Saw this Cityrail anagram map in one of boingboing’s recent spate of anagram map postings, and thought it would be amusing to fellow Sydneysiders. It appears that making English anagrams from aboriginal place names is quite difficult.
The station pictured is Bexley North, a.k.a. Xylene Throb.
One of the biggest and most complete giant squids ever found is on display at London’s Natural History Museum. Measuring a monstrous 8.62m, the animal was caught off the coast of the Falkland Islands by a trawler
Sony Ericsson has announced several new phones, including two that carry Sony’s Cyber-shot brand and come with 3.2-megapixel cameras that are integrated with Google’s Blogger application
The Mobile Antivirus Researchers Association is reporting what it says is the first virus that can pass from a PC to a mobile device and then erase files. The proof-of concept virus is not yet threatening users
Anti-virus companies are warning of new malicious software that can infect any mobile phone capable of running Java applications, not just feature-rich smart phones
Schools have warned they will have to turn off the internet if a move by the nation’s copyright collection society forces them to pay a fee every time a teacher instructs students to browse a web site. Teachers said students in rural areas would bear the brunt of cuts if the Copyright Agency was successful in adding internet browsing charges to the $31 million in photocopying fees it rakes in from schools. The agency calculates the total due by randomly sampling schools each year for materials they copy, and extrapolating the results
The contents of 800 Australian libraries have gone online, with the launch of a new free service by the National Library in Canberra. Libraries Australia has been used by professional librarians for 25 years. The National Library’s Fran Wilson says from today that will extend to everyone
A new optical effect has been created in a London laboratory that means solid objects such as walls could one day be rendered transparent. Researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, have pioneered the technique which could be used to see through rubble at earthquake sites, or look at parts of the body obscured by bone. The effect is based on the development of a new material that exploits the way atoms in matter move, to make them interact with a laser beam in an entirely new way — via Warren Ellis
Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran has halted the export of Australian livestock to Egypt, amid allegations of animal mistreatment. Channel 9’s 60 Minutes program has aired footage of cattle in an Egyptian abattoir, having their tendons slashed before slaughter. The 60 Minutes reporter believes the cattle are Australian, but Livecorp says that is unlikely
Google has announced their pilot program to digitise the entire video content of the National Archives and make it globally accessible for free on Google Video. The history of the world should be universally accessible and this is definitely a great step towards making sure that our history is not lost, and that everyone has equal and easy access towards such information. Google has provided some sample videos from the National Archives, such as the 1969 moon landing
mPhase Technologies and Lucent Technologies Bell Labs have reported that their jointly developed nano-based smart
battery prototype has proven it can store and convert energy on demand. This practical confirmation of the theory behind the technology is a major milestone in the product development process
Yorick Sample II Felted originally uploaded by Red Wolf
This is the second Yorick sample. It’s done in an Australian yarn: Aristocrat Heirloom 8 Ply (50% mohair, 50% wool)
The mohair and wool felted easily, quicker than the previous sample. Not as fuzzy as the first sample and the definition is much better, but it’s forming loopy bits on the edges.
Looks like I may need to go looking for more yarns to play with.
Yahoo Music chief Dave Goldberg raised eyebrows Thursday at the Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles with a proposal rarely heard from executives at large digital music services: Record labels should try selling music online without copy protection
A Trading Standards officer in a town in the UK contacted the Mozilla Foundation to assure it that she’d caught the pirates who were copying Firefox without permission. When it was explained that the software was free, the officer lost it — I can’t believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case? If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted
— via Boing Boing
They move through seemingly solid ice with ease and are at their liveliest near the freezing point of water. Warm them up slightly and they dissolve into goo. Their life cycle remains a mystery. But ice worms are beginning to yield their secrets to a few hardy scientists who see broad applications from understanding one of the planet’s oddest inhabitants
Never let it be said that cartoons aren’t educational. Allow Pinky & The Brain to enlighten you with Brainstem — via Fluff the Plush Cthulhu
An Amish teen was accused and cited for wiretapping a neighbour’s phone line to call relatives in another state. The Amish tend to frown upon this sort of thing — via digg
Judge Punch, a strict Catholic and loony fundie, spat the dummy at a recent custody hearing. He screamed abuse Rachel Knight and ordered that she is to have absolutely no contact with her son, not even in writing, because of her membership of a satirical religious group — Church of the SubGenius — with very liberal views on sexuality — via Boing Boing
The head of the US copyright office has accused Congress of making a mistake by extending the length of copyright in America, calling the term too long
, and saying that Congress made a big mistake
. The remarkable admission came at the tail end of an event held at the UNC Law School on 2 November 2005, when Mary-Beth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, and a panel of copyright scholars, lawyers and bureaucrats convened to deliberate copyright in public
Skype has come under scrutiny from the NSA and FBI since its PC-to-PC calls are encrypted using AES encryption. This is the same encryption used by the US Government for many things. So, why is it national security
when the Government encrypts its communications and assumed criminal activity
when private citizens follow suit? — via digg
RSS – Posts