* Posts by Graham Wilson

890 publicly visible posts • joined 14 May 2008

69,000 sign petition to save TV-linker O'Dwyer from US extradition

Graham Wilson
Unhappy

@Mad Mike -- Re: Stupidity

"Hopefully the USofA will learn before it's too late."

Hope so too, but it's always been a very slow learner.

Graham Wilson
Stop

US has gone feral.

Tragedy really, if only Americans could see themselves as others do the world would be a much better place.

Anonymous turns ire on Japan after anti-piracy law passes

Graham Wilson
Meh

@Bob Boblowski - - Re: A maximum jail sentence of ten years...

Right, never a day seems to go by without a breach-of-copyright story. Even now, El Reg has similar story only five items newer than this one: "69,000 sign petition to save TV-linker O'Dwyer from US extradition."

I'm beginning to think it's got to explode anytime. Copyright holders have been getting compliant governments to tighten the screws for so long something's got to give soon. Online connectivity, file-sharing etc. is now the norm, thus simply by exposure and not by intent, sooner or later, just about everyone will be in at least technical breach of copyright law.

The law's already a farce no matter what country one's in.

Intel invests millions in social computing research center

Graham Wilson
Holmes

Cynical me.

Cynical me, but it smells--pongs--of subterfuge. Reckon it's an excellent way for Intel to lock up and protect new and future patents by obfuscating the 'real' reason for its existence. Social computing--ergonomics et al--will be researched but ultimately the research will end up in patents.

After all, the lesson learned is that ultimately the Palo Alto Research Center failed to protect or properly utilize its patents.

Australia 'should not be scared' of NBN cost

Graham Wilson
Flame

@mathew42 - - Re: Return of a monopolist

"To compound the problem, the government intend to privatise NBNCo when the network build is completed returning us to the same monopolist controlled mess we are in now."

Precisely correct. I've not the time to argue the case here in much detail (and I've done so many times before), however the proposed sale of NBN Co. is a damn worry and I'm wondering if the Australian public has sufficient guts to kick up a real political stink about it before any sale.

For years, I've said that governments have committed treason against the Australian people when they sold off Telstra as a package deal complete with cableways and the cableway rights-of-way across the country. Not only did this necessitate the need for duplicate communications networks (Optus etc.) to be built (as Telstra continued to have the cable monopoly), but also the current buyback of the cableways from Telstra would never have been necessary had governments not been dishonest with the truth and light-fingered with our money. Despite a few sensible voices crying on deaf ears at the time, unfortunately the Oz public were conned by Oz Government Inc., they were fully duped by its glossy marketing.

Clearly, when Telstra was sold the obvious, sensible and equitable solution should have been for the cableways to come under the control and management of a revenue-neutral cableway authority that would have sold telcos wholesale access to the network. To keep such a cable authority honest, efficient, delivering services on time and financially transparent, it would be managed by a telco-government quango on a 49%-51% voting basis. Telco involvement would ensure the authority ran efficiently (thus minimise telco wholesale prices), and the government would ensure users and subscribers received a fair deal and that the network was managed properly and in the national interest.

It's anyone's guess what the sale of the cableway and its buyback will ultimately cost the Australian public (in tax revenues which should have been better spent elsewhere), and the additional cost to NBN Co's current and future subscribers by increases with increases to their subscriber's fees, all to pay for the fiasco.

I'd guess the loss of monies would easily amount to tens of billions of dollars. The 'defrauding' of the Australian public through deception and monetary sleight-of-hand by the politicians who were entrusted with the deregulation of Australia's telecommunications will, in all likelihood, go unpunished, as they've the power to dismiss any attempts to bring them to account.

To me, and I suspect to many other Australians too, the 'mismanagement' of the deregulation of Australia's telecommunications by successive Australian governments mounts to a misfeasance on such a grand scale that there's no other satisfactory description for it other than that of treason.

Unless there's an almighty outcry from the Australian public--which methinks is unlikely in the current political climate--nothing will happen, as those guilty of the 'fraud' not only have power but also they come from both sides of the political spectrum.

The best attack seems to be to publicise the debacle everywhere and demand a truthful and independent review/audit of all finances back to year dot.

Graham Wilson
Facepalm

@ChrisInAStrangeLand - - Re: NBN take-up is below expectations

"75% of users are happy with 256k ADSL and/or dialup. They'll be equally happy with wireless."

