Desert Pea

Sticky tape x-rays

2009-03-20T16:04:00.003+10:30

Here's a really cool story about how sticky tape releases x-rays -- really. They did little sticky-tape-sized x-rays of their fingers!Link: www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/10/23/2398928.htmJust marvellous.Categorised as: technology Technorati Tags: x-ray, UCLA , triboluminescence

Evolution in action

2009-03-13T11:03:00.008+10:30

Was watching a UK documentary1 about Charles Darwin the other day. In it Richard Dawkins was interviewing a prostitute in Kenya who apparently has immunity to HIV. There's a significant percentage of the population infected with HIV, a high rate of clients per day for Nairobi prostitutes who commonly don't use condoms so the odds against prostitutes there contracting HIV are really low. So

2009-03-13T10:45:00.001+10:30

I'm just testing out Ping.fm to Facebook, Blogger and Twitter...

Warning: 450ppm CO2 target would delay doubling of GNP by 6 whole months!

2008-09-08T14:28:00.009+09:30

Criticise him as a utopian leftwing pinko as you wish to, but Clive Hamilton has clearly highlighted how current governing structures and economic practices are ill-equipped to handle climate change legislation.Hamilton has pointed out that, in Australia at least according to Garnaut's modelling, a target of 450ppm of carbon dioxide is going to delay the doubling of Australia's GNP by only 6

Cold and nasty

2008-08-13T10:54:00.018+09:30

This morning I was trawling through the ABC News recent news archive to find some story about cold and nasty weather conditions in Victoria. Instead I was quite incensed to find a story about the cold and nasty organisers of the Olympics Opening Ceremony.Remember that gorgeous little girl in red who was dubbed the Nikki Webster of Beijing. (For those of you not Aussie enough to remember, Webster

Northern Lights: Adelaide cartoonified!

2008-03-19T12:29:00.018+10:30

The Northern Lights show of the Adelaide Festival this year has been one of the most brilliant and striking features. Any day I catch the train after 9:30 this is what I am seeing walking along North Terrace. Last week we took time to sit still and contemplate each projection and, frankly, I never paid such close attention to the architecture of these buildings even though I see them every day.

Why sticking to old ways of thinking is stupid

2008-02-25T17:03:00.005+10:30

I just read an article which tried to critique the Clive Hamilton view of affluenza, "Why Downsizing Won't Work" by Akshay Shanker. It's a relatively immature effort to defend the economic fetish with growth while paying lip service to environmentalism/conservation.His basic premise was that affluence (eg. in post-Industrial Britain) could create the awareness and general social conditions that

Well I failed, but Rudd government doing okay...

2007-12-04T17:14:00.000+10:30

First an update on Buy Nothing Day the Saturday before last... I failed miserably to buy nothing on Buy Nothing Day. Not only was it a Saturday but a day when the Howard government was chucked out after 11 years, meaning a celebration was absolutely in order!First I bought a sausage on bread at the polling booth where I volunteered because I was hungry. Second I bought some hommus to take to the

Balancing the senate

2007-11-23T13:35:00.000+10:30

It's a bit late to be talking about how we could vote tomorrow, but I think this is important so I'll write it anyway. I don't want to be politically partisan here. All I want to do is talk about how you COULD vote in the upper house.As we know, the senate is currently unbalanced. The Liberal party has enough senators (38 out of 76) to block any bill they desire. This is downright dangerous if

Buy nothing on election day!

2007-11-19T17:42:00.000+10:30

On Growth Fetish and Buy Nothing DayThis Saturday, apart from being election day, is Buy Nothing Day (BND). It's on the 23rd in the Americas, but the 24th elsewhere. Anyway, I will participate and encourage you to do so too, or even just think about what you're buying and the resources consumed to produce that product if you really must buy. NOT because I think a world without buying is

SOL: Is online democracy a reality?

