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Of course, oil isn't energy positive either.
Okay, sure it's energy positive from the time we extract it from the ground, but any fair consideration needs to take into account the amount of energy that, once upon a time, was required to create that oil, since essentially what we're required to do is replace the whole supply chain (or, wait a few hundred thousand years -- or more! -- for the supply chain to replenish the stocks we've taken).

I'm led to believe that the figure is approximately 24 tonnes of plants to produce one litre of petrol as an end product. Considered this way, then ethanol, biodiesel or hydrogen are all far less energy negative.

The bonus is that waiting several hundred thousand years for the fuel supply to renew itself isn't necessary with the other energy-negative part-solutions.

Oh, and converting a standard four-stroke petrol engine to run on ethanol is not that hard, either -- as proven by a recent entry of a 1925 Austin in the Darwin to Adelaide Panasonic World Solar Challenge. Bigger carburetor jets (or similar adjustments in a fuel injected vehicle), cylinder head lubricant (probably not necessary on most unleaded vehicles), and some timing adjustments are about the mix of it, and come to think of it EFI systems could be designed to handle such adjustments mostly automatically.

I just googled "prius battery lifespan" and came back with 8-10 years. http://carpoint.ninemsn.com.au/portal/alias__carpo intau/tabID__6491/ArticleID__5487/DesktopDefault.a spx Batteries are now $3000. Hopefully they'll be much cheaper by the time you would need one.

I always figured it wasn't a problem in Australia.

It's not, unless you watch Today Tonight.
You'd have an even bigger problem if you watched A Current Affair on Channel Nine. Not only are they're in cahoots with Micro$oft's m$n, as this site proves, but their regional outlet, Win, is in charge of maintaining all the radio transmitters. I understand that in rural Australia their reception is on average 6dBm better than Channel Seven, and that's when you're wearing a tinfoil hat. I can't imagine how bad it would be without one.

My favorite at the moment is Hoyts New Zealand which has this as the first term:

This site is made available solely for access from places in Australia and to users ordinarily resident in Australia.

Now I wonder why they would want to ban users from New Zealand from accessing movies times for movies showing in New Zealand...

This story created something of a media sensation for a few days, with various stories of varying scientific relevance.

I have to say that it "arcs me up" to see the media treat this kind of simple science story with disdain and hype, trying NOT to understand and then explain the simple science involved.

I'm the author of this piece about the iTMS and Australia. Sony is the hold out. I reckon, now that Japan has launched, Australia iTMS sans Sony won't be far behind. http://www.bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/site/a rticleIDs/4DC115E462A7EF8ECA25702E0022FE20/

>Indeed. Yet people still down^H^H^H^Hfreeload. Care to speculate why?

I am in Australia, and the ITMS launch here was recently blocked by Sony/BMG. We have dodgy workarounds to let us use the overseas stores, but there's one answer for you.

Kind of similar to boiling point and it's tragic relationship with Pyrex measuring cups and microwaves. http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/factsheets/575.asp

In short, since the container doesn't have any flaws or any major points of differing temperature, no steam bubbles ever form, so the water never begins to roll. Instead, it just sits there absorbing heat until you finally take it out and drop a spoonfull of instant coffe or something in it, and it explodes and burns your face off.

This has Happened very recently.

An Australian women Shapelle Corby has just been found guilty by a Bali court and sentenced to 20 yrs in Jail for importing 4.0kg of marijuana. She professed that it wasn't hers and was unable to prove this to the Bali court. One thing to remember is that in Bali you face judges and not jury's.

Heres a link that might help http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/site/artic leIDs/5659AB9226A0D336CA256FD500161504

It's not just things being 8-12 months (on average) behind, say, the US or UK, it's also the insistence of the commercial networks (specifically Channel 9) to drop series without notice, schedule program episodes in the wrong order, or change the scheduling of episodes at the last minute.

I'm not surprised that people are taking television programming into their own hands in this country...

