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Poker machines are morally disgusting. They're basically a way of imposing a tax on people too stupid or hopeful to know better. Here in Australia, there's people who literally bankrupt themselves pouring money into the bloody things. I'm all for individual responsibility, but those bloody things are designed to addict more than cigarettes or crack cocaine.

What's more, venues that have poker machines deliberately target the poor. I've walked into a couple of poker machine venues, they are literally the embodiment of everything that is wrong with modern day society. Pensioners, disabled people, smoking heavily and desperate for, if nothing else, just a near-win.

When it comes down to a trial the recording will be lost. Bet on it.

It depends:

Sometimes the footage goes missing.

Other times it is salvaged.

I have the Samsung Galaxy S III and my wife has the iPhone 5. I actually got a fairly good deal on my new phone however my wife's phone is about AU$20 more expensive per month for the 16GB model (my S3 also has 16GB and it can be upgraded further with a micro SD card) and 1.5GB download per month. While I think my S3 is the better phone my wife thinks her iPhone 5 is better. Which is the better phone?

I think the following site gives a reasonable inter-comparison between the two smart phones, however which is the best depends on what you want a the phone for, Personally I like the S3's huge screen (720 x 1280 pixels, 4.8 inches to the 5's 640 x 1136 pixels, 4.0 inches) although the 5's overall size is only marginally smaller (S3 is 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm to the 5's 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm). The S3 has a quad processor while the 5''s has a dual and the S3's battery is replaceable and has a much longer life.

Sure I prefer my S3 over my wife's iPhone 5, however she is very happy with her phone especially since the screen is much larger than her original iPhone 4 and the look and feel of the 5 to the 4 is virtually the same. Now if only she wouldn't bug me over the iTunes app which only runs on Mac's or MS Windows although I have seen some software that allows an iPhone to connect to a Linux machine it looks like a bit of reading is on order or I can use a virtual machine which I do know works.

One thing I do know is that the iPhone has a huge following and many people upgrade their phone when their contract expires like both myself and my wife did so I would not be overly surprised if original iPhone users are going to upgrade to the iPhone 5. Also keep in mind that most people don't care about specs but do care about prestige and Apple does have that in spades so many people are going to get an Apple iPhone 5 and that is that.

"You mean the "Clever Hans" effect where the handler provides the cues instead of the smell? It's a know issue, both handlers and dogs are trained to try and avoid it."

No, they are usually not, and even when they are, they are still notoriously, and ridiculously, unreliable.

Study after study and analysis after analysis prove you wrong.

Drug-sniffing dogs are TERRIBLE at their jobs. In the Chicago review of actual police statistics, the average reliability of drug-sniffing dogs was only 44% true positives (vastly too small a number to qualify as probable cause), and in the case of one minority (can you say "Handler bias?" Sure, I knew you could) it was only 27%. That's not theory, those are actual historical figures.

Unless some vastly better method of training comes up, drug-sniffing dogs need to be taken out of the picture. They are responsible for a huge amount of injustice in this country.

I agree with the above poster that is most likely City Rail in NSW, by a process of elimination:
- Only 5 cities in Australia have public transport rail networks.
- Melbourne have recently introduced Myki - good case study on how not to do it, so they are unlikely and the article states this
- Brisbane use Oyster Card, unlikely but if it is then this is a much bigger story
- Perth uses Smartrider, a smart card system.
- Adelaide have used MetroTicket which contains a magnetic strip developed by Crouzet-SA. A smartcard system is in the process of being rolled out

The RailCorp is being split in two article has some pretty cutting statements about the inefficiency of government run enterprises and entitlement mentality. Solving this will not be simple, and as other posters have commented the problem is the organisation. I'd advise potential vendors to think of a price and triple it. There is a reason some government organisations are charged a premium and yet the vendor still makes a loss.

Posting this as an Anonymous Coward, because I have a bit of experience working as a vendor to RailCorp NSW. Let's just say they are a "challenging" client.

you've really never heard of inaccurate speed cameras or insufficient training in how to use them?

it happens

A portion of NSW speed cameras have been installed by Poltech International, some of whose installed cameras gave wildly inaccurate readings in Victoria. ...
Some motorists claimed they had been booked doing speeds their vehicles were not capable of reaching ....
Last month, following checks of these claims, it emerged that three of the cameras were faulty. ...
The readings had led to fines and licence suspensions for some motorists.

The same can be said for the Windows fanboys, the Android fanboys, and every other damned fanboy ... that's pretty much the definition of fanboy; "my manufacturer makes awesome products and would never do anything wrong, yours are evil doodie heads who make crap".