2007-10-29T19:10:00.000+10:30

Thanks to Chris who recently sent an email titled True Democracy: Finally... true democracy has arrived that uses modern communication tools. http://senatoronline.com.au It's called Senator Online (or SOL) and it's a special breed of political party with almost no fat of its own. It has no opinions of its own, no real power of its own, and a rigorously transparent administration. Essentially it

Matildas outdo Socceroos

2007-09-22T14:48:00.000+09:30

Remember the excitement last year when the Socceroos got into the round of 16 in the FIFA world cup?Well, there isn't quite as much excitement about it around the traps but now the Matildas (Australian women's soccer team) have exceeded the blokes in the women's equivalent, the FIFA women's world cup, by getting into the quarter finals.Anyone notice the difference in media coverage?The game

The Chaser's war on ABC ratings

2007-09-13T13:16:00.000+09:30

Aunty is no doubt very proud of herself. Not only was the ABC Howard's choice of platform to announce that if he gets re-elected for the fourth time he'll be retiring (??!) but the proud sponsor of the Chaser boys whose show last night was apparently the most-viewed over all TV networks.While some of the stunts (such as attempting to load furniture on to a public bus) were weak as usual, the APEC

A little reflection on flying

2007-09-11T14:59:00.000+09:30

with 100mL bottles not safely tucked into clear plastic bags Previously I'd hated the way my skin would completely dry out from the air-conditioning in the plane and airports. So this time I bought a little 100mL mister containing rose-scented, vitamin-E-fortified water (something like the thing in the picture) to cope with the over 70 hours of flying I'd do for the return trip to Egypt. In

Polticial preference in the DNA?

2007-09-10T17:22:00.000+09:30

I found this article fascinating... Apparently ethics and principle don't play any role in adopting a political preference. It's merely about how well one's brain adapts to breaking a routine! ...Dozens of previous studies have established a strong link between political persuasion and certain personality traits.Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more

Differences in human parallel processing

2007-07-30T00:30:00.000+09:30

I feel like I spend a lot of my time looking at and learning about the world, in some ways more of a passive observer rather than an active participant. Much of the time I feel like reality is so complex I ought to make sure I understand it properly before formulating my ideas about, making comments or taking action. But there are so many issues and so many perspectives, and perspectives of

Victoria Square bubbles

2007-07-11T09:16:00.000+09:30

I just wanted to write a serious post to make up for not having posted for 2 months. Since I last posted many interesting political twists have taken place, given it's an election year, including the grand Howard plan to ban pornography and alcohol in Aboriginal communities in an effort to vilify Aborigines instead of paedophiles tackle the child sex abuse in indigenous communities. More on that

Boycott Zimbabwe cricket match? Only if it doesn't hurt the economy!

2007-05-16T11:20:00.000+09:30

Recently there's been a lot of discussion about the quandary of the Australian cricket team as to whether they should fulfil their contract obligation to play the Zimbabwean team in Zimbabwe or to boycott the match or request for it to be played elsewhere to avoid giving the Mugabe an "enormous propaganda boost",[source] which would likely impose a $2 million fine on the team from the ICC.While

Costello budget 2007: Will he add a stripe of green?

2007-05-02T14:48:00.001+09:30

In the lead-up to Costello's May 8th, election year budget speech, Greenpeace is asking you to guess how many times you think he'll mention climate change (if at all), given he's never mentioned it since he started doing budgets eleven odd years ago.Take a punt on Peter Given the fact that Australia is still the world's largest exporter of coal, he may just be able to manage it once or twice with

How broad is broadband? Not a problem of breadth but universality!

2007-04-19T16:47:00.000+09:30

A really good article in Crikey yesterday that cuts through all the bullshit surrounding claims about broadband in Australia. The fact is that the broadband in my city-centre office is fantastic, fast and affordable for business, but drive and hour outside and it's not. "Better broadband" isn't about Australia performing better against some international benchmarks, but simply providing more

Unprogramming my brain

2007-02-17T14:14:00.001+10:30

It's breaking all the conventions I normally keep for this blog but a bit over a week ago I was finally convinced get back to doing face/body studies, and since then I made agreements with at least three friends to practice with their faces. I find people like the idea of getting a portrait done for free and I like the idea of getting to practice drawing faces of people I feel I know so

Man attacks shark!

2007-02-16T10:52:00.000+10:30

Thanks to the sharp eyes of one who comments here as jair, a jaw-dropping story of when you know you've had too much vodka to be out catching squid! An Eyre Peninsula man is the talk of the town after catching a bronze whaler shark in his hands and wrestling it up onto a jetty.Phillip Kerkhof from Louth Bay was at the local jetty when the 1.3-metre shark began chasing squid lures.He says he

Under Southern Stars rates well under 5 stars

2007-02-05T13:01:00.000+10:30

Amanda Vanstone's freshly penned patriotic song is several stars short of a Southern Cross to me! Under Southern Stars just rings hollow to me and I would be disappointed to see it infiltrated into schools.So here's my uninvited and likely unwelcome critique: Home to first Australians / Joined from near and far / Shining light for freedom / Under southern stars This is a nice acknowledgement

I'm dreaming of a whiiiite new year!