Come now, pull the other!

What's your phone? Two baked bean cans with interconnecting string or the up market model made with two plywood sounding boxes interconnected with steel wire.

Methinks it must be the former.

Graham Wilson

@A.C. - - Re: Broadband fail

Precisely correct. Why are people still arguing such fuzzy nonsense about the NBN when the technical facts (and installation situations/environments etc.) are clear cut?

It has to be on political or idealistic grounds for what other reason can there be? Their logic reminds me of Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering's quote [paraphrasing] 'Two plus two equals four except when I say it equals five' (but methinks he understood his reasons better than these naysayers). NBN opponents so often oppose the NBN by stating the laws of physics and other facts are something other than they are.

If one must attack the NBN then it's easy--start and end the attack with the long list of government fuck-ups (for instance, how Telstra was sold off complete with the caleways intact).

Graham Wilson

@seven_tech --Re: Future proof?

"May I ask then why NBNCo. is saying, unequivocally, it will be able to upgrade us to 1Gbps...."

Because that's how fibre works. Fibre's intrinsic bandwidth is just enormous and growing. If you have any doubts then read this current El Reg post:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/twisted_wave_works_with_light/

Already blindingly fast, it won't be long before fibre's so much faster it'll have left the bandwidth map altogether.

The issue is not that NBN Co can swap out switches and up the bandwidth, it's everything else that surrounds the project including historical events such as that fact that governments sold off the cable network when it sold Telstra--an action that'll have at least doubled the cost of the NBN by the time it's finished.

Past and present government fuck-ups surround the NBN everywhere, and guess who ultimately pays? Right, we gullible, non-complaining subscribers do, as usual.

Graham Wilson
Stop

Re: Future proof?

Who cares?

Are you aware of the real (naked) bandwidth of a fibre optic cable? Obviously not. That's the hard and expensive bit, modems and switches etc., are throwaway items.

The installation's been going a few years now, sure it's time to upgrade the peripherals. Big deal.

Don't obfuscate the facts: fibre will last a damn long time--probably as long as copper, and that's 100+ years.

FYI: I've little doubt the government's stuffed the costs etc.--as with everything it touches--but that's little to do with the intrinsic high speed nature of the technology.

Graham Wilson

Re: Now there's a thought!

"30Mbps connection in the city"

So it's a case of 'I'm alright Jack' eh? Very few others have anything like that. 6km from the CBD and one's lucky to get 5Mbps. My speed's been so low at times I can't even iView to work and the ISP says 'them's the breaks'.

Graham Wilson
Stop

Too far out to call.

"Australian university degrees being three times the price of Asian degrees, which means the nation could lose its education export industries and become a net importer of education."

Bloody good thing. Then the prices might drop so the average Australian could afford an education.

BTW, 30 years ago university education in Australia was FREE! Right, I said FREE!!!

__

Re NBN. I'm in favour of the NBN but seriously how the hell you anyone know what the dollars will be like in 2050. That's too far out to call.

Ofcom: Here come the UK online copyright rules ... in 2015. Maybe

Graham Wilson
Devil

Oh Yeah....

"Ofcom refused to allow The Register into this morning's DEA press briefing "for reasons of space". We believe them."

..."for reasons of space"?

A bit lame really. With El Reg readers like me and thousands of other troublemakers, you'd reckon Ofcom's PR would prefer to look better by being truthful rather than nice.

US trade body to 'revisit' Motorola's sole patent win over Apple

Graham Wilson

@chipxtreme - - Noise cancelling is pretty essential.

Noise cancelling of this kind is pretty essential. Those of us who've used mobile phones with 'simple noise cancelling' (sidetalk cancelling which forces the speaker to talk louder etc.) knows that this doesn't work very well (by comparison to the patent in question).

Watching cell phone users use their mobiles says it all. Once, phones had a mouthpiece/acoustic coupler/shield that coupled audio directly into the mic and keep out external background noise. Now, most users talk many inches from the mic as the phone is usually wrapped around their ear. The mic is so far away one wonders how the person listening at the other end can hear anything except background noise!

Well, the reason one can are the very snazzy FFT algorithms and such and special silicon dedicated to the job--it makes a remarkable difference by cancelling out everything except the 'wanted' audio.

Now that users are used to it, if this technology were no longer incorporated into phones then there'd be outrage.

