* Posts by cphi

69 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007

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USA lets visiting Australian tech workers keep toiling while they wait for visa extensions

cphi

It is

I understand the E-3 was mostly due to the FTA and that, like the FTA, was reciprocal - ie Australian visa rules were similarly relaxed for American workers. Certainly the number of American engineers temporarily working in Australia during the boom would suggest it was not difficult.

Revealed: HUNGRY frosty Arctic cleft that could eat 2 Grand Canyons

cphi

' as deep in places at 800m' ?

the Grand Canyon is over a mile deep from surrounding plains (according to Wikipedia >1800m)

IT pricing inquiry sparks Game of Thrones for rights-holders

cphi
Unhappy

Re: Same as USA

I agree, however, it seems they based their financial calcs on only the one season. It's very hard to change people's behaviour in that timeframe. I torrented the first episodes of Season 3 before I even realised they were available immediately on iTunes. It seems I will now have to go back to torrenting for Season 4 and buy the season retrospectively (if/when the day comes when I'm feeling particularly altruistic and happen to have the spare cash (as recently happened for Seasons 1 & 2)). I suspect the freetard self-justifications would have died out after a further season or two of legal availability - instead we'll get a lot of 'told you so...'s.

Top Norks bone up on Hitler

cphi
FAIL

Not COMMUNIST!

North Korea is not a communist state. It hasn't been for decades. They don't even claim to be (at least not since 2009). The state ideology is Juche.

Health pros: Alcohol is EVIL – raise its price, ban its ads

cphi
Unhappy

£6.50 pints - doesn't seem to have had any impact

In Perth, Aus, pints are routinely >$10 (£6.5) and we have almost identical headlines on binge-drinking, excessive consumption, epidemic of violence, etc, etc

Last remaining reason to order an iPhone 5 disappears

cphi
Meh

keep away from IT

stick to military/engineering mate. that's what we read your stuff for. market already plenty crowded with IT commentariat

Work for the military? Don't be evil, says ethicist

cphi
FAIL

and drones differ from other weapons how exactly ?

The purpose of _every_ weapon system is to maximise enemy casualties and minimise your own. I struggle to think of a single exception... (maybe DU slugs?). The only difference with drones is that we have them and they don't. This happy state of affairs won't remain. And while I hate ad hominem attacks there is something particularly grating about those conceited enough to call themselves ethicists - as if this gives them any special insights (clearly not as this case demonstrates...)

Don’t waste time hiding NBN POI locations

cphi
FAIL

Dial Before You Dig

- www.1100.com.au

- specify streets of interest

- plans of underground infrastructure sent to your door

Workers' comp covers sex-related injuries, judge rules

cphi
Facepalm

inevitable result

We'll now all be subject to H&S training material on the dangers of sex on work trips. Presumably I'll have to sign a certificate promising not to engage in activities (I can add it to my course certificate promising not to engage in human trafficking...).

Cameron 'to change his mind' on the one thing he got right in Defence

cphi
Holmes

Re: Putting the boot in

Funny that -

"Cambridge University (Engineering degree 1988-91, St John's College)"

http://lewispage.blogspot.com.au/

System Shock

cphi
Mushroom

The. Greatest. Game. Ever.

I reckon I could still navigate Citadel Station blindfolded :)

E. coli turns seaweed into ethanol

cphi
Black Helicopters

turns *dead* seaweed into ethanol

I suspect the seaweed is mulched down first into nothing but a soup of smashed up dead cells.

I doubt the bacteria would have much success with living seaweed.

Samsung gets a few days of Christmas

cphi
Black Helicopters

not when it comes to IT

I think it's usually something like A$1 buys US$0.80 worth of stuff...

It's the ALL NEW FUTURISTIC WEAPONS Black Friday Roundup!

cphi
Boffin

tough <> hard

Cobalt is hard, not tough. (It's quite brittle).

Second water utility reportedly hit by hack attack

cphi
Boffin

water engineer

For the record, blowers compress air to pressures intermediate between fans and compressors. They're used at wastewater treatment works to aerate activated sludge plants and aerobic digesters (the former are not shown on the hmi - presumably on another page to the 'left'?). The aerobic bacteria that eat the waste would otherwise use up the available dissolved oxygen very quickly and die. The process would then 'go septic' and be populated by anaerobic bacteria producing methane and hydrogen sulfide and various other gases that are foul-smelling, corrosive and/or explosive.

ie it's unlikely the blowers are there to 'disperse accumulated gas'.

I suspect the plant in question would be this one - http://g.co/maps/ybhvb

I'm actually pretty terrified about attacks on water infrastructure SCADA. Petrochem and Chemical plants are much more susceptible to going bang but equally have vastly more money thrown at them. For the most part water infrastructure is, once built, minimally funded until something finally breaks.

Airline strikes, unions outraged

cphi
Mushroom

a pox on both their houses

Personally I hope Qantas goes bankrupt, Joyce spends the rest of his life unemployed, and that Qantas staff and pilots never work again for an airline. I'm sick of the arrogant, incompetent Qantas bullsh*t.