2006-12-29T15:10:00.001+10:30

My blog post here is in large part inspired by Geoff of Radwaste's happy Christmas post which links to Dame Edna's Christmas message. The Dame ends of in customary style "I wish all of my possums..." blah blah blah "...a very wet New Year." Apt, given, as Geoff points out, this Christmas was the coldest in Radwaste recorded history, and in my personal memory. In Melbourne and Adelaide people were

In defence of space budgets: Bold steps may accidentally solve humanitarian problems

2006-11-17T17:45:00.000+10:30

A friend rhetorically asked me why humans are still putting great resources into researching and developing weapons, space programs and a plethora of "useless gadgets". It's a point well taken, but I feel like there is a part of the thinking process missing. Let me try to explain it.From the time of the (European) industrial revolution onwards, the old adage that "need is the mother of all

Quaint memories of DFAT's "battleaxe spinster"

2006-11-13T13:41:00.000+10:30

Geoff of the RadWaste blog has posted an absolute gem! This is a minute paper from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on the pros and cons of hiring women as trade commissioners. Here's a sample of the list (which was almost all cons): A man normally has his household run efficiently by his wife who also looks after much of the entertaining. A woman Trade Commissioner would have all

The prejudice, intolerance and hate common to many religions

2006-11-13T10:56:00.000+10:30

Following the "uncovered meat is the problem not the cats" controversy, Ms Fits has highlighted equivalent comments made by a Baptist pastor in Victoria. Pastor David Hodgens: I confess to being very uncomfortable with the tone and reported content of the sheikh's comments... However, one of the things that seems to have been lost in the ensuing discussion is whether or not the point he seemed to

Al-Hilaly on chastity and fidelity: How can I but blame the victim?

2006-10-26T17:24:00.000+09:30

So Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly has been a ditz again:1 ... In his Ramadan sermon Sheik Hilaly also alluded to the infamous Sydney gang rapes, suggesting the attackers were not entirely to blame.While not specifically referring to the rapes, brutal attacks on four women for which a group of young Lebanese men received long jail sentences, the sheik said there were women who "sway suggestively" and

About desert pea blog

2006-10-18T17:33:00.000+09:30

It's a bit over a year since I started this blog. Given that the inspiration for its conception was to understand what it was like to blog I think it's a good time to write my 'about this blog' page to link to from the sidebar and reflect on what I've discovered over the year. The blogging adventureIn the beginning the main aim of my blog was to test out the blogging experience. I'm constantly

The great Aussie obsession with the heroic farmer

2006-10-17T13:32:00.000+09:30

Today on ABC's AM radio, Clive Hamilton of the Australia Institute criticised the latest drought relief package ($350 million) the government is setting aside for Aussie farmers.[1] There are two interesting points here: Hamilton suggests such a relief package is practising bad economics; andsuch bad economics are supported by what he calls the "bush myth". Hamilton points out that the

Vale Aussie media

2006-10-13T15:09:00.000+09:30

(thanks to Crikey's home page today).I'd like to add David Flint, former ABA chairman, to the list of murderous architects of Ozzie's death. Both he and Steve Fielding (in addition to Helen Coonan and the rest of the Liberal party tag-alongs) claim ownership of a newspaper doesn't affect what gets printed in the newspapers and the ownership of a TV station doesn't affect what gets screened. For

Yeah cigarettes kill but uranium's okay

2006-09-27T09:44:00.000+09:30

Thank You for Smoking is an ingenious little movie that caught me by surprise with it's cleverness. It made me wonder if tobacco and uranium have any similarities. Of course smoking uranium may give you more than lung cancer, but perhaps there are some political similarities?The movie itself is about a lobbyist for the company, Big Tobacco, who serves as the frontman for a 'research institute'

They who win the propaganda war win the world

2006-08-09T22:50:00.000+09:30

The more we read or see on the Israel-Lebanon conflict the more we see people who aren't in Israel, Lebanon, or nearby, tending to side with the whoever is currently winning the propaganda war. Okay, perhaps it's not all propaganda. Perhaps there is some fact buried beneath the spin and partisan slant &ndash not to mention endless opinion. Either way, the current situation is the best

