Slashdot Mirror

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22304224-2,00 .html?from=public_rss

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22304224-421, 00.html
The summary: A 16 year old student wanted porn. He got it in 30 minutes. The government tried to fix the filter. The 16 year old student wanted more porn. He got more in 40 minutes. 16 year old says the porn filter is waste of money.

The header links to a ad-laden, news light article. Here's a link to a better story with a tad more facts: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22304224-421, 00.html

The concept of Intelligent Design places limitations on describing of the rich detail of God's works, therefore Intelligent Design is blasphemous because it imposes mankinds limitations on the glory of God. Will you be supporting this blasphemy by imposing it on our schools?

I won't be asking the question, so feel free to use it. Personally I find I.D arrogant, because Darwin's theories can be adapted to better understanding through the scientific process that allows for revision and change. I.D throws up its hands when the complexity becomes difficult to explain.

I'm not into forcing religion down peoples throats, it defeats the purpose, and I.D also does this. Science already does a great job of gaining an understanding of creation, and Darwin lays a good foundation for describing the mechanisms of life I see no reason to undermine his work with Pseudo-Science like I.D. Spirituality is seperate from science, one should have no bearing on the other.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/11/australia_ gov_internet_protection/
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897, 22218715-15306,00.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/10/2001 244.htm

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,2 2215301-5005962,00.html

Definately double plus ungood!!!

But then a fighter jet aiming a laser at a car is not good either!!!

There is a fair bit of evidence to suggest we already have been visited, if not contacted.

Some fairly recent ones...
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-2340161 5-details/'Mile-wide+UFO'+spotted+by+British+airli ne+pilot/article.do
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21994224-2,00 .html

There is always a government agency to refute the evidence... though they have little of their own.

No, I do not own a tinfoil hat. I'm just saying, maybe The Truth Is Out There. :)

Note: About a month ago Lt. Walter Haut, who was the original press officer at Roswell who issued both the "we've got a crashed UFO" press release as well as the "Oh no, our bad, it's just a weather balloon" release, had his post-deathbed "confession" released, stating that indeed a craft, with bodies, did crash.

Haut confession

What I find very interesting about this is that when he was alive, Haut consistently denied that anything spectacular had occurred, and only after his death was this information released, as per his wishes. IMO that lends at least a certain level of credibility to the claims.

Perhaps it is unlikely, but I for one am not going to say there is no chance this "UFO thing" is for real, at least in a small number of cases.

"Get elected, then just try raising taxes to pay for something that might happen someday".

On the other hand, the war in Iraq is estimated to cost taxpayers nearly $5,000 every *second*, with a final total cost that may be well over $1 trillion. How many bridges would that repair? Hell, how many bridges would that build?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi -iraq_digest01aug01,1,455675.story
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,221 78240-663,00.html

Please note that both these stories cite US federal government sources.

I can't believe nobody has linked to the original articles in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,2216 2513-2702,00.html?from=public_rss
and http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,2216 1037-28737,00.html?from=public_rss
It's slightly less sensationalist than the Inquirer article... but still not great journalism. I do however want to get a job at this High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra!

I can't believe nobody has linked to the original articles in The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,2216 2513-2702,00.html?from=public_rss
and http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,2216 1037-28737,00.html?from=public_rss
It's slightly less sensationalist than the Inquirer article... but still not great journalism. I do however want to get a job at this High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra!

What bothers me (i've never heard about this software before) is the trend for western countries to move away from individual freedom. I live in Australia, it is happening here - the doctor that was held without charge for 3 weeks. I know it's happening in the US, but now it seems to be happening in other western countries too. Are there any western countries whose citizens aren't losing their individual freedoms?

At least we are having an inquiry into the matter. How is it in other countries?

> The university's ResNet website states that, 'Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is against the law. If you are caught downloading copyrighted material, you will lose your ResNet privileges forever. No second notices, no excuses, no refunds.

We've already seen that anyone outside the U.S can send a bogus DMCA takedown notice without penalty. Not often the US passes laws that prosecute Americans and give non-Americans free reign but there you go. Here are two recent cases showing how easy it is:

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897, 21563838-27317,00.html
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_200 70329_001882.html

Now Kansas University has said they'll shut down students account if *anyone* sends a DMCA notice, with right of appeal. So if someone outside the US was to take the University's mailing list and generate a bogus DMCA notice for each one, the
entire University would voluntarily shut itself down. This hole in DMCA has been suggested before, so it's hardly new.

