I don't speak for this particular company, but I would guess that you are not their target audience. They are trying to solve the last mile problem for people that can't get DSL at present - i.e., those that are too far from an exchange, or those that live in an area whose broadband demands are sufficiently small that the local exchange isn't going to get upgraded, or whose existing cable infrastructure won't handle a DSL signal.
This is no small problem. I live in a residential area in a populous state capital (>1 million residents), yet I can't get DSL because my local phone infrastructure doesn't support it. An airborne solution gets around this limitation; I just need to put an antenna on my roof. I would give my right arm for this kind of solution where I live. As it is, I'm limited to a 56k dialup.
Nah - What you need is to take a bachelor lesson from PJ O'Rourke.
You will need: - 1 set of dishes, purchased at local thrift store - 2 pot lids, also from thrift store. - About 20 boxes of jello crystals.
Method: 1) Cook dinner. Use a fresh plate for each meal. 2) When meal is complete, scrape excess off plate into bin, put plate in sink. 3) Turn on hot tap, add enough water to cover plate. 4) Add 2 boxes of jello to the water. Allow the jello to set. 5) Each meal, repeat steps 1-4. 6) When the sink is almost full, put the two pot lids in the sink, handles upwards, fill the sink with hot water (leaving the handles on the pot lids exposed), and add the last of your jello. 7) When the jello sets, you should have a sink full of jello and dishes, with two pot handles exposed at the top of the jello. 8) Use the two exposed handles to pull the entire jello block out of the sink, take the sink-sized jello cube to the thrift store, and put it in the donations bin. Then go into the thrift store, and buy a new set of dishes, and two more pot lids.
The thrift store will then clean your dishes of leftover food and jello, before putting them back on sale. Next week, when you deliver another jello cube, you can buy the same cleaned dishes again. The money you pay buying the same dishes over and over is a donation to the thrift store, so they keep someone needy employed, and you get nice clean dishes for every meal.
Pretty much like paper currency. A plastic note feels pretty much like a fresh paper note in terms of properties; a little stiff and textured, but still very pliable. By feel, they are obviously not paper, but they don't feel like you're playing with a cheap plastic wrapper either.
The difference is that these properties don't really change as they get older. The notes get a few more creases in them, but they don't start to feel like tissuepaper like paper notes do.
The creases are about the only problem; it can be a bit of a pain to flatten them out, but on the whole, I gotta say I prefer them.
As a result, they last a lot longer in circulation - about 4 times longer. The down side is that they tend to tear catastophically; once a tear is started, it runs through the note fairly easily. However, it's very hard to start a tear in the first place (contrast with paper notes, which are easy to start a tear, but tend to tear slowly once started).
What exactly is in that window - some sort of hologram or other image?
Its a clear window, with an image in white ink in it. Each note has a different image. For example, the $10 note has a windmill. Its not a complex image - just a basic silhouette. There are some other security measures; microprinting, front/back alignment marks, that sort of thing. No RFID tags yet:-)
I take it each denomination has its own color and size, but I think differing size would make it hard to carry around in your wallet.
Each note is the same height, but each larger denomination is slightly (7mm, IIRC) longer. The longest note ($100) fits easily in an average wallet. A $10 note (all that I have with me at the moment) is about the same height, but about 20mm shorter than standard US currency. That would make a $100 about the same size as a US banknote. (I don't have one with me to compare)
However, the real benefit is the colour. You look into a wallet stuffed with AUD bills, and you can tell if you have a little or a lot of money. See lots of pink, you've got lots of $5. See lots of green, you've got lots of $100. Single colour currency is one of the hardest thing I've had to get used to in the US. (that, plus tipping, and the fact that sales tax is never on the advertised price - but that's another story...)
I've got a copy of Interface from a few years back that is definitely Stephen Bury; its the Australian printing. It has a "another name for Neal Stephenson, author of Diamond Age" sticker on it.
However, I have also seen a recent Australian printing under Stephenson in bookstores.
I can't belive you missed "The Big U" out of that list. Recently reprinted, it's different from Neal's more recent fare, but for anyone who has seen university politics up close, it's fantastic.
Interface and Cobweb are the two books written under the pseudonum of Stephen Bury.