Popular VoIP software is closed source with plans to be evil as Google

2006-07-26T14:51:00.000+09:30

Following from my post on Gizmo Project, it turns out that more than a handful of VoIP companies are already in direct competition with Skype. I suspected as much, but didn't expect that several of these would be offering the free calls to landlines like Gizmo and Skype. All the same, it seems that Gizmo is the first to offer free calls to landlines in Australia.I also checked Wikipedia for a

New species discovered in VoIP genus: Gizmo Project

2006-07-21T19:09:00.000+09:30

Some real sound assurance, via Dr Faustus, that Skype will never be able to change their business model and start charging for VoIP calls. Gizmo Project (which I didn't test yet) offers comparable VoIP-out call rates and a special sweetener, announced yesterday, to try and lure us away from Skype. The new program gives active Gizmo Project users unlimited free calling to landlines and mobile

Carnage in Lebanon: Would it really be okay if the response was proportionate?!

2006-07-21T11:35:00.000+09:30

I still haven't quite grasped how much carnage is happening in Lebanon. Having been too occupied with other matters to watch TV, since Hezbollah started firing their rockets, I only just saw the first TV footage of Lebanon last night. Carnage! Now I see why people are all saying "well, it's a disproportionate response". Still, who is the person in charge of measuring how terrible an act is to

More on 50-terabyte DVDs and genetic modification... and thank God for sex!

2006-07-19T15:53:00.000+09:30

Last week when I posted about the 50-terabyte, GM DVDs I made a little mistake. Not sure why I didn't realise it when I was writing the post, but of course proteins are the building blocks of all living things, not just animals! As a regular commenter (Jair) pointed out to me in an email, the proteins used for these DVDs are likely to be bred inside bacteria, not animalia. So it's

Proteins: The building blocks for new digital media

2006-07-11T13:02:00.000+09:30

Microbes from this salt marsh will be sacrificed so you can burn all your favourite movies on one DVD! I love the way science and technology news stories are reported: Researchers discovered something new. They're going to produce a commercial version in X months. Rarely any discussion of the social impact it could have or what ethical implications it raises. Doesn't matter, it will be really

Breaking the bonds with mother Italia

2006-07-05T09:13:00.000+09:30

In light of Italy's entry into the cup final, I note Tim's description of a discussion he had with his barber: I just had my haircut at the local barber, an Italian guy. Asked him if he was following the soccer. Not since last week, he said, meaning, not since Australia was eliminated. So are you barracking for Italy now? I asked. Mate, he said. Fucken Italy. Free fucken haircuts for everyone

Housemates "bring joy" to Australia but humiliation to "bitches"

2006-07-03T17:31:00.000+09:30

When you see the word "scandal" linked to "Big Brother", it's basically the key to switch off and ignore whatever follows. So feel free to switch off and ignore what follows, but I do feel compelled to comment on the sexual assault/harrassment perpetrated by Ash (Michael Cox) and John (Michael Bric) in the house over the weekend.First, if you didn't already hear what happened, see: the ABC

Kangaroo scarer

2006-06-27T12:00:00.000+09:30

Now we know what we should be lining the roads with to avoid the carnage of kangaroo collisions! Via ABC comes a report on a study that revealed kangaroos are repelled by dingo urine: Dr Parsons says a chemical in the urine scares the kangaroos. "After trying a series of essential oils and scary sounds, optical illusions, we actually presented dingo urine to a group of 10 kangaroos and the

Poor umpiring? Blame FIFA first!

2006-06-26T14:45:00.000+09:30

Following from my previous World Cup post... It's not just happening to Australia, but to many matches, even now in the second round of the Cup. Descriptions of the Portugal vs. Netherlands game this morning indicate Russian referee, Valentin Ivanov, lost control of what admittedly Referee criticised over chaos">appears to have been quite a vicious match.Nick Place, in today's Crikey sounds

Too Kewell

2006-06-23T12:58:00.000+09:30

Okay, I'm obsessed with the World Cup. I'll admit it. I have been since I saw Mark Schwarzer magnificently defend us into the cup against Uruguay last year. To me, Schwarzer became the real hero of the Socceroos, and I was hooked.Early this morning though, as I watched the bizarre and amazing Croatia v Australia match, my heart sank when we were informed that Guus – another untainted hero up to

Journalists without borders

2006-06-15T16:00:00.000+09:30

What is on the horizon for journalism and where might it intersect with the semi-professional blogger? In particular, what will stop the slow descent of Australian journalistic standards? The standards won't change, says Dr John Cokley, new journalists who apply old standards and perhaps some new ones will simply rise up to take over the role of those who we call journalists today!Ripped

Men survive Cyclone Monica and three weeks adrift at sea: No one cares

2006-05-14T07:43:00.000+09:30

A news analysis story from last Friday really struck me. It turns out that two men and a boy survived Cyclone Monica and over three weeks stranded at sea in a dinghy off the northern coast of Queensland afterwards. At the time two different men were being rescued from a collapsed mine shaft in Tasmania. The latter story received saturation media coverage in Australia (as well as significant

Cowardly behaviour at the Cole enquiry: C'mon surprise me!