Yeah, but if the guy who set up the webcam had actually been in the house and tried to stop the burglar, he'd be the one in jail, at least until recently.

It looks like someone hit Britain with a clue stick, finally. UK law lets homeowners kill intruders

So why do we see more and more red-light X systems? Because they're cheap revenue sources.
New South Wales, Australia, took similar criticism to heart, and is reducing the fines for photo radar speed infractions (up to 15 kph over the limit) from A$130 to A$75 -- but with an extra demerit point. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=37788

PVs are expensive if you are going to try to cover big areas, which is why australia are building a Solar Tower in the desert:

http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/eddesk.nsf /0/A7BD712D34AE25B3CA256B12001BA833?open

And for information, the total solar power falling on just a section of Australia's desert could power the whole worlds electric needs..

Prove it. The only proven vote fraud is being done by Democrats (remember "Votes for Cigarettes 2000" for homeless people and tire slashing by Democrat-paid thugs in 2004 in Wisconsin?).

Let's not even talk about Catherine Harris, who outright stole the election by selectively obeying the intent of the law.

Prove it. (And its spelled "Katherine". Try to keep up.)

This is now a one party dictatorship, using the law as window dressing to get anything it wants and destroy whomever it hates.

Prove it.

accepted by the Katie Courics of the news media almost immediately.

You honestly believe that Katie "... they haven't been able to confirm reports [Saddam] was taken to Tikrit, and then Mosul, and then hopefully Syria" Couric is right wing? ROFL!!!!

Snip remainder of Michael Moore-inspired paranoia. That by the way would be the corpulent propagandist Michael Moore:

- Who sends his own daughter to private school .

- Who unsuccessfully pressured the writing staff of his 'TV Nation' not to join the Writer's Guild.

- Whose bodyguard got arrested for carrying an unlicensed firearm at JFK airport. A FIREARM? For the writer/author of "Bowling for Columbine"? No more tinfoil for you - you've obviously ODed on the stuff.

- Whose own hometown high school refuses to induct him into its Hall of Fame.

YOU grow up and stop whining. Bush won, Kerry lost. Get over it.

They tried this in Australia, editing child porn to get public leads. Unfortunately they sent out the wrong copies. The AFP (Australian Federal Police) sent thousands of school principles a collection of child porn your average pornogapher would be jealous of. Here's the link to the news articals: Police send porn to schools.

Google beats MSN search by 1,090,000 naked boobies to 667,529 naked boobies.

The other approach is to do what the local council of one of Australia's most famous beaches is trying to do - ban cameras entirely.

Oh, except you'll be able to take photos of your own kids.

And a few other exceptions.

Again, here's my rejected submission from the last time this story was run. The info in it is somewhat better, IMHO.

After years of secrecy and much speculation, Blue Origin has finally announced its plans to build and operate a privately-funded aerospace testing and operations center in West Texas. The company, run by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, is "currently developing a sub-orbital space vehicle that will take off and land vertically to take three or more astronauts to the edge of space." Flight operations could begin as soon as six years from now. Hopefully this will be a significant step towards Bezos's dream of enabling "an enduring human presence in space."

I'd also like to remind the reader that Neal Stephenson (author of Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver, and many pieces of quality sci-fi literature) works for Blue Origin. Here's what he said when asked about it in a slashdot interview from last year:

Like Spock on the deck of the Enterprise, I sit in the corner and await opportunities to jump out and yammer about Science. Unlike Spock, I don't have anyone reporting to me and I never get to sit in the captain's chair and aim the phasers. This is probably good.

Though the X-Prize is cool and good, Blue Origin never intended to compete for it. Consequently, it has had no effect, other than destroying productivity whenever a SpaceShipOne flight is being broadcast.

