Mt Stromlo disaster recovery reaches for the stars By Jeanne-Vida Douglas, ZDNet Australia 23 January 2003
On Saturday January 18, a devastating firestorm raged through Canberra and its outskirts. More than four hundred homes, and multiple business were destroyed, along with the historic Mt Stromlo Observatory, which was established in the 1920s. Preliminary estimates put the losses at Mt Stromlo in excess of AU$20 million, as four telescopes, the equipment workshop, eight houses which had been occupied by staff and an administration building succumbed to the blaze.
However, the observatory's legacy, millions of units of data collected as part of its research over the years, has been salvaged thanks to a comprehensive disaster recovery plan implemented by the Australian National University's (ANU) division of information.
According to Peter Young, head of the computer section at Mount Stromlo, the data created at the observatory was divided into two separate groups. Research data collected by the telescopes as part of national and international studies was channelled directly to a large StorageTek 9310 Powderhorn library, referred to as a 6000-slot data silo, located at the ANU's central Canberra campus. Administration and research data held in the observatory's administration centre, the Woolley Building, was backed-up at regular intervals and stored in two separate locations remote from the facility.
As the fires approached on Saturday, Young managed to complete a final backup of the administration data. However, the Woolley Building was one of the few at the facility to survive the blaze.
"The administration building which contained our computer facilities was largely undamaged, it held all of our computer servers and equipment, and we are in the process of transporting most of that gear down to the ANU at the moment," Young said. "However, we have lost a large computing facility located in the 50-inch dome, but the data collected by those machines wasn't lost, it is all in the StorageTek silos in the ANU."
While the loss of the physical infrastructure comes as a blow to the observatory's research efforts, Young points out that the ability to recover the data means observatory staff are able to continue with their research while the centre is either rebuilt or relocated.
Bob Gingold, head of the head of the ANU's supercomputer facility and acting director of the division of information, said the disaster recovery plan had enabled the observatory to continue to provide its information resources to astronomers all over the world, essentially creating what may prove to be the world's first "virtual observatory".
"By re-establishing the data access down here at the ANU, and offering the information over the Internet to people from all over the world, we are enabling much of the observatory's work to continue," Gingold said.
Alongside the Powderhorn library the StorageTek equipment at the ANU Supercomputing Facility consists of eight T9840 tape drives, 4 T9940 tape drives, 2 Redwood tape drives as well as a tape and disk storage area network. In an effort to assist university and observatory staff in the recovery process StorageTek has offered a further 9730 tape drive on loan.
With the data still intact, observatory staff are being temporarily housed alongside the ANU's Supercomputing Facility, where about 20 terminals have been set up to provide access to mail servers, and research data.
However, Young points out the observatory will ultimately need more than data access in order to resume its scientific endeavours.
"At the moment we do have a physical space in which to work, but it is not quite conducive to a normal working environment, we have engineers and designers who need more room to and access to specialist equipment which was unfortunately lost in the blaze," Young said. "A lot of the staff also lived on Mt Stromlo and are coping with the loss of their homes and there was a lot of history in the building itself, we're all very sad."
For those interested, most of the damage was caused not by regular fires, but by a "firestorm", burning embers raining down from the sky. This caused hundreds of spot fires around the suburbs, and in inaccessible areas, gaps between houses and fences, in power poles. This type of fire (this large) has never happened in Australia before.
For those blaming fire services for not being fast enough, some facts:
* The Canberra fire forces are equipped to deal with SIX house fires at the same time. * Over FOUR HUNDRED homes have been destroyed. Many more fires have burned and been put out by residents using garden hoses and garden tools. Even those of you without a calculator can probably see where the problem lies. Some suburbs have lost access to water completely, with water station pumps burned out. One power station has been completely razed, residents in that area may be without power for a month or more. Several fire engines and police cars have been lost, roads are blocked by fallen trees and power lines, some of which are on fire. Firefighters have been out saving other people's homes while their own burned to the ground. A fire station itself caught fire, and no engines went to put it out, as people's homes were still in danger.