Who dreamed up this nonsense? Didn't they think it through to its logical conclusion? Don't Universities teach critical thinking? I mean, Double Duh.

yes - sure.... you can be a terrorist if you share your sim card. Check this out http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197 ,22072582-1702,00.html Absolute power corrupts

With the now widespread use of the internet to listen to music, it's becoming easier and easier to distribute your work without a record lable. All you have to do is make it available for download on a website for a fee. The only hard part will be getting the word out about your music. That's exactly what Trent Reznor say's he's going to do as soon as he's fulfilled his contract. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,217 41980-5006024,00.html

No, apparently, it's the labels setting the premium, despite NiN's protests - and they're *VERY MUCH* looking forward to the end of their contract.

As of 29 July 2007, the sheriff was acquitted...

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,219 88541-5005961,00.html

"A CALIFORNIA police officer who was filmed shooting an unarmed US serviceman after a high-speed chase has been acquitted of criminal charges.

A jury at San Bernardino Superior Court cleared former sheriff's deputy Ivory Webb of attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm in January last year."

"The army's explanation of weather balloons in the Roswell, New Mexico incident 60 years ago has been dealt a serious public relations blow. Late Army Lt. Walter Haut had signed a sealed affidavit prior to his death last year asserting that he had witnessed the wreckage of an egg-shaped craft and its extraterrestrial crew while working at the Roswell Army Air Field. An article at News.com.au reviews how Haut had worked as public relations officer for the Roswell base and was involved in the original weather balloon explanation of events at the time. This recent evidence would seem to confirm speculation that egg-shaped saucers are notoriously difficult to fly safely at low altitude."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21994224-2,00 .html

I just post it...

Whoah, mate. You need to take a step back.

You might be out of the "trailer trash" bracket, but I know a hell of a lot of people still in it, actually the majority of my family.

Have you used our public health care recently?

My mother was a nurse, all of her friends are nurses and when you talk to them, you get to hear the real horror stories. It's fucking rubish, over crowded, under paid, public hospitals are being closed, entire wards are going un-used due to funding and gaming the system.

A mate of mine recently had to wait 6 months with a painful wizdom tooth, just to get surgery on it, only to be operated on by a crappy student.

I don't know where you've been living in recent years but it sure as hell can't have been here, since you would have seen the various strikes on the news:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,2 2008470-5006301,00.html?from=public_rss

we've turned a credible military mission to bring democracy to the middle east

we've turned a credible military mission to bring democracy to the middle east

What in Hell are those guys doing if taking 1500 'puters off line doesn't affect operations? Should those 'puters even BE on-line then?

Some really lucky people get ADSL2, but AFAIK, that's only 1 exchange down here in the whole state, servicing Hobart (the capital city) with a radius of only a couple of kilometres.

So, while we're classed as broadband, we'll still be stuck on connections with a fraction of the speed of our other Aussie counterparts. And forget wireless. Unless they lower the prices significantly, only businesses and the wealthy can afford that!

Source:http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,2288 4,21929477-3462,00.html

I have to wonder if we will have enough offshore bandwidth to keep up with the demand this network will create

As discussed in:

    http://australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,2192 6920-5013040,00.html

the real problem is that the lack of links out of Australia means we are being charged way too much. This will only get worse if more people are able to get connected.

they don't represent an ideological threat they represent a power center threat. that's a big, fundamental difference, and a crucial one in how to view china

ideologically, the chinese are severely compromised: a communist system only in name. in actuality the chinese are more capitalist than the worst excesses of the gilded age under the robber barons. witness the latest scandals just today: disgusting child labor and fake and deadly products

this hypercapitalism is resulting in gated communities of ultrarich next to a countryside of desperate and teeming poor. communist my ass. china is orders of magnitude more capitalist than any society on this planet. and ruled by a "Communist Party". ha!