You're mostly there - he goes all hermit, but then he kills himself. It's not said outright, though - its a really subtle reference to someone finding him, and finding his feet off the ground, spinning slowly in the breeze (i.e., he hung himself in the doorway).
Unfortunately, I haven't got my copy of BNW with me, so I can't give you an exact quote.
Huxley's Brave New World has already been turned into a film - twice - and both times as a telemovie. First in 1980, then again in 1998.
I haven't seen the 1980 version, but the 1998 version was shown on the SciFi channel a few weeks back. It wasn't too bad a rendition; to my mind, it captured the intended ambience, but it fully mangled the ending into a "and they all lived happily ever after", rather than "and he couldn't take it any more so he killed himself"...
True, this legislation won't have a big effect on international spamhausen, but it can be used to nail the ones that we know exist and operate from within Australia. For example, The Which Company, also trading as Business Seminars Australia and T3 Direct:
These guys send me 2 or three spams a day selling their 'Positive Workplace Strategies' workshops, and 'guaranteed sales handbooks'.
This particular bunch of inbreds gained recent notoriety by attempting to sue a local individual who put a spam block on them./. reported this, but I can't find the link... here is an article in the SMH about the case.
If this legislation served only to eliminate this bunch from my inbox, it would serve the eliminating a known and prolific source of spam from my inbox, plus give me a warm fuzzy feeling for weeks... and I'm certain that BSA/Which are not the only Australian based spammers.
Down here in Australia, US:Crepe = AUS:pancake, and US:pancake = AUS:pikelet. I believe there are parts of England where this is also the case.
Russ %-)
Re:Ganglion cysts are basically harmless
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Mouse Not Required?
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· Score: 1
I must concur with eht on with this one. My sister had a ganglion cyst removed from her wrist. The Doctor advised that there was nothing really to worry about, other than the purely cosmetic aspect. She had it removed anyway.
5 years later, the cyst has returned. Plus, she now has a lovely scar on her wrist from the original removal....
Because HTML is supposed to mark-up the -content- of a webpage, and not be used as a layout engine. The data is contained within the tags, so you're right there, but the tags should describe what the data actually is.
This is true; however, back in the real world (you know, the one where Disney and MS Frontpage are responsible for web pages), you can count the number of web pages that use the HTML as a markup language on one hand.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the population (and, for that matter, web "designers") don't appreciate the significance of content/form separation, and so they use HTML tags like they use MS Word - "How do I make this bit of text centered bold 16pt?".
HTML is to blame for this, IMHO. It provides all sorts of tags, and virtually all of them are display driven (Bold, Italic, Center), rather than semantic driven (section heading, emphasis) labels. And, humans being the lazy, habit driven animals that we are, I don't see the old HTML tags disappearing for many years to come. As a result, genuinely useful content indexing is just as much of a pipe dream.
Since you seem to know about Qt on Windows/Mac, I'll ask here...
Sure, Qt can be used on Unix, Windows or Mac, but how does it achieve the native platform Look-and-feel? From the screenshots, it appears that there is are Windows and Mac themes, but how does it achieve this theme?
Does it:
Draw a theme that "looks" like windows, with behaviour managed by Qt
Use system native drawing routines to draw widgets that look like native widgets, but whose behaviour is still managed by Qt
Use system native widgets (actually create an MFC button), gaining the look AND feel of the native platform
Swing, and the "redmond" theme of GTK+ do (1); even these well maintained toolkits miss minor details in their rendering of system native widgets, so they end up just looking wrong. In addition, the interactions with menus, buttons, etc differ in subtle ways from genuine system native, making applications built using them respond in an unexpected manner.
From what I can make out, the nativeWin theme for GTK+ does (2), so it should look right, but it will still feel alien.
The only toolkit I can think of that does (3) is wxWindows. IMHO, this is the best solution, as it ends up with a genuinely platform native look and feel. However, I haven't ever programmed with wxWindows, so I can't comment on it as a toolkit in practice.
Under unix (1) doesn't really matter, because there IS no "system native"; as long as all your apps use the same toolkit, (vis, Gnome or KDE), you don't end with apps that feel wrong.
So - Which category does Qt fall into? Does anyone know of any other multiplatform toolkits that fall into category 3?
God damn I'm sick of people whinging about this. John Howard has publicly stated that he regrets it, offers his condolences, yada yada yada.
