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Um, no.

Which terrorists celebrated when the Democrats won in '06? Did some people labeled as 'terrorists' support the democrats, yes very probably, but that's a fairly broad brush. Some support Bush's policies, so the fact that Bush has remained in office could be construed as 'Bush's policies support terrorism'.

2) Please point to references that support your position that "...they are also supportive of the democrats withdrawl..."

3) I'm not sure I agree with the premise that a withdrawl is a victory for the terrorists. Most of what the US is fighting are Iraqi nationalists who hate the western foreign presence.

*Disclosure, I'm not a democrat. I'm an independent from a long line of Republicans so this is not a partisan thing.

I always thought Utah was a bit religious...

There's a reason for everything.

There was a proposal back in March 2006 by the Labour party (main opposition) in Australia for a national firewall that was first rejected by the in power Liberal party and then considered. Can't find the original article but there is a couple of quotes here. The idea being

"international websites would be banned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority if they contained graphic sexual or violent material, rated R or higher."
because
"It was "too hard" for many parents to install internet blockers on their computers to prevent offensive material being downloaded"
And an article on the Liberal party considering the proposal here.

Didn't hear much more on it after this, I suppose someone with half a clue had a quiet word with these tossers and let them know just how difficult that would be to put in place and enforce. (I would like to say they decided against it because it's a stupid idea but I imagine it's just because it was too difficult).

Looks like this Jim McAlpine thinks it would be a good idea to put it in place. Apparently great minds think alike, looks like idiots do the same.

Well as some one from New Zealand living in Oz ( and I quite like it, don't get me wrong ), who's law is also derived from the England, I can say Australian law concerning the internet has always been a bit backwards. It's not so much the unions, it is the government. I can say that's better than it was, but there have always been astounding decisions regarding the internet.

http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v11n3/beyer1 13_text.html someone suing and winning against a publisher in another country (over defamation), but as it was viewed in Australia it was valid.

and even http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/copyright-ruling-pu ts-linking-on-notice/2006/12/19/1166290520771.html linking to copyrighted information is on notice.

The people and OMG the girls are amazing! the government,internet & prices are not not so much.

Just because there are idiots around, doesn't mean everyone else is good.

I foresee this going in the same direction as online poker for US residents. It will soon be illegal for players to fun their multiplayer accounts with cash using a US bank account.

Stand by for an amendment to the current port security bill

Claim 1: a communication process that represents, in the mind of a reader, the concept of a character who has been in jail for a long time and becomes bitter towards society and humankind.

Claim 2: a communication process according to claim 1, wherein said character subsequently finds moral redemption through the kindness of another.

Claim 3: a communication process according to claims 1 and 2, wherein said character changes his name during the story.

The author of this article fails to reference a recent study that reaches completely different results.

An Institute in Australia studied 120 11-15 year-olds and concluded that violent games did affect children who were already predisposed to violence and aggression, but children who were not violent to begin with were unaffected.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Most-kids-unaf fected-by-violent-games/2007/04/01/1175366055463.h tml

I stand corrected. I read about the angry $10K bannerman and thought he was the unlucky one, but looks like everyone missed out. All Google has is excited blogs about people getting ready and not one saying "look at us":

http://swiftcity.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/google-m aps-sydney-flyover/

Shrinking flyzones: No wonder she couldn't find any ads. Maybe they'll get their act together for Independence Day?

http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/009605.htm l

Maybe Google's Army of ex-CIA Photointerpreters were working to a deadline? Or maybe she just means "we looked at a few". Seriously it did happen: Here are photo blogs of expectant advertisers (and one poor sucker who blew $10,000 on a sign they didn't fly over).

http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/009502.htm l
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/29/11699192 56978.html

Though good luck to the guy from SOS Print+Media! Hahahahahha!

Google say they're thinking about doing the same over parts of the US on Independence Day. Don't think they'll try it over the UK though: Too many swear words and phallasus. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/google-spots--crap- circles/2007/02/01/1169919445548.html

Maybe Google's Army of ex-CIA Photointerpreters were working to a deadline? Or maybe she just means "we looked at a few". Seriously it did happen: Here are photo blogs of expectant advertisers (and one poor sucker who blew $10,000 on a sign they didn't fly over).

http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/009502.htm l
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/29/11699192 56978.html

Though good luck to the guy from SOS Print+Media! Hahahahahha!