Give them some credit for putting their lives and homes on the line, to save others. _______________________ News links:
Residents are posting in a Canberra community at LiveJournal. Canberra Communtiy
Fires destroy Stromlo observatory Irreplaceable equipment worth millions of dollars was destroyed when the Canberra bushfires ravaged the historic Mount Stromlo Observatory. Research officer Vince Ford, a 38-year veteran of the observatory, told AAP staff were given 20 minutes' notice to evacuate as a fire storm on Mount Stromlo caught authorities by surprise. A single road through pine forests links the observatory, established by the Commonwealth in 1924, with suburban Canberra. "There's no way we could have saved it," Mr Ford said. The fire storm destroyed all the observatory's telescopes and the original observatory building, which dated back to 1924. "It's gone, it's all gone," Mr Ford said. "We've lost all the telescopes, the administration building, which was the original observatory back in 1924. "The first telescope has actually been there since 1910, it's gone. "The main research telescopes, the 74-inch and 50-inch, they're gone. I've just seen pictures of it from the air and we don't have a telescope left." The Australian National University (ANU) facility was one the premier astronomy training and research centres in Australia. "(It's a huge loss) from a historical point of view, from a cultural point of view, from a scientific point of view," Mr Ford said. "It's an absolute disaster." Observatory staff still hope they may be able to salvage some of their research, stored on computers in office buildings that might have escaped the worst of the blaze. The observatory offices are believed to be standing, but have been water damaged. "At least we should be able to recover the hard disks from some of the computers, but at this stage we're guessing," Mr Ford said. "All we know is the observatory is gone." Some back-up files would also have been stored at the main ANU campus in Canberra. "But a lot of the work will be at the observatory," Mr Ford said.
fuck all these inventions... where's the beef?
I'd also add to this list a matter transmitter...
all I've ever wanted for Christmas is a matter transmitter...
they have both...
while they get a lot of extra links, some of these "escape" links are really quite sarcastic in their reference to Disney, and it's not neccessarily a compliment to their content...
I have seen a lot of humor sites that link to Disney if you can't handle jokes etc...
really, I'm not sure that Disney deserves feeling at all, it's merely a quirk of society...
Google.com is popular because of it's high moral ground, which it has had since the beginning.
I personally switched to Google because:
* it gave me more accurate results * it has a fast loading page * it had an honest results policy * it's not a parasite site, running on the coat tails of others (eg. metacrawler)
The reasons I continue to use Google are: * as above * it has inoffensive (to me) advertising * it has a toolbar that saves me time on searching * it's as good as a spellchecker * it can display pdf files in html * it can search pdf files * google cache
"Before all the ruckus of living in a "global village" where we are all connected via the internet, there was the idea of "six degrees of separation," or the "small world theory." The theory posits the idea that everyone in the world is separated from everyone else by only an average of six people. That is to say, the only thing which separates you from the President, the Pope, a farmer in China, and Kevin Bacon is six people.
It's a strange and beautiful concept. It is fascinating to think that we are all in some way interrelated by only six people or that we have some connection to people even in the remotest part of the world.
The "small world" theory was first proposed by the eminent psychologist, Stanley Milgram. In 1967 he conducted a study where he gave 150 random people from Omaha, Nebraska and Wichita, Kansas a folder which contained a name and some personal data of a target person across the country. They were instructed to pass the document folder on to one friend that they felt would most likely know the target person.
To his surprise, the number of intermediary steps ranged from 2 to 10, with 5 being the most common number (where 6 came from is anyone's guess). What the study proved was how closely we are connected to seemingly disparate parts of the world. It also provided an explanation for why gossip, jokes, forwards, and even diseases could rapidly spread through a population.
Of course, the six people that connect you and the President aren't just any six people. The study showed that some people are more connected than others and act as "short cuts," or hubs which connect you to other people.
Take for example, your connection with a doctor in Africa. Chances are your six childhood friends who you've grown up with aren't going to connect you to someone across the country, much less across the ocean. But let's say you meet someone in college who travels often, or is involved in the military or the Peace Corp. That one person who has traveled and has had contact with a myriad of other people will be your "short cut" to that doctor in Africa.
Likewise, say that you want to figure out your connection to a favorite Hollywood socialite. If you have a friend who is well connected in the Industry, that person will act as a bridge between your sphere of existence and the Hollywood circuit.
The Proof
Mathematicians have created models proving the validity of the "small world" theory.
First, there is the Regular Network model where people are linked to only their closest neighbors. Imagine growing up in a cave and the only people you have contact with for the rest of your life are in that cave with you.
Then there is the Random Network model where people are randomly connected to other people regardless of distance, space, etc..
