Slashdot Mirror

To say JK Rowling was on welfare is a bit of a cloudy description of what was going on. Check out the link from an Australia news site. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/27/1030053057866.html Seems a little catty so I imagine the truth lays somewhere in the middle about her financial situation.

According to the The Age: apple major product launch set for january 26

Of course given the date it must be the Ocker version rather than the version

Yeah, it's all great until you kill someone in an effort to lengthen your pathetically small penis. Oh, and the DEC VAX is a supermini - not a mainframe (the PDP-10 was the mainframe).

Isn't it wonderful when Christian fundamentalists prove themselves to be hypocrytical scum. This man makes my skin crawl. http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/conroy-birth-prompts-review-of-surrogacy-laws/2006/11/07/1162661685121.html

If you doubt me then point to where Conroy has said a compulsory filter is a good idea.

Ahem.

"The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said today he would introduce legislation just before next year's elections to force ISPs to block a blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users."

That conclusive enough for you? :(

No, where does he say a mandatory filter is a good idea? He can introduce whatever he likes, he knows as well as everyone else it's not going to be passed by the senate.

The reason he is leaving it until just before the election is that it has alresy been rejected once by the senate, if it were to be rejected again then it becomes a double dissolution trigger. I'm sure as hell they don't want that outcome.

If you doubt me then point to where Conroy has said a compulsory filter is a good idea.

Ahem.

"The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said today he would introduce legislation just before next year's elections to force ISPs to block a blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users."

That conclusive enough for you? :(

Thats a plant. Its in the front yard in a pot. One saturday The Age, which weighs several kilos on Saturday came flying through the air and broke off a branch.

Our subscription to The Age came from a neighbour who has moved to another country. I prefer to read that news source on line. Not because it is free, but because it is convenient. The online version is pretty crap and I would pay for the paper version on line, if it meant the frangipani didn't have to have wads of paper chucked at it in the early hours of the morning.

So today the paper has gone missing. It sometimes winds up in our next door neighbours front yard. Its not there but I notice that the newspaper chuckers are still out in cars bravely keeping journalistic tradition alive. So maybe my bundle of Yesterdays News is still on the way.

Die already.

The fact that the word "gimpy" is somewhat related to "gimp" does not make it any more related to the software that the word "excellence" is to Microsoft's spreadsheet program, so using a Google search for the term "gimpy" to prove use of the word "gimp" outside of the software is still common is foolish.

How do you figure that 'gimpy' is not simply the adjective form of 'gimp'?

You'd get about as far with argument as if you were saying clear panes of glass are no longer called 'windows'.

So? I'm not telling you how it should be used, I'm telling you how it *is* being used. The simple fact is, the word 'gimp' is pretty much dead in contexts other than 'weird free image editor', its original meaning no more important in modern conversations than that of 'gay' being a synonym of 'happy'.

I hear you, I really do. You're just not right, is all. The word 'gimp' is, in fact, being used to mean things other than software. It is not anywhere near dead.

Here's an extremely recent example.

They got up close and personal with Spears as she performed occasionally adult-only routines including a sexy cage dance surrounded by gimp guys.

They don't appear to mean the software's mascot.

Another one.

Deathstreaks are interesting and kinda disappointing in my opinion. Yeah, they are nice for beginners but seem to gimp the game to me. I don’t get why someone should get a bonus for dying a lot, and I understand its because they want to help casual players but I dont think it adds to the experience

Again. Not software.

Here's a third.

Ice-T and his wife Coco took a different tactic when coming up with their couple-centric costume, as they decided to pose as a dominatrix and a gimp at the same party in New York.

So, again, while you are certainly correct that the term 'gimp' trends strongly towards software inside the context of information technology, you are ABSOLUTELY INCORRECT that this term is dated and/or approaching a 'dead' status outside of it.

Following on from the informative comment from Onetus, The Age also has a full transcript of Xenophons speech to the Senate. He makes it clear that he is tabling letters in the Senate with names removed to protect informants and innocents and has left the names in the copies sent to the Australian Federal Police.

The point of his speech is to open dialogue in the Senate with a view to holding an inquiry into the CoS tax exemption. The purpose of sending the letters to the police with original names is for the police to investigate any criminality. Kind of a pincer movement really, good on him.