2006-04-11T15:30:00.000+09:30

"I don't have any specific recollection," said Alexander Downer – several times – on the dock at the Cole Inquiry. What a surprise! Like we thought he would suddenly break down and tell the truth – that the Australian government hand in glove with the AWB were completely aware they were screwing the Iraqi people who effectively paid via AWB for Saddam's nukes and gold-plated palaces. Foreign

Fuel prices more worrying than child abuse

2006-04-11T12:03:00.000+09:30

High petrol prices are more of a concern for many Australians than child abuse, reports the ABC today (and I stole my headline from the article). Is it a surprise? It really depends on how the question was asked.If you asked me "are you more worried about high petrol prices or child abuse?" I might instinctively say "petrol prices". I drive a car, don't have kids, have no exposure to child abuse

I can't see Uluru — there's a big rock in the way!

2006-04-02T21:29:00.000+09:30

Sometimes the best jokes are simply real life stories. I feel disappointed that I'm not regularly posting to this blog, but I hope you'll forgive me for using this to help keep it alive until I make blogging a routine instead of an ad hoc activity.Courtesy of the best news service in Australia, the ABC – despite Helen Coonan's new attempts to castrate it – comes a story of a tourist lost in his

Remember Cheryl Kernot?

2006-03-10T16:27:00.000+10:30

I don't know if you'd care to cast your mind back to July 2002 when the revelations about Cheryl Kernot's affair with Gareth Evans surfaced.For you people too young/apolitical/naïve to have remembered or cared (as was the case for me), Kernot was the leader of Australian Democrats, defected to the ALP in 1997, and quit politics after losing her seat (Dickson, Queensland) in 2001.And Evans was

Shark droids?

2006-03-03T16:27:00.000+10:30

Is it ethical to stick electrodes into animals brains to make them carry out our whims? Apparently anything is ethical if it could potentially lead to the discovery of new treatments for diseases and other negative heath conditions. We know DARPA for being the agency that created ARPANET, the first node of the Internet, but recently they've been experimenting with creating a kind of marine

Brrreeeporting on the search engines

2006-02-16T19:42:00.000+10:30

Brrreeeport score 16 February, 19:42 South Australian time: Technorati – 445, Google – 302 (hmmm I must have done something wrong with the latter as it's not matching the most recent ones). What the hell is a brrreeeport? Ask Robert Scoble – he invented it......and found that the search engines we know and trust appear to be lying – yes lying.Well, okay, here's my definition of brrreeeport: A

Enter TGA for RU486 in Australia

2006-02-09T18:52:00.000+10:30

Congratulations to the 45 senators who, today, voted to repeal the bill which was blocking the Therapeutic Goods Administration from considering the abortifacient RU486 for use in Australia. So it's not approved for use in Australia yet, and this as it should be... Because I, like every sane Australian, want the TGA to thoroughly investigate how safe it is and how it could be or should be

Playing God with abortifacients

2006-02-09T10:04:00.000+10:30

In 1996 Brian Harradine decided that it was necessary block the Therapeutic Goods Administration from considering the abortion pill RU486 and other abortifacients for use in Australia. Why? Apparently he believed "abortifacients amounted to a special category of drugs for which an additional layer of public scrutiny was required". What a load of codswallop. Make that an additional layer of

Skype 2.0: Peer-to-peer video chat

2006-02-07T09:20:00.000+10:30

Well in case you missed in Skype 2.0 was released over the summer holidays (right when everyone wasn't watching as Tris Hussey noted). Note that 2.0 has only been implemented for Windows but it's worth downloading anyway to test out the video conferencing capabilities. Eventually I managed to test out a two-way video plus voice conversation across broadband and it worked properly, but not

What of Kadima?

