Monday, March 30, 2009

FYI: Ice Break

Do not confuse:
With this:

The latter will keep you up all night if you do not have a high tolerance level for caffeine, and I do mean ALL night. One bottle has 1.5 times the amount of caffine than a can of Red Bull (123mg vs 80mg)

An appropriate punishment

You all know my opinion of Earth Hour, so reading this got me thinking. Wouldn't it be fitting if this prat is caught that he be electrocuted for a while. Nothing serious, just an electric fence type deal. It would have been interesting if he had been trespassing on my property instead of this old lady's. I'm all for effective environmental action, but this type of econazi extremism is as bad as any other extremism - you have no right to impose your view one anyone else - especially an older lady.

Friday, March 27, 2009

This Jen, is the Internet.

Typical Geek that I am, I get a kick out of The IT Crowd. Watch the clip below:



Now of course, you could not fit the entire Internet in a little box like that (Well not with today's technology, but you probably could with DNA storage, but I digress, often...). However, you can store it in one single shipping container.



As Sun puts it: The Internet in a box.



via Gizmodo

Thursday, March 26, 2009

One for my New Zealand Friends

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Pub Dress Code

Grab your double pluggers, throw a pair of shorts on and lets go down the the pub!

It would appear someone has just been wingeing to daddy. A former state treasurer (now cast to the liberal backbench) Rob Lucas has asked:
Are young men wearing "fashionable shorts" being discriminated against by hotels and clubs in Adelaide?

I can only guess that his son has been recently turned away from a pub and he went bitching strait to daddy. But honestly, it does annoy me that it is socially acceptable for girls to wear sandles and "strapie" shoes to work and pubs/clubs, but boys are not... Not that I have any need for high heals.

Last.Fm

Well I liked Last.FM. "Liked"? Why is he using the past tense you may ask?



It would appear that the record companies have gotten to them finally. I wondered how long they would last without being interfered with, and it would appear that time is now. All other countries except "United States, United Kingdom and Germany" will have to start paying a fee for the radio stream from last fm. They say that everyone will still be able to use "scrobbling, recommendations, charts, biographies, events, videos etc" - But I don't understand how recommendations will be any use if you cannot listen to them?


Goodby Last.FM, it was nice to have you for so long. Time to switch to Mufin Player methinks. Or possibly Spotify (when it comes out of beta).

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

For your next Lan

It contains Carebears, Pedobear and guns - lots of guns, what more could you ask for?.


My favourite is the flower infused gauntlet. More info (in french) available here.

source

There's news

Some of it is good, some of it is bad.


The bad news it that you're dead. There are few details on how it happened, shy of it involving a spoon and 3cc of mouse blood. This is a pity. It is a pity because if there were more infomation, it would be easier to tell you how you died and inform your loved ones of it. However you don't really care, as you are dead. Unfortunatly for a lot of your online "friends" (and I use the term lightly) they will probably not know of your death for a while. After all, who is going to know your msn/facebook/myspace login details after you have passed on?



Enter LegacyLocker. Legacy Locker is "a safe, secure repository for your digital property that lets you grant access to online assets for friends and loved ones in the event of death or disability." In other words, it contains all your various usernames and passwords to be used in the event of your unfortunate demise.


With all the important information online, such as pictures, emails, automatic bank payments, etc - Having this store of information may be the best way to enabling the people you leave behind to lay to rest your online presence. It would also allow your family to post such classy facebook status as "Fosnez is dead" etc.


It will be a while until I release my online identity to some random company. Perhaps if it was purchased by Google or something I would feel more secure, but until now passwords written in a safe place will have to suffice!

What's this?

What's this? The government is becoming more transparent? Say it isn't so!



Well according to this news article, there are changes afoot for the Freedom of Information Act - Good Changes! These include forcing governments to release information, even if it "embarrass governments, cause a loss of confidence, could lead to misunderstanding or confusion, or cause unnecessary debate". Let the games begin.


Lets see if we can get some info on the National Broadband Network tender shall we?

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Don't look up!

Don't look up people. The Feces is about to hit the rotating ceiling appliance. (for those of you requiring monosyllabic prose, this means the shit is about to hit the fan)



It would appear that the almighty ACMA (Australian Censorship Management Authority) blacklist of websites has been leaked online. It had to happen, and it is better it happens now. The saviour of free speech, WikiLeaks (Not to be confused with Wikipedia), has posted it online.


Interestingly, I cannot access WikiLeaks at the moment, this could be due to a crap internet connection, or perhaps it is a little more clandestine than that (do I hear black helicopters?).


According to the Sydney Morning Herald, who have apparently seen the list, the below are some of the more interesting things on the blacklist:

  • A Queensland dentist (Not illegal)

  • A tour operator (Not illegal)

  • Several Christian sites (Not illegal)

  • Fetish sites (Not illegal)

  • Fringe religion sites, such as satanism (Not illegal)

  • Euthanasia how-to sites (Borderline illegal)

  • Wikipedia entries (probably not illegal)

  • Gay and straight porn sites (probably not illegal)


Wanna see the list? Well I'm not going to link to it. I thought about linking to a site linking to it. But lets just say if you were to Google "blacklist kensingtonvictoria" you could probably find it...



