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Just spotted this article with a South Australian Politician slating open source...
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,67 51841%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

I wonder how many new species we will see before and after the earth slides into an ice age?

1. Category 6 FAQ
2. Fat cat 6 cable pays off

In other words, it's planning for the future. Sure, you can get decent runs of gigabit ethernet over cat5e tp but what about ten gig? The day will come when you'll want to use it, and if you own the house, you may actually live to see that day :)

If it's a rental, you're just going to do a temporary install anyway. For example, I needed to run ethernet to a back bedroom, so I put holes in the ceiling in the bedroom and the living room (where the firewall, and the switch are) and just ran some cat5 up, through the attic, and back down. But if I actually lived here, I'd want to cut a hole in the wall, install a box, drop the cable down in the wall, and do a nice clean professional-looking install - And I'd want to plan for the future. In my case that would mean installing some smooth-sided conduit so I could poke some more cable through later, but if you end up having to rip out walls or something then I would definitely put in cat6 and seriously consider fiber. I'd also certainly install some coax and terminate it with BNCs.

There are about 750,000 PS2s and 250,000 Xboxes in Australia as of March 2003 see link

Cheers

VikingBrad

The current OSS climate in Australia is interesting. At the same time as one state (South Australia) is proposing legislation to use OSS "wherever practicable", another state (Victoria) is giving Microsoft $80000 to promote .NET use.

The Australian government recently (a day ago) announced that they will be privatising the rest (remaining 51%) of telstra. I wonder if this being on slashdot has anything to do with that?

Anyway, a day before the government's annoucement the senate was going to vote for an enquiry into broadband access in Australia.

Then later on the same day (or the next day) 4 independent senators voted against it (damn bastards, technophobics afraid of technology).

Look at these are two days in Australian politics and think, are Australians governed by morons?

Broadband enquiry likely

Broadband inquiry killed

New attempt at broadband enquiry

The Australian government recently (a day ago) announced that they will be privatising the rest (remaining 51%) of telstra. I wonder if this being on slashdot has anything to do with that?

Anyway, a day before the government's annoucement the senate was going to vote for an enquiry into broadband access in Australia.

Then later on the same day (or the next day) 4 independent senators voted against it (damn bastards, technophobics afraid of technology).

Look at these are two days in Australian politics and think, are Australians governed by morons?

Broadband enquiry likely

Broadband inquiry killed

New attempt at broadband enquiry

The Australian government recently (a day ago) announced that they will be privatising the rest (remaining 51%) of telstra. I wonder if this being on slashdot has anything to do with that?

Anyway, a day before the government's annoucement the senate was going to vote for an enquiry into broadband access in Australia.

Then later on the same day (or the next day) 4 independent senators voted against it (damn bastards, technophobics afraid of technology).

Look at these are two days in Australian politics and think, are Australians governed by morons?

Broadband enquiry likely

Broadband inquiry killed

New attempt at broadband enquiry

Since the state-controlled banks in South Korea seem to be willing to perpetually forgive, extend, or renegotiate Hynix's tremendously large debt burden, the USA (and EU) are only protecting their companies from unfair competition. The South Korean government is basically subsidizing Hynix through their banks. The headline is somewhat misleading because this tariff (if I understand it correctly) only effects Hynix's products, not all South Korean memory manufacturers (if there are any others) and certainly this doesn't effect Taiwanese manufacturers.

Here's a couple links to Hynix's most recent multi-billion dollar bailout.
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,57 71168%255E15316,00.html
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Dec/wbc20021 230017953.htm

It is now apparent that the weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed well before the war, but America and UK refused to listen. No, GWB just had to have his little war and Blair was good enough a poodle to follow his master.

There never was any justification for this war and now it's hilarious how the warmongers are backpedaling frantically to cover up their lies and exaggerations. "Oh, the real reasons for the war were really not the WMDs, regime change, terrorists or oil. See? We have shown you mass graves! Yes! We liberated the Iraq because of the mass graves!".

