Google have a nice new toy called Google Trends – here’s some searches that I’ve come up with that are amusing..
Fun for all the family!
Just in on the ABC news:
Federal Human Services Minister Joe Hockey has signalled that private sector companies like banks and supermarkets may be given access to information stored on the Government’s “smart card”.
Joe Hockey says:
So a blanket policy saying that the private sector can have no access to the card, or a blanket policy saying that only certain government agencies can have access, or a blanket policy saying that individuals can or cannot change the information, I think is crazy at this particular point of time
No, Mr. Hockey, I think you’re crazy for considering letting private companies get access to this data!
My good friend Rich Boakes has blogged a powerful story about a man in Suffolk who is selling gallows to foreign states for a cool 12,000 GBP a pop – including such pillars of human rights as Zimbabwe.
Too many crims needing to be dealt with ? Well he can help you out, as the BBC says:
The execution equipment he says he sells ranges from single gallows, at about £12,000 each, to “Multi-hanging Execution Systems” mounted on lorry trailers, costing about £100,000.
As Rich puts it so succinctly:
This month Mr. Lucas is going to make a killing. Next month killing will continue, but Mr. Lucas will just have his regular customers; if they still want to do business with him.
Rich’s article has the details if, like me, you’d like to avoid doing any business with Mr David Lucas (below).
Gone in 20 Minutes: using laptops to steal cars
The expert gang suspected of stealing two of David Beckham’s BMW X5 SUVs in the last six months did so by using software programs on a laptop to wirelessly break into the car’s computer, open the doors, and start the engine.
Gives Wardriving a whole new meaning..
This was all over the HPC community this morning.
As long suspected after their delisting from the New York Stock Exchange, SGI has been forced to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US for all its US operations and subsidiaries.
This is really nice, a (really short and to the point) guide to putting your /etc directory under version control using SVK (a distributed extension to subversion).
Thanks to Brian for the pointer for this really neat trick (originally posted to the Debian-devel mailing list).
May 2006 General Meeting – LUV News, Linux News, Computer Bank, SE Linux in Fedora Core 5.
Tuesday 2nd May 2006, 7pm at The Buzzard Lecture Theatre. Evan Burge Building. Trinity College Main Campus. Parkville. Melways Map: 2B C5.
There’s an unofficial pre-meeting curry at the Classic Curry Company on Elizabeth Street around 6:15pm.. yum!