Anyone know when this patent runs out? (It must be soon, as I first recall using the technology at least 10-15 years ago or more but I've not previously bothered with the legals.)

MI5 boss: Cyber spies, web-enabled crooks threaten UK economy

Graham Wilson

@Miek

As A.C. says in the first post, they must be up for a budget review. Even Dr. Watson could figure that out.

;-)

Blighty laid bare as historic aerial snaps archive goes online

Graham Wilson

@perlcat - - Re: Disappointing - Resolution far too low for aerial photographs.

Because:

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us. ... [Isaac Disraeli]

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority. ... [Orison S.Marden]

Graham Wilson
Unhappy

Disappointing - Resolution far too low for aerial photographs.

The 'Britain from Above' web site is very disappointing. It's good these images are now online but they're aerial photographs so why has the site posted such low quality photographs? Plate cameras have enormous resolution and even ordinary film cameras are capable of much better resolution than the photos posted here.

Moreover there's only the gallery and intermediate resolution images available which is hardly satisfactory--the image of St Paul's I checked was only 820 x 649px! Shame they'd not copied the Library of Congress method of presenting photos where multiple image sizes are available from thumbnails through to large TIF files of 7500 x 6072px (file sizes typically 80-200MB). For example, even in this 150-year old image from the LOC collection the large 7500 x 6072px TIF file is 86.9MB:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/item/cwp2003000014/PP/

and there are much larger files than this one amongst other images.

You might well ask why anyone would want such a large TIF file from 150 years ago. Well, I chose this image example to illustrate just this point. In the long line of soldiers in the photograph, there's one guy in the back row (towards the RHS) that stands out from the others by what he's doing (download the large TIF to find out). The fact is unless we'd had access to this large TIF then his actions would most likely have gone unnoticed (as he's hardly recognizable in the lower resolution images). As this example attests, when it comes to historical images, we need very bit of resolution we can get.

The quality of Library of Congress images is, by and large, excellent as they're scanned with a resolution that's close to the Nyquist limit--or at least within spitting distance of it (also the dynamic range/linearity is excellent). Scanning at the Nyquist limit (two times the smallest discernible transition) ensures that most of the data is captured from the original.

As far as quality goes, most images on the net are pretty terrible, and unfortunately 'Britain from Above' is following in that mould (a la British Museum, Imperial War Museum, etc., etc., the images from all of which are unquestioningly substandard). The net and new hi-res displays* mean that people now have the capability to examine historical and other images in truly fine detail as never before but the web sites are choosing not to make the images available. It seems to me that there should be much more uproar over this.

_

* Only a week or two ago El Reg had an article on the ultra high def TV standard which incidentally is 7680 x 4320px--a huge increase in definition over 1080i hi-def. Clearly, hi-res is the way technology is going, thus the quality of web sites must be comparable or users will lose interest.

EU's 2020 CO2 target 'will add a year to economic slump'

Graham Wilson

Seems the Wind-Ups aren't biting this time.

...Much.

;-)

Watch out, world! Ofcom is off the leash to bite radio jammers

Graham Wilson

Re: The heart of the problem... IT'S VERY SIMPLE.

MONEY!

(As I said above, MONEY speaks MUCH louder than spectrum noise.)

Graham Wilson
Flame

Re: "why not contract out the spectrum management to the RSGB?"

Irrespective, it should be axed, ASAP.

BPL/PLT/PLC is an abomination--no ifs, no buts! It's perpetrators should be strung by the S&Cs from a meat hook, and anyone who has the hide to call it 'engineering' should be sent to the stocks.

It's concept is fundamentally flawed--it relies on one method of communication (it) to obliterate another--by screwing up the whole of the commercial spectrum and upping the RF noise floor around the entire planet. It's the world's dirtiest TX since the spark gap/Tesla coil and it feeds into the world's biggest antennae--the power line grid.

How this stuff ever got off the ground says heaps for what's happened to Spectrum Management since the Reagan/Thatcher era.

It sucks big, big time! I cannot think of a worse 'design' example/implementation in modern history.

---

P.S.: It's easily jammed -- conveniently take power from a GPO, convert it into jamming signals with $2.0 worth of bits then feed it immediately back down the line. It's a security risk, especially if emergency communications traffic is sent over its circuits. What a joke. ...And regulators STILL approved this??