I see just as many people mindlessly defending Microsoft on Slashdot. And, let's face it, Google's "do no evil" has become more of a joke than anything of late.

Throw in the telecoms carriers (*cough* Verizon *cough*), and someone is going to be trying to screw you over at every step of the chain.

And, if you think the free software folks are any better, well, Canonical wants to embed some extra crap from Amazon.

Turned out, the dogs were responding to very subtle cues from their handlers, rather than their own senses. Which renders them completely inappropriate for law-enforcement use.

Please Mod -1000: Utter Bullshit.

Dogs are the absolute best tool we have for the job. There's a reason we use dogs to hunt animals, guard animals, property, and people, track fugitives, search for survivors, bodies, drugs, and explosives, detect cancer or seizures, lead the blind, etc. They have incredible senses and are very intelligent.

Please link to proof of your "literally unacceptable percentage of false positives" for properly trained canines and handlers.

Seems to me that she wasn't saying anything about properly trained handler and dog teams, but about the likelihood that so many trainers have biases that lead to false positives that dogs cannot be relied upon. She said "the dogs were responding to very subtle cues from their handlers." I don't see anything in that post about well trained dogs paired with unbiased trainers. It is very well documented that handler bias frequently leads to false positives. For example, this article notes that sniffer dogs got it wrong four out of five times in 14,102 searches. This articleclaims that over a three year period only 44 percent of alerts by dogs led to the discovery of drugs or paraphernalia. A UC Davis study found that if handlers expected their dogs to find drugs they consistently found drugs, even when there weren't any. A little bit of searching will turn up plenty of other examples. In some cases defenders of using dogs claim that the high rate of false positives is due to drug residue being left in a vehicle or on a person. That the mere presence of someone carrying a substance the dog was trained to detect, like marijuana, in a vehicle hours earlier could result in a false positive. Medical marijuana is legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia. Which means that just transporting someone to legally obtain some marijuana for a medical condition could result in being searched and detained.

If they can't print money, I frankly don't know what they'll do. I believe this would be unprecidented.

Like getting your money printed by other "friendly nations".
Or harnessing the local talent.

And then there are options like minting coins for the lower, most easily spent (as in "worn out" as well as in "payed with") denominations, promoting debit cards, using cheques, and even rubber-stamping the existing banknotes with additional zeroes and official stamps to make "new" denominations.

But what is much more likely to happen is that the people will start using foreign currency instead of rials, like dollars or euros.
Rial will remain the "official" currency but you will only be able to buy some items in foreign currency, and the black market will bloom.
Particularly since alternative money transfer systems like hawala are pretty much currency independent.

Other governments, that may be sued for doing this, are just not advertising their databases.

Very true. With a population of ~22 million, Australia would have to have about the same number (15 million?) digital facial recognition records.
Every driver's licence carries a clear photo of the holder.

On a side-topic, bars and pubs are increasingly installing ID scanners as a condition of entry. The 2 reasons they float are (i) so that if there is ever any trouble they can link poor-CCTV footage to a high-quality licence photo (and identity); and (ii) so that if you're banned from one bar/pub you can't enter another.

Of course, the information collected will never be used for any other purpose.

Say an action is not illegal because a prosecutor decided not to file charges is nonsensical

sd4f is correct, at least about why no charges were laid in Australia:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/julian-assange-has-committed-no-crime-in-australia-afp-20101217-190eb.html
Neither WikiLeaks nor its founder Julian Assange has committed any crime in Australia over the leaking of official United States government documents, the Australian Federal Police announced this afternoon.

There is nothing to charge him with.

Mine was not scratched either, but I wouldn't have cared.

whether you care or not is irrelevant but perhaps you should have said that rather than denying the issue exists.

and I say that as a photographer who is very picky about quality of photographic equipment.

oh that did make me laugh! you need to get your eyes checked if don't see a serious issue here, or is that RDF messing with your vision?

You know what? Whatever camera you have right this second will do the same thing under some conditions.

iphone 4s has a lens flare, doesn't put a prominent purple tinge on it though.

It totally is for any use of Street View I ever had

news flash, not everyone has the same uses.

Not where I live.

not everyone lives where you do

i have never had an RROD on my xboxes so the RROD issue is false.

I'll let you have the last response because really complaining about this stuff is just SO pointless it boggles the mind.

i love this attempt to take the high ground after you been thoroughly beaten, if you really believed that you wouldnt have been posting all this time, SuperApologist...away!

Since none of those things are true - yes.

Why do you always launch to the defense of Apple? Never fear SuperApologist is here! Defending everything Apple does and denying any and all problems!

