La La, a new online music service aims to offer CDs for $US1 by letting members trade used physical discs, in a new twist on online song swapping
A US state has signed into law a bill banning most abortions, in a move aimed to force the US Supreme Court to reconsider its key ruling on the issue. The South Dakota law — approved by the governor on Monday — makes it a crime for doctors to perform terminations. Exceptions will be made if a woman’s life is at risk, but not in cases of rape or incest. Harking back to the era of Jane, an organisation providing illegal abortions in the Chicago area in the 1960s and early 1970s, Molly has published a manual for setting up an abortion clinic
Robert Fisk says that in his three decades of reporting from the Middle East for British newspapers, he’s never seen it more dangerous, and that he’s certain another major crisis, possibly even another September 11, is coming. The veteran war reporter also says he remains baffled by just who is trying to generate civil war in Iraq
SMS 007, a Java application developed by Czech company CircleTech, can encrypt SMS messages on mobiles. The encryption used ensures that wiretapping entities cannot get to the plaintext version of the message. Data stored by the programme is also protected by encryption, so stealing the phone and examining it for data is useless
About 50,000 opponents of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra are holding a peaceful protest in Bangkok, vowing to stay in the streets until he steps down. Thai television has been notorious for remaining silent when historic events are happening. Instead of covering the protest they aired Backstreet Boys concerts, MTV shows, commercials and chat — via Warren Ellis
Missouri legislators in Jefferson City, unfamiliar with the separation of church and state, considered a bill that would name Christianity the state’s official majority
religion — via Warren Ellis
Fairfax has agreed to buy New Zealand internet auction site Trade Me for NZ$700 million dollars
A church was blocking the only high speed signal in town, so Kevin Lavallée decided he needed to go higher. This is the story of one man’s quest to build a 60-foot reception tower in his yard and retire his modem once and for all
Desmond Irvine, 74, was so heartbroken by the death of his wife Veronica on Valentine’s Day that he put her in a nice dress and, with the help of his son, took her in a taxi from Edinburgh, Scotland to their holiday home in Berwick, England where they put her in the freezer. Two weeks later, police were tipped-off by concerned family members and discovered the body. Desmond was detained by police for nine hours. Apparently, Desmond and his son are now trying to bring Veronica back home — via Boing Boing
French consumers are not entitled to make personal copies of DVDs, even if they do not distribute them, France’s highest court said Wednesday in a victory for film companies like Vivendi Universal
The Pentagon is funding research into neural implants with the ultimate hope of turning sharks into stealth spies
capable of gliding undetected through the ocean — via NewsVine
Cityrail may be bad but, as the Amateur Transplants point out, the London Underground is worse.
Amateur Transplants (aka Adam Kay and Suman Biswas) are two qualified doctors, who practice medicine with varying degrees of success
Prime Minister Tony Blair has told how he prayed to god spoke to his invisible friend when deciding whether or not to send UK troops to Iraq. Anti-war campaigners attacked Mr Blair’s comments as a joke
— via The Pagan Prattle
The US Senate has passed a renewal of the Patriot act, 89-10, after two extensions caused by months of negotiations. The only thing standing in the way of a full renewal is a House vote, expected to pass next week. The renewal comes with some privacy protections attached, however, some worry they are only cosmetic
NaturalNano is developing a new nanotube paint that is able to block mobile phone signals on demand. The nanotubes are filled with copper, suspended in paint, and can be applied to the walls and ceiling of places such as concert halls, churches, and classrooms
I’m a part-time fine arts student at Meadowbank TAFE, also known as the Sydney Gallery School. I’ve just found out that the gallery that is used for student exhibitions is being shut down by the College Director. Main reason being that there will no longer be someone constantly at the gallery, and that person is being moved. While there is normally a teacher or 2 around, it was the Clerical Officer that was permanentley stationed there, who not only did the day stuff and FIne Arts course enquiries, but also Fitting and Machining and Welding enquiries. The Clerical Officer, and all other clerical staff, are being moved to another block on campus in a centralised location.
Here are the reasons for moving all clerical staff to one location:
- Upskill C/O’s.
- Free up accommodation in sections.
- Provide better flexibility/equity and systems support to teaching sections.
- Meet an increasing demand for clerical support
- Operate within defined budgets
Some how I suspect it’s got a hell of a lot more to do with the last item than any of the miserable other excuses, sorry but I don’t see how it helps to upskill people, provide better flexibility and support or meet increasing demand for clerical support. The Sydney Gallery School has offered to rotate clerical staff in the gallery to help with upskilling, and are more than willing to look at other comprises but of course the College Director won’t have a bar of it.
I think one of the funniest suggestions came from College Management, they said that the gallery could be hired out to students or outside interests, however this would mean that the gallery would need to turn over $80 000 to employ a Gallery Director. Fucking wankers!
This is just ridiculous! Ok Mr/Ms Fucking College Director, now what do you call the school?
Protests can be sent to the Minister of Education and some others I’m sure.
The Tax Office’s $500 million IT Change Program is based on a decades-old Cobol design, raising questions about future flexibility even before the project is rolled out
A special Australian committee on copyright and DRM has published its findings, and has recommended a drastic scaling-back of the protections given to DRM in most countries — via Boing Boing
The Bruichladdich distillery on the Isle of Islay, off Scotland’s west coast, announced it was reviving a centuries-old recipe for whisky so strong that one 17th-century writer feared more than two spoonfuls could be lethal. Risk-taking whisky connoisseurs will have to wait, however — the spirit will not be ready for at least 10 years
Perth’s Edith Cowan University will seek to use its new mesh wireless network to cut down its fleet of mobile phones by replacing them with wireless handsets enabled for Voice over IP
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