The Blarg of Fosnez

Walking past the office of Desley Boyle today, I saw that the signs were going up already: With some additional artistic licence from myself This can only mean an election is just around the corner . Be sure to pre-tune your Bullshit Meter. If you don't have one, I suggest you invest in either a Watch , a Button or perhaps a General Bullshit Dector

Too often, we become complacent as to our society's reliance on technology, specifically power. Today, the Cairns region (including up to Mareeba and possibly further) one tenth of Australian (by area) lost all electrical power . I was attempting to get into work to check on my computers during the power outage, poor dears, when I came across an interesting and annoying "safety gone mad" moment. When the city loses power (twice in the last two months I might add) all the boom-gates over railway crossings close. The only way to enter the CBD from the south side (without diverting halfway to Mareeba) was to go up to the top level of Cairns Central on Bunda Street, down two levels of parking and out the Spence Street exit. Too bad if an ambulance needed to get from the CBD to Parramatta Park quickly hey?

Well I just found another great vista feature, Multimedia Class Scheduler Service ( MMCSS ). Now here is how you turn it off: Open up the registry editor ("regedit" in the Run box) and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SYSTEM \CurrentControlSet \Services \Audiosrv Fine the DependOnService key and remove "MMCSS" from the list of values. (be sure to leave the other ones there) Reboot, and disable the service in the service manager and you are set. To give some indication on how much faster this may make your network, with it on and me playing music I was getting 8MB/s transfer of data. With it turned off I am getting 50MB/s. Thankyou oncea again microsoft. More info as to why this happens here . Original solution guide here

Turns out the Kogan Agora is indeed Fail . Told you so . Tis a pitty tooo, because now noone will buy a phone from Kogan now.

Over the last few days, with all the rain around, I have been checking the webcams on QLD Transport's Site every now and then. I use iGoogle as my homepage most of the time, so I thought it would be convienent if I could watch them there. After a some hours of programming, here is the end result . It allows you to select up to 5 of the 75 cameras in Queensland ( there are four in Cairns ). You can also add two of your own feeds, so if you have a webcam at home for security or whatever, you can load it in as well. Let me know what you think and tell your friends about it!

Australus Roast. Heard that term before? It is a palatable name for kangaroo , like venison is a neutral name for the fluffy, pretty deer. So Skippy has a nice name now. Kangaroo is quite a "good" animal for Australians to eat. It is good for the environment - as they do not produce anywhere nearly as much methane as cows do, and they have no impact on erosion like hard hoofed animals do. It is also good for people - as it is very low in fat, and high in protein. If you have not had Australus before, I would encourage you to try it. For my friends in London, goto your local Walkabout and try their Kangaroo Burger . For us back in Oz, pick yours up at the supermarket, I got mine from the Redlynch Woolworths. It was Macro Meats brand. They have Filets, Roasts, Sausages and Mince. It doesn't really taste like anything else. Just buy some and try it, it is rather cheap too!

No, not that one . Australia seems to be gearing up to be a real battleground for the Android mobile phone platform. I have previously spoken on the Kogan Agora , but some new news at hand seems to indicate that it won't be the only Android phone in Australia for long. (Yes, I know you can import a G1 Development Edition ). Smarthouse has apparently been speaking to a Telstra executive (whatever that means), and Telstra will apparently be releaseing a HTC built Android phone with a "huge screen". I'm wondering if the just-leaked " Sapphire 2.0 " is what they are talking about:

I happen to have had the BBC on, and they switched to George Bush's last press conference. Here are some choice quotes. "Some of you have mis-underestimated me." "[The republican party] needs to be compassionate and broad minded" "I inherited a recession, I'm leaving in a recession" "Clearly, putting mission accomplished on an aircraft carrier was a mistake" "I guess I could have been popular by accepting Kyoto" Overall, he started the press conference plainly, but goes off on a ranting tangent a few times. * Video of start of press conference

Lake Placid Retention Basin Via Krimzon.net Well, it has been an interesting morning already. I was awake at 4:30 becasue the frogs were croaking so loud they woke me up. An interesting way to wake up to say the least... After doing all the normal morning routine I started into work; it was about 7am, so I thought the roads would be fairly clear and it would be a nice (albeit wet) drive in. Yeah... no. Turns out the the frogs were croaking due to the exorbinate amount of rain we were having. I drove down Reservior Road to the first set of traffic lights, and on seeing the traffic banked up through them I thought I would go through one of the streets parallel to Murry Street to avoid the traffic. There was a wee little bit of water on the road (It turns out my car can swim!) and I did get abused spoken to by an SES person for driving through the road when it was flooded. In my defence, they had only closed one end of the road, so how was I supposed to know the entire road was closed ...

