't anybody think of shopping around?

I'm with a smaller I.S.P. for my broadband here in Western Australia and the plans speak for themselves - reasonable monthly fees for realistic traffic levels (given the costs imposed on the I.S.P. by the carriers) - all a bloody sight better than what I'm reading for Telstra and Optus.

Monthly excess can either be charged or a soft cap imposed - but still at higher speeds than dial-up. The other good part of the smaller I.S.P. is you don't get the "customer rep." if you have to phone for tech. support, you get the guys who run the place and can solve the problems without having to R.T.F.M!

Anyone who goes with the big guys down here is a mug - shop around, ask around or just plain Google it, there's plenty of good deals out there to be had.

Your quota is measured as the maximum of traffic in and out, which is fairly common. Some ISPs ignore traffic from you and only charge for traffic to you.

For comparison, Telstra charge you up to 19c/megabyte (here 12-16c) for the combined sum of all traffic both directions, and iiNet (biggest ISP in West Aus, second would be WestNet) soft-limit all home accounts (limits are 6GB for AUD$79.95 512kb a/c or 0.5GB for AUD$49.95 128kb a/c) and charge 12c/MB on business excess.

ALL DSL goes through Telstra DSLAMs except on a very few busy exchanges Optus and/or Request have their own DSLAMs. This causes no end of problems for competing ISPs because they have to phone up and ask Telstra to do a "tunnel reset" when someone's DSL screws up, which often takes a day or two to execute.

Note in the Telstra DSL plans avobe that their entry level plan is AUD$10/mo more expensive, and a 512kb plan with only 3GB limit (sum of both directions, remember?) and a max of two users - the cheek! - is $18/month more than I pay ArachNet.

I have one client who was dual-homed ADSL through Optus and iiNet. iiNet is Western Australia's biggest ISP, and they started out well, then went corporate on us and bought everyone else (and meanwhile the quality of service drove off a cliff). iiNet is the only ISP in Western Australia which manages to have more DSL downtime from their own incompetence than from Telstra faults. Optus DSL is much more expensive than most others, even Telstra, but OTOH the only time it ever when down was when lightning razzed the modem on the client's premises.

The same client now has a WestNet DSL (DSLAM by Telstra) and is looking at fibre through Request, whose underlying provider is RUCC for their second home at their new premises. RUCC seems to be nearly as reliable as Optus, and notably cheaper.

Telstra is the only ISP I know of in Australia who normally charges you for traffic in both directions. Some ISPs will charge you only for recieved traffic, others will charge you for the max of recieved and sent, but not Telstra.

Before you ask, I use ArachNet, one of the few surviving Western Australian ISPs which is both competent and small enough to care.

My ISP ArachNet, Western Australia provides spam filtering and virus scanning of e-mail automatically as part of their entire account range.
I can't say the span filtering works perfectly, but I don't recall receiving any since switching over, I've also received NO viruses since.
If all the ISP's did something responsible like this, it might not stop the spam/virus problem but it would sure reduce the numbers.

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As I don't have that kind of cash I'm going to go with arachnet who offer 6GB per month for 66 dollars but no static IP.

why oh bloody why does WMP require internet access when playing a media file when all the required codecs are installed

Because it likes to get things like artist information, CD covers and other little bits and pieces for you?

Here, see for yourself.

There are plenty of decent deals out there. You just have to be reasonable. Leechers should get their head around the fact that they are *not* profitable customers, and will be treated accordingly.

In Perth, Western Australia, Arachnet offers ADSL at pretty much the same price points, which the bonus that traffic to and from WAIX, a local peering point, is free. (Subject to fair use; don't run a heavy-traffic VPN across to your other office in Sydney over it). PlanetMirror is on a network peered to WAIX, so that's all your ISOs taken care of.

The wholesale situation with exchanges and the local loop has finally reached the point where companies other than Telstra and Optus can offer decent pricing. They just need people to start buying the services they offer.

There are others here in WA too; Westnet, iiNet and probably more. I personally don't have any of these products at home (can't justify a long-term contract) - I'm a satisfied Arachnet dialup customer. At work, we have iiNet's offering and it's very, very nice.