Settle, Gretel. Read my comment again. I did nothing but state the facts - John Howard has refused to apologise. And he has (using pretty much those words, IIRC). I made no suggestion or demand that he _should_ apologise, or _must_ apologise. I very deliberately avoided doing so.
That's the best ANY prime minister can do
On this point, you are wrong. There is precedent.
The PM of Canada apologised for the treatment of the Innuit. In a public reconciliation ceremony just a few years back, he used the exact words "We Are Sorry". You will note that the Canada has not imploded as a result.
A "should he apologise" discussion is badly off topic here, but I had to correct you on this point.
now, first - i have to apologize to all those other John Howards out there (yes, even the multiple in australia) for having to share this name
It's not just the commoners who have to deal with the shame - there's a reasonably prominent TV actor in Australia by the name of John Howard. He's in a few TV shows at the moment (He was in SeaChange, now in Always Greener).
This was played to great effect in a satire show called "The Games"; in the show, John Howard (the actor) went on TV to apologise for the governments historical treatment of the indigenous population - something that John Howard (the PM) refuses to do.
There isn't a central Austrialian Jedi Order Church to give the money to, so I imagine it wouldn't be allocated to the first guy that claimed to be the JediPope.
That would be me. I'm the Right Honourable JediPope.
I take cash, cheques, direct debit, and most major credit cards.
Well, if you have access to the bandwidth, try streaming Triple J.
It's an Australian station, free-to-air (but internet streamed as well), and government funded, with a mandate to service the "youth" market. In it's FM, free-to-air form, it generally holds between 5% and 15% of market share in the 15-30 age bracket (depending on location).
Don't let the government funding discourage you - the only notable side effect is the fact that there are no ads (other than station ID's, and the occasional concert/competition promo). There is a reasonable current affairs show that runs 9am-12am (AEDT, GMT+10), and it is often critical of government policy.
It's very indy-centric (you won't _ever_ hear Brittney or N'Sync), so the playlist contains lots of Aussie independent bands with a history of putting on good gigs, and they only rarely step into the 80's, and then only for some Stranglers or Violent Femmes - don't expect to hear any Ultravox.
The DJ's are also very refreshing - very low key, laid back, not afraid to get down, dirty and swear, or get intellectual just for a change. None of that "All top 40 rock, all the time" overproduced, overhyped BS that seems to overflow on commercial stations.
Unfortunately, they only stream RealPlayer or Windows Media Player - but IHMO they're well worth the listen. Or, if you're in Australia, turn on the radio, and pick it up on the old transistor...
Ok - time to clear this one up right now. Nobody in Australia - and I mean nobody - drinks Fosters. I can't even recall the last time I saw if available for sale in a liquor store, or on tap in a pub.
Oh, sure, we have some very ordinary mass produced, mass marketed beers (Caslemaine XXXX, Swan Gold, Emu Export, and others). We also have some really good mass market beers (Redback would be a personal favourite; even Victoria Bitter isn't that bad). However, calling Fosters an Australian beer is so far from the truth it defies description. It's not brewed here, and it's not sold here - so how exactly is it Australian?
Russ %-)
What about the transition defects?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Well, it has a full set of images over a logarithmic range, but I'm not sure I'd say its well done. It's really just a slide show with a Powerpoint-esque transition effect.
There are a number of slides that are quite bad transitions. Look at the 1 nanometer->1 angstrom transition. The 1 angstrom image bears no resemblance to the 1 nm image; the corners of the "zoom" rectangle from one image should correspond to the outer corners on the next image. Similar problems exist throughout the slides in space.
As I recall, one of the beautiful things with the movie is that the transitions are seamless; the zoom out was continuous, and you never really got the impression that the images must have been from different sources
If you're serious about understanding the topic, and not just looking for a "QM in 21 days for Idiots in a Nutshell" version, hunt down Richard Feynmann's "Lectures on Physics" series, especially Volume III (IIRC). He was an incredibly intelligent man, and a gifted communicator; the lecture series is a good (if complex) read.
...regular users don't need anymore than 3Gb per month. Unless you're a techie and downloading a lot of Linux ISOs or watching independant movies, 3Gb per month will get you a long way
However, you will notice that the people complaining about the 3GB limit are ususally those who were sucking 10GB of warez a month. The "normal" consumer in Australia hasn't even considered ADSL yet.