One of the many examples of them being scratched out of the box.
FWIW my iPhone 5 was not damaged out of the box, but i'm not going to be so ignorant as to say that the problem does not exist simply because i do not have it. I've never had an RROD on any of my XBoxes, so does that mean the RROD issue is untrue? Or is it still true because it's not Apple.

The maps have many errors (not saying Google Maps was perfect, but Apple Maps is not better, in fact by most reports is worse) and Flyover is not a replacement for StreetView, which should be obvious given the data that it is being created with.

The purple camera haze most definitely is a problem.

I'm sorry if this is going to cause you to take a reduced payment on your shill check from Apple. I can't see any other reason someone would deny obvious problems.

Because Abu Hamza [wikipedia.org] has only one country which has to approve his extradition (instead of two in the case of Assange), has few fans (compared to Assange, who according to polls has on the order of hundreds of millions), was trying to *set up terrorist training camps inside the US* (instead of leaking videos and cables), has no "get out of extradition free" card from being charged with an intelligence-related crime (Swedish law bans extradition for intelligence matters), and on and on... and he's *still* in the UK.

So your argument against the belief that he is only being extradited to Sweeden so that he can then be sent to the U.S. is to present evidence of how difficult is is to get someone extradited directly from the U.K to the U.S.?

And we're supposed to worry about Julian F'ing Assange and his paranoid fantasyland? Especially after this [guardian.co.uk]?

you're sourcing a news article that's nearly 2 years old. Try looking at what's being going on more recently. like Within the last week we have news that "THE US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States - the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency."

"Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death."

This is South Africa I'm talking about, not the jungle. We have all of the economies of scale that you're ever going to benefit from with tomato sauce. We have industrial fruit picking machines, 18 wheeler transportation, mechanised bottling, local glass jar moulding facilities, large cold-storage facilities, the works. We export huge quantities of fruit (particularly apples and oranges) to both the EU and the US, so I don't expect the Italians to have better environmental conditions or they would be exporting their own fruit and undercutting us. We export a lot of wine which is competitive with (and often undercuts) the rest of the world, so I don't see how our tomato situation would be so different.

Apparently Italians use migrant labour, so they're about even on that. But they're still down on shipping. They get around this by getting the EU to subsidize their tomato exports - here's an article from Australia complaining about the Italian canned tomatoes putting the locals out of business:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/canned-why-local-tomatoes-cop-a-pasting-20120526-1zc2q.html

actually less tests:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/gillard-schools-plan-needs-more-work-says-foreign-education-chief-20120928-26qm0.html
This is reported from an Australian perspective - we have had the plague of standardised tests descend on the Australian system.

It didn't spark riots around the world. At least the ambassador in Libya was killed in a targeted attack by Al Qaeda. The ambassador was worried about his safety for weeks before his death. We know this because CNN reporters walked into the compound and looked around. Security was NOT good at this place.

Several of us have taken this sort of risk, not knowing if you will get paid, at salaried jobs with sometimes well established companies. This risk is not unique to business leaders, ask the workers at the cushy city jobs of Scranton, PA.

or any of these workers:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/workers-locked-out-600-jobs-gone-as-1st-fleet-shut-down-20120503-1y04c.html
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/06/22/employees-staffing-agency-shut-down-said-no-one-would-be-paid/
http://cjonline.com/news/2012-07-21/seneca-business-closes-paychecks-bounce

It is not a false comparison. I refer you to An air con: when the poor pay to cool the rich. The NBN is the same huge infrastructure improvements are being installed so a very few can benefit. The NBNCo plan predicts that 1% will have 1Gbps services in 2026.

The needs of the 12/1Mbps users could easily be supported by FTTN. In fact roughly half of Australia with access to ADSL2+ approaches those speeds now, and that excludes the large parts of major capitals that have cable running at 100Mbps. In fact NBNCo appear to be making it a priority to overbuild the areas with cable first to remove competition. Similarly to the article about electricity infrastructure, the majority of people on plans faster than 100Mbps couldn't justify the expense of laying fibre to their door. However the fact it is being rolled out to 93% of the country means that they can afford it. The problem is that people who could benefit (e.g. students, house bound, etc.) won't be able to afford the speeds which deliver these benefits.

There is no justifiable reason to cap speeds in Australia, because data quotas limit usage. Capping speeds will take us back to the days of Telstra's monopoly on ADSL where only 3 speed tiers were available 256/64Kbps, 512/128Kbps, 1500/256Kbps and many people choose 256/64Kbps meaning that VoIP was unreliable, let alone video conferencing. At a minimum the base speed on fibre should be 100Mbps.

On the subject of the $35/month access fee, you missed the $100 setup fee, which most RSPs aren't charging.