As for my visions of future private space flight: here I have to remind you of something, which is that, up to this point in the interview, I have been wearing my novelist hat, meaning that I talk freely about whatever I please. But private space flight is an area where I wear a different hat (or helmet). I do not freely disseminate my thoughts on this one topic because I have agreed to sell those thoughts to Blue Origin. Admittedly, this feels a little strange to a novelist who is accustomed to running his mouth whenever he feels like it. But it is a small price to pay for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a minor character in a Robert Heinlein novel.

Here's my submission, which has some more information:

After years of secrecy and much speculation, Blue Origin has finally announced its plans to build and operate a privately-funded aerospace testing and operations center in West Texas. The company, run by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, is "currently developing a sub-orbital space vehicle that will take off and land vertically to take three or more astronauts to the edge of space." Flight operations could begin as soon as six years from now. Hopefully this will be a significant step towards Bezos's dream of enabling "an enduring human presence in space."

sending email! We /.ers get to talk about stuff that really matters!
So maybe at a seance, your loved ones can still read your mail to you even if the medium doesn't know the password.

Stay with me here... I'm ranting but I promise there is a point.

When they choose to watch American TV programs it's because they like them - not because it is good for America.
Yeah... right... love those American programs... all of them. I'm not saying all American programming is bad... but c'mon. Sure an Australian is to blame for some of it, but Murdoch is insane... so there you go. The issue with TV is the US using the cultural invasion method. Remember the Australian-US FTA?

When they buy American products it's because they like them - not because it is good for America.
Nah... it's because American companies keep buying our stuff. I mean, why buy Vegimite? Most Americans hate the stuff. The entire market for Vegimite is Australia (possibly a few strange Kiwis and Poms).

They are likely to choose who they think is best for them (being a non-American), based on whatever critera is important to them and their situation.

I'd hope that Americans would choose who they think is best for them too. But I know this isn't the point you are making. I don't know though, does David Hicks case fall under domestic or foreign policy?

They are making their choices based on what they think is best for them.
Exactly. But then this was the point of invading Iraq, right? "We think democracy is a good thing and Iraqi's don't have it. We'll give it to them!" Very noble. Given that the US is an occupying power I think that they at least have a valid argument in deciding who should be president (from what I've seen on TV [yay!] it seems that a lot of the election seems to be Iraq focused).

Australian politicians seem to get rilled when an important overseas type person states a preference towards a party. There's usually a huge outcry of "keep your noses out". But this, who cares? But I hardly think that a poll of web users really will effect the outcome of the election. That clause that only allows someone to be president for two consecutive terms is in your constitution right?

I promised a point... but that was a noncore election promise....

It's not that I disagree with Bush's economic policy or his foriegn policy, I believe he's a child of satan brought here to destroy the planet Earth. -Bill Hicks

(The networks in Australia use the 14:9 compromise most of the time, except when some of them produce the news without zooming any of the prevalent 4:3 satellite footage ... for lots of pretty diagrams, see this guideline document.)

One of the things you'll realise from the 14:9 compromise, if you come to my lectures, is you sometimes don't even see the black bars anyway -- the fact is, even in plain old 4:3 analogue, you're producing pixels that won't be seen. You have to, because of boring old CRTs, which define the SDTV standard.

(If you've dabbled in XFree86 configuration, you've probably noticed that good old 640x480 is really 848x515 raster lines, give or take, or that 1024x768 is really 1408x823, maybe. The VGA standard defines all the other lines as black).

A 525-line NTSC TV will show you 480 lines (maybe) and 450 lines (approx) at the edges, because of the round corners. So produce all your important action in a 600x450 region in the middle of 640x480. Same thing goes for 625-line PAL: Produce 720x540 in the middle of 768x576. Ish. (Can you guess where the sync pulses, closed-captions/subtitles, and ceefax/teletext go? See the other Slashdot story on ceefax today).

Then, because SDTV Is Evil, you have to account for anamorphic pixels, interlace flicker, brightness flare and adjacent chroma causing analogue dot crawl; and just when you thought you grokked it, widescreen SDTV confusingly uses the same number of pixels! (I haven't even mentioned colour-safe! You can almost ignore that one these days).