Graham Wilson
Boffin

@David D. Hagood - - Re: Interesting "difference-that-is-not" - - Re: Intereference

The Four Axioms of Interference

For proper spectrum management, regulation should extend to ALL four 'points' of interference so as to maximise the use (i.e.: max number of available channels) of the spectrum. In recent times, it seems, the interference axioms are often conveniently forgotten:

1. Noise/Non Msg ==> RX

From: non-message producing devices (suppression, shielding of electrical switch noise) ==>

To: message receiving devices, RX (selectivity, intermodulation & dynamic range)

2. RX ==> RX

From: message receiving devices, RX (local osc. radiation, shielding) ==>

To: message receiving devices, RX (selectivity, intermodulation & dynamic range)

3. TX ==> RX

From: message producing devices, TX (power to fit service area, spurious rad., location) ==>

To: message receiving devices, RX (selectivity, intermodulation & dynamic range)

4. (TX ==> Non-RXing devices)

From: message producing devices, TX (power to service area, spurious rad., location) ==>

To: Non message receiving equipment (audio amps, pacemakers, etc.)

(For the Smart Alecs: I know that there's TX ==> TX, Noise ==> TX but that's more a problem for users than regulators.)

Graham Wilson
Angel

Re: "why not contract out the spectrum management to the RSGB?"

Ha, the spectrum noise floor would be so low we'd be almost back before Faraday.

No plasmas, no iPhones, no switch mode power supplies, no police radars, no surveillance cameras, no car ignition systems...

I like it (at least for a week or so).

Graham Wilson
Stop

Once there was a broader principle at work in spectrum management.

Once there was a broader principle at work in spectrum management whether FCC, OfComm or whatever regulator.

It was a pretty simple axiom really, that was to keep the general noise floor down across the whole spectrum. What's happened worldwide since the beginning of the Reagan-Thatcher years is the general erosion of that principle.

How was it done? Simple:

Rule 1. Close down and outsource government spectrum authorities/regulators around the world.

Rule 2. Make sure you get rid of RF and spectrum management engineers first.

Rule 3. Outsource the regs.

Rule 4. Auction spectrum (MONEY speaks MUCH louder than spectrum noise).

Menaced cartoonist raises $60,000 for copywrong

Graham Wilson
Facepalm

The only way to do that is to do a 'McLibel Case'

The front man has to broke and penniless.

Study fingers humans for ocean heat rise

Graham Wilson

Re: I wish my thermometer were this accurate

Cynic!

;-)

No API in spec for new Sydney traffic model

Graham Wilson
Flame

No wonder the NSW Govt. has put in new speed/safety cameras.

They've to pay for this crap somehow.

...And the NSW Govt. is broke or so it says.

Anyone in the US or UK, if you come to Oz give NSW/Sydney a miss (it's just not worth it anymore).

(Take that as fact from a poor bastard who has to live here.)

All of Europe's data in US servers? We're OK with that - EC bod

Graham Wilson
Facepalm

Re: Once again, how does this square with the PATRIOT Act ?

Read my posts and you'll know I'm not known for brevity.

...But I'm lost for words. Are things really getting this bad?

(Today, I've read 5 El Reg stories which makes me wonder if I'm in Alice's Wonderland or Cloud Cuckoo land.)

Anyone got any Prozac? ...A handful please.

Skype launches in-call ads

Graham Wilson
Thumb Up

Re: Leg in

Yeah, too right!

Graham Wilson
Mushroom

Fuck 'em! - - That's the end of that!

Goodbye Skype.

Fuck off and good riddance.

...

P.S.: Hope you go bankrupt soon.

Trust lawyers, not techies, when it comes to the cloud

Graham Wilson
FAIL

I cannot imagine...

...any organisation or IT department I know of (and I've run IT) in their wildest dreams going down this route except for some limited encrypted stuff that's used for data interchange/convenience etc.

It's sheer madness in my opinion, conjured up by well-oiled marketing.

New ID leak from Global Payments

Graham Wilson
Facepalm

This is in 'earlier stories' and it has only 5 posts.

Last week with a similar story I responded with a wet joke to the effect that I was bored with these reports and I received a few down-votes.

I've just come to this report and it's in 'earlier stories' with only 5 posts. Seems to me if people are not bored with the reports then they've come to accept the inevitability security vulnerabilities.

Sad day.