**Update**


According to sources that cannot be trusted as far as they can be thrown out of the country - Being the top censor himself (Stephen Conroy) - the list is not the actual AMCA blacklist. Funny, thats just what I would say if this happened on my watch. Even if it isn't, the real list will be leaked soon enough. I find it funny that in the same article he then goes on to say this:

"ACMA is investigating this matter and is considering a range of possible actions it may take, including referral to the Australian Federal Police," Senator Conroy said.

If it wasn't the real list, why would the Feds be getting involved? Do we have freedom of speach or not?


Official ACMA responce

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Rail FTW

Having just returned from a weekend in Japan (Thanks for the cheap flights JetStar) I can say I really miss good public transport when I am in Cairns. From my time in London, I can tell you jumping on a train and reading a book for half an hour before work can be a great time to relax. Sure peak hour can be a bit packed, but you deal with it one way or another.



Why do I bring this up now? There is a public meeting scheduled to discuss Trains/Trams in Cairns. Info is here and there is a flyer here.

Wed, 18th March, 6:45PM
Rydges Tradewinds
137 The Esplanade, Trinity Function Room


It will be attended by the Mayor, and some of the local candidates. To be sure there will be a lot of "We can't do it because it is not in the Cairns Plan" or some woffle about it not being in the "regional strategic plan". Thats nice. Here's a little tip: If the plans for transport in Cairns revolves around Cars and Buses that are late; Scrap the plans. See how easy that was?

On Earth Hour


I'm not happy, not happy at all. Things like Earth Hour really annoy me.



For the uninitiated, Earth Hour is where everyone in the world turns off their lights for an hour and stands around in circles singing Kumbaya. While I am sure everyone feels really good about themselves for about 10 minutes afterwards, and it is always fun to huddle around a candle like they did "in the old days" (without the threat of a cyclone looming), it really means nothing. It is as bad as people that ride to work on ride-to-work day and think they are actually helping the enviroment. Hypocrisy at it's finest.



Instead of doing something for the enviroment once a year, and only for an hour - here's a thought, change your *daily* impact on the enviroment. Do you really need to turn the light on when you brush your teeth in the morning? How about turning your TV off at the wall so that it doesn't suck power when in standby mode? Invest in a solar pannel or three for your roof. Drive slower, coast more. Consider Carpooling. Ride a bike to work once a week.




Here's another little thing you may not have thought of. Coal power stations do not like rapidly changing loads, it is bad for their systems and they are slow to adjust, so when everyone does turn off their lights at once, the powerstation has to adapt almost instantly to the reduced load. Now you can't just stop a load of coal form burning, and you still have to provide the correct amount of power up to the point of "lights out". This means that the amount of coal being burnt by the station will be the same right up until the lights get turned off, it will then slowly decrease as the station replaces less and less of it as it is burnt. For a period of time after "lights out" the station will have an excess amount of energy being generated (by the coal that is still in the furnaces being burnt), but not converted into electricity (by turning the turbines) - This is wasted if it is sent strait to the cooling towers. If we are lucky the excess energy is converted into electricty and sent to a storage mechinism (such as a Pumped-storage hydroelectricity).


Unless power was stored in the dam, some time before the lights are set to come back on, the powerplant will start shoving more coal in the furnaces to bring the powerplant back up to nominal supply levels. This is so they are ready to power all the lights when they come back on and there is no brownout. If no power was stored in a dam the hot steam generaged by burning the coal is just shunted directly to the cooling towers, and that energy is wasted because the grid is not ready for it yet.


So, by turning your lights off for an hour, are you really helping the enviroment? Ask youself this.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Cairns Central Non-Parking

Well, Dear Blarg Readers, changes are afoot at Cairns Central. No I am not talking the good kind. It would appear that someone in Central's management team thinks it would be a great idea to introduce a ticketed parking system. You know, boom gates, ques, the whole shebang! What a fantastic idea, because I don't know about you, but I just love queuing up at those ticking machine, only to have the person infront of me maneuver their tank car so that they don't have to get out of it to get the ticket.



What has bought this on? Well I can only assume that it is people (like me) that park my car there when we are at work. Before you shout "Sinner!" give me a viable alternative. Parking metres in the city are there to "encourage" staff of businesses to use alternative parking, now that central is getting the "lockdown" procedure, what alternative do we have? Public transport - Please, pull the other one it has bells on it. I have tried taking the bus, really I have! I miss good public transport from my time in London. But when the bus timetable says it will be at your stop at 7:03am, and you regularly see it leaving at 6:50am (in order to get some time under its belt to compensate for all the hail-and-ride bullshit), taking the bus just does not become an option. Now if only there were some disused rail tracks snaking their way though the city....



I would threaten to break out the pushbike, I used to ride the 12km into work most days, but there is only a cold shower at my current workplace, and that is not a fun way to start anything, especially a work day.