Admittedly, some people do have a legit claim - Telstra sold their service as "unlimited bandwidth", and then imposed a limit. However, now that limits are here, I for one expect them to stay.
Perhaps it's time for ISPs to charge per megabyte? There's no such thing as 'unlimited' or 'free'.. you end up paying in the end. So why not charge per megabyte, which will force users to consider what they're actually downloading.
There are already some ISP's in Australia doing just this. TPG for instance charges A$26.95 per month, plus 15c a meg. Note - this is not intended as an advert - I know nothing about their quality of service, or their terms and conditions, just their pricing scheme.
US$0.01 per megabyte sounds fair.
Sounds fair to whom? I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Oz, whenever paying for bandwidth gets mentioned, the same figure of $0.15-0.18 per meg gets mentioned (eg, this figure was always mentioned at uni whenever volume billing was suggested to a department).
That said, I notice that TPG sells high levels of bandwidth at 5c/meg - I have no idea where their figures come from.
It may be fair for the consumer to pay 1c/meg, but not if the supplier is paying 1+Xc/meg, X>0...
Most people outside the math community (including of course the other formula heavy communities like computer science, physics, etc.) use word or similarly feature rich word processors. Latex doesn't have these features, nor do adequate conversion tools for latex exist (i.e. tools that preserve structure, crossreferences, formatting and graphics).
Ironically, these "features" of word processors are the biggest hurdle to overcome in publishing. From the publishers perspective, the author should have NO control over the formatting etc or the article to be published.
For example, the IEEE accepts documents in almost any format, including Word, Wordperfect, LaTeX, and hardcopy. When a document is received for publication, the first step taken is to RETYPESET the ENTIRE document (for the record, in SGML). Any formatting information is summarily lost in the conversion process (which is performed by automated text stripping tools).
This display agnostic perspective is exactly what LaTeX promotes: the author has limited control (or should have, with a good style sheet) over the appearance of a document. The author should stick to what they are good at - writing up results.
I severely doubt there is a single serious publishing house that uses Word as their desktop publishing solution. If there is any preference for Word as a submission format, its probably because they have their automated tools already set up to strip text out of Word, and into whatever tools they use internally.
On a personal note: I had the experience of publishing a set of conference proceedings a few years back for a small student conference. From my experience, the single greatest obstacle in producing the proceedings was Word, and its "helpful" auto-typsetting. If I had my time over, the first thing I would have done would be to strip the text from documents, stick it into LaTeX, and write a good style sheet.
In this case, I'd recommend looking into DocBook. I haven't used it myself but, from all accounts, it produces publication quality text. And, if I recall correctly, it can generate TeX, LaTeX, HTML, and RTF.
I think you misunderstand what DocBook is. DocBook is an SGML/XML specification for annotating "booklike" documents. It is very similar to LaTeX is many respects. It is a text markup language, whose tags (chapter, section, part, etc) are suited to annotating content in a document. The only notable difference (other than syntax) is the absence of rendering information in a Docbook document. This step is performed by a document processor which converts the DocBook into HTML, PS, whatever.
Note, however, that this is what a LaTeX document should be like anyway - a LaTeX document itself should not contain display information, only content markup. The style sheet/class should be the sole source of rendering information.
The upside of Docbook is the syntax - it's XML style tags in the document, which makes the document much easier to parse using standard tools. It also has a tag set which completely omits any display related information.
The downside of Docbook is also is the syntax. XML tags are a pain to write by hand (in comparison to LaTeX style tags, anyway). The only way of alleviating this pain would be with a WYSIWYG tool for Docbook creation, but I can't say I know of any.
If someone is having problems with getting LaTeX accepted by a community, DocBook isn't going to solve their problem (if anything, it will marginalise them further). The only solution I can think of would be to find a tool that produces Word/WP documents from tagged/markup source, but I don't know of any such tool (RTF converters don't count - it's hamstrung as a document format when compared to LaTeX; you would be better served just loading the raw text into the word processor and converting it by hand).
Slashdot Mirror
I don't speak for this particular company, but I would guess that you are not their target audience. They are trying to solve the last mile problem for people that can't get DSL at present - i.e., those that are too far from an exchange, or those that live in an area whose broadband demands are sufficiently small that the local exchange isn't going to get upgraded, or whose existing cable infrastructure won't handle a DSL signal.