Google say they're thinking about doing the same over parts of the US on Independence Day. Don't think they'll try it over the UK though: Too many swear words and phallasus. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/google-spots--crap- circles/2007/02/01/1169919445548.html

Maybe Google's Army of ex-CIA Photointerpreters were working to a deadline? Or maybe she just means "we looked at a few". Seriously it did happen: Here are photo blogs of expectant advertisers (and one poor sucker who blew $10,000 on a sign they didn't fly over).

http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/009502.htm l
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/29/11699192 56978.html

Though good luck to the guy from SOS Print+Media! Hahahahahha!

Google say they're thinking about doing the same over parts of the US on Independence Day. Don't think they'll try it over the UK though: Too many swear words and phallasus. http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/google-spots--crap- circles/2007/02/01/1169919445548.html

Inuit... Inuit have relatively dark colored skins...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/climate-forces-in uit-onto-thin-ice/2006/05/26/1148524886121.html

And Inuit have been living in the North for many thousands upon thousands of years (50,000 I think). Actually I am always amazed at how dark their skin is comparing to where they live. It's not like you are going to see a bunch of Inuit suntanning on the tundra...

A skin near the equator that is light colored? Hmm... How about Amazon natives? http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/z0302a1700/amazon.jpg

The Amazon is about as close to the equator that you can get and their skin is relatively light colored when compared to say the skin color of an individual from Africa. And last I heard Amazon natives have been there for many many many thousands of years.

So the nutshell is equator = darkness of your skin color is HOGWASH! Want me to prove it even further? How about the aboriginals of Australia when compared to an individual from Malaysia? Aboriginals are much much darker and further away from the equator than individuals from Malaysia....

Just saw this in the SMH:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/search-service-trac ks-your-online-habits/2007/04/23/1177180549441.htm l

"The new feature, called {Google} Web History, allows users to look back in time at the websites they have browsed and search them for specific lines of text." and "Australian Privacy Foundation chair Roger Clarke said of the new feature: "Every URL that you ever go to at any time is being sifted through at Google and thrown into their archives to help them build a profile about you forever.""

This isn't evil in itself, but it's certainly open to abuse. Yahoo said they were complying with the laws of China when they turned those dissidents in. Google have the potential to do that, and now with doubleclick, even more. As Scott McNeally snarled: "You have no privacy. Get over it!"

I wouldn't source People's Daily Online

ok, how about these:

Philippines guilty of violations: forum
Independent tribunal probes Philippines killings
Obama Says US Should Monitor Killings in RP

I agree that Gitmo is a modern day "abberation" and maybe there are some inmates who should never see the light of day but as the (new) US secratary of defence says, it's reputation has sunk so low that it will never be viewed as legitamate.

As a particular example of injustice at gitmo, the handling of David Hicks has been nothing short of the US administration and the Australian government turning a hapless fool who they "puchased" from the northern aliance for $1000 into a high profile scapegoat for their "terrorists under the bed" propoganda.

"Just because you linked to some detention center site doesn't prove anything along these lines."

I agree that sites lobbying one point of view are hard to take seriously. I have tried to link to reputable sources (the SMH leans right, the Age leans left, both are major papers in Oz) I have also had the chance to compare the information to what the people involved were actually saying/doing. The issue has been (and still is) a big deal over here, just prior to the "trial" there was a live one hour debate on TV between Hicks miltary lawyer, military prosecuter, the Aussie AG, Hicks parents and other involved and interested parties in the audience.

The defence lawyer was nothing short of fucking brilliant and completely demolished both the AG and the prosecutor with their own words. That one defence lawyer's passion for justice (as we commonly understand it in the west), did more for US foriegn policy than your government has done since the Indonesian tsunami. Sadly it is quite likely he also flushed his own military career down the toilet at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not as my government would have it a "Hicks supporter". I support the basic foundations of western law and those foundations are not available to gitmo inmates unless your own government is willing to stick up for you (as the UK and every other western nation except Australia did for their citizens after the US supreme court's decision).

Oh yeah, link:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/04/17/11766968 38714.html

Any free-thinking adult can still buy them

Though the Office of Film and Literature Classification has taken 'censorship' out of its title it is able to censor media by refusing classification and making the media illegal for hire, exhibition and importation to Australia...

