Posts by Adrian Esdaile 667 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Jun 2007
So Peter Garrett was right after all, Australians DO have short memories...
"- Provision of a free PC-based internet filter to families ($60 m)"
DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME?
The last time the Liberals (like calling the Nazis the 'Freedom Party') were in power they had a great plan to blow a metric shitload of cash on a 'free PC-based net filter'. They spent a couple of tens of millions of dollars, the contract went to a couple of MAAAATES who proceded to spend MILLIONS on a filter that could be got around in about 10 seconds by the average 8-year-old.... by clicking FILE...EXIT on the icon.
Oh, and it only ran on Windows ME or below IRRC, not even 2000 or XP, let alone OSX, Linux or Symbian!
Same old same old, just like always.
Mine's the one with 'V for Vendetta' in the pocket, ta.
...there would be no media panic, no stampede of sheeple to their nearest Wal-Mart to buy the least U-Beaut Anti-Malware for a mere $99/year.
It's a nice little earner the anti-malware crowd are in... Nice HDD you've got here, be a SHAME if anything HAPPENED to it, eh, sir?
As for not running as Admin - yeah, sure, just as soon as EVERY software vendor actually catches up to Windows XP era security and stops writing software that NEEDS Admin to install, run, print, copy files, etc.
Black copters, because are we SURE the Anti-writers aren't ALSO the Pro-writers?
Quoting ancient badly-translated fairy-tales and calling it rocket science?
Claiming a mandate because some stoner bargearse wrote down his blithered rantings 2,000 years ago and it had the misfortune to survive while the wisdom of Alexandria was lost when his tuckfard bretheren burned all the books?
Here in Stupidsville(TM) (formerly Australia) a bunch of westie bogans released helium balloons that would take messages "up to heaven" - looks like the priests, god-botherers, snake-oil charlatans, spivs and con-men have won after all. Science is dying, the Earth is flat and you can fly in your sundew-moonbeam-and-blessed-magic-rocks Sky-chariot to Heaven on Mars.
On second thoughts... do carry on, please! Load all your religions nutcake friends aboard your Star-Ark, even take animals two-by-two (you don't need plants! They didn't need them the first time, did they?) and fuck off to Mars.
Just be sure you keep the cameras rolling as you all slowly choke in your poorly-planned religiously-correct habitats. Maybe the Tooth Fairy will join with Santa and Super-Jesus to save you from carbon dioxide poisoning, if you pray hard enough.
If there was ever a solution to the Fermi Paradox, this is it: either aliens are avoiding us like the plague, or any civilization eventually succumbs to the Ignorance of Fools.
Er, I think you'll find Cliff Richard was the pioneer of that time, by about 10 years.
"Before Cliff Richard and the Shadows there was nothing worth listening to in British music" - J. Lennon.
Only act (along with Elvis) to make UK singles #1 in it's first 6 decades - the Beatles didn't achieve that.
Biggest selling singles artist OF ALL TIME in the UK.
And can still do a 2+ hour concert and get down!
And you can buy his stuff through iTunes, too!
I use Windows; because I have to. The vast majority of the software we need is made by Autodesk, and is Windows only. The licensing system means no VMs either, so Linux and OSX are out of the question.
Just this week though, I get an email from Autodesk about Mac applications - there is a big move going on here, as lots of us have been calling for Mac OSX versions of our apps for a long time now. It looks like it might be starting to happen.
The moment it does, we're switching. Goodbye MS. Good riddance. Roll on th day!
PARIS it/her/self will go down ok (doesn't she always? fnar fnar), but what about the remains of balloon with a couple of hundred grams of steel & plastic?
How fast will it be going when it clocks you on the head?
Also: I know the chances are unlikely, but what if the London-to-NY A380 sucks this through an engine?
When I used to fly RC gliders, I NEVER put any identifying details on it - loss of radio gear better than being identified after pranging into someone's house/car/pet/small offspring.
OK, that was three questions.
I use iiNet. I have done for the past 6 years, and though they are just as slow as other ISPs in terms of connections (not their fault - they still rely on Telstra(sh) for connections) they do provide excellent service and speed.
As for BitTorrent use - hopefully someone will point out that BT is as illegal as a screwdriver - it's a TOOL. Plenty of legitimate software vendors and artists use BT as a distribution channel.
The AFACT should be able to recognise tools - I'm sure they have mirrors...
Coat because ALL criminals wear coats according to AFACT.