Whereas, HDTV Is Your Friend, because all pixels will be square, all pixels will be seen, you can count on progressive mode displays, pixels don't just move because the screen got brighter, and there's no analogue in the loop (using a 1950s colour system bolted on, backwards-compatible, to a 1920s black-and-white system!) HDTV is based on presumptions arising out of LCDs and plasma screens.

Please, as a loyal true geek, support HDTV. (Purely on its technical basis! Huzzah!)

CK.

...actually read most recipes, and you'll see the difference. For best effect, do it from a magazine like Women's Weekly which is actively targeted at femmes, then compare with his recipes.

So let me see if I get this right, they take some guy's crappy lo-rez VHS tape off his 1985 video camera and broadcast it in HD?

Now I can see broadcasting those hot chicks they have host the show in HD.

Any idea if it's being filmed in HDTV

Any idea if it's being filmed in HDTV

Asbestos was known to be dangerous in the 1930s.

when you consider it is Telstra who we are talking about. Telstra seems to want to charge whatever it wants, however it can only increase it's charges in line with costs. So jumping on Linux would decrease thier costs and the ACCC would jump all over them.

Maybe I'm just a cynic and my logic is flawed, but it doesn't suprise me that one monopoly should use get into bed with another monopoly.

A dingo stole my baby!

Monsters, John! Monsters... from the id!

First you need something else!

Yes, it does. And when you read the page it takes you to it clearly states We can't find "www.randomdomainname.org". That doesn't fit with your previous claim "IE will take you immediately to a search engine without displaying any error message", which was the post that I called BS on.

IE does take you to a search engine - but it does display an error message. And MS doesn't do it to all windows users, as the subject line claims - they do it to IE users, a subset of windows users. Many (most?) of those users probably find it useful.

This is a browser issue that has nothing to do with Verisign/Sitefinder. Don't like how IE handles it? I don't blame you. There are other things I don't like about IE, which is why I use Opera. However, disliking MS or IE is no reason to make up fiction and try to pass it off as truth.

BTW, I'm not a clown - just a juggler. :^) I'm a grown up with a bad attitude about people who just make things up. If you are going to get upset when people point out that what you are posting is, in fact, not true, perhaps you should be a bit more honest when you post in the first place. I'm not trying to piss you off, but what you said is simply not true.

Here ya go Mr. Lazy slashdoter. (No login/subscription needed link)

Annoying, wasn't it? Here is the link to the full article that I saw in that Google search though.

Hollywood is full of fake shit. But let's force them to be explicit about what is fiction and what is real. The Golden Globes are awarded by an in-bred group of random no-nothing foreigners based in large part on who has given them the best perks that year. I think that the world's movie fans deserve better.

Why should we geeks care what 90 people, self-selected for a lack of integrity, think of the Lord of the Rings or anything else?

Note some facts: (1) no visual effects work on Matrix II & III was given to ILM (2) John Gaeta, overall effects supervisor for Matrix II & III made this statement: I've heard the 'Star Wars' people boast about shooting frames that are 97 percent digital, and lo and behold, the movies are soulless...They traded the whole idea of depth in filmmaking for this supertechnological hype. It helped us focus our own philosophy: the story drives everything. as well as other public attacks on George Lucas. (3) John Gaeta surprisingly won the Oscar, instead of ILM, in 1999 and (4) 5 out of the 7 movies that were 'longlisted' were ILM productions.

It should now be clear exactly what happened.

As a result the academy, as a whole (or even the visual effects chapter), don't even get a chance to consider Revolutions.

Of course this scheming is all to no avail as ILM won't be taking home an Oscar this year either...

He left the antartic days ago.
ninemsn

Wow. Slashdot is really on the ball today.

Again, they're just proving that the best security method is just to not let anyone on the system at all.

