Crimson Sky has made a very cool case mod inspired by HR Giger‘s biomechanical Alien design. The site gives specifics about the computer but doesn’t give instructions on how to build it
George Ziemann has two excellent articles that explore the early days of the recording and music industry and how their attempts to monopolise their respective mediums in the past failed. The Dawn of Recorded Music and the First Pirates focuses on early collusion in the phonograph industry and Music, Movies and Monopoly on Thomas Edison’s failed attempts to restrain fair trade in the two new media he gave commercial rise to — via Slashdot
Just had a flurry of dog activity in the house.
My husky, closely followed by the malamute, went hooning around the dining table before crashing into and getting tangling in the vertical blinds by the back door. By the time I got there to untangle him, he’d buggered off to the depths of his kennel with whatever prize he’d managed to thieve.
The loose feathers and a small amount of blood at the scene of the crime, pretty much told me what his prize was. But it’s a tough call to identify bird remains at the back of the kennel when there’s a husky drooling on them and a malamute standing in the entrance blocking your view.
I had to wait half an hour until the little guy brought his bird out to the backyard. He laid beside it to tease the malamute. Turns out he’d scored another starling, which sets his tally at three starlings, a sparrow and a rather stupid noisy miner.
I’ve heard the sound of starling doom in the past. He waits until they leave their nest via the guttering, then he launches himself off the kennel roof and takes them out in mid air.
He must have stunned his latest victim and was forced to subdue it inside. Or, possibly, the malamute was laying in wait to claim his fluttery new toy and he was forced to evade her.
The sparrow was unfortunate enough to fly inside and get cornered in the kitchen. While the house humans were trying to open the kitchen window to shoo it outside, my husky solved the problem by catching and taking it outside himself.
The sparrow didn’t survive his rescue attempt.
The noisy miner was a fledgling. I was walking the little guy past a tree full of noisy miners. I spotted the fledgling sitting on a limb about a metre off the ground. I figured that all of the adult birds were telling it to get the hell out the way, but as the fledgling was going, Huh? What dog?
, it was too late. My dog had grabbed it and walked off. He was a lead at the time too.
The dogs are always entertaining, but I could have done without having to clean bird bits off the vertical blinds.
Published Epinions — 01.06.2003
For those looking for some kick arse live entertainment tonight I recommend you get yourself to the Empire Hotel for it’s Pop Tarts
show, showcasing australian female artists/musicians. More specifically 8-ish to 8:30-ish to see Simone Pain whose musical style is so very not pop — and she herself is not a tart.
So go see Simone Pain, 2 June 8:00pm ’til 8:30 at the Empire Hotel, corner Parramatta Road and Johnston Street, Annandale.
Washington is joining 13 other states and the federal government in suing Alyon Technologies who they say fraudulently billed residents for pop-up ads, typically from pornography sites
Trainspotting is the much-maligned pastime revolving around the writing down of the serial numbers of locomotives. As if having everybody snickering at them wasn’t bad enough, reports suggest that spotters are now facing a security crackdown
For the man who has everything; the last surviving Aircraft Carrier built in England for WWII and commissioned as the HMS Vengeance in late 1944 is currently for sale — via Slashdot
Digital rights management sounds unobjectionable on paper: Consumers purchase certain rights to use creative works and are prevented from violating those rights. In reality, our legal system usually leaves us wiggle room. What’s fair in one case won’t be in another — and only human judgement can discern the difference
I’ve been harassing mobile phone providers recently.
I was with Optus for years and had the problem that I live in a dead zone and have bugger all mobile service at home. Although access does improve if I grab a metal window frame before answering the call. Which does present the problem of running out of hands if you need to take notes, and I can’t believe that acting as a mobile phone antenna is terribly healthy in the long term. The lack of service allowed me to wangle a really good deal with the only drawback that it lasts nine months and then I have to remind Optus that service in my area still sucks before they reinstate the deal.
I just hit the end of my current deal and I finished the term of my contract a while back. My mobile is mostly used for incoming calls and I don’t make enough outgoing calls to warrant paying even the minimum monthly rate. So I decided to stuff the contract for a joke and go pre-paid.
Phonechoice is a pretty good resource for comparing current rates. So I had a look around their site and narrowed it down to two providers. I then gathered some info to take with me to have a wee chat with the phone shop humans.
I have to admit that Optus Mobile customer service rocks, especially compared to the customer service of the bulk of their divisions. The reason for this is that Optus Mobile is a different entity to the rest of Optus.
As a bit of a background, during the Optus sell off, Cable and Wireless kept the mobile division and run all customer service in house. The rest of Optus is owned by SingTel who, aside from being clueless in general, insist on outsourcing their customer service. They have had a massive increase in customer complaints because the outsource team seems to consist of the neurotic, the insane and a fun combination of both. I’m yet to find anyone who has had any joy dealing with them.
Unfortunately great Optus Mobile customer service has been countered by rude, arrogant and ignorant service from their stores. I have had nothing but trouble when dealing with them in the past. So I was expecting the usual level of ineptitude when I hit an Optus store first.