Microsoft develops mood-matching ad engine

Graham Wilson
Flame

Goebbels Mk-II stuff!

The algorithm would be read-lining to deal with an irritable cranky bastard like me!

Seriously, this is Goebbels Mk-II stuff. Advertisers have been fucking around with the psychology our minds for a long while now. We all know if a 5-year old sees a McDonald's ad he thinks Christmas has come. That's bad enough but this one takes the pail.

If you really want to know what took mind-control marketing into the big-time, well here's the seminal article--it has legs and form (you need 10 mins): http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb54.htm

Hackers expose 6.5 MILLION 'LinkedIn passwords'

Graham Wilson

@Graham Wilson -- Re: No comment. -- Next time I'll avoid sarcasm

OK, down-voters. Next time I'll avoid the sarcasm.

For those who didn't get it, the point was that there are so many break-ins of this kind that the news of them is becoming seriously repetitious--i.e.: there's a serious security problem out there in user-land.

I did put 'this' in inverted commas but that went over yuh heads too.

Sorry.

Graham Wilson
Facepalm

No comment.

No comment!

I've commented on 'this' story already.

And before that I made the same comment. ...And previously to that the same again. ...And much, much before that my comment was also the same.

Boring!

Samsung Galaxy Tab 'a harmful drug', says Apple in ban bid fail

Graham Wilson
Happy

@Field Marshal Von Krakenfart -- Re: @Graham Wilson -- Corporations can't confiscate property.

Thanks very much for your comments. Re rampant capitalism succeeding: my view is probably overly pessimistic and I'd be delighted if I were wrong. I agree we've moved on significantly from Thatcher/Regan monetarism but there's a long way to go on the evidence. Perhaps monetarism's a bit like the Titanic, which when put into full reverse thrust, still took 20 or so miles to bring it to a stop--my position being that I can see the action but I'm both unclear as to the stopping distance and the time the thrust was reversed. (Not a particularly useful example as I'd give T/R monetarism significantly better odds than the Titanic.)

I'll come back to monetarism later.

Your example of Georges Clemenceau is an interesting one as it well illustrates the difficult problem we have with the shift in democracy. I don't know when Clemenceau first made his "war is too important..." comment but it seems to have been before 1914 perhaps during his first prime ministership (06-09); likely, so as the comment is also often attributed to Talleyrand which makes its origins about a century earlier. Anyway, the significance is that despite being acutely aware of the statement's significance, and being very conscious that Europe (loosely) between 1870 [Franco-Prussian War] and the early 1900s was a tinder keg, and the fact that he was renowned for being a hands-on prime minister, he nevertheless was unable to cool the political climate. As we well know, when Princip lit the match in '14 Europe exploded with an almighty bang.

In essence, Clemenceau was powerless or at least in effective in stopping WWI and so too were the rest of them, French, English, Germans et al. Between Clemenceau and WWI, France had eight prime ministers and another six during the war, which also included Clemenceau's second term. Numbers don't matter here though, the fact is that it's extraordinarily difficult to slow down or change the direction of many processes, political or otherwise, once they've achieved full momentum. Same with the bankers. As you said 'time to take the banks away from them' but despite the GFC and a large collection of almighty banking fuck-ups across the world, it's almost business as usual for the banks and bankers. So powerful and entrenched these individuals and organisations are, one really wonders what actually has to transpire to unseat them. Remember, in the Clemenceau/WWI example not even WWI fully resolved Europe's conflicts, the dust hadn't really settled until at least after the 2nd war--1946 if not later.

It seems to me that as with the banks it's hard to tell what will slow or effectively change rampant capitalism for the better--simply, what's the threshold for change? Unless there's a genuine social state change then there seems little point in trying to kill it, for the moment it's left alone it'll just bootstrap itself up and back to where it started--business as usual.

Thatcher/Regan monetarism started earlier than those who gave it its name, specifically the Austrian School, Hayek (Nobel Prize '74), von Mises et al. Of course Friedman (Nobel Prize '76) is also implicated. Two Nobel Prizes within two years in the mid '70s said to the world 'go for it', but the origins of T/R monetarism are considerably earlier, as much of the Austrian School's views had been shaped by what had happened to Austria and Germany during the interwar years (failure of Austrian democracy, totalitarianism etc.).