From the speech:

These allegations are serious, and many names have been removed from the letters I have tabled in the Senate tonight, but those names have not been removed from copies I am providing to the police. This organisation must be investigated. These victims of Scientology have spoken out at considerable personal risk, and I commend them for that. And I would encourage other victims of Scientology to come forward, contact the police or contact my office -- but, most importantly, speak out.

There is a time and place for people to banter on but I don't want it from a news outlet.

I'm with you there. I don't know if this applies across the board, since I have neither the time nor inclination to read all the on-line newspapers (I only buy dead-tree papers when I need something to light a fire with), but I am getting a bit tired of endless screen-space devoted to the inarticulate musings of bored housewives and outraged rednecks. And newspapers aren't the only culprits. New Scientist used to be quite a useful aggregation for scientific journal content, but it's steadily turning into a soap-box.

In the days of the print media, there was something of a class barrier where contributors were expected to know at least something about a subject before pontificating. This survived for a few years with the on-line versions, but now we are seeing a situation where on slow news days we also seem to be getting lumbered with the above-mentioned kind of rubbish presented in a more fleshed-out form as "real" articles under the masthead of formerly reputable newspapers. The Age is a good example of this. I think the editor changed a while ago, and for all the content is now worth, I often feel I might as well be reading Twitter.

When will banks start upgrading their security?

Me think its the same syndicate as these guys.

the industry has not interpreted it to require that mandatory clearances be maintained at all times.

Sounds familiar...

You have to FORCE them to do their job right, or else they'll argue that they don't have to, and they'll let their negligent ways cause major inconveniences for millions of people.

... Bingo! The exact same thing happened in Melbourne, where the much loathed train network operator (Connex), found that it was not contractually obligated to fix the air-conditioning on its trains when broken. As a result of this, and several other negligences, so many trains got delayed, cancelled and even derailed during summer, that there was a media uproar.

The good thing is that the gov't here did indeed Hit'em in their wallets by fining them $19.5 mill

Completely agreed with parent on "You have to FORCE them to do their job right"!

If my local paper offered a good online subscription I would sign up. What I want to see is:

Revision history

Oh don't worry, with Rupert Murdoch's news agencies, you can be assured to get plenty of revisionist history.

If my local paper offered a good online subscription I would sign up. What I want to see is:

• No adverts
• Access to all archives
• Good searching (like with a google appliance)
• Revision history
• Access to raw source material
• Access to comment pages on all stories

In fact, pretty much what I can get from /. right now. All of that should be easy to implement. They just need to open their eyes and look around.

Okay, add a $200 motherboard, and get a OEM copy of WIndows7 for $250. (see cpl.net.au )

Now, im sure no one gives a rats ass if its not AllInOne if they save $1300. Only rich dudes dont care what price they pay.

Second, all/most apple products in australia have the 40% jack up premium price rise, and dont tell me its for local advertising, because they dont spend that much.

They waste that margin on $1million 4inch windows on their stores - http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/apple-has-smashed-windows-20091022-haej.html

The Age is my local paper and it has a great reputation. But now they publish blatant trolling articles and I don't want to go to their site anymore. I know that they are running short of revenue from advertising and circulation but at the moment they are racing to the bottom and pissing off their user base. I think they will be gone soon.

The Age is my local paper and it has a great reputation. But now they publish blatant trolling articles and I don't want to go to their site anymore. I know that they are running short of revenue from advertising and circulation but at the moment they are racing to the bottom and pissing off their user base. I think they will be gone soon.

Wait! I retract my earlier assertion.

According to this article (cited elsewhere in this thread by acb) about French President Mitterand, PM Thatcher successfully pressured the French to reveal the "codes to make the Exocets deaf and blind" after the Sheffield was sunk.

Very interesting.

Thatcher reportedly pressured Mitterrand into handing over the kill codes, threatening a nuclear strike on Buenos Aires if he didn't comply.

Mitterrand's (symbolic) revenge was the Channel Tunnel, ending Britain's haughty isolation from the Continent forever.

It prints money!!!.

There is also a rumor of a new version that prints money.

Sit in chat rooms, forums and social networking sites trying to connect nerds and geeks in pics to real life.

There are times when I wonder if the chat room nerd has any anchorage in real life.