There were two staff members on duty; one was dealing with a customer and the other one was screwing around on a computer with her back to me. After indicating to computer chick that I was indeed looking for service, she reluctantly pried herself off her machine and came to my assistance.
I wasn’t too happy that the cheapest pre-paid deal is $30 and it only lasts six months — I did know this from my Phonechoice research, but it never hurts to ask. I don’t know how long it will take to use up $30 worth of credit, but I’d like to see first before I decide to get a higher value card later.
On top of the lack of lower end phone cards, sullen computer chick wouldn’t even allow me to buy a pre-paid card. I was told to go home, notify Optus that I wanted to transfer from contract to pre-paid and then to come back to buy a card. I wasn’t even offered the use of a phone, or even the customer service number, to arrange this in store. Needless to say, I left.
Almost directly opposite Optus is the Vodafone store, so they were my next mission. The two laid back staff members couldn’t have been more helpful. It was explained that because I’m swapping providers, I’d need a new SIM card. They have a starter pack for $29.95 including $20 of call credit and it lasts for a year. This is more than enough time to figure out what sort of card I’ll need for future use, plus the call rates are lower than Optus.
Recently my mother enquired with Optus about swapping handsets, was told of the different SIM card sizes between her old phone and the one she was considering and told that she would lose all of her phone data. I don’t know why this concerned her as she gets me to program her mobile anyway, but she wasn’t impressed by the news. Because of my new SIM card, any data on my old SIM would be wiped. I knew this and was quite prepared to reprogram the mobile. Vodafone are either more technically savvy than Optus stores, or at least train their staff, because my old SIM card got plugged into a computer and the data written to the new card. Took a few minutes, no hassle, yay Vodafone.
All I had to do then was give Vodafone a call on their free number and let them know I was good to go. That done, they transferred me through to the portability people who organised for my old mobile number to be transferred to my new Vodafone SIM card. I was informed that there was a backlog and the change would take about 24 hours. Rather than leave me hanging, they suggested I use my old SIM card until the change was finalised. When the provider name vanished from my mobile, I could than swap to my new SIM and be good to go. The change came through in twelve hours.
I then had a chat to Vodafone customer service — who have, so far, proven themselves to be as chirpy and co-operative as Optus Mobile — about setting up the usual security bars and I was done.
So now I’m a happy Vodafone customer who had a pleasant customer experience both in store and on the phone. Optus stores have a lot to learn.
Community Service Announcement: If you’ve got serious issues with your phone service provider that you have been unable to resolve, it would be well worth your while to have a chat to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.
Published Epinions — 30.05.2003
Lawrence Anthony, trustee of the Thula Thula Private Game Reserve in Zululand and interim head of the Baghdad Zoo, appealed this week to zoo and animal welfare groups to help raise $1 million for the once-splendid facility, which was badly damaged and had many of its animals stolen during the US-led war against Iraq
The Federal Government will introduce new laws banning the rebirthing of stolen mobile phones
Former governor-general Sir William Deane has criticised the federal government’s human rights record, labelling the Liberal leadership intolerant and untruthful
Microsoft is paying $750 million to AOL Time Warner as part of a wide-ranging settlement of disputes between the two companies. As part of the deal, the two companies will drop pending litigation, including an antitrust complaint filed by AOL Time Warner’s Netscape Communications unit in January 2002 against Microsoft. AOL also agreed to a seven-year royalty-free license of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser. So much for Netscape 8.0, according to industry analysts who predict that the Netscape browser — currently at version 7.02 — will now move from a neglected orphan of AOL Time Warner to a candidate for euthanasia
Sony has unveiled a crossover
PlayStation 2 console with a built-in DVD recorder and hard drive for storing data, part of a strategy to combine technologies in hopes of boosting the company’s brand and restoring its profitability
Astronomers led by Steve Phillipps, at the University of Bristol, and Michael Drinkwater, University of Queensland, have discovered a new type of galaxy. The ultra-compact dwarf galaxies
, are so small that scientists had previously mistaken them for nearby stars
The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance claims that Communications Minister Richard Alston had abused his position by criticising the ABC’s coverage of the Iraq war
Researchers are reporting that first-person-shooter video games — the kind that require players to kill or maim enemies or monsters that pop out of nowhere — sharply improve visual attention skills
Why can’t client’s say what they mean or want done? I spent the majority of wednesday coming up with a temporary design solution for a client, only to be emailed a crude jpeged mock up the next day of what they really meant by see what you can come up with for this
. Where the fuck was this in the first place? Needless to say the project manager and myself were pretty pissed off as we spent so much time on this, and like I said, this is going to change in the coming months as their whole site is going to be redesigned.
What have we learnt from this: clients always have an idea of how they want something done. Do not take the see what you can come up with for this
statement too literally, it really means see if you can guess what I’m thinking for this!
.
A husband and wife, both police officers, have been accused of squandering $819,000 of drug money over three years while part of a police heroin ring
Munich decides to switch a significant proportion of its computers from Windows to the open-source Linux operating system, despite an aggressive pitch from Microsoft
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