ideologically bankrupt, china is therefore just a power center. the only real threats to the united states and the west are ideological ones. centers of power without an ideological center cannot grow and spread, but merely sit there. in actually the reverse holds true: power centers without ideology fall under the sway of other foreign ideologies, and the chinese in that respect are ripe to fall under the influence of a new ideology. the only real model close to anything china coudl become being a western democratic one

i actually hold no illusions that democracy will cheerfully and without resistance spread across china any time soon. china is historically bureaucratic and authoritarian, and will in fact take generations to go truly democratic, if ever. but if china is on course anywhere, however slow, it is towards that kind of enlightenment. it's either that or the continuation of the longstanding chinese historical tradition of stifling authoritarianism and layers of indolent bureaucracy. which would be a shame, as it would doom china to the long term decay and inwardness and lack of progress that it faced centuries before. china in fact has a chance to democratize now, with difficulty, and with every passing decade the chance of that becomes less, and the certainty of its historical bureaucratic inertia reasserting itself becomes more

there is only one other real ideological threat in this world, something china is not in danger of coming under, and something that is a real threat to the usa: militant islamic fundamentalism. i fear and worry about a theocracy in tehran with an atomic bomb way way more than i worry about the chinese. the chinese are ideologically dead in the water. tehran meanwhile is ideologically muscular and virulent

the west did in fact defeat/ witness the collapse of communism. don't fool yourself into thinking communism is still a threat. the only real threat today to the west is militant islamic fundamentalism. the chinese meanwhile are ideologically toothless, and therefore no real threat. they just want to make money

i say to the chinese: remember and listen to the plan sun yat sen laid out a century before for china. sun yat sen, the hero to both the nationalists and the chinese:

1. expel foreigners. done
2. centralize power. done
3. democratize. not done. yet

"The only drawback with these computers is you have to think in Russian." See? Much funnier reference. :)

And on-topic, there's some totally amazing shit going down in cybernetics these days.

http://www.sigmorobot.com/technology/news/toast_bi onic_man.htm

This guy here has thought-controlled limbs. The nerves that controlled his arms have been rewired into muscles in his pecs and the arm reads the twitches there and turns that into motion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5140090.stm

Limbs can now be attached directly to the skeleton.

Artificial muscles (sorry btech fans, they aren't called myomar)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4817848.stm

Advanced bionic hand

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4225896.stm

Article featuring Claudia Mitchell as well as Jesse Sullivan, both real-life cyborgs

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,2 0457094-8362,00.html

We're really making some fantastic advances in this field. The major future hurtles will be better feedback from the limb, getting it to run on blood glucose so a separate power supply is not needed, and making the whole affair less bulky and more natural. The ideal goal here would be a limb that would pass for perfectly natural, both for the observer and the amputee.

unfortunately hackers are now getting into 'reputable' websites, and putting in 'shady stuff'... as happened when the Miami Dolphins website was hacked..

"Teachers don't deserve a student coming into class saying 'Gee Mrs. Brown, I went to this fancy museum and it said you're teaching me a lie,'" Dr Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Centre for Science Education, said before the museum opened.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,217 41980-5006024,00.html

Your money isn't going to the artists damn it. It never has and it never will. I think I have given up all hope for this damn country. Anyone know any islands up for sale?

mea culpa - I just read an article about NIN's Trent Reznor. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,217 41980-5006024,00.html and he's pretty blunt about it. These people you reference ARE lowlifes, and this is coming from one of their clients.

I have learned that past sky-high CO2 concentrations have been documented in peer-reviewed research journals. If we have hit peak oil, I doubt we will ever be able to reach these levels.

We find that CO2 emissions resulting from super-plume tectonics could have produced atmospheric CO2 levels from 3.7 to 14.7 times the modern pre-industrial value of 285 ppm.

This data is available from a variety of sources, with interesting commentary:

We are talking about carbon dioxide levels 6 to 10 times the present carbon dioxide level. When you have high amounts of carbon dioxide in an atmosphere up to a certain limit, which is considerably higher than it is now, the result is green plants grow very much better... And it is precisely at this time that the recovery from the first dinosaur extinction takes place. When the super plumes come and carbon dioxide increases, and the oxygen correspondingly increases as a result of photosynthesis... And yet the super plumes did not last forever and they started to die at the end of Cretaceous.... In any event, large dinosaurs really required to be living in an oxygen tent. An atmosphere in the neighborhood of 35 percent oxygen would be considerably more compatible with large dinosaurs than one in the neighborhood of 28. And so this suggested to me that this was perhaps a significant reason for the first dinosaur extinction, and probably one of the major factors in the second, the terminal dinosaur extinction, other than the birds. It also neatly tied together all of the really bizarre features about the Cretaceous... The Cretaceous is clearly a green house period as opposed to the present ice house that we have... Well, the rich carbon dioxide of course provides for a much greater biogenic diversity.