....except that I think both our political parties are now saying they'll cancel it if they get into power because 1.) it costs too much, and 2.) the internet is only used for kiddie-pr0n and should be banned.
Yes, we are the stupidest country on earth. Please invade us now, no resistance will be offered.
Don't like the rain today? SUE THE WEATHER FORECASTER!
Don't like the way your mouse picks up fluff? SUE APPLE!
Don't like the way your teeth get cold when you have ice-cream? SUE THE ICE-CREAM MAKER!
Here in Commonwealth lands, we just whine a bit.
Legal action is the American way of whining. One of my favourite Americans, Jamie Hyneman, has the solution to this problem: "Go have a cookie."
Your iPad getting too hot is telling you to go have a beer and/or cookie. If you are overly religious and believe beer to be the drink of the devil; I suggest you die, then complain to God in person, I'm sure he'll listen and provide you with free legal advice.
"At least in Australia they can insult the church (or at least I assume they can)."
Er, that's a big NO.
One of the major things the FILTER is going to put an end to, seeing as both parties have their short & curlies wrapped around the probing fingers of the ultra-right wing FundaMENTAL Christian Nutjobs - Hillsong, Holy Bretheren or whatever they call themselves, the little bunch of brown-shirts.
Posts such as this wil soon be **** ******** ** ****** **** ***!
Shame we can't post pics - the photo of the 'discussion document' is a classic - it was released under a FOI demand, but EVERY single line in it is black - it's not just 90% of the text that is blacked, it is 90% of the paper! You can read the title, and the signature at the bottom, and THATS IT.
So, the Snu is now the premier champion on animals rights? Good on them!
Next up, they will be calling for bans of the horrifically cruel sports of horseracing, steeplechase and greyhound racing, not to mention fox hunting.
Right?
Right?
Right?
Thought not, back to your regularly scheduled program, switch off your brain, believe everything the media tells you.
"We will work with the app developer to block these ads if we discover they are showing."
"Once we discover the barn empty and the horse gone, we'll organise an investigative pop vox committee to run some (rather expensive) opinion polls vis-a-vis going forward on pre-planning procedures for design of an executive barn-locking scenario."
CAN'T WE JUST LINE THEM UP AGAINST A WALL AND SHOOT THE B-ARKERS?
Shame all those information architects couldn't do enough research to hire a competent architect to design the mansion.
What a fugly salmon-mousse coloured abomination!
At least a 17th-century french salon would have been architecturally up-to-date, not trying to look like a 13th-century pile of turds, or whatever they used then.
Seriously, I would be embarassed to have that building in my portfolio. Maybe they could get that guy from Belarus who gets hit by meteorites to stay there for a couple of days?
To quote Zoot from The Muppet Show - "If I had a match I could put it out of its misery."
Those bendy tubes tightened-by-cable are the equivalent of post-tensioned concrete.
Just look at how good post-tensioned concrete is at withstanding off-axis loading: ie, NOT VERY GOOD. In fact, almost explosive: once the load axis departs from the cable axis, the cable actual helps the structure disintegrate.
So, looks good on paper, won't work so good going around corners or over speed humps, eh?
I wouldn't want to test ride it either.... can I have $500?
Wonderful little phone it was, back in the day!
Only problem was, if you covered the top end of that very small phone, you would rapidly notice three things:
1. the phone, your hand, and your head, if you happened to be talking got very hot.
2. the signal strength went to hell
3. your battery went from full to empty in about 15 mins.
Clearly, your hand was blocking or shorting the antenna, the phone ramped up power to get a signal, ate your battery, got very hot. I'm smart enough to know that it wasn't RF heating of your head.
Obviously a DESIGN FAULT for which ALL NOKIA SHOULD BE CRUCIFIED, BURNT AT THE STAKE AND SHOT THROUGH THE LUNGS!!!one!!!evelenty!!! 111!!!
"No-one else's PMPs or Phones seem to need a 2nd case."
So I guess you go Captain Android and surgically implant your phone then? Or just use Duck Tape and tape it to your duck, then staple your duck to your hand?
Me, I'm just an ordinary human 1.0 so after I dropped (and broke) my very first mobile phone back in the 90's (A Nokia 1550 - landed on it's aerial and sheared the mainboard apart.) I have bought a good case for EVERY expensive electronic gadget I have ever owned, from a laser tape measure to use on building sites to Palm Pilots, various Nokia/Motorola/Sony/Appple phones.