AS DIGITAL music hogs the headlines, the humble CD has made a comeback at the cash register. However, music retailers may still be feeling the pinch. Figures released by the Australian Recording Industry Association yesterday show an increase of almost 8 per cent in the volume of wholesale physical music products, such as CDs, in 2006 compared with 2005, despite a decrease of more than 5 per cent in overall revenue.

If a system like this were put in place and rigorously enforced, and after a year the Australian music industry still saw declining sales

It just goes to show, copyright holders are determined to extend their legal rights at every opportunity, regardless of whether their industry is being helped or hindered.

The amusing part is that The Chaser is a comedy company well known to perpetrate exactly this sort of prank.

You mean they lie about whether they're authorised to act on behalf of copyright holders _under penalty of perjury_?

In any case, I think the interesting part is this:

[ABC TV head of arts, entertainment and comedy] Gibson said the removal of the clips was in direct contrast to ABC's policy on content sharing. "[ABC wishes] to get our content out there on as many platforms as possible, run by as many different operators as possible."

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=230785&cid=187 29299

The teenager has since apologised.

My thoughts on this: Google simply took down the videos and sent out copyright infringement notices to the users who had put them up, without contacting the ABC to verify the claim. This kid claimed to be representing the ABC, so obviously if Google had contacted him to confirm the claim, they still would have problems, which is why they should have contact the ABC directly.

The copyright is owned by the ABC (or the Chaser crew), but they give permission to use it anywhere and everywhere.

I was interested to read today that the ABC (that's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has a policy that allows for it's content to be used on other platforms by operators.

I found this out after content was taken down when a teenager pretended to be their representative and sent YouTube an infringement notice (complete with awful spelling, "Australian Broddcasting Corperation")! The kid has since apologised.

I was interested to read today that the ABC (that's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has a policy that allows for it's content to be used on other platforms by operators.

I found this out after content was taken down when a teenager pretended to be their representative and sent YouTube an infringement notice (complete with awful spelling, "Australian Broddcasting Corperation")! The kid has since apologised.

"It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. but it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented."[1]

But, we already knew that. How many of us complain when the presentation speaker simply reads the power point slides to us? The best practice is to give short, simple phrases as cues that helps organize the listener's understanding of the presentation, not as a cue card.

[1]: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/04/03/11753662 40499.html

Something that may be of interest: In Sydney last weekend we all turned our lights out for an hour... check out http://earthhour.smh.com.au/index.php?option=com_c ontent&task=view&id=59 for the stats. According to Energy Australia, for the hour between 7.30pm and 8.30pm on 31 March 2007, there was a 10.2% reduction in electricity consumption across the Sydney CBD. This is calculated as follows: Sydney CBD temperature during Earth Hour was 19.8c. Typical energy consumption at this temperature between 7.30 and 8.30 is 228,180 KWh. Actual electricity consumption in the Sydney CBD at this time was 204,900 KWh. Energy Australia analysed data over 4 years to get the typical consumption on a Saturday night in the CBD during March and April. This takes into account daylight savings and weather. http://earthhour.smh.com.au/ for more info.

Something that may be of interest: In Sydney last weekend we all turned our lights out for an hour... check out http://earthhour.smh.com.au/index.php?option=com_c ontent&task=view&id=59 for the stats. According to Energy Australia, for the hour between 7.30pm and 8.30pm on 31 March 2007, there was a 10.2% reduction in electricity consumption across the Sydney CBD. This is calculated as follows: Sydney CBD temperature during Earth Hour was 19.8c. Typical energy consumption at this temperature between 7.30 and 8.30 is 228,180 KWh. Actual electricity consumption in the Sydney CBD at this time was 204,900 KWh. Energy Australia analysed data over 4 years to get the typical consumption on a Saturday night in the CBD during March and April. This takes into account daylight savings and weather. http://earthhour.smh.com.au/ for more info.

"This is better than the other theories, because it is the only theory that works," Houdin said after unveiling his hypothesis in a lavish ceremony using 3-D computer simulation.

At the risk of whoring my own link, YouTube will blindly follow DMCA requests made by people who are claiming copyright protection over video of their Second Life avatars.

I didn't fight it, but it took Steve Hutcheon of The Age an EFF lawyer and several weeks to get his video back up.

Remember folks, we need to get rid of free speech to protect free speech! Right after we destroy the village to save it!