Very true! How can you 0wn a box that...isn't there! I saw this interesting report on 60 minutes (an abbreviated version of it can be found here, and the full story I beleive can be found here, but for a fee to Big Bill) a number of months ago showing this interesting photo of the Korean peninsula. It kind of reminds you of the hoax photo of the 2003 blackout, except that I suspect the Korean photo to be legit. Assuming it it is, maybe NK should start thinking about how to get power to most of their city (I could be mistaken, but I think Pyonyang is their only city and even THAT was just built "for show") and towns before they start getting their boxes online to trade e-mail!

But setting up a "secure e-mail" system for boxes that don't exist is the same sort of logic you would expect from a country that has traffic cops in the heart of their city directing traffic...that ISN'T THERE! It's an absouletly amazing society. Crazy. Loopy. But fascinating at the same time.

I saw that bit about the "traffic cop" in the same 60 minutes report and in it there was also someone from the state department claiming that at the time there was probably 5 machines on the Internet in the entire county!

Hoyts have the extended editions listed:
FotR "Limited release on December 11 - 17
at Fox studios, George St, Highpoint, Carousel.
Also screening as part of the Lord of the Rings Double Feature on December 23/24."
tTT
"Limited release on December 18 - 22
at Fox studios, George St, Highpoint, Carousel.
Also screening as part of the Lord of the Rings Double Feature on December 23/24."

Hoyts have the extended editions listed:
FotR "Limited release on December 11 - 17
at Fox studios, George St, Highpoint, Carousel.
Also screening as part of the Lord of the Rings Double Feature on December 23/24."
tTT
"Limited release on December 18 - 22
at Fox studios, George St, Highpoint, Carousel.
Also screening as part of the Lord of the Rings Double Feature on December 23/24."

Hoyts have the extended editions listed:
FotR "Limited release on December 11 - 17
at Fox studios, George St, Highpoint, Carousel.
Also screening as part of the Lord of the Rings Double Feature on December 23/24."
tTT
"Limited release on December 18 - 22
at Fox studios, George St, Highpoint, Carousel.
Also screening as part of the Lord of the Rings Double Feature on December 23/24."

The only 2 sites I've ever found that required IE were Westpac's and NineMSN's.

Westpac serves up a a crippled left-hand menu thingy for Mozilla, unless you tell Mozilla to masquerade as IE, and then it works fine. I have told Westpac about it several times, and they usually ignore me, or call back a week later and tell me to upgrade to the latest version of Netscape. When I tell them that I already have, they ask for the version number, and say, "Oh, sorry. Not as recent as version 7; try version 4!". Tosses...

NineMSN is a join project between the Nine Network and Microsoft, so it's not too surprising that it doesn't work correctly with Mozilla. By the way, the only thing that doesn't work is the live chat feature - I went there one time to talk with some guests on Nine's "60 Minutes" program and was told to upgrade my browser AND operating system. I sent them that I'd just made a .NET account to use their stupid chat, and told them what happened, and invited them to bite me, and the fuckers pulled my .NET account.

But apart from that, I've never had any problems with this 'IE only' crap that I hear others complaining about.

Give me some examples of sites that are IE-only, someone. Please.

Who are you to say what she needs? What if she came here and read your post. How do you think she would feel? Is it right to say that about her? Is her role in life to provide you with sexual pleasure?

I think this is plain rude and insulting to her. To any woman, perhaps, who is made to feel that her worth is related to her body.

Though I shouldn't be surprised, given what I've recently seen about the American porn industry. To all you geeks who watch porn, I suggest you read this. Makes me sick.

The way they trick women, and use the lure of money to get them to do things they didn't want to do, it's sickening and depraved.

Momma said never feed the trolls...

But oh well.

Anyway, typing www.msn.com.au turned me eventually to this link which clearly offers broadband MSN in .au. Prices start at $49.95/mo in .au dollars, I suppose.

sorry to get on my soapbox, and I know I've already said this here, but I want to know if anybody else has noticed this.

Does anyone think that video games made Bush, Saddam Hussein, or bin Laden what they are today?