Woz will be hoping the Liberal party doesn't triumph at the next election. Although they seem to have stopped saying they will "rollback" the partially completed National Broadband Network, they are certainly not in favour of it in its proposed form: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/we-will-not-cancel-the-nbn-turnbull-20120629-217f3.html

Recently there were two cases of FGM (female genital mutilation) discovered in the muslim community in Sydney , and now this.

Muslims already have a bad name here and have been accused of shoving their way into Australia on boats and trying to get sharia law instated (in Sydney, no less) on the grounds of how many muslims there are in one area

Of course that doesn't stop them from trying..

Now words like islamophobia are being thrown around while a 8 year old muslim girl calls for deaths

Harken also to the darling child with the sign stating that anyone who insults mohammad should be beheaded

They most interesting thing about all of this? Combine this together and you have muslims fleeing their countries due to war, war caused by islamic based religious differences, muslims attempting to replace existing laws with mediaeval sharia law in other countries, threats and actual violence in multiple counties for a video made in America, muslims cutting their female children's genitals and one little 8 year old girl calling upon her kind to wage war.
I do really wonder if she will feel the same way when they take her into a back room, hold her down, pull off her panties, and cut off her labia and clitoris. Perhaps this has already been done, and this bile and hatred we see from this 8 year old girl is due to the constant pain and misery she is in and will be in for the rest of her life.

I won't hold someone's beliefs against them. If you tell me that you think that a magical pony that shits rainbows helps you get through life then I will thank you for sharing your unique view of this world with me and get on with my life. Threatening me my family or my country is quite another thing. Actually attacking me, my family or my country just provides physical proof of suspected intentions.

I have to go now, my uncle took a glass bottle to the head recently, thanks to some people who came here from another country claiming that they were being threatened and wanting to get away from the war in their home land. How sad.

Recently there were two cases of FGM (female genital mutilation) discovered in the muslim community in Sydney , and now this.

Muslims already have a bad name here and have been accused of shoving their way into Australia on boats and trying to get sharia law instated (in Sydney, no less) on the grounds of how many muslims there are in one area

Of course that doesn't stop them from trying..

Now words like islamophobia are being thrown around while a 8 year old muslim girl calls for deaths

Harken also to the darling child with the sign stating that anyone who insults mohammad should be beheaded

They most interesting thing about all of this? Combine this together and you have muslims fleeing their countries due to war, war caused by islamic based religious differences, muslims attempting to replace existing laws with mediaeval sharia law in other countries, threats and actual violence in multiple counties for a video made in America, muslims cutting their female children's genitals and one little 8 year old girl calling upon her kind to wage war.
I do really wonder if she will feel the same way when they take her into a back room, hold her down, pull off her panties, and cut off her labia and clitoris. Perhaps this has already been done, and this bile and hatred we see from this 8 year old girl is due to the constant pain and misery she is in and will be in for the rest of her life.

I won't hold someone's beliefs against them. If you tell me that you think that a magical pony that shits rainbows helps you get through life then I will thank you for sharing your unique view of this world with me and get on with my life. Threatening me my family or my country is quite another thing. Actually attacking me, my family or my country just provides physical proof of suspected intentions.

I have to go now, my uncle took a glass bottle to the head recently, thanks to some people who came here from another country claiming that they were being threatened and wanting to get away from the war in their home land. How sad.

Farah (a footballer) has demanded new laws and the Prime Minister (a lawyer) and Attorney-General (also a lawyer) agreed. It took journalist John Birmingham to point out to them there are already laws against this: Section 474.17 of the Commonwealth criminal code creates an offense, punishable by imprisonment for three years, of using a carriage service, and yes the internet counts, in such a way that a reasonable person would consider it “menacing, harassing or offensive”.. People have gone to jail. What more do they want? http://m.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/blunt-instrument/time-to-take-a-deep-breath-before-jumping-on-trolls-20120910-25o81.html

Free Speech is weak in Australia because there is no bill of rights and defamation laws are so tough you can't say anything bad about anyone which is a real problem if you are a journalist, let alone a twitterer.
https://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.html
http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_02.html
http://www.law.uts.edu.au/comslaw/factsheets/defamation.html

Members of parliament where caught looking at Child Pornography. But it's legal under parliamentary privilege.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/child-porn-sites-accessed-at-nsw-parliament-audit-finds/story-fn59niix-1225964504174

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/parliament-porn-users-id-a-secret-20101216-18zqk.html

You forget about ASIO, they will not require a subpoena, warrant or any form of court order. Once the data is stored it will be mined. Despite ASIO wiping up fear about terrorists, their main targets are political. ASIO targets environmentalists. The data retention is designed to strike fear into the general population, terrorists (if there are any) and criminals will use secure VPNs, Tor or what have you, to hide communications. The other target of this proposal is copyright infringement, mainly Bit Torrent users. There is no "HUGE" difference, if the data exists, it will be abused.