No, you are willfully misinterpreting and emotionally exaggerating what I said to distract the reader. You know full well that speech is controlled in many different ways to promote the common good e.g. truth in advertising.

So he should go to jail for expressing his opinions on ethics?

Again, willfully misinterpreting what I said for your own ends. You know full well I was referring to his "business", not his opinion.

"truth-in-advertisment" laws can only apply to traditional media. The internet is international, and impossible to track without big bother controls.

Ah, yes. The false dichotomy. Beloved of self-serving politicians everywhere. It's not perfectly possible, it's not perfectly impossible. It's actually somewhere in between, like most real world law.

There is no reason why a company cannot just operate out of a country where paying people for blog reviews is legal. The only way to stop it then would be big brother spying on all blog operators.

And now we have the straw man. There are many possibilities, you've just chosen the one you think you can argue against. Some other ways to reduce/stop it would be to rely on competitors and consumers to report it, do statistical analysis of blog traffic and to make the penalties so severe (e.g. per-sale fines and executives personally liable) that even a small chance of being caught makes it unprofitable.

(which I am sure you wouldn't be against - Any loss of freedom is justified to you protect us from those terrible terrible advertisments - but would be nearly impossible to implement).

The appeal to "freedom", manipulatively trying to frame the argument.

Fraudulent advertising is actually costing me my freedom. The time of my life is the most important thing I have and I don't want it being stolen by these scumbags. Advertising in general is terrible when it's stealing as much of people's lives as it does these days.

---

The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".

> the riaa is just trying to protect its intellectual property.

The problem is that IP laws have been so twisted by lobbyists and big business. They seek to profit by taking away our rights. We are supposed to have rights to fair use, fair pricing, and things entering the public domain in a reasonable period, and the artists receiving a fair deal.

But when Mickey Mouse was supposed to enter the public domain, Disney went to the politicans so firmly in their pocket and got them to change the way. Same for the public domain period which congress just keeps setting back and back and back. And the DMCA which was a rights grab and now I can't even watch a DVD I purchased in another country without breaking the law. Some anime series are overpriced: the maker puts 5 episodes on the first DVD, whittling it down to 2 episodes (on a $30 DVD) on the last. Yet this is legal. And while the MPAA and the RIAA hiss and spit about how they're only protecting the authors' rights, they use Hollywood Accounting to rob those very same artists blind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting And look a the tactics the RIAA shareholders have used to steal royalties off music artists. Recently when someone submitting a movie to the MPAA for ratings, the MPAA made and distributed copies against their wishes, and the court found the MPAA could do what it wants. Their hypocrisy is staggering. We have the absurdity of Adobe, who engineered an incompetant encryption scheme, using the DMCA to throw the guy who exposed them into jail. The DMCA means Macrovision is now by law built into every video device, with the result that my old color TV can't watch new videos. In Australia Channel 9 was fiddling with their digital feed to stop people from copying shows, with the results digital TV sets across the country kept locking up. http://www.smh.com.au/news/home-theatre/case-of-th e-csi-lg-tv-freeze-cracked/2007/03/21/117415312601 5.html
The pendulum has clearly swung too far.

Orson Scott Card (Author of "Ender's Game") wrote an excellent essay on this:

http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-07-1 .html
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2003-09-14-1 .html

With today's Internet in place, the RIAA and MPAA and their moneyed up masters would have never come into existence. They're a cartel living off an old business model, with duplicitous congressmen with bulging pockets changing the law at their beckoned call. If you want to know which congressmen have supported it and which ones have fought it, start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA

Here's an article about Silverbrook.

They are located in the inner city suburb of Sydney in Australia. They are also secret to the point of seeming to be paranoid. I know lots of people who have interviewed with them and some employees. You have to sign an NDA just to get an interview with them. A shame really. As the article said, they do high tech stuff, but are so secretive there is little contribution to or cross pollination with the rest of Australia's high tech sector.

As far as I can tell they do a fair bit of MEMS stuff. A lot of the people they employ are integrated circuit designers. I don't think they are much into Free Software philosophy.

They used this as an excuse to just build them in somone elses back yard but that cam back to byte them when california couldn't pay their own electric bills and some of these out of state agencies sold elswhere are stopped production.