2006-01-09T14:21:00.000+10:30

Still on the Israeli political situation, I note that practically every news article about Sharon is talking about what Sharon achieved and believed instead of achieving and believes. In this light, Uri Avnery has made some very interesting observations on what Sharon's "legacy" is and what it might have been in the Middle East Times.In the last post, I asked "what of Kadima?" especially since

Imagining a new force in Aussie politics

2006-01-05T17:23:00.000+10:30

As if Israeli politics hasn't had enough shakeups in the past three months! Ariel Sharon is in a critical condition and not expected to survive with faculties intact. Ehud Olmert has replaced him as acting Prime Minister. And an Israeli election is scheduled for March...It has been kind of exciting to see the recent shift in Israeli politics with the rise of Peretz first and then Sharon's move

Reality: Narnia upsets WTO talks

2006-01-02T20:50:00.000+10:30

The independent state of Narnia has stormed out of WTO negotiations in Hong Kong because it is fed up with being bullied by the US and Europe. Narnia spokeswoman Susan Aslan yesterday stated that Narnia's delegates were tired of bullying by EU and US delegations and would be returning immediately to their state capital at Cair Parvel."If this brings the Hong Kong talks to the knees we will be

Wikipedia: Tool for the classroom or boardroom?

2005-12-30T11:09:00.000+10:30

Yesterday's post about Wikipedia and windscreen wipers was largely inspired by Chris Anderson's statement that the value of Wikipedia is in it's contribution as a probabilistic system (that is, being used as a whole, not accessing just a handful of articles) and how this might not necessarily make Wikipedia useful in the classroom. I want to add this this though, because later in the day Lisa

Windscreen wipers in the probabilistic age

2005-12-29T11:05:00.000+10:30

You've most likely seen those "did you know?" factoids on packaging for countless disposable consumer items; those often useless pieces of information printed on the matchboxes, milk cartons, beermats, lolly wrappers... Well one such factoid series can be seen on the packaging for certain feminine products and, for these, the "did you know" takes on a bit of a feminist spin. As a result, I

Cronulla: Overt racism feeds on underlying racism

2005-12-13T16:29:00.000+10:30

Tim, on his blog, says: Racism exists in all countries. Australia is no worse than any other. The question isn't whether there is underlying racism somewhere, but how any given country deals with it. And the fact is, by world standards, Australia has dealt with it better than most. Multiculturalism has been part of this success, but it wouldn't have taken as well as it has without the general

Cronulla: From all the lands on earth we come

2005-12-12T15:36:00.000+10:30

So we had to whip up a bit of hysteria to pass the anti-terror laws and this what we get as the result?I feel sorry for the thinking residents of the Sydney beach surburb, Cronulla, who will have to bear the ignominy of yesterday's events. Unfortunately for them, the word Cronulla will now become synonymous with racial violence in Australia.For me this becomes the first time I've observed such

Terrorists born out of "internal jihad"?

2005-12-06T08:58:00.000+10:30

Trying to blog on an emotive topic, especially one that involves religion and politics is always going to be difficult. This post is to explore further the concept of 'root causes' of terrorism.I already raised the point that assuming 'root causes' of terrorism could be a worrying because it might fail to take into account both sides of a conflict, but Anthony Daniels (AKA Theodore Dalrymple) in

Mysterious disappearance of Nguyen Tuong Van artwork: The limits of Google and Yahoo

2005-11-29T14:20:00.000+10:30

Remember the news item last Friday about the controversial installation artwork "I am going to send you to a better place" by Slovenian artist Matija Milkovic Biloslav? That political artwork about Nguyen Tuong Van? No? I don't blame you. Suddenly the news networks (except ABC) shut up about it either because of the legal threat from the directors of the Lasalle-SIA college or because the

Learning to play the game

2005-11-24T14:44:00.000+10:30

Further to the Michelle Leslie story, Crikey today published an "insider's eyewitness account" of the political connections and bribes that were involved in securing her release. The cops initially asked for 400,000,000 rupiah ($US40,000) but this was negotiated down to 100,000,000 rupiah ($US10,000). The offer was taken to Ms Leslie and she was asked to make arrangements (quietly) for this

Who is Michelle Leslie?