Well, why didn't you say so in the first place!? --

"A BRITISH inquiry into two trailers found in northern Iraq has found they are not mobile germ warfare labs, but were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, the Observer newspaper has reported.

The London-based weekly newspaper said the conclusion by biological weapons experts was an embarrassment for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has claimed the discovery of the labs proved that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction and justified the case for going to war against Saddam Hussein."

--

There's an interesting side-note to this. In the Australian federal budget last month, the Government implicitly valued Telstra at $5.25 a share, whereas (as the previous poster points out) they are now trading down around $4.50. This makes around $AUS3.5 billion ($US2.4 billion) difference to the valuation of government assets. Since it's no secret that the government wants to privatise its remaining 50.1% stake in Telstra, this is a pretty strong indication that $5.25 is the price the government wants. This makes it all the more unlikely that the government is going to take serious steps to challenge the Telstra monopoly (and thereby depress the Telstra share price), at least until the company is fully privatised.

If you think broadband down under is a disaster, you should see our Digital TV situation.

Australia's big telcos (mostly Telstra) have long argued that the way they charge for extra downloads and uploads are not a problem for most broadband users... then today, their telecommunications watchdog announces that broadband complaints have skyrocketed, and most seem to be about the data charges...

You think Australia's broadband situation is bad, look at how farking stupid IT minister Richard Alston is. The inbred half-wit spent 4 million tax dollars on a website. Hmmm, maybe he should've outsourced it to an indian for 200 bucks.

Well, this guy did have a parachute, but he bailed by getting rid of it!

I poked around on google news, and it seems that just recently some (literally) crazy aussi computer engineer tried to hijack a plane (with wooden stakes), but got his ass kicked, because he's not Buffy, and the flight crew weren't vamps... The guy is a committed (to a mental instituion:) Christian, and was raving about Armageddon.

Also, a woman wrote a threatening note to a flight attendant. She's crazy, too.

No sane people have hijacked planes lately, except in Israel. This guy didn't figure out the one-time-only thing with that kind of hijacking, so you've got to wonder about his sanity. He tried to rush the cockpit on an El Al flight, and got his ass kicked.

Oh, and I found this insane diatribe from Pravda. I wonder whether that's the same Pravda as during the Soviet era, because they're talking about the poor capitalists getting fucked over by the Earth Summit people, and how George Bush is saving the world from sustainable development, and how that's great...

Not to mention this site. Watch out for those Armenians...

I poked around on google news, and it seems that just recently some (literally) crazy aussi computer engineer tried to hijack a plane (with wooden stakes), but got his ass kicked, because he's not Buffy, and the flight crew weren't vamps... The guy is a committed (to a mental instituion:) Christian, and was raving about Armageddon.

Also, a woman wrote a threatening note to a flight attendant. She's crazy, too.

No sane people have hijacked planes lately, except in Israel. This guy didn't figure out the one-time-only thing with that kind of hijacking, so you've got to wonder about his sanity. He tried to rush the cockpit on an El Al flight, and got his ass kicked.

Oh, and I found this insane diatribe from Pravda. I wonder whether that's the same Pravda as during the Soviet era, because they're talking about the poor capitalists getting fucked over by the Earth Summit people, and how George Bush is saving the world from sustainable development, and how that's great...

Not to mention this site. Watch out for those Armenians...

1, 2, 3, 4.

There is a pretty decent, no-reg-required story about it at news.com.au.

Slashdot's product placement and trolling stepped up while European legislators were discussing software patents. Picayune articles, many of which consisted of rehashed softer versions of old FUD and misinformation, covered topics which have already been dealt with, again and again.

Since most novices do not understand the scope and severity of MS's problems and since any critique of MS, no matter the merit, gets written off as "MS-Bashing", it would be best to focus on the more successful areas of the IT sector. Here are a few examples:

• in Norway
• OSS in the mainstream
• Munich goes OpenOffice
• OSS in the UK
• OSS in Spain

Check the forums for tools that work - *BSD, Linux, QNX, Netware, eDirectory, LDAP, Kerberos, KDE, Gnome, Apache, MySQL, Postgresql, and so on ...