It wasn't just a matter of NIMBYism what caused to blackout and brownouts in CA. I wish I could find the article I used to have, but shortly after those rolling blackouts a newspaper in Australia, I think the Sydney Morning Herald, had an article about how one powerplant in CA sat idle during this tyme. The powerplant was a wind farm and because there wasn't enough power cables running to the wind gennies they just sat there when they could of been producing electricity. Now there's the Govinator pushing his million solar rooftops program. If there had been a million rofftops with PVs back then those blackouts very well may never of had happened. What's worse is that if pres Jimmy Carter had been successful, he pushed a program like this as president but Reagan put a stop to it when he became president, there would of been no reason for them to happen.

They do have "nicer" hijackers over there. Most hijackers don't want to kill themselves and everyone else. As is true for most things, 9/11 didn't change that.

Similar issues happened in Australia - the financial services regulator is investigating whether the online share brokers are liable. http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/watchdog-probe s-share-trade-meltdown/2007/03/01/1172338759235.ht ml

sigh

When you apply for a software patent, you don't need to include any source code. You just need to describe what your patent covers. Have you ever looked at a patent document?

Checkout Nintendo's patent for "software emulation of a handheld game" (url includes link to the actual patent document)

If Nintendo were to actually weild this patent they could stop anyone from producing a product that contained "software emulation of a handheld game".

End of story.

No "showing of code" would be necessary. It's as simple as saying "Your product provides a feature covered by one or more of our patents therefore you must give us money.

Thank you. Come again!"

You might say "oh, but that is just stupid. Such a patent is way to broad and there is probably prior art anyway" and you would be right.

But the fact remains that if Microsoft has a broad patent along those lines and throws it at Samba, where do you think the Samba guys would get the money to prove their case in court? Hopefully a combination of the EFF, IBM and Redhat might be able to throw together a large enough warchest but then mahybe not either. Microsoft has a lot of lawyers on their payroll.

It's about time you guys on slashdot came to terms with how Software patents work. It's not like they haven't been discussed ad-infinitum on this site for the past 5 years or anything.

Here is a good article about software patents.

Quote:
          Patents on software often appear completely counterproductive -
          by monopolising a technique, a patent can simply ensure that the
          technique is never used. Rather than making money, a patent can
          cause the death of an otherwise promising technology, and this
          is frequently the aim of patents held by owners of threatened
          technology.

If it were possible to "code around" a patent claim then it would not be possible for a patent to kill a technology.

I rest my case.

• The logic behind his extradition is that because he "controlled access to the so-called drop site, located on a computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology", jurisdiction is in the US. Got this from an article about Hew Raymond Griffiths
• There was an old slashdot interview with one of the DoD Leaders caught in the MIT raid.

The whole "jurisdiction is wherever your computer is" deal doesn't sit easy with me. Quite honestly, I don't know where most of the servers I use are physically located.

FTA: The launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 next month will be accompanied by a host of freebies that Sony hopes will take the sting out of the game console's $999 price tag. The James Bond film Casino Royale will be offered free to the first 20,000 buyers who register their PS3 online. Additionally the game Gran Turismo: HD will be available to all PS3 buyers as a free download from the PlayStation Network.

Article: http://www.smh.com.au/news/games/sony-unveils-play station-sweetners/2007/02/22/1171733923601.html

Assuming this is true:
http://blogs.smh.com.au/thedailytruth/Dtwhopping.h tml
"The Federal Government estimates replacing the old bulbs with compact flourescents in homes could cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 800,000 tonnes a year in 2008-12.
Australia's emissions in 2004 totalled 564.7 million tonnes."

Do the math, it's about an 0.15% reduction. It amazes me that people are so easily conned into thinking that something is environmentally friendly. I've seen people suggest that you should rush out and replace all your light globes with "energy efficient" ones. Never mind that they cost 10 times the price, do not in my experience last anywhere near as long as promised, and require the use of even more damaging materials to manufacture than the old standard light globes. Do people ever think maybe the reason they're being brain washed into thinking these things are energy efficient is that with the price being higher so is the profit margin?

http://blogs.smh.com.au/thedailytruth/archives/200 7/02/a_matter_of_global_concern.html

Assuming this is true:
http://blogs.smh.com.au/thedailytruth/Dtwhopping.h tml
"The Federal Government estimates replacing the old bulbs with compact flourescents in homes could cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 800,000 tonnes a year in 2008-12.
Australia's emissions in 2004 totalled 564.7 million tonnes."