That is the danger: Caught in the web [Oct 1]

My view is the deep fear of random flash mobs on any given topic. The more cops can just watch, the more they can build connections into protest groups.

The geek as revolutionary is ripe for satire.

I'm not convinced he could draw a crowd if he were handing out free beer in Munich during the Oktoberfest. Free Software Foundation - Windows 7 Sins

Sedate the peasants with low wage jobs, cheap cars, short cheap holidays, cheap housing, free speech for all and the dream of a better life. If they are chasing beads and mirrors all day, no need for tanks in the streets.

It's really quite easy to spot the losers in the American political game: Embittered, cynical, and with bottomless contempt for the masses.

You cannot use your phone's gps, the logical distintion between legal and illegal is the definition of "hand free".

There is a small correlation between handling a phone correctly, and continuing to be a parent,

So Melbourne has been in drough for a good 8 years. QLD was in drought for a good decade before the rains came. The problem that Victorians have is that their quasi-religious problem with building dams has lead to their current dams to run dry while whole river systems that are not dammed are flooding. Did you know that if the Mitchell river was damed that Melbournites would be happily able to run with zero water restrictions? Did you know that the Mitchell has flooded three times in the last decade? Did you know that by damming the Mitchell less than a thousand individuals would be displaced - for the sake of nearly triple the Thompson catchment capacity?

But instead we have a government down there who wants to spend six times the amount to build a dirty and energy intensive water source that has a tiny fraction of the capacity of the Mitchell dam.

It is just another case of the blatant and utter disregard for logic which the green religion commonly displays, along with their condemnation of the only reliable baseload emissions free electricity source and their ridiculous condemnation of ecologically important acts like culling kangaroos and camels (which are not a native species by the way).

So Melbourne has been in drough for a good 8 years. QLD was in drought for a good decade before the rains came. The problem that Victorians have is that their quasi-religious problem with building dams has lead to their current dams to run dry while whole river systems that are not dammed are flooding. Did you know that if the Mitchell river was damed that Melbournites would be happily able to run with zero water restrictions? Did you know that the Mitchell has flooded three times in the last decade? Did you know that by damming the Mitchell less than a thousand individuals would be displaced - for the sake of nearly triple the Thompson catchment capacity?

But instead we have a government down there who wants to spend six times the amount to build a dirty and energy intensive water source that has a tiny fraction of the capacity of the Mitchell dam.

It is just another case of the blatant and utter disregard for logic which the green religion commonly displays, along with their condemnation of the only reliable baseload emissions free electricity source and their ridiculous condemnation of ecologically important acts like culling kangaroos and camels (which are not a native species by the way).

The separation of Telstra's wholesale and retail divisions has been discussed heatedly for many years, long before the change of government. The previous administration was happy to let it stand, which made Telstra investors happy but pissed off Telstra customers as well as competitors, not to mention holding back innovation. You only have to look at the number of times Telstra has lost in fights with the ACCC, the courts and even the government to see why this was a mistake.

The only group of people who are opposed to Telstra being split are the (unlucky) shareholders. Pretty much everyone else who has had to deal with Telstra are unhappy with their service and pricing, their treatment of retail customers and wholesale customers.

I'm not saying that the government's NBN plan is well-thought-out or anything, but Telstra's joke of a proposal and their juvenile "change the law to suit us or we take our toys and leave" attitude is even worse for the competitive landscape and the general Australian public. A split can't come soon enough.

The separation of Telstra's wholesale and retail divisions has been discussed heatedly for many years, long before the change of government. The previous administration was happy to let it stand, which made Telstra investors happy but pissed off Telstra customers as well as competitors, not to mention holding back innovation. You only have to look at the number of times Telstra has lost in fights with the ACCC, the courts and even the government to see why this was a mistake.

The only group of people who are opposed to Telstra being split are the (unlucky) shareholders. Pretty much everyone else who has had to deal with Telstra are unhappy with their service and pricing, their treatment of retail customers and wholesale customers.

I'm not saying that the government's NBN plan is well-thought-out or anything, but Telstra's joke of a proposal and their juvenile "change the law to suit us or we take our toys and leave" attitude is even worse for the competitive landscape and the general Australian public. A split can't come soon enough.