There's little point me continuing to rave on when I can point you to a quite brilliant account of how this rampant free-market monetarist view came into existence by the British historian, the late Tony Judt. In is final lecture--the Remarque Lecture of 2009 at New York University, "What is Living and What is Dead in Social Democracy", given not long before his death, Judt eloquently summarises how Austrian School economics came into existence and how it changed democracy then the world--and not necessarily for the better. Judt's explanation is not only heartfelt but it'll go on to be a classic, I doubt if anyone else could do better. I'd urge you to listen to it.

There's both video and audio versions on the net including several YouTube ones although they're mostly broken into subparts and very incomplete. I'd suggest the best and most reliable download is this audio .MP3:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/what-is-living-and-what-is-dead-in-social-democracy/3105140 (slightly abridged audio podcast)

Here's a partial typed transcript:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/dec/17/what-is-living-and-what-is-dead-in-social-democrac/?pagination=false (an abridged text)

The original Remarque Institute site at NYU is here (although the full 100MB 1.5-hour audio file is no longer there but a QuickTime presentation is--that's if it works, it didn't for me but that's probably my blockers):

http://remarque.as.nyu.edu/object/io_1256242927496.html

If you're enthusiastic you might still be able to find the full 1.5-hour audio version somewhere on the net but the first item, the abridged Australian ABC Radio National 54-minute version is still pretty good. (I've a copy of the full audio version but that doesn’t help El Reg readers very much.)

Graham Wilson
Stop

@J.R. Hartley - - Re: It must be terribly embarassing to be a fanboi. - - NO, NO, NO.

NO, NO, NO.

It's the inverse. Like the pill, they've no conception. Ipso facto, embarrassment doesn't enter their minds.

Graham Wilson
Angel

@Joe User -- Re: Apple's next legal tactic

"hold our breath until we turn blue!"

Ha. It can't be that easy or someone, Samsung or HTC perhaps, would have already done it with considerable pleasure long ago!

;-)

Graham Wilson
Thumb Up

@Trevor_Pott -- Re: Corporations can't confiscate property.

An excellent commentary, well said. In many posts, I've said much the same but you've argued more articulately and forcefully.

We got rid of communism that was supposedly trying to hijack our democracies only to have rampant capitalism succeed in its place and it did so in a most spectacular way (brawls between behemoth corporations such as Apple, Samsung and HTC etc. over minutiae of their own making with little or no government involvement attests to this).

The consequences are that world works somewhat differently to the way it did not that long ago. The poor beleaguered citizen (who I was brought up to believe was at the centre of the democratic process), now finds himself continually fighting an uphill battle to achieve some equity in the most fundamental of things--rights, once they were supposed to be the raison d'être of democracy. For example, the right to choose; the right to be educated and correctly informed and not subject to rampant propaganda; the right to be left alone; the right to privacy and be secure, and the right to not be deceived or lied to by one's own government, etc., etc. are now all once again in the firing line centuries after we thought we'd reached consensus.

What we're witnessing now is a strange inversion of this process: one in which corporate entities and governments have become 'super-citizens' in their own right as they've amassed many questionably legitimate rights for themselves. In doing so they've acquired considerably more power than we--the great unwashed citizenry--presently have (or are capable of mustering in the current political climate). Moreover, these 'super-citizens' have asserted their 'rights' by might--through: money; ease of access to the law ('buying' thereof); lobbying and influence of politicians; conning and convincing governments to sign trade treaties that preferentially benefit them over individual citizens; easy access to the media; use of propaganda and blatant advertising, and, at times, even through graft and corruption.

These days, individuals or small groups who try to tackle this seemingly inexorable and inextricable perversion of the democratic process aren't shot to silence them as once in Nazi Germany; instead, they're subjected to everything from being outright discredited, to being told their actions are unpatriotic and bad for the economy, to being sent broke by legal costs, or silenced by threats, or through being ground down into ineffectiveness by the sheer number of the obstacles that their opposition is able to place in their way. It's no wonder so few ordinary citizens are prepared to stick their necks out and be involved in the democratic process.

I grew up in the '50s and '60s and there's no doubt things were far from perfect back then. As always, there were major disagreements between political protagonists and, at times, all-out war, nevertheless there was considerably more consensus between individuals, politicians and corporate leaders about what constituted the social contact that underpinned democracy back then. Much of the civility and respect for each other, institutions etc. has gone only to be replaced with the hard and abrupt edge to society that's now our way of life. The devaluing of social norms over the past half-century has meant we now attempt to regulate them through the law. Governments' attempts to social engineer society through the enforcement of new laws, in my opinion, often makes things worse (especially so when the law benefits one party more than the other) .