In the real world, human interconnectedness is a synthesis of these two models. We are intimately connected to the people in our immediate vicinity (Regular Network), but we are also connected to people from distant random places (Random Network) through such means as travel, college, and work. It is by our intermingling with different people that our connections increase.
You may meet someone in class that is from a different country, or whose father works in Hollywood, or whose mother owns a magazine. By this mingling and constant interaction your potential contact with the rest of the world increases exponentially.
The Internet
The Small World theory is interesting in light of recent advances in communication technology--namely, the internet.
You can now instantly make contact with someone across the world through a chat room, email, or through ICQ. In all of human history, it has never been easier to get in tough with someone across the globe.
The great irony, of course, is that although we are making contact with such a vast number of people, the quality of the contact is becoming terribly depersonalized. Our email, chat, and ICQ friends may number in the hundreds, but for the most part we'll only know them as a line of text skittering across the screen and a computer beep.
That's not to say that there is never a cross over from the virtual world of the internet to the "real" world. But a majority of the time, the closest you'll get to actually meeting your fellow e-buddies in the flesh are the pictures they email you (notice how everyone oddly looks like Pam Lee or Tom Cruise), or a series of smilies (meet my friend Sandra:), Jenny:P, Bill:{, and Chrissy 23).
Never in the history of mankind has there been so much technology to keep us connected.This is with so little true connection. Everything from cellular phones, pagers, voice mail, and email were designed so that we would never be alone again. Human contact would only be a few convenient buttons away. But what seems to be happening is that the convenient buttons are superceding real people. Despite the appearance of all this technology, we're still pretty much where we started, with the exception of a motley crew of digital displays, flashing lights, and cutesy computer alerts to keep us company.
Don't get me wrong. The Internet Revolution is great and is making our lives easier. But as with ice cream, money, and sex -- too much of a good thing can be bad (money and sex are sometimes exceptions). What good are all the conveniences and promises of instant material gratification if you don't really live. The virtual world is good, but we shouldn't forsake it for the real world. The macabre image in the Matrix where we are all plugged into computers unbeknownst to us is a parable of what could be our future. A future where people never leave their homes and where we're all so dependent on computers. We wouldn't be able to walk outside without a pang of separation anxiety.
As we enter the new millennium, there is no doubt that we will be living increasingly wired existences. Perhaps Milgram's study will be annotated, and perhaps we will find that we're only separated by three degrees of email. But what good is that if the only "handshakes" going on are between our computers??
I mean more in regards to the big guys wanting it to be just as hard online, as in the bricks and mortar world, for the little guys...
if the little guys allow indexing, and have a great site, they have a chance...
loads of advertising money doesn't make up for workd of mouth (which linking is a form of), and google tracks how much sites are linked, but also, and importantly, who they are linked by...
this verbalises something I have been experiencing of late... at work I have a Google toolbar which I installed, giving me a search box in my browser that went to the search engine of my choice (just like the good old days). Not only does this toolbar take me straight to Google, but it also keeps track of my most recent searches, which is handy if you realise you forgot to bookmark that page you just searched for...
but I digress... I have noticed that when I use another's browser, that does not have this toolbar, I feel surprised... "what! no Google? what kind of browser is this?"
I am no longer satisfied with a browser that cannot search Google easily.
domains are becoming less *and* more important at the same time... having decent search engines at our disposal, we can find what we are looking for, whether those with the domains like it or not...
and by that same token, excuses cannot be used by large corporations to bully small operators about "confusion" regarding domain name disputes.
The second amendment is subject to discussion because it is written in a way that allows two meanings.
Regulated individuals are allowed to carry weapons if they are on call to the public to defend the free state in an emergency.
or
Individuals are allowed to carry weapons. (how people seem to treat it today)
Amendment II
A well regulatedmilitia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
militia (m-lsh)
n.
An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.
regulate
(rgy-lt)
tr.v. regulated, regulating, regulates
To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law.
To adjust to a particular specification or requirement: regulate temperature.
To adjust (a mechanism) for accurate and proper functioning.
To put or maintain in order: regulate one's eating habits.
You can give me@privacy.net to those companies who insist you supply one.
If email is sent to that address, it sends them an automatic message that says:
"This is an autoresponse from me@privacy.net.
The user who provided this address did not want you to have his/her e-mail address in an effort to try to prevent receiving unwanted e-mail and/or keep their identity private.