Hmmm... I wonder how many bales of abandoned cocaine are in that heap?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/09/international.mainsection2
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/07/13/1183833752038.html

Firstly, Conroy is a Senator at the *Federal* level. This law was a *State* laws, meaning Conroy would not directly be able to introduce legislation to change these laws.

Secondly, crossing the state border to get around state laws is not hypocritical unless he actually supported those same laws. Nor is it Illegal.

But most importantly, despite being a Federal Senator, Conroy prompted a review of surrogacy laws which led to those laws being changed for the better.

So while Conroy may be a fool (Internet filtering, Copyright Cops etc.), he is not a hypocrite.

Trust your admin, or replace them.

Amen. But on the other hand, some form of independent audit by someone not related to the PFY would be a good add, too.

On the gripping hand, you can't always trust your management, either. A payroll manager without external oversight can sink a company quite effectively as well.

It isn't exactly distrust, it's ... (checks his Spin Dictionary(tm)) ... giving employees extra surety in matters of probity. Yep, that's what it is.

Say what you will about old Rupert, but he's got himself one hot young Asian wifey

To paraphrase the Nuge: Wendi Deng, Sweet Poon Teng!

You know, Rev, you seem to have gotten so bogged down in eating your words that your point is lost. So I'll give it a shot.

If this phenomenon is so colossal in size, if there is so much plastic swirling around in the ocean, if humans have fouled up the water to such a massive extent that we all need to sit up and take notice right f-ing now, then why isn't there any imagery? I've seen pictures of viruses and pictures of surface plumes on a distant star and pictures of a puppy in utero . X-rays let us see our bones and EEG's let us see our thoughts, and Britney lets us see it all.

So is this phenomenon really so hard for somebody to image? It seems like the kind of thing people are good at, and it must be important to us or we wouldn't spend so much time, energy, and money on it. I'm not saying the whole thing is made up, or the whole thing is inconsequential. I'm just saying some of us would have a whole lot better idea what to think of this thing if we could see some pictures.

And thank you in advance.

From the Age article:

Mr Palmer said the Leaf, excluding its battery pack, would cost the equivalent of a small family car, and the company planned to enter into a multiple-year lease of its special lithium-ion battery pack with its first customers.

Sounds like they're trying to make it affordable, let's hope they do. I for one would really enjoy smog-free cities.

Virgin Mobile ad apparently stole a picture off Flickr.

A month ago a friend of my nephew was killed by a driver in a hit and run collision (I won't call it an accident). My brother in law told me that the way the police found the driver was that her boyfriend took the car to a repair place to be resprayed in a different color. Staff at the repair place looked at the damage and called the police.

If you see evidence of a crime you have to call the police. Thats the law where I live.

Of course, when the year of linux-on-the-desktop-comes, it will all be better. Right?

Apparently it has, but according to The Age it isn't Linux.

Whether or not you believe in this "singularity" stuff, it's obvious that the progress of technology in general constantly makes building improvised weapons like this (and weapons in general) easier. It also makes defending against such threats easier, but it'll always be more expensive to defend than attack (especially if we want to protect things which we currently feel are basic rights like freedom of expression and privacy).

I hope we don't get to the point where random people in NZ (link copied from another post) can build WMDs from parts ordered over the Internet quicker than humanity manages to prove that intelligence is useful for long-term species survival.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/04/1054406219113.html I saw a doco on this guy, last I heard he was about to be buried by the NZ Gov at the request (insistence?) of the US Gov. Poor bastard, you'd think some defence contractor would recruit him and have him build them low-cost rockets to sell to Pakistan or something.

Fluoride bungle

I can believe this study and i bet even the scientists who did this study expected this result. Anyone who is aware of the chemistry n biology of "love" won't find this surprising at all. When a man n a woman get physical, the body produces some chemicals which make us "feel" in "love". I bet if th guy had sex with angelina a few times, his brain would show a different picture! http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/09/1044725672191.html "Oxytocin" is the one-word answer from psychosexual therapist Paula Hall, of relationship counselling group Relate. It's the "bonding chemical" that is released during sex, and the amount released increases with the quality and quantity of the sex: more orgasms equal more oxytocin and, therefore, more of a sense of closeness, all of which play a big part in that feeling of being in love.

The Age has been a good newspaper for a long time. But lately they have been publishing the occasional article which I would describe as flamebait. Particularly on sundays they appear to be trolling for page views.