2005-11-23T10:44:00.000+10:30

Six months ago I would have had no idea who Michelle Leslie was, even though she's from Adelaide, but now... Now a very well known, gorgeous and full-of-potential supermodel.We've seen dozens upon dozens of blog posts and news article on Leslie since she was first arrested in Bali for drug offences, especially about her "changing faces" or as Sarah put it from nude to prude (and almost back

Digital tug-of-war

2005-11-21T10:56:00.000+10:30

Last Wednesday I got home just in time to see a rather unusual invention introduced on The New Inventors called the "Family Winner", a piece of software which assists a win-win resolution after a marital breakup.At first I thought this would be such a useless piece of software. How could a software algorithm - which is a glorified mathematical formula - be truly useful in terms of negotiating

Coffee drags down the web

2005-11-17T15:44:00.000+10:30

I really was working when I came across this essay on a NASA study about the effects of drugs on spiders. The spider dosed with caffeine was by far the most disoriented and proved incapable of creating even a single organized cell. Its web showed no sign of the "hub and spokes" pattern fundamental to conventional web design. Unfortunately I discovered this with a cup of coffee by my side while

$100 laptop risks being too cool for school

2005-11-15T17:35:00.000+10:30

Lee Felsenstein of the Fonly Institute makes an important critique of the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project instigated by Massachusettes Institute of Technology. By marketing the idea to governments and large corporations, the OLPC project adopts a top-down structure. So far as can be seen, no studies are being done among the target user populations to verify the concepts of the hardware,

Who supplemented Saddam's bank account?

2005-11-13T12:41:00.000+10:30

An ABC article today states the Australian Wheat Board contributed 290 million dollars to Saddam Hussein's regime during the Oil-for-food programme from 1996 to 2003. A report yesterday claimed the Iraqi Government had stopped trade with Australia until grains exporter AWB made compensation for the hundreds of millions of dollars of its money used as kickbacks to prop up Saddam Hussein's regime.

Terrorists evil - but okay to torture them?

2005-11-12T12:43:00.000+10:30

With reference to Ami's recent post on the Jordanian terrorist attacks, I commend this reiforcement of the lack of justification there is for terrorism. But it raises a question in my mind which worries if we're becoming jaded by the term "terrorism". I worry about Ami's discussion of "root causes", as if terrorism has a specific source that can be traced to illness within the perpetrators.When

Bring on the turd towns

2005-11-07T12:48:00.000+10:30

Perhaps you saw the SBS Insight forum last week (transcript) about supplementing current mains water with purified "waste water". I hope I have used the best terms, because "recycled waste water" seemed to be an emotive term on the show as Toowoomba's mayor pointed out. Since the wasted water is not just being recycled but also purified we may as well say it!I remember Rosie Beaton casually

Deceptive bug counts

2005-10-26T15:33:00.000+09:30

The downloads of Firefox have surpassed 100 million. This news makes me happy and I take this opportunity to give Firefox another plug at the top of my blog! :)That is not why I post though. I want to point out the ambiguity of the bug counts listed in recent news items about Firefox vs IE. I think it's important that we remain healthily skeptical of hints that Firefox is invulnerable and that

A new take on extremism

2005-10-24T12:58:00.000+09:30

With reference to a recent Swiss referendum on whether to provide ten new EU members with the same "free movement" as the existing fifteen members, Crikey reporter Charles Richardson writes: Countries that trust their voters to make decisions find that they get it right most of the time; extremism flourishes where that trust is absent. Richardson's claim is that the majority made the "right"

Digitally mugged me and stole my private key!

2005-10-19T22:48:00.000+09:30

We were talking about digital identity not too long ago. It started when Malcolm Turnbull got a drop of publicity from a suggestion that Australia provide "pigeonholes for all" in the form of firstname.surname@australia.org.au (at least that's what I thought it was when I read the article, but now it appears to have been updated by ABC to include one's date of birth after surname too -- no thank

Two instalments of $500 for a bub

2005-10-17T11:15:00.000+09:30

After reading of Abbott's anti-abortion plan and seeing Sarah's post, I had to add a few comments publicly because it is such a simplistic, knee-jerk and irresponsible idea. In his quest to ease his 'Christian' conscience over Australia's "90,000 abortions per year" (a figure which misleadingly includes all involuntary medical procedures too), Abbott has suggested: One option could be to pay

Robotic fish

2005-10-15T09:33:00.000+09:30

Professor Huosheng Hu has developed a robotic fish that is apparently able to mimic that elegant swish-flick of a real fish. According to the article they are biologically inspired robotic fish which mimic the undulating movement of nature's fish species – aiming for the speed of the tuna, the acceleration of a pike, and the navigating skill of the eel. They are going to be let loose in the

Diplomacy across the Kashmir line of control

2005-10-12T17:16:00.000+09:30

In the middle of the piles of rubble and bodies in Pakistan there's a report that's really warming -- it's much easier to make blog posts revealing political deceptions, but I thought it might be good to make a post praising a nice spot of diplomacy we saw happening with the Pakistani disaster on the weekend. All the news sources have reported that India is providing aid to Pakistan. Last I