1) C&C: Intro starts with player flipping through TV channels on cable and then seeing a building blow up with a voice over about the Nod Terrorist Organisation.

War Against Terror: Begins with 24 hour coverage of the 9-11 attack.

2) C&C: Immediately after the intro you hear two conflicting voices and are forced to choose a side.

War Against Terror: "Let those who harbor terrorists know they and the terrorists themselves are our enemies, without distinction. America has the will and the resources to defeat you. We are a determined and rich nation with clever and resourceful people. We will also need and we demand the assistance of every government in the world to help us. Whoever does is our friend and whoever does not will be considered to be our enemy."

3) C&C: involves grey troops fighting in tall snowbound mountains, or sand coloured troops fighting in the deserts.

War Against Terror: Footage of Afghanistan mountain campaign, and desert footage of south-central iraq.

4) C&C: American side has one General Shepard who guides you through the missions, until he disappears for a while because the UN hates him.

War Against Terror: The CNN has Gen. Don Shepherd to guide you through the hunt for Bin Laden. Until the USA goes for unilateral action with its coalition of the willing and the world hates us.

5) C&C: All this bloodshed for a rare natural resource which promises untold power to whoever controls it.

War Against Terror: hmmm. you're right. Self Defense.

6) C&C: The Big Bad is an elusive terrorist (who may or may not have been killed in his underground lair when bombing made rocks fall on his head) called Kane.

War Against Terror: The Big Bad is an elusive terrorist (who may or may not have been killed in his underground lair when bombing made rocks fall on his head) called Osama.

7) C&C: New weapons every successful mission.

War Against Terror: MOAB. Stryker. SA80-A2.

8) C&C: We will use cleansing Nuclear Fire.

War Against Terror: Oh no. Just find the silver crate and get the hell out of there.

9) C&C: the sequel, red alert, has Kane controlling Stalin.

War Against Terror: "As a young man, Saddam Hussein admired Hitler's system of government. Stalin and his totalitarian model became Saddam's exemplars. Saddam tailored his system along Nazi and Stalinist lines, though it had a number of new features as well. In keeping with Nazi ideals, Iraq's Ba'th system had four main pillars: totalitarian ideology, single-party rule, a command economy (nominally socialist), and firm control over the media and the army."

10) more to come. remember: there are at least two endings, to promote better replay value.

Does anyone think that video games made Bush, Saddam Hussein, or bin Laden what they are today?

1) C&C: Intro starts with player flipping through TV channels on cable and then seeing a building blow up with a voice over about the Nod Terrorist Organisation.

War Against Terror: Begins with 24 hour coverage of the 9-11 attack.

2) C&C: Immediately after the intro you hear two conflicting voices and are forced to choose a side.

War Against Terror: "Let those who harbor terrorists know they and the terrorists themselves are our enemies, without distinction. America has the will and the resources to defeat you. We are a determined and rich nation with clever and resourceful people. We will also need and we demand the assistance of every government in the world to help us. Whoever does is our friend and whoever does not will be considered to be our enemy."

3) C&C: involves grey troops fighting in tall snowbound mountains, or sand coloured troops fighting in the deserts.

War Against Terror: Footage of Afghanistan mountain campaign, and desert footage of south-central iraq.

4) C&C: American side has one General Shepard who guides you through the missions, until he disappears for a while because the UN hates him.

War Against Terror: The CNN has Gen. Don Shepherd to guide you through the hunt for Bin Laden. Until the USA goes for unilateral action with it's coalition of the willing and the UN hates us.

5) C&C: All this bloodshed for a rare natural resource which promises untold power to whoever controls it.

War Against Terror: hmmm. you're right. Self Defense.

6) C&C: The Big Bad is an elusive terrorist (who may or may not have been killed in his underground lair when bombing made rocks fall on his head) called Kane.

War Against Terror: The Big Bad is an elusive terrorist (who may or may not have been killed in his underground lair when bombing made rocks fall on his head) called Osama.