AustralianIT also covers this with their own article. In this, it states that 3 Million songs have beeen paid for and downloaded so far. This is absolutly amazing. Apples market share is nothing compared to Windows. Imagine if it was even close to have a market share like windows, or imagine if instead each other market share was switched for a moment. Im guess there'd be a hell of a lot of Mp3s being sold. This could eventualy make up a very large part of Apples future. Well, they've said they've been wanting to go into this area for quite a while now, i never really though they'd pull it off though. Looks like they've jumped their first hurdle! :}

Try not to say "nonsense" and "inescapable logic" right before you start guessing.

This article states that PC sales exceeded 10.1 million units in 2002 alone. Assuming that people keep their PCs for 3 years (which is not unreasonable for a poorer country where a PC is a major investment), we should be talking about a population of over 20 million PCs. Even that conservative estimate is already twice your guess. In fact, if you believe this article, China overtook Japan as the second biggest PC market in the world last year.

Prove it. I think you mis-googled.

The CIA World Factbook China page, under "Communications", says "Internet Users: 45.8 million (2002)".

In any event though, even if they have 50m internet users, it doesn't mean there is a problem.

The trouble with Slashdot, and in particular with folks of "inescapable logic", is that you don't actually read. Where did I ever say there was a problem? I was answering somebody's question as to how many people in China can read or write, or have ever seen a computer, relative to the US. Later, I was correcting your apparent mental block with the low percentages of users from China.

Another simple Google search shows that every other article says the plane was an Airbus A321.

Could be because XBox (at least in the UK) comes with 3 titles when you buy it. Oh well, stand corrected. Regarding actual amount of games sold, I found this article, Not a very bright one regarding GC (funny though, they don't even mention XBox in the article ;-), but they do mention the number 46 million sold games (link

This article in Australian IT (props go to Google News!) suggests that the real reason SCO is suing (and sending out nasty letters to Linux vendors and customers) is to slow the adoption of Linux in the enterprise. From the article:

Any IT manager whose team runs Linux could find a fast-talking lawyer at their door - hardly an event to enhance a career.

Until the dust settles, you'd be a mug to take on Linux while writs and threats are flying around the globe.

Perhaps that is one of the key objectives of this saga.

Microsoft, by licensing SCO's Unix offering, lend legitimacy to their lawsuit and in so doing make IT managers think twice about deploying a Linux solution.

Intel disclosed an electrical problem Monday that can cause computers using its flagship Itanium 2 processor to behave erratically or crash.

Hmmm...wonder if BMW is using these chips?

You left out this interview with Steve Ballmer. I demand satisfaction!

Which reminds me; could you all kindly remind your ISP's that APNIC's address space is not JUST China, Korea and the Phillipines. It includes some friendly, non-spammy countries too (NZ and Australia).

Denmark are staunch supporters ot the USA. Most Americans seem unaware that Denmark was one of the very few countries that sent troops to Iraq. To aid the US in this desert war, they sent a submarine. It probably arrived just in time for the end of the war.

Nope, this colour has nothing in common with peas whirled or otherwise. It's more like violets or the original colour of Iris Flowers as painted by Vincent Van Gogh, which probably all look like whirled peas to you anyway.

Now combine that happy shade of purple with the glow of a neon sign...I hate to think what it looks like on a mac which tends to intensify colours that look ok on a PC

The Unreal thing uses a fair bit of this colour too.

OK now for the very original plot:
[* As John Dalton, an ex-Marine assigned to patrol the edge of human space... Unhappy patrolling the ass-end of nowhere...

Violent turmoil has errupted on your watch *]

Does this feel like David Weber "On Basilisk Station" to anyone? and his stuff was loosely based on the Hornblower series by CS Forrester (written before "Hornblower" developped new meaning)

Well I guess this the version for people who want more than just a book.