If you're human, you will drop things - a thin bit of vinyl or leather costing $20 is better than replacing a shattered $700 bit of kit.
...reporting completely innocent websites for Ch1ld Pr0n.
I'm thinking - overseas and national sporting sites when there is major cricket / thugby / farnarkling on overseas.
The entire local Thugby League suite of websites (actually there probably IS a fair bit of pr0n on those sites so it should be easy)
Websites of any museum, art gallery, historic site that contains any examples of boy-bits, 8008135, or other such smut.
Websites that contain any written references to violence against children - ie ANY website that contains text of the bible.
Our goal should be to have the ENTIRE web censored, to make the government look like the morons they are.
Shouldn't be too hard.
Step 1. Give CD away with large-circulation daily newspaper
Step 2. Count how many papers were printed that day (not necessarily sold, haha...)
Step 3. Claim newspaper's print run as actual album "sales"
Step 4. Claim instant chart-topping "album" with 500-umpty billion million sales in ONE DAY!
Step 6. There is NO step 5.
Step 7. Win crummy award for top sales, get Platinum-Uridium-Tungsten record
Step 8. PROFIT!
Step 9. Give all money to GOD
Step 10. Discover GOD is actually..... STEVE!
" it disappeared shortly after the Reg alerted ACL."
You ALERTED the ACL to them being spoofed? Let me get this straight; you contacted the Australian Christian Lobby and actually told them someone was having a go at them on their website? You do realise these are the morons working behind the scenes of our government factions, pushing idiots like Stephen Conroy and the entire Liberal party down the path of Internet cenorship?
You actually warned them? Seriously Reg, that is really poor form. Seriously - are you now the internet police? Did you warn Apple someone nicked their kit? Do you warn every site owner you hear spoofing about?
I hope it was 'journlaistic licence' and you did actually do it.
If you did - MORONS!
"it's getting increasingly difficult to find Windows apps that lack a Linux counterpart."
Except for modern BIM-based CAD software. Us real architects (we do those big solid things you all rely on - you know, buildings?) are still left way out in the dark when it comes to running Linux.
Wine for CAD - don't make me laugh!
"Users should re-write their own apps....." yeah, see, I design BUILDINGS, I don't code in C# funny enough. I shouldn't have to - the same as C# coders don't need to know building safety codes, how to deal with annoying councils, how to design something that doesn't fall down, become a laughing stock or the worst of all, fail to make money for the developer.
Hmmph. We're stuck with Windows - even the poor buggers who use Apple hardware and use Mac-based CAD STILL need to have Windows installed if they want to be able to send anything to their engineers - EVERY engineering firm uses Windows. Or Catia if they are stupefyingly rich; and even then it won't run on Linux!
Boo, hiss, how come they've invested so much in getting games to run, yet ignore what is likely quite a sizeable market?
$200 GBP? My our two little desk fans here cost $19 AUS each, thats about $6 GBP. The Dyson would want to be made of pure gold-plated unobtainium to cost that much. People knock Apple for increasing price to make their stock more 'exclusive', but Dyson are the true masters!
Seriously, what is the cost to produce this thing? $15 GBP? If it's made in PRC probably less than that. I can understand a little bit of design when into it, but not $200 GBP worth. I guess it's a nice earner if you can get away with it, but it's about the same ethics level as audiophile gear - ie a total rip off.
I seriously doubt you are going to save $194 GBP worth of electricity of the life of the product!
I back up 3 Windows 7 installs totaling about 2TB to a Windows Home Server running on an Asus P20 micro-box with 2GB RAM, and two 1TB WD USB drives.
Over a wireless connection.
It takes maybe 5 hours (overnight) to back up the three PCs. Haven't had any major problems, and have done restores from WHS too.
It works pretty nicely, actually.
I'm just saying.
Ah, I see how it works!
While the Taliban are ROFLing because someone put a giant American Arse in the sky, the US Bum-Blimp will drop, er, sh1t on them.
If they paint it blue, they could make it look like an overstuffed pair of jeans.
Yep, that's mine with the Spiinal Tap badge.
which is when we will likely be having a Federal election.
The chilling silence from the Liberals means that they quite happily approve of Herr Conroy's Evil Plan; they are just letting the current shitstorm of protest pelt Labor. The Liberals are even further up the arse of the Right-wing Christian fucktards, so as soon as they are in power we'll see their true colours.