This is no small problem. I live in a residential area in a populous state capital (>1 million residents), yet I can't get DSL because my local phone infrastructure doesn't support it. An airborne solution gets around this limitation; I just need to put an antenna on my roof. I would give my right arm for this kind of solution where I live. As it is, I'm limited to a 56k dialup.
Russ %-)
Nah - What you need is to take a bachelor lesson from PJ O'Rourke.
You will need:
- 1 set of dishes, purchased at local thrift store
- 2 pot lids, also from thrift store.
- About 20 boxes of jello crystals.
Method:
1) Cook dinner. Use a fresh plate for each meal.
2) When meal is complete, scrape excess off plate into bin, put plate in sink.
3) Turn on hot tap, add enough water to cover plate.
4) Add 2 boxes of jello to the water. Allow the jello to set.
5) Each meal, repeat steps 1-4.
6) When the sink is almost full, put the two pot lids in the sink, handles upwards, fill the sink with hot water (leaving the handles on the pot lids exposed), and add the last of your jello.
7) When the jello sets, you should have a sink full of jello and dishes, with two pot handles exposed at the top of the jello.
8) Use the two exposed handles to pull the entire jello block out of the sink, take the sink-sized jello cube to the thrift store, and put it in the donations bin. Then go into the thrift store, and buy a new set of dishes, and two more pot lids.
The thrift store will then clean your dishes of leftover food and jello, before putting them back on sale. Next week, when you deliver another jello cube, you can buy the same cleaned dishes again. The money you pay buying the same dishes over and over is a donation to the thrift store, so they keep someone needy employed, and you get nice clean dishes for every meal.
Russ %-)
How does the plastic money handle?
:-)
Pretty much like paper currency. A plastic note feels pretty much like a fresh paper note in terms of properties; a little stiff and textured, but still very pliable. By feel, they are obviously not paper, but they don't feel like you're playing with a cheap plastic wrapper either.
The difference is that these properties don't really change as they get older. The notes get a few more creases in them, but they don't start to feel like tissuepaper like paper notes do.
The creases are about the only problem; it can be a bit of a pain to flatten them out, but on the whole, I gotta say I prefer them.
As a result, they last a lot longer in circulation - about 4 times longer. The down side is that they tend to tear catastophically; once a tear is started, it runs through the note fairly easily. However, it's very hard to start a tear in the first place (contrast with paper notes, which are easy to start a tear, but tend to tear slowly once started).
What exactly is in that window - some sort of hologram or other image?
Its a clear window, with an image in white ink in it. Each note has a different image. For example, the $10 note has a windmill. Its not a complex image - just a basic silhouette. There are some other security measures; microprinting, front/back alignment marks, that sort of thing. No RFID tags yet
I take it each denomination has its own color and size, but I think differing size would make it hard to carry around in your wallet.
Each note is the same height, but each larger denomination is slightly (7mm, IIRC) longer. The longest note ($100) fits easily in an average wallet. A $10 note (all that I have with me at the moment) is about the same height, but about 20mm shorter than standard US currency. That would make a $100 about the same size as a US banknote. (I don't have one with me to compare)
However, the real benefit is the colour. You look into a wallet stuffed with AUD bills, and you can tell if you have a little or a lot of money. See lots of pink, you've got lots of $5. See lots of green, you've got lots of $100. Single colour currency is one of the hardest thing I've had to get used to in the US. (that, plus tipping, and the fact that sales tax is never on the advertised price - but that's another story...)
Russ %-)
I've got a copy of Interface from a few years back that is definitely Stephen Bury; its the Australian printing. It has a "another name for Neal Stephenson, author of Diamond Age" sticker on it.
However, I have also seen a recent Australian printing under Stephenson in bookstores.
Russ %-)
I can't belive you missed "The Big U" out of that list. Recently reprinted, it's different from Neal's more recent fare, but for anyone who has seen university politics up close, it's fantastic.
Interface and Cobweb are the two books written under the pseudonum of Stephen Bury.
Russ %-)
You're mostly there - he goes all hermit, but then he kills himself. It's not said outright, though - its a really subtle reference to someone finding him, and finding his feet off the ground, spinning slowly in the breeze (i.e., he hung himself in the doorway).
Unfortunately, I haven't got my copy of BNW with me, so I can't give you an exact quote.