Of course I live in the arse-end of nowhere so I guess I'd better start preparing for action.

Here's an even better example of the extent of our government's duplicity. And you don't think these guys would make mistakes (to be generous) about someone? Too bad that once you're an "enemy combatant" no mistakes can be corrected.....

Their latest government approved export is IT jobs.

Furore over Telstra outsourcing

Seriously though, we have exported the low paying jobs for years - we need to start exporting the CEO jobs. If we can get a few cheaper CEOs from India, that would save far more than few thousand like me grunts.

The flu is always going to be the flu, its not getting stronger.

SARS as it spreads becomes STRONGER. Meaning the more immune systems it kills, the better it becomes at killing.

This is what scares me, the rate jumped up from around 5 percent to 15 percent in a matter of weeks, 15 percent in CANADA of all places, where they have some of the best hospitals in the world.

15 percent of 1 million is 150,000 people, but according to estimates, a billion people can be infected by the end of the year.

1 Billion in 12 monthS

Theres only 6 billion people on this earth. If 1 billion people are infected with a 15 percent chance of dying (this is assuming SARS doesnt mutate and become more deadly), 15 percent of 1 billion?! What is that? 150 million? Thats as bad as the plague.

Don't you know that toilets are death traps after too long in front of the screen?

On a related topic, there is an interesting article here with one of Novell's top guys in Asia/Pacific.

He says that Novell has refocussed its entire company onto two issues: "secure identity management" and "application integration". He also says that they are not interested in taking on XP as a competitor because that's one they can't win.

Quite an interesting read.

• SABC - South Africa Broadcasting Corporation
• New.com.au
• South african news sources

Sorry.. I should have said that SARS seems to be a coronavirus (like the common cold) along with some other agent, probably Chlamydia. How about a link?

But I can guess at two reasons why it comes just now:

Perhaps this "leak" is to take attention away from new releases of excellent servers: OpenBSD 3.3, RedHat 9 (even w/4 business hour response time), and Mandrake 9.1.

Or perhaps it is to drum up sympathy in congress for new legislation which could be used to mandate DRM in the U.S. This would hamstring the U.S. IT sector and many public institutions by taking money out of already tight budgets and sending it to Redmond in the form of forced purchases of new hardware and software.

Russian Ambassor Attacked

Think you have a chance against Russia, N.Korea and China?

...involved in the creation of a living thing. An astonishing array of proteins, complex sugars, and lipids are all necessary for even a unicellular organisms to be viable. These aren't as easily assembled as nucleic acids, but they are just as requisite. The public focus inevitably tends toward DNA and RNA, especially by marketers such as Craig Venter, and especially when the story is being told to a non-scientific readership. The real story in biology is always more complex than the headlines would have us believe. Why can't these people make a real contribution to the world of medicine and figure out how SARS works.

According to this article Britain realises that the best people to be running Umm Qasr are, oddly enough, the people who have been running the port up till now.

At any point, if Sony wanted to close up the ability to modchip their machines, I'm sure they could have...

Actually, they have been trying...

A president can not be "ousted" period. There are no recall procedures for federal offices.

A president, or any other official, can be ousted thru a revolt. It has happened all throughout history, and I suspect it will happen at some point in the USA's future...though I don't expect that that time is now.

The vast majority of people agree with President Bush. Period.

The vast majority (about 70%) of Americans agree that war is necessary to remove Hussein. Fewer than half of Americans are strongly convinced that Bush's policies are correct, however.

Of course, the flip side is that over half of Americans believe that this will increase terrorism in the short term, and almost half think that it will increase terrorism in the long term as well.

International polls aren't nearly as favorable towards Bush or the USA.

All this FUD about most disagreeing with him is just that, FUD. He has enjoyed the highest approval ratings in history. Higher than FDR. (read your history).

His approval ratings were highest immediately after September 11. They've been declining since. Lately, they've dipped down to Clinton numbers. And approval of things other than the war on terrorism have been less than stellar.