Businesses: The person who provided you with this e-mail address did not perceive value in receiving your e-mail and/or did not want to provide you with their identity. The person did not "opt-in" to your e-mail and/or did not subscribe to your mailing list. If this address is "subscribed" to a mailing list then you have not taken steps to verify subscribers to the list. Please remove me@privacy.net from your list. You may wish to consider concentrating on improving the value of your offers so consumers will request to receive them rather than taking steps to avoid receiving your e-mail.
http://privacy.net"
a good idea... but there's always limitations on behavioral assumptions...
if I've burned my fingertip, I may type funny... if someone's talking to me, I may type funny... if it's a shitty keypad, I may type funny... if I've just put on fake nails, I may type funny...
Slashdot Mirror
ThinkGeek.com has an RSS feed
http://www.thinkgeek.com/thinkgeek.rdf
Where you can view all the latest stuff.
The advertising industry needs to get more up-to-date,
this isn't the 1950s anymore, and the general
advertising ballgame hasn't changed.
many native seeds in Australia are encased in a durable pod, only able to be opened by a fire.
this means after a fire has passed, new plants will renew the area.
wattle seeds grow better after being dropped in a cup of boiling water for a few moments
http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/communications/st ory/0,2000024993,20271482,00.htm
Mt Stromlo disaster recovery reaches for the stars
By Jeanne-Vida Douglas, ZDNet Australia
23 January 2003
On Saturday January 18, a devastating firestorm raged through Canberra and its outskirts. More than four hundred homes, and multiple business were destroyed, along with the historic Mt Stromlo Observatory, which was established in the 1920s.
Preliminary estimates put the losses at Mt Stromlo in excess of AU$20 million, as four telescopes, the equipment workshop, eight houses which had been occupied by staff and an administration building succumbed to the blaze.
However, the observatory's legacy, millions of units of data collected as part of its research over the years, has been salvaged thanks to a comprehensive disaster recovery plan implemented by the Australian National University's (ANU) division of information.
According to Peter Young, head of the computer section at Mount Stromlo, the data created at the observatory was divided into two separate groups. Research data collected by the telescopes as part of national and international studies was channelled directly to a large StorageTek 9310 Powderhorn library, referred to as a 6000-slot data silo, located at the ANU's central Canberra campus. Administration and research data held in the observatory's administration centre, the Woolley Building, was backed-up at regular intervals and stored in two separate locations remote from the facility.
As the fires approached on Saturday, Young managed to complete a final backup of the administration data. However, the Woolley Building was one of the few at the facility to survive the blaze.
"The administration building which contained our computer facilities was largely undamaged, it held all of our computer servers and equipment, and we are in the process of transporting most of that gear down to the ANU at the moment," Young said. "However, we have lost a large computing facility located in the 50-inch dome, but the data collected by those machines wasn't lost, it is all in the StorageTek silos in the ANU."
While the loss of the physical infrastructure comes as a blow to the observatory's research efforts, Young points out that the ability to recover the data means observatory staff are able to continue with their research while the centre is either rebuilt or relocated.
Bob Gingold, head of the head of the ANU's supercomputer facility and acting director of the division of information, said the disaster recovery plan had enabled the observatory to continue to provide its information resources to astronomers all over the world, essentially creating what may prove to be the world's first "virtual observatory".
"By re-establishing the data access down here at the ANU, and offering the information over the Internet to people from all over the world, we are enabling much of the observatory's work to continue," Gingold said.
Alongside the Powderhorn library the StorageTek equipment at the ANU Supercomputing Facility consists of eight T9840 tape drives, 4 T9940 tape drives, 2 Redwood tape drives as well as a tape and disk storage area network. In an effort to assist university and observatory staff in the recovery process StorageTek has offered a further 9730 tape drive on loan.
With the data still intact, observatory staff are being temporarily housed alongside the ANU's Supercomputing Facility, where about 20 terminals have been set up to provide access to mail servers, and research data.
However, Young points out the observatory will ultimately need more than data access in order to resume its scientific endeavours.
"At the moment we do have a physical space in which to work, but it is not quite conducive to a normal working environment, we have engineers and designers who need more room to and access to specialist equipment which was unfortunately lost in the blaze," Young said. "A lot of the staff also lived on Mt Stromlo and are coping with the loss of their homes and there was a lot of history in the building itself, we're all very sad."
Most of these people would have been no better off with a warning, except maybe saving a few possessions.