The western capitalist system has no need for state propaganda.

Actually, in Australian, political spamming is basically except from our spam legislation. See the ACMA (the body here that is responsible for handling spam complaints):

Electronic messages from certain sources are exempted from the Spam Act. These include messages from:

        government bodies
        registered political parties
        charities
        religious organisations
        educational institutions (sent to current and former students and their households).

We had an incident here a couple years ago where one of our prime ministers paid his son's IT company to send spam on his behalf.

It is not really widely done - I think people are too scared of becoming labeled as jerk spammers as happened to Howard - but the fact that they've left these loopholes in the legislation is a little irritating.

Yeah, Detroit is disintegrating, but Wiki says:

16% of Chinese are in poverty, 33% of Indians, which is hundreds of millions of people. (Measured by the international poverty line, $1.25/day).

Just because a country has hundreds of millions of middle class or huge cities doesn't mean it doesn't also have huge numbers of poor (not just a few under the bridge).

Take Africa. The most expensive city in the world in 2011 was Luanda, Angola. Yet Africa has a poverty rate of 47%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/capitalism-will-eliminate-poverty-africa
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-worlds-50-most-expensive-cities-20120612-207lr.html

I love the way government bureaucrats paint the citizens as the bad guys who can't be trusted and need to be spied on.

Check this out: The Head of the Reserve Bank squirming uncomfortably over a bribe scandal he claims they knew nothing about ... until an embarrassing memo surfaced:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/still-in-the-dark-with-governor-on-the-defensive-20120824-24rr7.html

The government politicians won't do anything: "The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, whose three-years-and-counting response to this growing scandal has been to say nothing and do nothing. By not confronting the unpleasant questions about the RBA and other government agencies that flow from this scandal, the Gillard government is rapidly becoming part of the cover-up."

To be found at the Sydney Morning Herald website: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/store-wars-samsung-apple-gadgets-at-10-paces-20120823-24njn.html

The link in TFS is lacking any detail. Go to the above.

"The laws are pretty clear that your online activity can only be recorded if the police specifically ask your ISP."

@Zouden since the legislation was signed yesterday have you personally looked at it?

I haven't but I've scanned through the discussion paper [0], "The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has commenced an inquiry into potential reforms of national security legislation." from the 'Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security'. [1] This legislation is simply a rubber stamp to update the Telecommunications act 79, 97, the ASIO act 97 and the Intelligence services act 2001. The outcome of the specific changes are not clear at the moment but the big picture is clear. Lets make it easier to collect and gather intelligence and share it between stakeholders - a nasty word that means intelligence, law enforcement and revenue collection at state & federal level.

    ''There is a big risk that we will in the future not be able to undertake even basic investigations...
      from our perspective data retention is a must. We seriously would not be able to do the majority
      of investigations without it' AFP, High Tech Crime Centre, Neil Gaughan. [2]

Future changes to the legislation make the ideas in the discussion paper and potentially the legislation (which I have yet to read) passed dangerous because an objective of the report is to identify & store information of online of all Australian individuals.

Reference
[0] http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=pjcis/nsl2012/additional/discussion%20paper.pdf
[1] http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=pjcis/nsl2012/index.htm
[2] http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/data-trail-easy-to-follow-for-big-brother-20120720-22ffm.html#ixzz24N57ILoN

Huckabee suggested charging Assange with treason, and Palin demanded he be hunted down like Osama Bin Laden.

Not being an American myself, I didn't realize that they were at the time they made their comments, ex-elected officials (although, at the time Palin was still considering running in the next Presidential election), so consider my previous post officially ammended to "ex-elected officials and politicians". Regardless of how nutjobby they both may be, they were both (at one time, anyway) elected by the American public, and in positions of power.

Given that our constitution requires that the person charged with treason be a U.S. citizen, it's a particularly unsuited-to-politics politician that's needed to suggest this. (Article III, section 3)

Your constitution also grants the right to a speedy trial (how long has Manning been awaiting trial for now?), the right to due process (Guantanamo Bay? Presidential kill lists?), and limited term copyright (lol). It's pretty safe to say it appears largely irrelevant to how your politicians actually conduct themselves. That said, yes, I'm pretty sure the legal system would have had a hard time pinning a treason charge on him (assuming he was given a trial, and not just summarily executed by presidential decree).

The Australian government considered treason charges against him, but since he's a citizen that's perfectly within their right.