7) C&C: New weapons every successful mission.

War Against Terror: MOAB. Stryker. SA80-A2.

8) C&C: We will use cleansing Nuclear Fire.

War Against Terror: Oh no. Just find the silver crate and get the hell out of there.

9) C&C: the sequel, red alert, has Kane controlling Stalin.

War Against Terror: "As a young man, Saddam Hussein admired Hitler's system of government. Stalin and his totalitarian model became Saddam's exemplars. Saddam tailored his system along Nazi and Stalinist lines, though it had a number of new features as well. In keeping with Nazi ideals, Iraq's Ba'th system had four main pillars: totalitarian ideology, single-party rule, a command economy (nominally socialist), and firm control over the media and the army."

10) more to come. remember: there are at least two endings, to promote better replay value.

And the reason the Nazi's needed to be defeated was the fact that they attacked and invaded other countries, just as the US is now doing.

So you're implying that the Americans and the VAST MAJORITY of the United Nations are "invading" Iraq? You should probably tune in to the reality that is the world around you.

Let me brief you:
a) Iraq has been found to be in BREACH of resolution 1441 which was passed UNANIMOUSLY a few months ago by ALL 15 UN permanent members.
b) France has disrupted the UN coalition because they have a multi-billion dollar stake in Iraqi oil.
c) They (the UN [with the exception of the few cowardly countries that France has "jaded" by their biased beligerence]) have decided to "remove a rapist/killler/torturer" dictator from power, and demonstrate that the UN is more than just a typical debate society which accomplishes nothing, but talks about "a lot".

If you're convinced that Saddam is a good guy, or that he should stay in power, or that the UN is in the wrong, perhaps you should move to Iraq.

Of course by doing so, you'd only end up being "liberated" by the majority of the UN nations as they free Iraq from it's tyranny.

As of 9pm Australian EST
The official tally is:

4 People dead
247 homes destroyed (NOT 400!)
many more are thought to be destroyed but official tally is 247...
ninemsn has this story on the fires


shame on all of you who make jokes about australians dying

The loss of Mt. Stromlo Observatory facility is very great loss.

A number of the obvious sites related to Stromlo are down, due to the fire or due to the wide spread power outages in the area. I will make links to indirect and cached pages.

Established in 1924, the Commonwealth Observatory at Mount Stromlo, on the outskirts of Canberra. Commonwealth Observatory was recognized for its important research into the origin and future of the universe.

Astronomers at Mount Stromlo made outstanding contributions to astronomy. It would be difficult to list all of the important contributions to Astronomy made by the people working at Mt. Stromlo. Now, a few come to mind:

• Stromlo research in the 1950s provided the first clue that the Magellanic Clouds had evolved differently from our own galaxy. These results gave us important insights into galactic evolution.
• In the 1990's, astronomers from Stromlo and Sliding Springs (many km away from the fire area) showed that about 90% of disc galaxies (such as our own) are greatly influenced by ''dark matter'', in their galaxies' halos.
• They made important observations in the first hours after Supernova 1987A (the first naked eye supernova in several centuries of years) was discovered.
• Then there is the sort of work such as the Stromlo Abell Cluster Supernova Search
• The Massive Compact Halo Objects (Macho project that was the first to record many microlensing events in our Galaxy as well as in the LMC.
• Then there was all of that tedious, but vital work of spectral classification of southern stars.
• Many of the first parallax distances to Southern stars were first made at Stromlo.
• The list goes on and on ... I am sorry that I must leave out so many other significant contributions!

One of the principal instruments at Stromlo was the 74-inch (188-cm) reflecting telescope. The 74-inch telescope was erected in 1953, and until the completion in 1974 of the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring, this was the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1982, it was used to discover the fossil star CD-38245: a star so old that it is made almost purely of gases left over from the big bang.