There is a great rejection of the global warming panic in the scientific community (it is unlikely that "big oil" funds have "bribed" so many faculty members of such prestigious universities, despite a smear campaign). Because of the tremendous expense of implementing Kyoto, should we pause in global warming remediation efforts that may border on the alarmist? It is not in any way difficult to find distinguished scientists who reject all calls for panic.

Sixty scientists call on Harper to revisit the science of global warming... If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.

Unless you live in Australia. Just ask Mr. Griffiths.

The aim was to make a vast bonfire of secrets, but it proved impossible to organise the trucks to take the brown paper sacks to a quarry outside Magdeburg.

They could use the technology for applications like this.

"Seeking to outsource its enforcement costs, the RIAA asks universities to point fingers at their students, to filter their Internet access, and to pass along notices of claimed copyright infringement."

This reminds me of something the ARIA wanted to/wants to implement in Australia. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,21555941-2,00 .html?from=public_rss

"Under this system, people who illegally download songs would be given three written warnings by their Internet service provider.

If they continued to illegally download songs, their internet account would be suspended or terminated.

Those with dial-up internet could face having their phone disconnected."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21659333-2,00 .html

In fact the main connection at the moment between Australia and the US is owned (mostly/totally?) by Optus (Singtel). Telstra have recently announced they are going to build a cable from Sydney to Hawaii and according to this article Telstra are also part of the consortium building this cable... which starts in SE-Asia, but importantly connects Hawaii to US west coast: http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21 644115%5E15320%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html/

So in fact its Telstra that is building some competition to the existing cable - although I agree entirely regarding the broadband market here.

This new announcement also completes the picture for Telstra, they will have new cable all the way from Australia to Hawaii to west coast US.

For the person who asked about a reference for that statistic of 47% malnutrition:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867 ,21272484-2703,00.html

Giving broadband to your entire country doesn't feed people either. The infrastructure costs for this cash cow (believe that this is based on lobbying from someone who is going to get rich and the usual politician grease) are coming out of money that could be used to improve nutrition for the poor. This service will be for the wealthy indians that own computers - what percentage of India has such a luxury?

How the fuck are they going to solve it? Well, you can't if you don't even try. Does using profanity add mod points to your post? I fucking hope so because if the above post is a +4 insightful then the mods who gave points for it are -4 clueless.

And from the linked article:

"INDIA has higher rates of malnourished children than sub-Saharan Africa, despite having the money to tackle the problem, according to a survey that raises grave questions about the country's economic rise."

I hope they've got a good emergency plan for when the inevitable disaster happens in the tunnel, such as the recent vehicle crash in a tunnel in Melbourne. Imagine being stuck in a tunnel 30 miles from land, under an ocean, with burning trucks and cars all around. Accidents happen all the time, and it'd be really hard to get to one in that situation.

A bunch of soldiers were hoping to be on the next packet back to the USA but they got a "no route to host, try again in 3 months" error message.

Yes I know it's off-topic but laugh, it's funny.

I've yet to see Business in general, or any single business in particular, leaping towards Vista.

Then maybe you should look. Just quickly I found these:

From http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/robert/archive/20 07/03/07/internal-amd-memo-encourages-rapid-compan y-wide-vista-adoption.aspx/

Vista is being deployed at AMD from the top-down, with about 100 users (most of the AMD executives, plus others) using it right now, with many others coming online soon.

From http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20 393236%5E16123%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html/

Westpac bank is rolling out Vista onto 20,000 desktops.

I claim that Islam treats women as dirt.

As evidence of that, I cite honor killings, genital mutilation, and multiple passages from the Quran that support my assertion. I could go and find multiple contemporary SUNNI, ELECTED imams (I wonder how many women get to vote for those imams...) that say the best way to treat a woman is to beat her.