Russ %-)
Huxley's Brave New World has already been turned into a film - twice - and both times as a telemovie. First in 1980, then again in 1998.
I haven't seen the 1980 version, but the 1998 version was shown on the SciFi channel a few weeks back. It wasn't too bad a rendition; to my mind, it captured the intended ambience, but it fully mangled the ending into a "and they all lived happily ever after", rather than "and he couldn't take it any more so he killed himself"...
Russ %-)
True, this legislation won't have a big effect on international spamhausen, but it can be used to nail the ones that we know exist and operate from within Australia. For example, The Which Company, also trading as Business Seminars Australia and T3 Direct:
/. reported this, but I can't find the link... here is an article in the SMH about the case.
ABN: 90 091 728 620
Postal: P.O. Box 159, Northbridge W.A. 6865
Phone: (08) 9463 7807 Fax: (08) 9463 7808
These guys send me 2 or three spams a day selling their 'Positive Workplace Strategies' workshops, and 'guaranteed sales handbooks'.
This particular bunch of inbreds gained recent notoriety by attempting to sue a local individual who put a spam block on them.
If this legislation served only to eliminate this bunch from my inbox, it would serve the eliminating a known and prolific source of spam from my inbox, plus give me a warm fuzzy feeling for weeks... and I'm certain that BSA/Which are not the only Australian based spammers.
Russ %-)
Down here in Australia, US:Crepe = AUS:pancake, and US:pancake = AUS:pikelet. I believe there are parts of England where this is also the case.
Russ %-)
I must concur with eht on with this one. My sister had a ganglion cyst removed from her wrist. The Doctor advised that there was nothing really to worry about, other than the purely cosmetic aspect. She had it removed anyway.
5 years later, the cyst has returned. Plus, she now has a lovely scar on her wrist from the original removal....
Russ %-)
....er.... Takes one to know one...
:-)
D'oh!
Russ
Because HTML is supposed to mark-up the -content- of a webpage, and not be used as a layout engine. The data is contained within the tags, so you're right there, but the tags should describe what the data actually is.
This is true; however, back in the real world (you know, the one where Disney and MS Frontpage are responsible for web pages), you can count the number of web pages that use the HTML as a markup language on one hand.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the population (and, for that matter, web "designers") don't appreciate the significance of content/form separation, and so they use HTML tags like they use MS Word - "How do I make this bit of text centered bold 16pt?".
HTML is to blame for this, IMHO. It provides all sorts of tags, and virtually all of them are display driven (Bold, Italic, Center), rather than semantic driven (section heading, emphasis) labels. And, humans being the lazy, habit driven animals that we are, I don't see the old HTML tags disappearing for many years to come. As a result, genuinely useful content indexing is just as much of a pipe dream.
Russ %-)
Sure, Qt can be used on Unix, Windows or Mac, but how does it achieve the native platform Look-and-feel? From the screenshots, it appears that there is are Windows and Mac themes, but how does it achieve this theme?
Does it:
Swing, and the "redmond" theme of GTK+ do (1); even these well maintained toolkits miss minor details in their rendering of system native widgets, so they end up just looking wrong. In addition, the interactions with menus, buttons, etc differ in subtle ways from genuine system native, making applications built using them respond in an unexpected manner.
From what I can make out, the nativeWin theme for GTK+ does (2), so it should look right, but it will still feel alien.
The only toolkit I can think of that does (3) is wxWindows. IMHO, this is the best solution, as it ends up with a genuinely platform native look and feel. However, I haven't ever programmed with wxWindows, so I can't comment on it as a toolkit in practice.
Under unix (1) doesn't really matter, because there IS no "system native"; as long as all your apps use the same toolkit, (vis, Gnome or KDE), you don't end with apps that feel wrong.
So - Which category does Qt fall into? Does anyone know of any other multiplatform toolkits that fall into category 3?
Russ %-)
No - it's not a tax that they will levy. It's a fine for having appaling taste in music. :-)
Russ %-)
God damn I'm sick of people whinging about this. John Howard has publicly stated that he regrets it, offers his condolences, yada yada yada.
Settle, Gretel. Read my comment again. I did nothing but state the facts - John Howard has refused to apologise. And he has (using pretty much those words, IIRC). I made no suggestion or demand that he _should_ apologise, or _must_ apologise. I very deliberately avoided doing so.