It also was home scopes such as the robotic 50-inch (127-cm). It was an excellent example of how an older telescope could be outfitted with new controls and instruments to perform innovative work. The MACHO project was conducted on the 50 inch.

Two historical scopes come to mind, the Oddie, and the Yale-Columbia telescope:

The Oddie, was a wonderful 9-inch Newtonian telescope. The Victorian MP, James Oddie, presented this telescope to the Commonwealth government for use in the proposed Commonwealth Observatory. It was installed on the site at "Mt Strom" (as Stromlo was originally known) in September 1911. Over the years the Oddie telescope has made valuable contributions to Southern Hemisphere astronomy; it did some of the first measurements of the brightness, color and spectral classification of southern stars.

The Yale-Columbia telescope, 26-inch Grubb long-focus refractor was erected at this site for the determination of parallaxes of southern stars (it was the largest refractor in the southern hemisphere when first installed.

Moreover, there were other scopes as well ... But alas, from what can be seen from the air at this time, most, if not all of those telescopes have been lost. At appears that heat from the burning of the nearby bush /trees was hot enough to melt many of the domes at the observatory.

The Canberra Astronomical Society used the Stromlo lecture hall for their monthly meetings. During public nights, the public had access to a domed C14 scope, the Oddie, and a number of scopes brought to the site by members ... all through the hard work and generous efforts of the Canberra Astronomical Society.

I had the privilege of observing at Mt Stromlo several times and spoke at one of the CAS meetings. I still can recall flying down from the US to a CAS member's home to see SN1987, . I was there only 36 hours after the naked eye supernova was first observed. I still recall seeing the single star, at a distance of over 168,000 light-years, change in color and rightness over the course of an evening. I was one of the most important astronomical events I have had the honor to witness. I recall that every scope up at Mt Stromlo was all pointed at the Large Magellanic Could where SN 1987A was blazing away. The previous observing board schedule was cancelled as people raced to collect as much early critical data as they could in the early hours of the event.

I had the privilege of being with the members of the Canberra Astronomical Society on two of my several total solar eclipses: 1991 in Hawaii, US and most recently the 2001 eclipse in Ceduna, AU.

(Both trips count among my several successful viewings of solar totality. Although the 1991 Hawaii was a close call that was saved because my friend (the one who introduced me to the CAS) broke his arm a very short time before the Eclipse ... which allowed both of us to have a full view of Totality in Hawaii ... but that is another story!)

My best wishes and heart felt sorrow go out to all of those people who worked so hard to make Mt. Stromlo such a wonderful place for the public to visit and who helped the observatory make many important contributions to Astronomy. Much of what was lost cannot be replaced. Still it is my hope that those who are left will be able to rebuild something anew out this tragedy.

FYI, NineMSN (Australia's own big brother presence on the web, and the default exit page for Hotmail from Aus) also uses Redsheriff.

So does Suncorp Metway a BANK!!!

As such, microsoft now knows where I bank. Scary.

What will they sell us once their magic potions no longer work?

Well, there's always the Chicken Pox vaccine. Merck is making a killing (sorry) by preying on the fears of parents. Despite the fact that 99.99% of children recover from the disease (caveat emptor on that link), the vaccine is being pushed with FUD directed at health professionals (leading to news articles like this one). These tactics have been wildly successful -- now, schools are requiring students to be vaccinated against Chicken Pox as though it were as deadly as measles or whooping cough.

This despite the fact that your child is more likely to die on the way to the doctor to get the shot, than to die of Chicken Pox.

My wife is a clinical tech at a major Dallas children's hospital, and the off-the-record opinion among all the health workers there is that the vaccine is nothing but a boondoggle for its manufacturer. Meanwhile, she and the rest of the team are dealing with bugs like MRSA -- Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus. In fact, this BBC article from last month details the fear that MRSA staph would pick up Vancomycin resistance because of antibiotic overuse.

Gee... I wonder who stands to gain the most from both the current overuse of antibiotics and from the development of the "next generation" of overprescribed medications?