In Today's Crikey , there was an interesting piece on a report by the Brooklyn Law School doing a report on Australia's Great Firewall Clean Feed Filter. The Report, titled Filtering in Oz: Australia's Foray into Internet Censorship , is one of the first reports by a neutral foreign school to explore the subject. I do like this quote from the report: [Australia] "will likely become the first Western democracy to block access to on-line material through legislative mandate." Of course, as I have said before, It is Very VERY Easy to just bypass these types of filters anyway.

A report that is due to be tabled in June is recommending extra taxes on "energy-dense" foods. It also suggests regulating fat, salt and sugar content in food and drink, banning advertising of unhealthy foods to children and eliminating them from school vending machines. According to a spokesman for the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), this would mean a possible ban on sugar-rich preserves and jams, high-fat products such as soft cheeses and high salt products, like Vegimite! Now, while this may sound a lot like the apparent ban on Vegemite in the US a few years ago , it is a bit different. The AFGC, which represents 80 per cent of the highly processed food, drink and grocery products sector, would appear to be using Vegemite as a "Poster Child" of what would be banned. Honestly, no Australian Government is going to ban Vegemite - Just imagine what Sam Kekovich would say! (Be sure to play the video ). Things such as soft cheeses and olive oil will not b...

Ok, time for a YouTube video... Everyone remembers Portal's " Still Alive " song (sung by Ellen McLain )? Good. Well have you heard it played on a Theremin ? Source Via Reddit

As requested by Kitchenslut here is the recipe for Mum Davison's Plumb Duff . Ingredients 3 Cups of Plain Flour 2 Teaspoons of Bicarb Soda 4 Teaspoons of Mixed Spice 2 Teaspoons of Powered Ginger 1 Cup of Sugar 1.5 Cups of Milk ( Mungalli Creek if you can get it) 125g (1/4 lb) of Margarine Half a small packet of Raisins Half a small packet of Currants Half a small packet of Plumbs (preserved can be used) Half a small packet of Apricots (dried can be used) Half a small packet of Cherries (Either fresh or Crystalised) 1 sqr Meter of Unbleached Calico . 30cm String Method Place a large pot of water on the stove. Have your heat so it will be boiling in 15 minutes or so (when you finish mixing). Soak your Calico Cloth in some warm/hot water in the sink. Beat the sugar with the marge in a large mixing bowl Sift the flour, bicarb, mixed spice and ginger into the bowl. Add your fruits. Be sure to cut the Apricots up finely if they are dried. Pour in your milk, wash your hands if you have...

Well that just sucks. As you can see from the below picture, there is a lot to be left to desire in the new Kogan Agora . (The first Android Phone for Australia) Source , via Engadget Screen looks to be about 3/4 of the size it could be (although in fairness even the promo images had it this size) Screen resolution is only 320x240 Horrid silver border around the screen - it would appear that is only on the prototype 3G, not NextG - so basically useless anywhere except the CBD in Cairns The Kogan website wants to charge $159 to deliver to Cairns. Well stuff that! It turns out their websoftware is stuffed. Deleiver to Cairns should only be about $39 Oh well, I suppose I have to start looking for another phone now.

According to the ABC , members of the labor party have been pushing for another vote on becoming a republic. It has only been 10 years guys, but I'm sure if you keep spamming the Australian Public, they will eventually vote yes just to shut you up. This is not a good thing though. I ask you, does anyone really want another bloody politician to have more power in this country? At least The Queen (through the Governer General ) is not in it for a quick buck or letting their "friends" profit from a policy. Of course the argument is that we need an Australian Head of State. Um.. Hello, the Queen's title is actually "Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of Australia". Also, the Governer General (who is also Australian might I point out) has these powers: Appointing ambassadors, ministers and judges, giving Royal Assent to legislation, issuing writs for elections and bestowing honours. The Governor-General is President of the Federal Executive Council and Commander-in...