That's the best ANY prime minister can do
On this point, you are wrong. There is precedent.
The PM of Canada apologised for the treatment of the Innuit. In a public reconciliation ceremony just a few years back, he used the exact words "We Are Sorry". You will note that the Canada has not imploded as a result.
A "should he apologise" discussion is badly off topic here, but I had to correct you on this point.
Russ %-)
now, first - i have to apologize to all those other John Howards out there (yes, even the multiple in australia) for having to share this name
It's not just the commoners who have to deal with the shame - there's a reasonably prominent TV actor in Australia by the name of John Howard. He's in a few TV shows at the moment (He was in SeaChange, now in Always Greener).
This was played to great effect in a satire show called "The Games"; in the show, John Howard (the actor) went on TV to apologise for the governments historical treatment of the indigenous population - something that John Howard (the PM) refuses to do.
Russ %-)
There isn't a central Austrialian Jedi Order Church to give the money to, so I imagine it wouldn't be allocated to the first guy that claimed to be the JediPope.
:-)
That would be me. I'm the Right Honourable JediPope.
I take cash, cheques, direct debit, and most major credit cards.
Please give generously.
Russ %-)
Well, if you have access to the bandwidth, try streaming Triple J.
It's an Australian station, free-to-air (but internet streamed as well), and government funded, with a mandate to service the "youth" market. In it's FM, free-to-air form, it generally holds between 5% and 15% of market share in the 15-30 age bracket (depending on location).
Don't let the government funding discourage you - the only notable side effect is the fact that there are no ads (other than station ID's, and the occasional concert/competition promo). There is a reasonable current affairs show that runs 9am-12am (AEDT, GMT+10), and it is often critical of government policy.
It's very indy-centric (you won't _ever_ hear Brittney or N'Sync), so the playlist contains lots of Aussie independent bands with a history of putting on good gigs, and they only rarely step into the 80's, and then only for some Stranglers or Violent Femmes - don't expect to hear any Ultravox.
The DJ's are also very refreshing - very low key, laid back, not afraid to get down, dirty and swear, or get intellectual just for a change. None of that "All top 40 rock, all the time" overproduced, overhyped BS that seems to overflow on commercial stations.
Unfortunately, they only stream RealPlayer or Windows Media Player - but IHMO they're well worth the listen. Or, if you're in Australia, turn on the radio, and pick it up on the old transistor...
Russ %-)
"Foster's. Australian for Piss."
Ok - time to clear this one up right now. Nobody in Australia - and I mean nobody - drinks Fosters. I can't even recall the last time I saw if available for sale in a liquor store, or on tap in a pub.
Oh, sure, we have some very ordinary mass produced, mass marketed beers (Caslemaine XXXX, Swan Gold, Emu Export, and others). We also have some really good mass market beers (Redback would be a personal favourite; even Victoria Bitter isn't that bad). However, calling Fosters an Australian beer is so far from the truth it defies description. It's not brewed here, and it's not sold here - so how exactly is it Australian?
Russ %-)
Well, it has a full set of images over a logarithmic range, but I'm not sure I'd say its well done. It's really just a slide show with a Powerpoint-esque transition effect.
There are a number of slides that are quite bad transitions. Look at the 1 nanometer->1 angstrom transition. The 1 angstrom image bears no resemblance to the 1 nm image; the corners of the "zoom" rectangle from one image should correspond to the outer corners on the next image. Similar problems exist throughout the slides in space.
As I recall, one of the beautiful things with the movie is that the transitions are seamless; the zoom out was continuous, and you never really got the impression that the images must have been from different sources
Russ %-)
To make things worse, he's even quoting wrong.
The scene in Star Trek he is alluding to is between Picard and a Cardassian, not a Romulan. The episode is called "Chain of Command", IIRC.
But - point taken - 1984 comes first by a long way.
Russ %-)
If you're serious about understanding the topic, and not just looking for a "QM in 21 days for Idiots in a Nutshell" version, hunt down Richard Feynmann's "Lectures on Physics" series, especially Volume III (IIRC). He was an incredibly intelligent man, and a gifted communicator; the lecture series is a good (if complex) read.