That one I can speak more knowledgeably on, being an Australian. The Government asked the Federal Police to provide a list of crimes involving unauthorised disclosure of information, and treason was included on that list. There was never any actual consideration of invoking it, as the Federal Police themselves said that Assange hadn't violated any Australian law (source).

Australian has Attorney-General Nicola Roxon passed new laws allowing the authorities to "collect and keep Australians' internet records, including their web-browsing history, social media activity and emails." Roxon said the new powers will be used to find people "engaged in forgery, fraud, child pornography, and infringement of copyright and intellectual property".
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/new-law-to-control-cyber-data-20120822-24mur.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/authorities-gain-power-to-collect-australians--internet-records-20120822-24m03.html

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says the laws went further than necessary, and the government had failed to explain why the far-reaching powers were needed: ''The European treaty doesn't require ongoing collection and retention of communications, but the Australian bill does." Ludlam said the new laws are a "lite" version of the laws Roxon had only two weeks ago promised to delay until after the next election. She didn't mention that when she announced her decision to delay those laws: everyone assumed it was over. Australian human rights lawyer Jen Robinson described it as a "A sad day for civil liberties."
http://www.zdnet.com/au/cybercrime-bill-passes-senate-set-to-become-law-7000002971/
http://www.dailydot.com/news/australia-cybersecurity-bill-privacy/

Australian has Attorney-General Nicola Roxon passed new laws allowing the authorities to "collect and keep Australians' internet records, including their web-browsing history, social media activity and emails." Roxon said the new powers will be used to find people "engaged in forgery, fraud, child pornography, and infringement of copyright and intellectual property".
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/new-law-to-control-cyber-data-20120822-24mur.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/authorities-gain-power-to-collect-australians--internet-records-20120822-24m03.html

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says the laws went further than necessary, and the government had failed to explain why the far-reaching powers were needed: ''The European treaty doesn't require ongoing collection and retention of communications, but the Australian bill does." Ludlam said the new laws are a "lite" version of the laws Roxon had only two weeks ago promised to delay until after the next election. She didn't mention that when she announced her decision to delay those laws: everyone assumed it was over. Australian human rights lawyer Jen Robinson described it as a "A sad day for civil liberties."
http://www.zdnet.com/au/cybercrime-bill-passes-senate-set-to-become-law-7000002971/
http://www.dailydot.com/news/australia-cybersecurity-bill-privacy/

I looked at that article, and the comments, and the article it linked to, but couldn't find a link to the cables directly, so I'll have to go with what's in the article.

All it suggests is that the US have an investigation into the leaks (and thus Assange) and that the Australians wanted to be kept informed. While yes, this suggests that they are thinking about him, I'm not sure if is indicative that they're after him as much as Assange seems to think. He may have broken US laws (at least, someone may have and he's the key piece in the puzzle), and they're investigating it.

The more he does (or doesn't do), and the more I read, the more I'm convinced he's either paranoid or using the cover of US oppression to escape doing some rather mean things in Sweden.

This editorial from today's Sydney Morning Herald is of interest. Key quote: "The case is a dark hole of legal and human rights suspicions that needs the light of transparent judicial process." Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/assange-the-superpower-and-the-little-nation-that-wont-give-him-up-20120819-24gc7.html#ixzz240iu0lzQ

Sigh! Inequality continues. But not in the way you think.

Not all radioactive isotopes are equally toxic because of types of radiation and their half lives. (Alpha, beta, and gamma). Cesium-137 alone and it's by-products produce beta and gamma (more damaging) along with a half life that is 30X longer. And it's even more dangerous when ingested and keeps accumulating from everything you eat, breathe and drink on top of the K-40 already in your body.

"March 2012 up to 18,700 becquerels per kilogram radioactive cesium was detected in yamame, or landlocked masu salmon, caught in the Niida river near the town Iitate, which was over 37 times the legal limit of 500 becquerels/kg."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Agricultural_products

Click the link to learn about the other radioactive materials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Isotopes_of_concern

And you are correct. Not everyone will get cancer. Others will suffer from crippling genetic mutations.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/fukushima-radiation-causes-insect-mutations-researchers-20120817-24cy2.html

In this case, someone really should think of the children.
http://chernobyl.typepad.com/chernobyl_childrens_proje/people_their_stories/

We haven't seen anything like this since the Iranians invaded the American Embassy in Tehran.

