Popular Mechanics has an interesting (and quite long) article debunking many of the conspiracy theories around the attacks of September 11th.
Monthly Archives: September 2006
Climate Change Information
New Scientist has an area of their site focused on climate change, very handy to see what the latest scientific thinking is on climate change.
Hail Eris!
Ladies, gentlemen & popes; please welcome Eris (the object formerly known as Xena) the latest addition to the solar system as a dwarf planet.
First seen via the BBC – see also the official IAU telegram (text summary at SpaceRef) and the Wikipedia page on the goddess it was named after.
Fnord
Donna on IMDB
Investing in Intelligence
Apparently “governments are spending more money on intelligence” after September 11th.
Strange that I’ve not noticed any spontaneous outbreaks of common sense from them recently..
How To Kill All ADSL In Victoria
An organisation was doing their annual generator load test, when this happened:
It appears our upsteam ADSL telco has had a failure of an Ethernet switch. This has dropped ALL adsl circuits in Victora. (sic)
Just under an hour later it became obvious why:
It appears that the switch in question had not been connected to the essential power circuit. The telco’s switch had its power restored when the generator test was completed. We will working with the telco to get the switch transferred from mains to essential power on Monday.
Their summary of the testing:
Besides losing all ADSL in Victora, the generator power test went fine. (sic)
Oddly enough I didn’t notice anything that day with our home ADSL, so somebody likes me..
A Very Important Slideshow
An Inconvenient Truth
Year: 2006
Director: Davis Guggenheim
Media: Film
ID in Amazon: An Inconvenient Truth
Rating: out of 5
Went to see “An Inconvenient Truth” last night and was impressed. Al Gore is does pretty well here, stays (mostly) apolitical and has some nice self-deprecating humour as he tries to get a very serious point across. He knows that climate change is a tough sell in the US where science literacy is so low and the popular press is easily manipulated by lobbyists so he tries to make it all as accessible as possible.
Whilst all the graphs of CO2 levels and temperature variation are extremely persuasive the most emotionally gripping part for me were the photographs of glaciers from different periods demonstrating the massive retreat they have undergone in living memory.
There is a fair bit about Gore (I suspect mainly used as a break from the “hard stuff” of science), but I don’t think it detracted from the film and there was some useful background on how he became involved.
Tags: climate+change global+warming al+gore an+inconvenient+truth
LUV Server Down – Colocation Power Work Again!
It appears that Eftel have took the power down again at the colocation facility in Collins Street, but unlike last time it would appear that the server isn’t back up yet. This could be because the outage is still going on (it’s still listed as current on their site as I write even though it was scheduled for just Saturday) or it could be that there’s a problem with the box.
The LUV sysadmin has tried to get permission to go and investigate today (Sunday), but it appears it won’t be possible until Monday.
An Awesome Night of Drumming
Drum Tao
Event type: Concert
Date: 2006-09-08
Rating: out of 5
If you are under the misguided impression that drummers are people who hang around with musicians then run, do not walk, to see Drum Tao play!
We went to see them on Friday night at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne and were astounded by their performance. They have a huge amount of energy, great style and their timing is immaculate. Their playing is just great and you can see that they enjoy the performance as much as the audience – they got a standing ovation at the end.
Just brilliant!
Microsoft Locking Out Third Party Security Software From Vista ?
The BBC has a report that’s meant to be about free security software for Windows (but doesn’t really say anything substantive on that matter) which contains a rather illuminating section on Microsofts latest adventure in security:
Laura Yecies of Zone Labs said: “Microsoft is certainly making it more difficult for the independent security vendors right now.
What a surprise! So what are they doing ?
“They’re essentially trying to take control of the security user interface functions.
Probably under the guise of “improving” Vista’s security (not that they’ve got a great track record in IT security anyway), but it leads into this rather nice piece of irony.
“Fortunately we have a pretty crack team which is finding new and innovative ways to continue to provide a very important security layer to our users.”
I couldn’t put it any better than the BBC themselves:
So the antivirus people are having to hack Windows so they can get close enough to protect it.
Of course Microsoft themselves would have no vested interest in stopping other peoples security software from working on Vista, would they ?
At the same time as Microsoft starts closing off parts of the operating system to security software vendors, it has also released its own security product known as OneCare. The all in one package is designed to look after your computer and all your data, leaving the whole gamut of security on Microsoft’s shoulders.
Can you say “monopolistic practices” ? I knew you could..