The Coalition’s broadband policy slogan states that they will “Complete the current NBN cheaper and faster.” This simply isn’t true.
See http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2013/02/21/3695094.htm for the full story.
Author Archives: Arjen Lentz
Arctic “death spiral” leaves climate scientists shocked and worried
A “global disaster” is unfolding rapidly in the Arctic as melting sea ice kick starts global warming feedback loops.
” three-quarters of the “permanent”, year-round sea ice in the Arctic has been cooked away in just 30 years. Over half of it has disappeared in just the last eight years. A vast expanse of ice larger than the European Union has vanished. What’s left is half the area and only half as thick.”
Upper Hunter – mining pit
In 2008 I drove through the Upper Hunter. Less well known than the international tourist magnet aka wine theme park the Lower Hunter Valley. By the way I call it a theme park because while it contains over 120 wineries, only about 3% of Australia’s grapes are grown in the Hunter area. It can be nice to visit though, particularly the smaller places. But I disgress…
The Upper Hunter also has some awesome wineries (Callatoota Estate, for example – the owner likes his Chardonnay but I took a liking to the port) and it is of course much more quiet. That is, fewer tourists. We did have to dodge several large trucks and other vehicles on the small roads. Why? The Upper Hunter is being carved open for mining. My last experience on the ground there was, as I mentioned, in 2008. But take a peek at an aerial map of the area:
Zoom in closer to the grey blotches and see for yourself – and the scale of these areas. A friend who recently drove through on his motorbike reported that he saw a hill disappearing.
It’s crazy. This is about short term profits and a long-term wasteland. Australia is short of quality top-soil. Once it’s gone, that’s it. You can’t just replant something later and expect it to all be fine. Not vineyards, or other stuff. The wine growers I spoke to were already telling about the dust on their vines and other aspects affecting their farms. And I figure that the new landscape is not much of a tourist attraction, either.
A stupid laptop (ACER Aspire 5315)
Working on upgrading an old 2008 laptop for someone from Vista to (also) run Linux, I ran into the most silly issue. Unlike “normal” laptops, the ACER Aspire 5315 does not control its CPU fan through its BIOS (ACPI) – the fan does run on startup, but stops as soon as you start an operating system. Vista then controls it again through a driver. So in a nutshell, unless you have something specifically controlling the fan, it doesn’t run. Obviously this makes the processor heat up considerably within a fairly short space of time (10 minutes or so) and causes the laptop to shut down (thermal protection).
It’s merely a hurdle and not a hindrance for installing Linux – it has a tool to handle this stuff, which needs to be installed and enabled before proceeding with the rest of the installation process.
My main point of this post is just calling out “how stupid” of ACER to design a laptop like this. It really doesn’t help at all. There are standard ways of doing this, and they just ignored it for this particular laptop. Other ACER laptops do things the standard way. Sigh.
Cybersleuths Uncover 5-Year Spy Operation | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/red-october-spy-campaign/all/
An advanced and well-orchestrated computer spy operation that targeted diplomats and governments for at least five years has been uncovered by security researchers in Russia. Focused on targets in Eastern Europe, the campaign appears to be aimed at gathering classified information and geopolitical intelligence.
And US govt is fussed about Wikileaks. My goodness do they have their priorities wrong. For instance, the insecurity of devices, operating systems and applications (mainly of US design) is staggering. But the response is consistently typical: they prosecute rather than deal with the underlying problem.