Fire raining from the sky is not something firefighters are generally equipped to do, ever.
Most of the damage occurred in just 2 hours, and there was never going to be enough resources for that.
This was not an ordinary bushfire.
For those interested, most of the damage was caused not by regular fires, but by a "firestorm", burning embers raining down from the sky. This caused hundreds of spot fires around the suburbs, and in inaccessible areas, gaps between houses and fences, in power poles. This type of fire (this large) has never happened in Australia before.
m .au/National/story_45108.asp
For those blaming fire services for not being fast enough, some facts:
* The Canberra fire forces are equipped to deal with SIX house fires at the same time.
* Over FOUR HUNDRED homes have been destroyed.
Many more fires have burned and been put out by residents using garden hoses and garden tools.
Even those of you without a calculator can probably see where the problem lies.
Some suburbs have lost access to water completely, with water station pumps burned out.
One power station has been completely razed, residents in that area may be without power for a month or more.
Several fire engines and police cars have been lost, roads are blocked by fallen trees and power lines, some of which are on fire.
Firefighters have been out saving other people's homes while their own burned to the ground.
A fire station itself caught fire, and no engines went to put it out, as people's homes were still in danger.
Give them some credit for putting their lives and homes on the line, to save others.
_______________________
News links:
Residents are posting in a Canberra community at LiveJournal.
Canberra Communtiy
Google news about Canberra:
Google news
Canberra Connect Government Website (sometimes is not loading)
Canberra Connect
ACT Bushfire Status
www.esb.act.gov.au/media/bushfire.htm
Red Cross locating evacuees
www.news.com.au
Make a donation to the Red Cross
RedCross.org.au
_______________________
There's news from Observatory astronomers here
_______________________
http://news.ninemsn.co
Fires destroy Stromlo observatory
Irreplaceable equipment worth millions of dollars was destroyed when the Canberra bushfires ravaged the historic Mount Stromlo Observatory.
Research officer Vince Ford, a 38-year veteran of the observatory, told AAP staff were given 20 minutes' notice to evacuate as a fire storm on Mount Stromlo caught authorities by surprise.
A single road through pine forests links the observatory, established by the Commonwealth in 1924, with suburban Canberra.
"There's no way we could have saved it," Mr Ford said.
The fire storm destroyed all the observatory's telescopes and the original observatory building, which dated back to 1924.
"It's gone, it's all gone," Mr Ford said.
"We've lost all the telescopes, the administration building, which was the original observatory back in 1924.
"The first telescope has actually been there since 1910, it's gone.
"The main research telescopes, the 74-inch and 50-inch, they're gone. I've just seen pictures of it from the air and we don't have a telescope left."
The Australian National University (ANU) facility was one the premier astronomy training and research centres in Australia.
"(It's a huge loss) from a historical point of view, from a cultural point of view, from a scientific point of view," Mr Ford said.
"It's an absolute disaster."
Observatory staff still hope they may be able to salvage some of their research, stored on computers in office buildings that might have escaped the worst of the blaze.
The observatory offices are believed to be standing, but have been water damaged.
"At least we should be able to recover the hard disks from some of the computers, but at this stage we're guessing," Mr Ford said.
"All we know is the observatory is gone."
Some back-up files would also have been stored at the main ANU campus in Canberra.
"But a lot of the work will be at the observatory," Mr Ford said.
"Some of us, being suspicious sods, have stuff at home, but most of it would have been on the computers or in the offices up at the observatory."
ANU vice-chancellor Ian Chubb was due to meet observatory chiefs to be briefed on the extent of the damage. ©AAP 2003
http://www.livejournal.com/download/?platform=Mozi lla
that entirely depends on the girl (and a guy for that matter).
a thoughtless present is quite obvious, a clothes washer for instance, is not a present, it's a household appliance.
cash can be considered impersonal by many, and not just women...
buy her what she likes... if she likes tech toys, buy her tech toys...
but don't assume she's only interested in "girly" things, unless you know she is...
the Moller Skycar? http://www.moller.com/skycar/
fuck all these inventions... where's the beef? I'd also add to this list a matter transmitter... all I've ever wanted for Christmas is a matter transmitter...
they have both... while they get a lot of extra links, some of these "escape" links are really quite sarcastic in their reference to Disney, and it's not neccessarily a compliment to their content... I have seen a lot of humor sites that link to Disney if you can't handle jokes etc... really, I'm not sure that Disney deserves feeling at all, it's merely a quirk of society...
but it's worth repeating.