Do the math, it's about an 0.15% reduction. It amazes me that people are so easily conned into thinking that something is environmentally friendly. I've seen people suggest that you should rush out and replace all your light globes with "energy efficient" ones. Never mind that they cost 10 times the price, do not in my experience last anywhere near as long as promised, and require the use of even more damaging materials to manufacture than the old standard light globes. Do people ever think maybe the reason they're being brain washed into thinking these things are energy efficient is that with the price being higher so is the profit margin?

http://blogs.smh.com.au/thedailytruth/archives/200 7/02/a_matter_of_global_concern.html

I understand what you are saying, but how is it going to hurt to try cod liver oil capsules (or if capsules are rejected, then trying one of the other variations now available including it in flavored pastes, pudding, or orange juice, or adding it yourself to ice cream, and so on)? Check out:
    "Q: Feeding Fish Oil to Toddler"
    http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=58 1169
Omega-3 supplements generally improve health. I've never heard of them doing harm (except for fish burps :-). If there is a remote chance they may slightly improve the worse aspects of autism for some people, then are they not worth trying for a few months?

This is not quite the same situation, but consider there is scientific evidence linking behavior issues to poor diet:
    http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/crime-punishme nt-and-a-junk-food-diet/2006/11/15/1163266639865.h tml
"The British prison trial at Aylesbury jail showed that when young men there were fed multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent offences committed in the prison fell by 37 per cent. Although no one is suggesting that poor diet alone can account for complex social problems, Britain's former chief inspector of prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, says he is now "absolutely convinced that there is a direct link between diet and antisocial behaviour, both that bad diet causes bad behaviour and that good diet prevents it". The clinician in charge of the US study on aggression, Joseph Hibbeln, hypothesises that modern industrialised diets may be changing the very architecture and functioning of the brain. We are suffering, he believes, from widespread diseases of deficiency. Just as vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, deficiency in the essential fats the brain needs and the nutrients needed to metabolise those fats is causing a host of mental problems, from depression to aggression. Not all experts agree, but if he is right, the consequences are serious. The pandemic of violence in Western societies may be related to what we eat or fail to eat. "

You might never know, period.

Posting too late for many people to see this, but as an update pretty much nothing happened! Air Traffic Control at Sydney Airport wouldn't let Google's plane fly over most of the areas in question, so all the people standing around their signs pretty much missed out. Link with more information is here.

For those who haven't been to Sydney, the airport is extremely close to the centre of the city and planes fly pretty close to the CBD when approaching from the north.

Turns out that Google didnt think the plan through, with several portions of Sydney being deemed a no-fly zone on the day - in particular several parks and beaches such as Bondi Beach - where many people congregated to create large signs. One company even spent $10,000 on a sign, only to miss out!!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/google-botch-sy dney-flyover/2007/01/29/1169919256978.html/

I think that people are offended at the thought of some corporate mob getting free advertising: but the site mentioned in this 'article' doesn't seem to have a business model - it's just a fun thing and informative.
Also, an article in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia's equivalent to the NY Times) said about these people:
"Dressed in their wedding outfits, the couple were promoting a spoof dating website - darwindating.com - and a hobby travel mashup site, swiftcity.com."

If you go to swiftcity.com, it looks interesting, but not a corporate venture - I didn't even see any advertising (also, the site is a Google maps mashup, which makes the situation all the more appropriate).

Then clearly the news of what a ton of people did, will very much trouble you. The site listed in the story, (which is taking some, because they made Slashdot) is not isolated, they are many in a long list of sites, and people, that have tried this.

I think it was cute what Google was trying to do, but let's be honest here, this is not what Google Maps is about, so why advertise it? It was a nice social experiment, the Australians have clearly failed, and the rest of us pay the price by them never announcing it again.

RonB

Then clearly the news of what a ton of people did, will very much trouble you. The site listed in the story, (which is taking some, because they made Slashdot) is not isolated, they are many in a long list of sites, and people, that have tried this.

I think it was cute what Google was trying to do, but let's be honest here, this is not what Google Maps is about, so why advertise it? It was a nice social experiment, the Australians have clearly failed, and the rest of us pay the price by them never announcing it again.

RonB