Sheep evolution

2005-10-07T13:47:00.000+09:30

Really, I'm not obsessed with sheep, but here comes another post about sheep (following this one about smart sheep)...Did we miss something in the evolution of sheep? Apparently sheep aren't just smart, but they are becoming rude and cunning creatures who are just about too smart for their own good. I came across a BBC article claiming a small flock had figured out how to get across a stock grid

But seriously, regarding Bali... let us learn from terrorism, not fear it, nor justify it

2005-10-03T19:34:00.000+09:30

It is a bit sickening to have another attack in Bali, but it seems especially this way because it's close to home again. I tried to get a perspective on the scale of this latest tradgedy in Bali and noticed that according to Wikipedia this is one of eleven major* terrorist attacks around the world so far this year (three in Israel). – Thirteen major attacks are listed in 2004 (two in Egpyt, two

Adelaide could copy Dubai!

2005-10-03T13:41:00.000+09:30

My housemates's boyfriend: "We need a few billion so we can go and create ourselves our own Bali somewhere else." I guess he means something like the four archipelagos Dubai is creating in the Persian Gulf out of oil profits.Only one problem: where will we find enough dirt-poor people willing to work for practically nothing servicing Aussie tourists? Oh no please don't answer that question!!

Designer babies and organ harvesting

2005-09-27T23:53:00.000+09:30

We were talking about designer babies and all sorts of evil things that are supposed to happen in the future last night and the conversation turned to harvesting organs from specially-bred humans. While we were making a joking conversation out of it, it turns out there have been not one but two movies made about just this subject, The Clonus Horror from the 70s and The Island from this year.The

Mark Latham v Andrew Denton

2005-09-20T00:28:00.000+09:30

Well the Denton interview was interesting. I feel like Latham is missing the big picture somehow. Denton definitely asked all the right questions.The very fact that Latham's undenied intention for the book was payback seems to suggest that any glaring faults of the Labor party he points out are going to be of secondary importance to the reader. So I think I might have to withdraw my initial

Google-Earthism and the Marree Man

2005-09-19T06:33:00.000+09:30

Loading Google Earth reminds me of trying to read the start of the Bible... In the beginning the earth was without form and void... Then the broadband started to kick in and we suddenly had light... and a compass, a zoom tool, a tilt tool, and a ton of bonus options in the lefthand side panel. What's more, it didn't take seven days to download, but suddenly magically created itself in the spot

Smart sheep

2005-09-18T19:53:00.000+09:30

According to a ScienceNOW report sheep can actually be intelligent! (I'm waiting for the one that pigs can fly) Apparently when sheep have to find their way through a simple maze of portable pen gates to join their flock at the other end they can improve their test performance over time by remembering how to do it, a quality that the researchers believe can be bred to make both farmers' and

What happened to Chen Yonglin?

2005-09-18T18:29:00.000+09:30

I wonder what's happened to Chen Yonglin now he has his protection VISA? We were trying to find a picture of him on the web (really just for the purposes of observing his hair more than anything politically charged) but could only find a few on Flickr and one (shown right) on a stray NineMSN news article linked from the Wikipedia article on him...Has Google colluded with the Chinese government

Latham diaries fallout

2005-09-17T12:23:00.000+09:30

So is Mark Latham just a really poor loser and a 'bad sport'? Perhaps yes. But it doesn't mean that the Labor party isn't sick. And it doesn't mean that all the guys he targetted for his criticisms don't deserve this. The freshly-released journals are just highlighting practices within politics which the average person already suspects happen. Unfair and mean-spirited as it may have been, it

Tabbed browsing - yes please

2005-09-16T16:03:00.000+09:30

The user interface is not supposed to be such a big thing separating IE and Firefox but it's actually the biggest thing I've now come to dislike about IE! I want to be really patient with IE because so many other people use it. Don't want to become some 'leet' who only ever uses Firefox... If only they could just add tabbed browsing to IE though... It would make all the difference.Get Firefox if

Beginning

2005-09-12T15:02:00.000+09:30

It's time to make a blog even though I think my emails probably add up to a "journal" of day-to-day life. Mainly I just have to try out blogging just to get a taste of what it feels like, start trying contributing to the blogosphere myself. I really wanted to start this at something like blogs.com.au but that doesn't seem to have developed itself enough yet. So for now it's another Google service