Google.com is popular because of it's high moral ground, which it has had since the beginning.
I personally switched to Google because:
* it gave me more accurate results
* it has a fast loading page
* it had an honest results policy
* it's not a parasite site, running on the coat tails of others (eg. metacrawler)
The reasons I continue to use Google are:
* as above
* it has inoffensive (to me) advertising
* it has a toolbar that saves me time on searching
* it's as good as a spellchecker
* it can display pdf files in html
* it can search pdf files
* google cache
"Before all the ruckus of living in a "global village" where we are all connected via the internet, there was the idea of "six degrees of separation," or the "small world theory." The theory posits the idea that everyone in the world is separated from everyone else by only an average of six people. That is to say, the only thing which separates you from the President, the Pope, a farmer in China, and Kevin Bacon is six people.
:), Jenny :P, Bill :{, and Chrissy 23).
It's a strange and beautiful concept. It is fascinating to think that we are all in some way interrelated by only six people or that we have some connection to people even in the remotest part of the world.
The "small world" theory was first proposed by the eminent psychologist, Stanley Milgram. In 1967 he conducted a study where he gave 150 random people from Omaha, Nebraska and Wichita, Kansas a folder which contained a name and some personal data of a target person across the country. They were instructed to pass the document folder on to one friend that they felt would most likely know the target person.
To his surprise, the number of intermediary steps ranged from 2 to 10, with 5 being the most common number (where 6 came from is anyone's guess). What the study proved was how closely we are connected to seemingly disparate parts of the world. It also provided an explanation for why gossip, jokes, forwards, and even diseases could rapidly spread through a population.
Of course, the six people that connect you and the President aren't just any six people. The study showed that some people are more connected than others and act as "short cuts," or hubs which connect you to other people.
Take for example, your connection with a doctor in Africa. Chances are your six childhood friends who you've grown up with aren't going to connect you to someone across the country, much less across the ocean. But let's say you meet someone in college who travels often, or is involved in the military or the Peace Corp. That one person who has traveled and has had contact with a myriad of other people will be your "short cut" to that doctor in Africa.
Likewise, say that you want to figure out your connection to a favorite Hollywood socialite. If you have a friend who is well connected in the Industry, that person will act as a bridge between your sphere of existence and the Hollywood circuit.
The Proof
Mathematicians have created models proving the validity of the "small world" theory.
First, there is the Regular Network model where people are linked to only their closest neighbors. Imagine growing up in a cave and the only people you have contact with for the rest of your life are in that cave with you.
Then there is the Random Network model where people are randomly connected to other people regardless of distance, space, etc..
In the real world, human interconnectedness is a synthesis of these two models. We are intimately connected to the people in our immediate vicinity (Regular Network), but we are also connected to people from distant random places (Random Network) through such means as travel, college, and work. It is by our intermingling with different people that our connections increase.
You may meet someone in class that is from a different country, or whose father works in Hollywood, or whose mother owns a magazine. By this mingling and constant interaction your potential contact with the rest of the world increases exponentially.
The Internet
The Small World theory is interesting in light of recent advances in communication technology--namely, the internet.
You can now instantly make contact with someone across the world through a chat room, email, or through ICQ. In all of human history, it has never been easier to get in tough with someone across the globe.
The great irony, of course, is that although we are making contact with such a vast number of people, the quality of the contact is becoming terribly depersonalized. Our email, chat, and ICQ friends may number in the hundreds, but for the most part we'll only know them as a line of text skittering across the screen and a computer beep.
That's not to say that there is never a cross over from the virtual world of the internet to the "real" world. But a majority of the time, the closest you'll get to actually meeting your fellow e-buddies in the flesh are the pictures they email you (notice how everyone oddly looks like Pam Lee or Tom Cruise), or a series of smilies (meet my friend Sandra
Never in the history of mankind has there been so much technology to keep us connected.This is with so little true connection. Everything from cellular phones, pagers, voice mail, and email were designed so that we would never be alone again. Human contact would only be a few convenient buttons away. But what seems to be happening is that the convenient buttons are superceding real people. Despite the appearance of all this technology, we're still pretty much where we started, with the exception of a motley crew of digital displays, flashing lights, and cutesy computer alerts to keep us company.