"The British government has told Ecuadorian authorities it believes it can enter its embassy in London and arrest Assange. But any incursion by the Brits at the embassy would be ‘‘without modern precedent’’ and could end up before the international courts, according to an Australian law expert. Professor Donald Rothwell, from Australlian National University College of Law, said the government's stance shows just how serious the UK is about extraditing the WikiLeaks founder to Sweden. "The Ecuadorian Embassy enjoys protection under Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which precludes the United Kingdom authorities from entering the Embassy without consent. Assange has enjoyed the protection of the embassy since he sought asylum there on 19 June 2012. "If the United Kingdom revoked the Embassy’s diplomatic protection and entered the Embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador could rightly view this as a significant violation of international law which may find its way before an international court.”

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/uk-police-raid-assanges-embassy-refuge-20120816-249pe.html

We haven't seen anything like this since the Iranians invaded the American Embassy in Tehran.

"The British government has told Ecuadorian authorities it believes it can enter its embassy in London and arrest Assange. But any incursion by the Brits at the embassy would be ‘‘without modern precedent’’ and could end up before the international courts, according to an Australian law expert. Professor Donald Rothwell, from Australlian National University College of Law, said the government's stance shows just how serious the UK is about extraditing the WikiLeaks founder to Sweden. "The Ecuadorian Embassy enjoys protection under Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which precludes the United Kingdom authorities from entering the Embassy without consent. Assange has enjoyed the protection of the embassy since he sought asylum there on 19 June 2012. "If the United Kingdom revoked the Embassy’s diplomatic protection and entered the Embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador could rightly view this as a significant violation of international law which may find its way before an international court.”

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/uk-police-raid-assanges-embassy-refuge-20120816-249pe.html

Well, fuck.

We haven't seen anything like this since the Iranians invaded the American Embassy in Tehran.

"The British government has told Ecuadorian authorities it believes it can enter its embassy in London and arrest Assange. But any incursion by the Brits at the embassy would be ‘‘without modern precedent’’ and could end up before the international courts, according to an Australian law expert. Professor Donald Rothwell, from Australlian National University College of Law, said the government's stance shows just how serious the UK is about extraditing the WikiLeaks founder to Sweden. "The Ecuadorian Embassy enjoys protection under Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which precludes the United Kingdom authorities from entering the Embassy without consent. Assange has enjoyed the protection of the embassy since he sought asylum there on 19 June 2012. "If the United Kingdom revoked the Embassy’s diplomatic protection and entered the Embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador could rightly view this as a significant violation of international law which may find its way before an international court.”

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/uk-police-raid-assanges-embassy-refuge-20120816-249pe.html

We haven't seen anything like this since the Iranians invaded the American Embassy in Tehran.

"The British government has told Ecuadorian authorities it believes it can enter its embassy in London and arrest Assange. But any incursion by the Brits at the embassy would be ‘‘without modern precedent’’ and could end up before the international courts, according to an Australian law expert. Professor Donald Rothwell, from Australlian National University College of Law, said the government's stance shows just how serious the UK is about extraditing the WikiLeaks founder to Sweden. "The Ecuadorian Embassy enjoys protection under Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which precludes the United Kingdom authorities from entering the Embassy without consent. Assange has enjoyed the protection of the embassy since he sought asylum there on 19 June 2012. "If the United Kingdom revoked the Embassy’s diplomatic protection and entered the Embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador could rightly view this as a significant violation of international law which may find its way before an international court.”

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/uk-police-raid-assanges-embassy-refuge-20120816-249pe.html

Well, fuck.

We haven't seen anything like this since the Iranians invaded the American Embassy in Tehran.

"The British government has told Ecuadorian authorities it believes it can enter its embassy in London and arrest Assange. But any incursion by the Brits at the embassy would be ‘‘without modern precedent’’ and could end up before the international courts, according to an Australian law expert. Professor Donald Rothwell, from Australlian National University College of Law, said the government's stance shows just how serious the UK is about extraditing the WikiLeaks founder to Sweden. "The Ecuadorian Embassy enjoys protection under Article 22 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which precludes the United Kingdom authorities from entering the Embassy without consent. Assange has enjoyed the protection of the embassy since he sought asylum there on 19 June 2012. "If the United Kingdom revoked the Embassy’s diplomatic protection and entered the Embassy to arrest Assange, Ecuador could rightly view this as a significant violation of international law which may find its way before an international court.”
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/uk-police-raid-assanges-embassy-refuge-20120816-249pe.html

..and this appeared in an Australian newspaper just yesterday "'Right to silence' law changed" http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/right-to-silence-law-changed-20120814-2462p.html

In the West jailing people for criticising the government would be unpopular, so they find more subtle but equally effective ways to do it. These silence not just bloggers, but journalists too: The easiest of these is libel laws. US Citizens are lucky that their Right to Free Speech is enshrined in the Constitution, but citizens in other supposedly liberal democracies have no such protection.