Russ %-)
...regular users don't need anymore than 3Gb per month. Unless you're a techie and downloading a lot of Linux ISOs or watching independant movies, 3Gb per month will get you a long way
However, you will notice that the people complaining about the 3GB limit are ususally those who were sucking 10GB of warez a month. The "normal" consumer in Australia hasn't even considered ADSL yet.
Admittedly, some people do have a legit claim - Telstra sold their service as "unlimited bandwidth", and then imposed a limit. However, now that limits are here, I for one expect them to stay.
Perhaps it's time for ISPs to charge per megabyte? There's no such thing as 'unlimited' or 'free'.. you end up paying in the end. So why not charge per megabyte, which will force users to consider what they're actually downloading.
There are already some ISP's in Australia doing just this. TPG for instance charges A$26.95 per month, plus 15c a meg. Note - this is not intended as an advert - I know nothing about their quality of service, or their terms and conditions, just their pricing scheme.
US$0.01 per megabyte sounds fair.
Sounds fair to whom? I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in Oz, whenever paying for bandwidth gets mentioned, the same figure of $0.15-0.18 per meg gets mentioned (eg, this figure was always mentioned at uni whenever volume billing was suggested to a department).
That said, I notice that TPG sells high levels of bandwidth at 5c/meg - I have no idea where their figures come from.
It may be fair for the consumer to pay 1c/meg, but not if the supplier is paying 1+Xc/meg, X>0...
Russ %-)
Most people outside the math community (including of course the other formula heavy communities like computer science, physics, etc.) use word or similarly feature rich word processors. Latex doesn't have these features, nor do adequate conversion tools for latex exist (i.e. tools that preserve structure, crossreferences, formatting and graphics).
Ironically, these "features" of word processors are the biggest hurdle to overcome in publishing. From the publishers perspective, the author should have NO control over the formatting etc or the article to be published.
For example, the IEEE accepts documents in almost any format, including Word, Wordperfect, LaTeX, and hardcopy. When a document is received for publication, the first step taken is to RETYPESET the ENTIRE document (for the record, in SGML). Any formatting information is summarily lost in the conversion process (which is performed by automated text stripping tools).
This display agnostic perspective is exactly what LaTeX promotes: the author has limited control (or should have, with a good style sheet) over the appearance of a document. The author should stick to what they are good at - writing up results.
I severely doubt there is a single serious publishing house that uses Word as their desktop publishing solution. If there is any preference for Word as a submission format, its probably because they have their automated tools already set up to strip text out of Word, and into whatever tools they use internally.
On a personal note: I had the experience of publishing a set of conference proceedings a few years back for a small student conference. From my experience, the single greatest obstacle in producing the proceedings was Word, and its "helpful" auto-typsetting. If I had my time over, the first thing I would have done would be to strip the text from documents, stick it into LaTeX, and write a good style sheet.
Russ %-)
In this case, I'd recommend looking into DocBook. I haven't used it myself but, from all accounts, it produces publication quality text. And, if I recall correctly, it can generate TeX, LaTeX, HTML, and RTF.
I think you misunderstand what DocBook is. DocBook is an SGML/XML specification for annotating "booklike" documents. It is very similar to LaTeX is many respects. It is a text markup language, whose tags (chapter, section, part, etc) are suited to annotating content in a document. The only notable difference (other than syntax) is the absence of rendering information in a Docbook document. This step is performed by a document processor which converts the DocBook into HTML, PS, whatever.
Note, however, that this is what a LaTeX document should be like anyway - a LaTeX document itself should not contain display information, only content markup. The style sheet/class should be the sole source of rendering information.
The upside of Docbook is the syntax - it's XML style tags in the document, which makes the document much easier to parse using standard tools. It also has a tag set which completely omits any display related information.
The downside of Docbook is also is the syntax. XML tags are a pain to write by hand (in comparison to LaTeX style tags, anyway). The only way of alleviating this pain would be with a WYSIWYG tool for Docbook creation, but I can't say I know of any.
If someone is having problems with getting LaTeX accepted by a community, DocBook isn't going to solve their problem (if anything, it will marginalise them further). The only solution I can think of would be to find a tool that produces Word/WP documents from tagged/markup source, but I don't know of any such tool (RTF converters don't count - it's hamstrung as a document format when compared to LaTeX; you would be better served just loading the raw text into the word processor and converting it by hand).
Russ %-)