Optus now uses Telstra’s phone lines for its DSL service, but wants to offer services on its own DSL network by next year. A new network would cost between $60 million and $70 million
Actual letter of resignation from an employee at Zantex Computers, USA, to her boss, who apparently resigned very soon afterwards — via lucie
Dear Mr Baker,
As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have a few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and myself during the commission of our duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.
Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every little nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to myself and other employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of
cut and pastefor the hundredth time. You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.You walk around the building all day, shiftlessly looking for fault in others. You have a sharp dressed useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle. Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation, however, I have a few parting thoughts.
1. When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal for you to give me a bad recommendation. The most you can say to hurt me is
I prefer not to comment. I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years to keep you honest, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.2. I have all the passwords to every account on the system, and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I am going to publish your
favorites list, which I conveniently saved when you made meback upyour useless files. I do believe that terms likeLolitaare not usually viewed favourably by the administration.3. When you borrowed the digital camera to
take pictures of your Mother’s birthday, you neglected to mention that you were going to take pictures of yourself in the mirror nude. Then you forgot to erase them like the techno-moron you really are. Suffice it to say, I have never seen such odd acts with a sauce bottle, but I assure you that those have been copied and kept in safe places pending the authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (Try to use a spell check please, I hate having to correct your mistakes.)Thank you for your time, and I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00 am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody, and all of your little twisted repugnant obsessions will be open to the public. Never fuck with your systems administrator. Why? Because they know what you do with all that free time!
Wishing you a grand and glorious day,
Cecelia
As amusing as it is, it is completely unauthenticated and more than likely fake. Still isn’t as inventive as the Attack of the Mad Shitter
RSSCalendar, a free tool for sharing calendar data on the net, is one of the first nonblogging uses of RSS
zillivisation, a new community website, has gone online. Convert your relatives, friends, and co-workers to use Mozilla products and get finally rewarded for it. zillivisation wants to encourage you as an advanced user to spread Mozilla products into your circle of friends. Every reported conversion earns you some points, which improve your ranking — via mozillaZine
We are close to being able to record our entire lives on a single 3.5″ optical disc that uses ultraviolet light, since focused laser beam is smaller in diameter than other frequencies of light. The expected cost per drive upon production is $570-$750 with discs costing $45
Piers noticed that someone has lined the floor of a phonebox outside a supermarket with a rather nice lawn — via BoingBoing
I have no idea who did it. It looks really awesome, and feels nicer than bare concrete as well. Probably only going to last a couple of days, but I really like this kind of anonymous, socially-focused art. It has a very honest quality to it. It’s in Mount Lawley, Perth, Australia, at the Supa Valu near the corner of Beaufort and Walcott, if anyone wants to have a look.
Playing on the guilt of upscale expat children in America who need to outsource
parental care for folks back home, a service has appeared that handles the little things for a fee — via BoingBoing
So, you’re an Indian living in the United States, making megabucks in Redwood City, California. A big shot. But your aging parents are back home in India, alone. What should you, as a good Indian son or daughter, do? Call or send an e-mail to yourmaninindia.com, who will do everything from paying the family bills to just sitting down and being your mom or dad’s new best friend
The California Supreme Court voided the nearly 4,000 same-sex marriages sanctioned in San Francisco this year and ruled unanimously Thursday that the mayor overstepped his authority by issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. Proving that homophobic fundie scum aren’t just an American phenomenon, the sheep in the Australian Parliament happily introduced a ban on same-sex marriages in Australia [BugMeNot] that went over like a bucket of day old fish
The NSW Government is on the verge of putting its government-wide Linux plans into action, preparing to go to tender for a raft of enterprise Linux products to be used across state agencies in a project worth up to $50 million. The tender will cover the provision of enterprise level Linux system software, application software and associated services for desktop and server environments
on a whole-of-government basis, according to the NSW Department of Commerce, which runs both the state’s procurement and IT policy — via Triode Internet
A giant colony of ants stretching 100km has been discovered in Melbourne, threatening local insect species. The ants, which were imported from Argentina, are ranked among the world’s 100 worst animal invaders. Although they exist in their usual smaller group size in their homeland, the colonies have merged in Australia to create one massive super colony
Telstra’s ADSL broadband service has been hit with a massive outage, leaving thousands of customers of Telstra’s BigPond service and eleven other service providers unable to log on. Unfortunately the article implies the problem was a one off when it is really a series of long outages over a periods of two weeks that the scum at Telstra take forever to fix
Moronic Trade Minister Mark Vaile, a man up to his neck in dodgy deals with big business, has opened the door to Federal Government departments offshoring IT services work, telling a Sydney function that a vibrant economy and flexible workplace arrangements
would keep Australia competitive
DVD Jon has just announced that he cracked the encryption in Apple’s AirPort Express. I’ve released JustePort, a tool which lets you stream MPEG4 Apple Lossless files to your AirPort Express. The stream is encrypted with AES and the AES key is encrypted with RSA
IBM is developing a new technology that researchers say is one step closer to autonomic computing, by enabling chips to sense their own flaws and reconfigure themselves without outside intervention. The eFuse technology replaces laser fuses, used to heal chips while they are still in the fabrication process, with electrical fuses that can reroute traffic around inactive or poorly functioning areas on a chip
Sharp are introducing a 3D monitor that doesn’t require special glasses. The technology was devised for high end medical instuments and such but this could be the gamers new dream toy
A senior Microsoft Australia manager has warned customers the newly-released Windows XP Service Pack 2 is not a silver bullet
for security problems as the software heavyweight plans another national security roadshow. Meanwhile the the monkeys at MS got the hump over a group who were distributing the dodgy upgrade via BitTorrent and threatened them with legal action — via Pagan Prattle
The Free Wheelchair Mission is a religious NGO that produces wheelchairs out of $41.17 worth of parts, and makes its plans for same available for free online. The project was inspired by the sight of a legless Moroccan woman dragging herself across a dirt road. Now the project works to provide low-cost wheels to all comers around the world — via boingboing
IBM is preparing to launch enterprise database technologies that can more effectively link together related information from multiple data sources, potentially eliminating some of the quality problems which can plague large data warehousing projects. The technology, codenamed mineLink and developed at the company’s research centre in Almaden, uses heuristic techniques to identify data fields which contain related information even though they may be labelled differently
MSK is producing transparent solar panels. The panels can generate 3.8 watts of electricity per square foot, an above-average level of efficiency
. They come in a thick version that can be used for glazing buildings. As an interesting aside, they can also be used as screens for projection TV units
The Mobility Denial System is an oil-slick-in-a-can, a combination of Drilling Mud Additive, Flocculent and water
that renders surfaces as slippery as wet ice — via boingboing
Once applied, the material will degrade or impair the adversary’s ability to move. For Interior applications it can be applied to flat, smooth, non-porous surfaces such as linoleum, tile, wood floors or staircases. Exterior applications include sloped, rough, porous surfaces such as concrete, asphalt, and grassy areas.
Connovation, a New Zealand company, is now making a synthetic skunk gel
called Skunk Shot that is being used by law enforcement to keep vagrants and junkies out of abandoned buildings — via boingboing
While non-lethal weapons are all well and good in theory, in practice they tend to get used to first immobilise an opponent so lethal means can be then used. Apparently most US law enforcement officers missed the instead of
coda.
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