Anwr? Yes, we should drill there. Look at the results of drilling in other areas of Alaska. So far, the most damage it has done is to create a population explosion of carabu [sic].

I suppose that depends on whether or not you think oil rigs and pipelines are a scenic addition. Oh, and don't forget the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

I still don't agree with [Bush] all the time, but I respect him and believe he is doing what he feels is the morally correct thing to do.

I believe Bush is doing what he feels is morally correct as well. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I share his morals or his view of world politics.

The story is here

Though I don't know why anyone would put a laptop that close to their crotch. I kept mine close to my knees and to the left so the exhaust port (on my former company's T20) dumped heat far from me. No Rocky Mountain Oysters served on my train, thanks.

Let's call it LinGnux - Happy Birthday Richard, and thanks for the compiler & utilities that freed us.

In Australia Telstra will be providing wireless, this service will use a credit system devised by Telstra. Users will sms a number on their mobile and receive an authentication code, and will then be charged monthly via mobile bill.

More Info Here

So what conditions would you prefer (and why) ? Try to keep it within the realms of financial practicality.

I'd expect conditions where children aren't abused and women aren't raped and lives aren't put at risk by fire-starting vandals.

I'd like to see interested third parties (eg, salvos) onsite to help avoid future reoccurences of detainee abuse. I'd like the media to be invited into the grounds rather than this media blanket we currently have.

You ask me to present my financially practical solution? Why do I need a solution before I can state the flaws I perceive in the current system? Are the only people allowed to speak out against the inhumane treatment - in your world - the same people who can prepare a balance sheet? Under which account do I put "raped child" when I'm creating this financially practical solution?

There's no "esentially" here. I flat outright said this. It's not something you deduced. I've said it twice already and now - in this post - I've said it a third time.

In other words, a completely unworkable solution.

It's only unworkable if you don't want it to work. Australia managed to support immigration on far grander scales just a few decades ago. Now it's "completely unworkable"? I don't think so.

Tell me, are you so free with your own home ?

I'm not inviting them into my home. I'm inviting them into my country. Surely you can spot the difference.

Don't misunderstand me. I support detainment but I'm opposed to the current detainment conditions. I support processing but I'm disappointed that it takes so long to process. I think Ruddock honestly does try to do the right thing and the media has treated him unfairly, but I'm not going to sit back and say "everything's OK, business as usual, no need to change".

I also think illegal immigrants should not be deported. There's no reason why Australia should be closing its doors to people in need. It doesn't matter that they're not refugees; the refugees are obviously first priority but the non-refugees were desperate enough to risk their lives to get here. As far as I'm concerned, that makes them far more deserving of Australia's assistance than many citizens.

THE federal Government will move to tighten control over the internet to reduce the accessibility of hardcore pornography from personal computers.

One of the options being considered by Communications Minister Richard Alston is a central system to filter all local and overseas internet traffic through a proxy server.

But Senator Alston fears that could slow down overall internet speeds. He favours an approach that would toughen regulations on internet service providers, which are already obliged to filter out offensive material.

A friend's first thought was that maybe this is actually about making surveilance of Internet activity easier.

Xix.

She's not, like, very smart.

I would say that based on the interview above, she would have a hard time writing anything more complex than a small grocery list. At very least she's not a friend of the big words.

I confess that I have only heard one of her songs, in passing, on Saturday Night live, so I can't speak to the body of work spanning her entire career. The one song I heard, however, was less than remarkable. I didn't even know who she was until everyone was going on about that virus named after her. And I'm out of her demographic; I'm almost exactly twice her age. Perhaps I'm just not as receptive to the message of teen angst as I once was.

My hunch says she has very good handlers who are actively trying to use her to separate disaffected teens from their parents' money.

-B

There is another article on the news.com.au site in case the first goes down.

In Soviet Russia, Apple laptop bakes you!

Well maybe not Soviet Russia, just Sweden.