I even offer as evidence of poor Islamic treatment of women the fact that Saudi Arabia will not issue driver's licenses to women? Your retort? Iran allows women to drive. As if that wipes out the entire body of evidence - including the Quran itself - that Islam treats women as second-class citizens at best. That's hardly a refutation. That's like saying the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is proof that there's no discrimination in the US. If anything, the fact that you have to enumerate Islamic countries that do allow women to drive is evidence of systematic discrimination, not tolerance and equal rights.

And you also claim Islam allows women to own property, and that since a lot of civilizations worldwide didn't allow that when Islam is founded, that's evidence that Islam doesn't treat women as second class citizens. I've already mocked the hell out of that - pointing out that what you think is "praise" of Islam's treatment of women is more than matched by millenia of rights in other cultures. Here's a clue to another flaw in that example: what happened or didn't happen in Europe or China 1300 or 1400 years ago is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether or not women have rights equal to men under Islam TODAY.

It's also funny how you claim the fact that Islamic countries have had female rulers proves Islam does not treat women as second-class citizens, when the fact is fundamental Islamic, elected Sunni imams have ruled that Westernized female leaders such as Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto are utterly illegitimate as leaders.

You say you know next to nothing about Islam - that's obvious. Go learn about dhimmis and kafirs. Learn what the difference is between dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb and what that means in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Learn why the hostages taken by Islamic terrorists that you see on television are always beheaded.

Learn about taqqiya and hudna.

But most of all, learn about the misogyny at the heart of Islam, about how the testimony of a man in a sharia court is worth the testimony of two women, about how a martyr in the cause of Islam gets 72 female sexual slaves for all eternity.

Don't think Islam is misogynistic?

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,208 77022-5001021,00.html

You claim my sources are "blogs" when all the sources I've cited are actual news articles or easily-checked quotes from the Quran.

And I haven't even started on Islamic treatment of homosexuality. Think stonings literally using dumptrucks of stones to bury gays alive...

Nevermind widespread Islamic Holocaust denial.

And I hope you don't really think Islamic theocracy puts any credence into such Western European ideals as God-given inalienable rights. Because that's just not true.

Another fun thing for you to figure out: why the number of Islamic scientists who've won a Nobel Prize is so laughably small given the billion or so Muslims on this planet. There's actually theological reasons for that. But I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader... :-)

There are upper atmospheric measurements and other indications that pretty much disproves the increasing SOLAR output theory.

Unfortunately, or intentionally, the person promoting this theory never bothered to seek out those data points.

Increasing solar activity (or cosmic rays) should increase the temperature of the upper atmosphere. That's NOT happening!! It's getting colder, which fits right in with the consensus that the current GW delta is mostly a function of the increasing GHG concentration.

"Furthermore, pirated copies of music are readily available online." There is more on these pirates here.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,21170425-421, 00.html?from=public_rss

The incident is pretty recent - 22 days ago. Sorry, it wasnt her dad - it was a bunch of way-too-young kids who persuaded some local bloke (bit of a slow character by the sounds of it), to let everyone jump in the hilux and go for a yippe ride round the dirt roads.

We are talking about a 14yo driver and other kids aged as young as 13.

Very similar to what happens in the advert - except without the slow bloke, and the kids in the story have 10 years on the kids in the advert.

This story was graphically posted all over the news for several days running, so it was probably really bad timing on Hyundai's part to play this advert at this time.

Other than that, our advertising standards in Australia are delightfully liberal, and I dont think this story really reflects that reality. Just take the headline in some context and you'll be right mate.

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/gwci/households.html Check out how little of a percentage lightbulbs are in an average Australian home. 5% is the amount. If they'd STOP spending http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867 ,21234235-2702,00.html/$19 BILLION on road improvements, and instead improve public transport and take away personal car use which accounts for 34% of household greenhouse gas emissions, then we'd be getting somewhere. (I'm lumping in the going to work, AND the personal use/transportation categories in that pie chart.

Pfft, that's nothing! This cop in Australia was charged with driving near 240 kph (150 mph) in a fully marked car with no lights or sirens not responding to any incient - he was driving that fast to show off his driving skills to other cops!