Today when I got home on my bike I left the garage door open for a while and this guy walked past, selling subscriptions. I got pissed off because he walked right into my garage without being invited. He was the sort of person who goes from door to door selling energy or phone contracts. He tried to flog me a subscription for home delivery. I said no because it is no good for me. I read the RSS feed during the day. A day old dead tree edition would go straight into the recycling.

What they should do is offer premium online content. A better RSS feed. Access to past issues. More content. If they did that I would probably subscribe.

How about some snakes instead?

Same in Melbourne Australia - It's faster and cheaper to ride the train if you work in the city and live in the suburbs. However over the last few years there has been a shortage of trains. We also have problems with hot weather, it buckles the tracks and jams switching gear. Similar problems arise during summer storms when a sudden drop in temprature (as much as 15degC in 15minutes) jams switches.

Okay I get that you don't like the guy. But do you need to post anon? Its not like he has a rocket launcher or anything.

...two Jordanian soldiers were evacuated from [timor] with injured penises after attempting sexual intercourse with goats.

'Swine' flu responds well to the relatively recent anti-flu drug Oseltamivir (marketing name: Tamiflu). That is to say, it gets killed pretty quickly and eradicated from the body if treatment is followed through (yeah, I know, right?). That's good news for the producers of Tamiflu who love having this in the news, and for their shareholders who saw their stock skyrocket as a result.

Skyrocket, eh? Gilead Sciences, which developed Tamiflu/Oseltamivir, and Roche, which markets it, haven't moved much since the outbreak started on March 18 (although this was apparently assumed to be regular flu for a few days, so it's hard to tell when people would have noticed this, although there is a weird spike in volume on March 18 even though the price barely moved (there was also a similar spike the last two days this week, but the price dropped 10%)). Further, the price hasn't moved much during any identifiable period I can see; GILD had an 8% bounce over two days at the beginning of April (which it has now lost), but this is much smaller movement than what was seen in January and February.

On the other hand Zanamivir (trade name Relenza), developped by Biota and marketed by GlaxoSmithKline has seen some movement. GSK, like Roche and GILD, had some movement since March 18 but nothing out of the ordinary (10% max movement and 0% net over the period), especially compared to the previous two months. Biota, on the other hand, has jumped nearly 40% this week, and has had an identifiable volume jump this week. Is this related to the pandemic? Maybe, but the company released a press release Thursday saying its royalties from Relenza for the first three months of 2009 (mostly before the swine flu) were sixteen times greater than the average royalties over the preceding two 3-month periods, and market regulators are wondering if there was some insider trading going on that anticipated the report. That's certainly likely to affect the price independent of the swine flu.

It's pretty special that there's tons of people out there just waiting around to make money off of this kind of thing.

Since the price of any of these shares has not skyrocketed as you claimed, and arguably may have gone down, depending when you decide the information could have been reasonably public that people could have figured out to invest in these companies, it seems the opportunity for these people waiting around to make money is still there. Perhaps as someone thinking about these things without looking at any facts, maybe you should just jump right in.

P.S. Don't forget to check out the next season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles this fall on FOX.

I used to think that, but if the rumours are true the Whitehouse will tell GM to prepare for bankruptcy quite soon.

http://business.theage.com.au/business/gm-readies-for-fast-bankruptcy-20090413-a4ud.html

That doesn't necessarily mean the end of the company of course, but it most likely does mean that the current contracts will be renegotiated in a way that benefits GM and hurts the unions. If this is true it shows that Obama is prepared to stand up to the UAW.

You won't catch me reading crikey. But now The Age has started trolling for page views.

People do get pardoned eventually. That's after they've been prosecuted, thrown in jail for long periods of time and had their lives ruined. See for example: http://www.theage.com.au/national/jailed-author-back-on-australian-soil-20090221-8dx7.html

There might be an argument if King Bhumibol Adulyadej was pardoning people before the prosecutors got a chance to do anything, but waiting until after prosecution and people are in jail for six months and then pardoning isn't undermining the lese majeste rules. Quite the opposite. Bhumibol gets to looks fairly progressive and open minded for the pardons while still getting revenge and against his critics and generally having a massive chilling effect on people.

Ok, that was calm enough. Now for the obligatory rant: His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej should go fuck himself.