Libel Law: "In theory, the objective of defamation laws is to balance protection of individual reputation with freedom of expression. In practice, defamation laws are frequently used as a means of chilling speech. A threat of (costly) defamation proceedings and damages, whether or not a plaintiff's claim is likely to be upheld by a court, is often used to silence criticism not only by a particular person or group but also as a threat to others."
https://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.html

The UK defamation bill will do little to stop corporations suing individuals and should include a public interest defence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jun/27/libel-reform-get-right-defamation-bill

UK Libel reform campaigners demand better public interest defence
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/27/libel-reform-campaigners-public-interest-defence

It doesn't affect only bloggers: Even journalists are restricted by what they can say:
http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_02.html

Explanation of UK Libel Law
http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law

The Australian Journalist's Defamation Checklist: Can you run this story?
http://www.hss.bond.edu.au/defamkit/

And if they report something embarassing to the Government, then it is jail time:
http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_06.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Secrets_Act
http://www.caslon.com.au/secrecyguide4.htm

The government redacted 90% of the recent proposal to snoop on Internet Usage. You would think the public have a right to know, but it's National Security if they say it is:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/no-minister-90-of-web-snoop-document-censored-to-stop--premature-unnecessary-debate-20100722-10mxo.html

I hate to break it to you, but Google Drive doesn't actually copy the docs down to your machine; the files you see are just metadata that references the file in Google Docs.

When it comes to syncing Google Docs office files, the Google Drive software only downloads a link to your documents and spreadsheets. Click on one to open it and you're taken to the browser to edit the online version. If you're offline, you're out of luck. The actual file isn't downloaded to your computer, so it's useless as an offline backup option.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/blogs/gadgets-on-the-go/hands-on-google-drive-20120429-1xsun.html

Files created in Google Docs get their own file type â" .gdoc and .gsheet, though these aren't true local copies of the files. Instead they're links that open files in Google Docs, making them useless when you're offline.

http://www.zdnet.com/google-drive-4010026028/

Every time something weird like this comes (or gets reported to come) from Clive Palmer there is a political problem which he needs to divert the attention away from...

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/clive-palmer-says-greens-in-cia-plot-20120320-1vhmm.html

Here are some references:

From 2009, Obama has four years to save the world.
From 2009, Global Warming is now irreversible
From 2006, the end of the world as we know it
2005, Past the Point of No Return
2004, Damage becoming irreversible
1989, We Have 10 Years.

Personally I think we've missed a huge opportunity to fund fusion research. It wouldn't actually take that much from a global community perspective. If Copenhagen had focused on funding Fusion instead of trying to make transfer payments to 3rd world countries, they could have gotten support and actually accomplished something. It would have been great. Oh well.

Unfortunately, I found such source:

But, just this week, Richardson was informed of the outcome of the appeal, which reinstated Microsoft's guilty verdict.

Source

Special attention for the "DickMobile". :-)

Uniloc is basically one guy, Ric Richardson, who is the epitome of the borderline-Aspergers nerd type idolised on Slashdot. He works out of a van because an office is too distracting.

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/aussie-inventor-settles-with-microsoft-in-patent-dispute-20120315-1v5zc.html

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/one-man-v-microsoft-a-day-in-the-dickmobile-another-day-in-court-for-aussie-inventor-20110106-19h25.html

He sued Microsoft for infringing this patent, and Microsoft lost to the tune of $388 million in damages.

Uniloc is basically one guy, Ric Richardson, who is the epitome of the borderline-Aspergers nerd type idolised on Slashdot. He works out of a van because an office is too distracting.

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/aussie-inventor-settles-with-microsoft-in-patent-dispute-20120315-1v5zc.html

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/one-man-v-microsoft-a-day-in-the-dickmobile-another-day-in-court-for-aussie-inventor-20110106-19h25.html

He sued Microsoft for infringing this patent, and Microsoft lost to the tune of $388 million in damages.

What is it with the desparate need to never, ever blame wackos like this for their own acts?

What is it with people who refuse to see the point and divert to a completely different topic?

There is a big difference between 1 whacko with a machete and 1 whacko with a bomb/gun.

I, for one, much prefer living a society where guns are hard to come by so whackos can't just casually decide to gun down a lot of people. Not saying it never happens, but it happens a shitload less than in the U.S. per capita. In 2010 there were 8775 firearm murders in the U.S., which is 68% of all murders. Over half. Here in Oz, firearms account for 15% of murders.

I tend to think that making it harder for the average person to kill is generally a good thing.

similar happened in australia http://www.smh.com.au/business/generous-boss-gives-staff-a-15-million-bonus-20120201-1qry7.html