What has changed that this has to be done now anyway? Central has been open for more than a decade (1998 if I remember correctly?) and has had free parking all this time. The only time that the carpark is ever *full* is at Christmas. Bar Humbug I say! Perhaps it is being done now because the boyany ecconomic times and the matterilistic hoards have stressed the current parking to capacity? Umm, no... Sounds like a money grab if you ask me.



To do this of course, all the entrances will need to be modified, in some cases greatly I am told. Major roadworks at the northern end of the carpark including some kind of round-about under the ramp (I can see this ending well).

Danger! Men Working


This was taken near Cairns Central today. They are supposed to say "Danger Men Working Above". However, some good-humored soul has blacked out the "Above" so now all they say is "Danger, Men Working".

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Narwhal Tower

I detest propaganda, especially of the american variety. "Patriot Act", "Enemy Combatant" and my personal favourite "Freedom Tower", as pictured below.



The best thing about propaganda, is turning it on its head and I just heard a great idea. Instead of "Freedom Tower", lets start calling it "Narwhal Tower" or "The Narwhal" Mouseover the image above to see what I mean.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Watch more of the same thing

The Freeview parody ad "Watch more of the same thing" is causing a bit of strife for its creators. It has been removed from youtube for "terms of use violation".


From what I can tell, especially for us lucky people in the sticks, freeview will be exactly what the ad says, the same thing on 3 different channels. As well as a program guide telling us what show Channel Nine will be delaying by 20 minutes tonight.



The movie embedded above probably won't last long on youtube. There is a 50mb Hi-Def quicktime version, it can be downloaded here.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

If you live in NSW


Make sure you are *always* wearing clean underwear. You never know when the police may come into your home, and it would hardly be proper to be caught in dirty underwear now would it?


In a move that has surprised no-one, but has anyone-with-half-a-brain concerned, NSW police can now covertly plant evidence search a person's house, without that person's knowledge. This is of course set up under "Anti-Terrorism" legislation.


Takes the meaning of a State Premier to a whole new level. Long live The Party comrades.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom


A great Book by Cory Doctorow, if you havn't read it and are too lazy too, then go here and download the audiobook, it is (legally) free!


It explores what happens in the future when death is a minor inconvience, money and manual labour are things of the past, and the world operates on "Whuffie" (a form of karma currancy).

Jules is a young man, barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.

Disney World! The greatest achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now in the keeping of a network of "ad-hocs" who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.

Now, though, the "ad-hocs" are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents, and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself.

Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now it's war...

Ultimate Prank

The hands down best way to scare children: Animatronic Dinosaurs








I do like the guy saying "Go on, eat one, just one" at the end...

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Review: Mufin Player

I have a decent music collection, and it is from a smattering of all genres. Classical, rap, pop "alternative" (whatever that means), punk, rock etc. All too often, I find myself saying, that was a great song, what else have I got like it. There are some semi-useful tools from last.fm to try to match other music in your collection to the current song, based on other people's music listening habits.


This rarely works well



Enter Mufin Player. Rather than using croudsourcing to find a better match for the current song, it uses the power of algorithms. It takes a while to analyse all your music, because it quite literally has to "listen" to the songs. It only listens to the first 30 seconds by default, and this seems to work just fine, but you can make it listen to the entire song, at a faster than normal speed obviously.


Enter the shock of the evening: It works! Once you tell it a song to find similar music to, it actually finds music in your collection that sounds like the first song.


There is a lot of work needed in the program though, such as using the media keys on most keyboards, or better yet, global hotkeys so I can use my powermate to control it. Displaying album art would also be good.


Your song of the day:

NIMBY

I friend of the blarg who is in the know about these kinds of things has written to me concerning a recent article on CairnsBlog. There has been a lot of Not in my back yard (NIMBY) about the proposed (approved?) youth facility at Stoney Creek. Here is the text of their message:

Just to clarify - this facility will NOT be residential! The Kamerunga site will be a home base for the service to train and store their extensive equipment in order to run a profession, evidence based, best practice service. Currently the service is located in the inner city area with no complaints from the surrounding houses or businesses - could it be there is nothing to complain about?



Its a real pity seeing political grandstanding stopping Cairns from engaging an innovative, exciting adventure based service that SUPPORTS and TRAINS the youth workers from our region.


It's all about trying new things and getting out of your comfort zone to work with young people - something the public should have a go at sometime because as a COMMUNITY we are responsible to share the journey of those who live around us - even those younger than us!


Over and over our young people are listed as an issue - yet think back a little - how were you in your teens? Did someone stand by you and get you through the tough times? Or did they turn their backs?


Come on Cairns! For once let's be a leader not a follower! Let's work to make our region somewhere that is used as an example of taking the reigns and leading with courage and common sense not the place that turned their backs on a successful (already trialed down south) program that might just be the turning point for our workers and our young people.


The Northern Outlook's doors are open for professional development, team work, strategic planning and generally for you to ask your questions and get the answers. Why not get the good stuff - the right information before we jump in feet first.


Well done Steve!! I think for the first time ever I'll be passing my vote to someone else..


So there will not be a "Jouvie Hall" in stoney creek. As a resident of Lake Placid this makes me feel a bit better about it going up just across the river.