Don't get me wrong. The Internet Revolution is great and is making our lives easier. But as with ice cream, money, and sex -- too much of a good thing can be bad (money and sex are sometimes exceptions). What good are all the conveniences and promises of instant material gratification if you don't really live. The virtual world is good, but we shouldn't forsake it for the real world. The macabre image in the Matrix where we are all plugged into computers unbeknownst to us is a parable of what could be our future. A future where people never leave their homes and where we're all so dependent on computers. We wouldn't be able to walk outside without a pang of separation anxiety.
As we enter the new millennium, there is no doubt that we will be living increasingly wired existences. Perhaps Milgram's study will be annotated, and perhaps we will find that we're only separated by three degrees of email. But what good is that if the only "handshakes" going on are between our computers??
Russ
http://www.accc.gov.au/consumer/consumer.htm
it's about pleasant design... useful things do not need to be ugly... or unpleasant to touch...
I've been asking Santa for a matter transmitter for years...
I guess I could ignore my disinterest in Valentine's Day if I got one of those...
the big difference there is that Google is a *better* search engine...
i ng +of+life%3F
you don't need to be savvy at forming search queries...
Google even knows the meaning of life
http://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+mean
I mean more in regards to the big guys wanting it to be just as hard online, as in the bricks and mortar world, for the little guys...
if the little guys allow indexing, and have a great site, they have a chance...
loads of advertising money doesn't make up for workd of mouth (which linking is a form of), and google tracks how much sites are linked, but also, and importantly, who they are linked by...
upstarts do better out of a search engine than the big guys do, depending on what a person is searching for...
I don't know why you'd want to search "pants manufacturer", it's not something I would enter as a consumer...
"geek" however, yields a far more interesting result in terms of upstarts...
http://www.google.com/search?q=geek
this verbalises something I have been experiencing of late... at work I have a Google toolbar which I installed, giving me a search box in my browser that went to the search engine of my choice (just like the good old days). Not only does this toolbar take me straight to Google, but it also keeps track of my most recent searches, which is handy if you realise you forgot to bookmark that page you just searched for...
but I digress... I have noticed that when I use another's browser, that does not have this toolbar, I feel surprised... "what! no Google? what kind of browser is this?"
I am no longer satisfied with a browser that cannot search Google easily.
domains are becoming less *and* more important at the same time... having decent search engines at our disposal, we can find what we are looking for, whether those with the domains like it or not...
and by that same token, excuses cannot be used by large corporations to bully small operators about "confusion" regarding domain name disputes.
http://www.you-suck.com/mutant/mutant.shtml will take you to the real page, no matter what browser...
The biggest problem with spam is the increased traffic load.
The spammers are the problem, not the spamees.
Better Homes and Gardens in Australia is using a mangled version of the Beatles' song as their theme song...
The second amendment is subject to discussion because it is written in a way that allows two meanings.
Regulated individuals are allowed to carry weapons if they are on call to the public to defend the free state in an emergency.
or
Individuals are allowed to carry weapons. (how people seem to treat it today)
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
militia
(m-lsh) n.
An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.
regulate
(rgy-lt)
tr.v. regulated, regulating, regulates
To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law.
To adjust to a particular specification or requirement: regulate temperature.
To adjust (a mechanism) for accurate and proper functioning.
To put or maintain in order: regulate one's eating habits.
You can give me@privacy.net to those companies who insist you supply one.
If email is sent to that address, it sends them an automatic message that says:
"This is an autoresponse from me@privacy.net.
The user who provided this address did not want you to have his/her e-mail address in an effort to try to prevent receiving unwanted e-mail and/or keep their identity private.
Businesses: The person who provided you with this e-mail address did not perceive value in receiving your e-mail and/or did not want to provide you with their identity. The person did not "opt-in" to your e-mail and/or did not subscribe to your mailing list. If this address is "subscribed" to a mailing list then you have not taken steps to verify subscribers to the list. Please remove me@privacy.net from your list. You may wish to consider concentrating on improving the value of your offers so consumers will request to receive them rather than taking steps to avoid receiving your e-mail.
http://privacy.net"
a good idea... but there's always limitations on behavioral assumptions...
if I've burned my fingertip, I may type funny...
if someone's talking to me, I may type funny...
if it's a shitty keypad, I may type funny...
if I've just put on fake nails, I may type funny...