It will be passed as child protection / anti paedo / anti terror laws, with no sunset clause, no privacy protection (you have nothing to hide, etc.), just like the Liberal's first attempt at this about 5 years back. Anyway remember? It was a dismal failure, complete current affairs shows trotting out the mandatory "SHOCK! Your 12-year-old can get around the filter by doing THIS!" stories.
I can't wait to see if they'll go as far as adding a blasphemy filter a'la Stephen Baxter. Hell *BLASPHEMY WARNING* they'll probably add swear warnings like Demolition Man, for fuck's sake *SWEAR WARNING*
What, they found one rolled up inside a big fat doobie, did they?
Confucius say: Party who sit on fence only ever get barbed wire stuck in bum.
What ever happened to Keeping The Bastards Honest , eh, Ms. Stott-Despoya? ye fecking sellout, and as for YOU, Garrett you weasel-mouthed Brutus - go back to singing and dancing, oh wait, you can't do that EITHER!
Sorry 'bout the rant, but our current crop of politicians make the UK, USA and NK's set look like distinguished statesmen.
I love their unique interface design!
That makes the app look incredibly professional and original, showing that these are entirely honest devs who would never stoop to something as crass and n00bish as directly copying someone else's interface.
They don't look at all like those losers who spend months getting their Windows XP install to look just like OSX.
Oh, wait.
On one side we have our Feral Monster Conroy, (sorry, meant to type Federal Minister) getting all shouty at the Googlor for "recording everyone's bank passwords over Wifi" - yes he actually said that one, it's no use telling him how things actually work. Nice own goal too, Googlor, cause now the Con-artiste is saying "see? the Great Intertube Firewall would have stopped this!"
ON THE OTHER HAND, we have the Conster telling ISPs they have to record ALL internet traffic. ALL of it. (Hmmm, where can I download multi-Gb files containing only the words "kiddie" "bomb" "crumpet" and "muppet"?)
Only in Australia. Putting the Austria circa 1939 back into the world since 2010.
Steve's anti-flash epistle is one of the best things he's ever written. AND I use Windows 7 and a PC, but I completely agree with Steve on the Flash-Is-Bad principle.
I've been (somehow) running my work and home PCs sans-flash for about 8 months, as I had also noticed the plethora of malware that comes via flash,the crashes and lockups that are caused by flash. So, what do I miss? Gee, no FacePalmBook browser games, boo hoo. Almost every ad from my local newspaper won't load - much better than adblock, and works with any browser! Youtube fails, but it's easy to just grab the FLV and use a standalone player. So, I don't miss anything. My bank thankfully doesn't use flash at all - I notice some banks do for online banking, I wouldn't touch them with a 20ft CAT5 cable.
so, the sooner Flash dies, the better. I wish Bill join in too - I'd love to see Windows 'phone home' crash stats for flash....
"The Navy requested that anyone finding one of the torpedo-like droids should call the commander of the US Second Fleet urgently"
Does the US list Admirals in the phone book?
"Hello, my name is Gupta, Thank you for calling the US Navy, the sweetest-smelling Navy in the world. Your call is important to us, but all our lines are busy and you have been placed in a queue. Press '1' if you want to report terrrrsssm, Press '2' if you want to declare war, Press '3' if you want to surrender, Press '4' if you would like to speak to an Admiral, Press '5' if you have found unexploded ordnance, Press '6' if US sailors have broken some of your local laws and pissed in the middle of one of your museums...
So, here's some more for you, Adobe... FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL
Oh, BTW I can't wait until the day Adobe is bought out by Microsoft, Google, Apple or Autodesk, or a merger of all 4. With the average Flash user's luck, they'll get bought out by Oracle. FAIL.
Swanky! I thought El Reg came from a rusty WW2 era bomb shelter just down the road from the Red Rover.
Alas, I find out that it's just another oak-paneled, deep-leather-chaired, green velvet-lined Victorian drawing room filled with hand-bar mustachioed toffs tossing back aged-75-years whiskies.
yer, mine's the Fire-warden's overcoat. PUT THAT BLOODY LIGHT OUT!
Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, North Korea, heck even Bangladesh; you are all welcome to come and invade Australia NOW! Life under any of your rulers couldn't be much worse.
The time is ripe: we have a completely inept, bonkers government so out of touch with reality it really, really isn't funny.
You should just be able to walk right in, our government has it's head up it's arse.
Just leave your pr0n at the door.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