Today, we've upped the anti on just about everything: tightened laws, regulated any and everything to a level of absurdity--the point where humans cease to act in human ways (as Charlie Chaplin in 'Modern Times'), so we're now overly watchful of our backs, or we just end up in trouble. Similarly, we've codified many of our human relationships in law to the point where we need a social worker or a lawyer before we attempt anything significant, yet there are those who actually consider this normality.

Nevertheless, society's new 'controlled' mentality dovetails well with the ethos of the modern mechanistic, procedurally orientated corporation, and similarly so with international trade and commence.

With an almost universal business 'mentality' in place worldwide we end up achieving similar laws everywhere, essentially, we've worldwide rules in place. Add to this a bunch of international treaties policed by the ITO and similar organisations then we've heaven on earth for rampant capitalism. The Apples of this world are in clover and now they're acting as such. Trouble is that the citizens of most countries around the world had no say in this arrangement whatsoever; it was a sleight-of-hand backdoor collaboration between capitalism and governments.

Welcome to the late 20th and early 21st centuries, welcome to modern corporate ethics, and welcome to democracy Mark-II--the new all-powerful corporate model.

Many aspects of life have improved significantly for people over the past fifty or so years but when we look at most of the mechanisms used to achieve this we see it's been achieved by forcing both uniformity and tighter 'couplings' between players. Tighter couplings mean more control, more control means that more feedback is needed to stabilise the system and anyone who has done network or control theory knows the high potential for things to go wrong. For corporations, social engineering on such a scale is a wonderful arrangement but the fact that most of the players never had the opportunity to participle in setting the game's rules seems to me to be a potentially explosive recipe.

Unfortunately, now, we've a new generation who accepts this new way of life as the status quo, it's the norm for them, after all they've grown up knowing little else. Still, many of them instinctively know something is very wrong even if they've difficulty in articulating the reasons for why it's so. Therein lies the hope for a more equitable society.

Graham Wilson
Thumb Up

@hplasm -- Re: Wow.

"What harmful drugs are Apple on to try that line?"

Its own of course. Whether it's Apple, Samsung or lookalikes, it's all Electronic Heroin. So it'd not make economic sense to inject anything other than Apple homebrew--even cut as it is--compared to the best street stuff that is.

Oz has to go nuclear, says Adelaide U scientist

Graham Wilson
Flame

@Bilby - - Re: Coffee is served...

With the handle "Bilby" you're obviously Australian.

Get it into your skull that sensible logic doesn't work in Australia. Well, anyway not since the 1960s at least.

* Australian society is one of the most conservative and timid in the world. Unlike most of Europe, the country's never been invaded so it's incapable of thinking forward or from the viewpoint of true adversity.

* There's no one in politics who remembers WWII or the Depression, there's no engineers or scientist either to speak of. Our parliaments are full of lawyers and accountants who by nature are the last people on the planet to take risks or get excited over anything except money.

* Australian politics is not only mind-numbling boring but it's truly embarrassing for anyone that has to discuss the matter with someone from overseas.

* Australian politicians are forever trying to impress--no, not their electorate but those from overseas. It's inferiority complex and self-aggrandisement on a scale unequaled anywhere else on the planet.

* Since the War, Australian foreign policy has been set in Washington, before then it was set in London. We'd not have the guts, gumption or courage to change it. Thus, before the War if London stated a war we followed, since the war we followed the US to war -- WWI, Vietnam, etc. etc. (We like wars, we feel bigger--they help our inferiority complex.) Just think of the madness of it, once we actually traveled half way around the world and tried to invade Turkey all because we didn't want to be left out of the excitement!

* Treaties -- we'll sign any treaty that puts us at a disadvantage, financially, trade-wise or security-wise. We can't help ourselves--we just can't resist the alcoholic cocktail party that's always part of treaty signings.

* The Cultural Cringe is still alive and well -- "It has to be MUCH better if it's from overseas", especially, the US, Europe and Japan (and now China).

* The moment someone does something bright in Australia either the Tall Poppy Syndrome takes effect and cuts it down or we'll sell it off to the first bidder--that illogical approach goes back almost to the convict days.

