Andy Markley‘s domain and professional reputation were effectively hijacked by a spammer. After facing complete indifference to his plight from his own ISP, he was forced to track the bastard down himself
Some technologies are so blatantly obnoxious that the human race would rejoice if they were summarily executed. Bruce Sterling offers some candidates for destruction including; land mines, prisons and DVDs
Super Slurper, a starch-based polymer with a powerful thirst, has been employed in nappies and filters, but researchers want to turn the page and develop a different application: drying waterlogged books. It is being re-designed to aid librarians and archivists in their battle against flood damage
IBM has wowed the semiconductor industry with a new chip design under development. Compared to silicon-germanium bipolar chip technology, now considered state of the art, the new semiconductor design could vastly improve performance of wireless devices
The array of plans and options facing new broadband users will become more transparent with the launch of a free online tool for comparing fast internet services. Both Whirlpool and its sister site, Broadband Choice, have been relaunched with a set of tools to allow users to dynamically compare the broadband plans and prices of the large number of providers that have sprung up over the past two years
The Federal Government has been urged to investigate allegations that failed asylum seekers have been encouraged by Government officials to use fake passports. It is claimed immigration officers supported the use of false documents in order to bypass passport controls in other countries
The Queensland Government’s plan to issue smartcard driving licences to the state’s 2.5 million motorists could seriously compromise privacy rights
Storage specialist Optima Technology has filed a lawsuit against Network Solutions, alleging that the registrar gave away its domain name without its permission and so caused damage to its business. Verisign have a long history of this practice, usually against people who can’t afford to fight back
Last night Foreign Correspondent ran an excellent story on the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, and the kiwi architect Mark Burry, who’s made it his life’s work to complete the Spanish architect’s vision. The self-effacing Burry works out of an office at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, where he’s adapted aeronautical software for the first time in architecture to help transform Antoni Gaudí’s creative line drawings into solid bricks and mortar.
Gaudí’s drawings for the building resemble an elaborate sand drip castle — it’s no wonder his 30-storey cathedral, which will eventually be big enough for a congregation of fifteen thousand people, couldn’t be completed in his lifetime. The entire plans were in his head, and died with him.
Burry, who says that without question Gaudí was a genius, has been working on the building for twenty-five years. He visits Barcelona only four times a year, but oversees the construction full time from Melbourne via computer modelling.
And he has a deadline — in 1926 after Gaudí died, his successors predicted it would take ten years to finish the job. Now Burry has to have it done by 2007, in time for the 125th anniversary of the first stone being laid.
Australia will soon have a new federal Communications and IT Minister, with Attorney-General Darryl Williams set to over the job as Senator Richard Alston prepares to retire amidst a major Cabinet reshuffle. Former Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock will take over the Attorney-General’s department
The Commonwealth Bank has introduced Australia’s first lite Eftpos terminal. The PayLite terminal is designed for smaller businesses that process less than $100,000 in card transactions per year, and do not require the extra functionality found on traditional Eftpos terminals
In the best use of a hideous Elmo toy I’ve seen, Kelly Heaton purchased 64 previously-owned Tickle Me Elmos on eBay and turned them into fur coats and wall-mounted game trophies
In an attempt to show that primitive communications can still function in modern networks, a student at Algoma University took up a challenge from Professor George Townsend to replace the lowest layer of the OSI networking model with a set of bongo drums
A county fair in the US state of West Virginia has an unusual tourist draw card — a cooking competition featuring road kill. The idea was brainstormed by the Pocahontas County Visitors Bureau to spice up their Autumn Harvest Festival
The Green Man has an article on political spin and the stupidity of the Shrub and his merry band of cohorts:
Representative of Bush Government: ‘We can clearly say that the overthrow of the Iraqi regime has made America a safer place.’
Reporter: ‘There were either WOMD and the facilities to produce them or there wasn’t. If there was then they are now in the hands of another rogue state or terrorists and as such are still a danger. If there wasn’t any then there was never any danger. So how can you say that things are now safer.’
Representative of Bush Government: ‘I think we should stick to the facts. The overthrow of the Iraqi regime has made America a safer place.’ and terminates interview.
Good to see that logic is not getting in the way of some good spin.
US spies have found weapons of mass destruction at last — on a remote Scottish island. Managers at the Bruichladdich Distillery on the Hebridian island of Islay, famous for producing Scotland’s best malt whisky, were puzzled when they received an e-mail from ‘Ursula’, asking them to repair their webcam that broadcasts scenes from the Victorian distillery to whisky lovers around the world. After inquiring, they found that Ursula was a spy with the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency
The five major US library associations are planning to file a legal brief siding with Streamcast Networks and Grokster in the California suit, brought by the major record labels and Hollywood studios. The development could complicate the RIAA’s efforts to portray file-swapping services as rife with spam and illegal pornography
Cyberspace users in India are up in arms against the government. For the first time since the Information Technology Act, 2000, was introduced, the government has banned a site, Yahoo Groups, for publishing anti-government material. Many netizens believe the government is trying to gag the Internet, a medium for free flow of information
Daniel Geer, one of the primary authors of a report Reliance On MS A Danger To National Security, was fired from @stake Thursday morning. @stake said that; The values and opinions of the report are not in line with @stake’s views and that Geer’s participation was not sanctioned. Microsoft, who has worked closely with @stake in the past, denied that it was involved in @stake’s decision to fire Dan
After suffering through a catastrophic Win2K crash — trapped in a reboot loop with no way out other than to reformat and reinstall — I needed to find a player for my Invader Zim vids. Unfortunately that meant having to reinstall the evil of Real Player or one of it’s equally icky siblings.
Hoping to avoid polluting my PC with even more crappy software, I had a look around and found the imaginatively named Real Alternative. It’s ugly, Windows Media Player ugly, and a little clunky. But it does the job and keeps me both Real Player free and happily basking in the warmth of Zim.
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