* There's stuff-all manufacturing industry left. All of Australia's once highly skilled trades industries have been nuked by politicians who wouldn't know one end of a screw driver from another. And the population just dumbly looked on while whilst they did it.

* All we now do in Australia are service industries and so-called mining. 'Mining' is propping the country up, stop that and we're truly kaput. So-called mining really isn't mining anyway. Mining also involves value adding such as refining ores which we don't do. So what really supports Australia is quarrying--digging holes in the ground and selling the contents. It seems, this is about the maximum level of our technical capabilities these days.

* Investors in Australia are frightened of their own shadows. they're so risk-averse that they equivocate for months over royal-blue chip stock.

* Australia's interest in science is zilch, zilch and zilch. Anything technical is frightening, dangerous, poisonous cancer-producing or polluting. The scale or order of the danger is set by the first person who whinges in fear (everyone else mindlessly follows).

* Every and anything that's scary is banned in Australia--it's far easier than teaching people (a) science, (b) to take responsibility, (c) be careful etc. etc.

That'll do, I've got to stop somewhere.

Australia is truly an embarrassing and tragic joke. The sooner we stick up a for sale sign the better.

Just forget your idealism.

Missed the Venus solar flyby? It's only 105 years to the next one

Graham Wilson

@redhunter

"http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/06/04/154282601/the-venus-transit-who-cares"

Good one!

:-)

Graham Wilson
Flame

@Anonymous John - - Re: Whats the fuss?

"...a total solar eclipse is just a bigger black dot moving across the face of the sun."

Clearly, the words of someone who has never seen one for real (TV doesn't count).

Only sociopaths or psychopaths would have so little emotion as not to be awed by the experience. So far, I've seen three total eclipses and they're indelibly etched on my mind as some of the greatest experiences of my life.

Graham Wilson
Meh

@Allan1 - - Re: Whats the fuss?

I suggest you undertake a kindergarten-level course in History and Philosophy of Science to understand the significance of the Transit of Venus event.

A clue: ask yourself why in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries would nations send their best scientists around the world risking life and limb (and many died in the process) just to see a little spot crossing the sun.

..

...Err silly me, you really can't be that stupid--surely you're just bating and I'm stupid enough to bite.

Graham Wilson
Go

Saw it.

Saw it clearly and in focus through a Cassegrain telescope despite bouts of clouds and rain. A truly wonderful once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I wonder what Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree (who were the first on record to see the Transit of Venus in 1639) would have thought if they knew that by 2012 we'd know the distance from Earth to Venus within an accuracy of only a few metres.

(I find it truly remarkable that these blokes, who in their day had only the most primitive astronomical equipment, not only corrected minor errors of Johannes Kepler and predicted the correct date in 1639 to view the Transit but that they also predicted precisely the dates of the 21st Century transits. One can only be in awe of their brilliance, especially Horrocks who died shortly afterwards at the remarkably young age of only 22.)

Leaked Apple inventory list hints at new non-iOS hardware

Graham Wilson
Gimp

Yawn.

Yawn.

Reckon even the fanbois are yawning.

...ZZZZZZ

Apple seeks resurrection of HTC importation ban

Graham Wilson
Flame

Stuff Apple!

Right. So the latest three-processor HTC One X is a real goer eh, and this is Apple's response?

Frankly, Apple's precious, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, divine-right-to-rule-supremely, sue-anyone-who-looks-at-'em attitude is why I refuse to own any Apple equipment.

Even if its stuff were the best--which it isn't--I wouldn't own it on principle.

Stuff 'em.

Start flaming gullible fanbois.

Legendary sci-fi fantasy author Ray Bradbury exits planet Earth

Graham Wilson
Angel

Living on Mars has benefits.

91 eh?

Seems longevity comes from living on Mars. Devoid of foibles, nonsense, gobbledygook, claptrap, twaddle, gibberish and baloney of planet earth, life must be less stressful over there.

Ticket please.

Flying Dutchman creates dead cat quadcopter

Graham Wilson

Re: Brilliant!

Imitation* dead raccoon caps were all the rage when I was a kid (although I never owned one).

Dead cats prove useful: isn't there a book titled '101 Things To Do With a Dead Cat'? It must now need enlarging. One should mention Schrödinger too had a darn good use for a 'dead' cat.

* Real dead raccoons were a bit pricy I believe.