Oz DNA tester’s privacy shocker

cphi
Facepalm

not just IT

agree with the 'get it working' attitude. and not just got for IT. extends to engineering in general.

Facebook planking game claims its first victim

cphi
Go

was he ever going to be a nationality other than Australian?

despite encroaching state nannying - we still manage to find imaginative ways to kill ourselves. makes you quite proud.

Apple bans iPhone 3G patch omission talk from forum

cphi
Jobs Horns

first they came?

As the owner of quite a few Apple products, starting to wonder whether I'm like one of those circa 1935 german intellectuals benefitting from the on-time trains...

One-third of Aussies 'are pirates'

cphi
Unhappy

and the options are?

if somebody knows a way to actually obtain video on demand legally in Australia, I'd love to hear it. I've tried Foxtel (fail because you need a PSTN connection - very high tech...), I've tried Apple (fail because you can't access a lot of material until after it's been broadcast on tv), I've tried Netflix (fail because I'm now outside the US). Just what the hell are the options?

When one oligopoly screws another

cphi
Flame

video games

Perhaps the most dramatic price differential I noticed after flying home to Australia from the US was the ~50% price increases on Steam. Nothing had changed except my IP address. Prices were still even quoted in US Dollars.

Cameron cocks up UK's defences - and betrays Afghan troops

cphi
Happy

now *this* is the article I was waiting for

worried all we were going to get was this...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/19/cameron_defence_announcement/

iPhone makes many Aussies late/early for work

cphi
Unhappy

not a happy camper

almost had the opportunity to upgrade to an android phone after almost broke iphone into very small, very *quiet* pieces.

astonished to discover many others at my office had the same problem. that NZ has apparently had this for a week and the fix still hasn't been released makes you question Apple's competence.

AutoCAD bear hugs interwebs, Apple iOS

cphi
Flame

and direct file transfer??

was looking forward to viewing pipework schematics in the field from iPad. now have to use their upload service - which will be inevitably be blocked by company's firewall - sigh...

Google data center links shot down by 'bored' riflemen

cphi
Paris Hilton

misdirection

surely it'd be cheaper to just put up proper targets on the pylons. give them something more interesting to shoot at (and which they might actually *hit*)

Podgy Googlers get shrunken plates

cphi
Coat

looks like some Googlers will now be on the fiddle

deprived of a square meal

Apple states tax take on UK iPod pricing

cphi

16% of asian shipping is to Atlantic ports

according to

http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/archive/Conferences/MTS/4C%20BombaPaper.pdf

in 2003 about 16% of asian shipping was to Atlantic ports (and rising). so it is price competitive. I guess the point is a shipper can't just drop it off in LA and 'call it good'. It's about another 2400 miles to the north east cities (which I chose as a neat point of comparison with the UK). It is cheaper to ship to LA and rail overland but not so much as to make the apples vs apples comparison of the sea routes invalid.

cphi

travel distances not a factor

Taking some quick measurements on Google Earth, it's about 18000km from Shanghai to UK via Suez Canal and about 19000km from Shanghai to NYC via Panama Canal. so distances can't be a factor.

Living in Australia where we're often blatantly ripped off (although to be fair it's not as bad as it used to be), it's pretty clear distances have no bearing.

At the end of the day pricing is a demand side as much as a supply side decision - they charge more because they can.

Dutch send submarine to fight Somali pirates

cphi
Grenade

bolt-on point defence kit

wonder why some sort of portable automated point defence kit hasn't been developed. I imagine even a TOW size warhead would be enough to disable a small pirate ship - might make piracy less cost-effective. would be more effective than combat teams who seem to do no more than deter an attack until the next ship. still, have a fair bit of sympathy for the somalis - we took their fish now they take our goods.

Giving poor kids computers, internet makes them stupider

cphi

what about science and history

Doesn't surprise me that maths and reading skills decline. They're both skills rather than knowledge based and can't really see any educational value from a computer. I wonder though about the scores for subjects like history, geography and science. Wikipedia, Google Earth, Hyperphysics, myriad of specialist websites, etc would be astonishing resources. I certainly wish I'd had access to them when I was a kid.

Also I wouldn't discount the socialising value of access to Facebook et al. Irrespective of what you think about them, they are the predominant socialising tools for young people and the effects of being excluded on account of poverty must be pretty devastating.

Aussies face 10 year browsing lock-up

cphi
Big Brother

don't blame the govt

we do live in a democracy (more or less). ask around and most Australians would *want* this.

had a surreal conversation with PhD lit student of Melbourne uni last week. she was shocked (and horrified) that the govt *wasn't* currently logging web traffic.

Australia has never had any particular culture of individual freedom and that's what needs to change - spitting the dummy at the govt doesn't help

SpaceX Falcon 9 achieves orbit on maiden flight

cphi
Happy

he actually *did* it

been following these guys since before the first Falcon 1 blew up. absolutely remarkable achievement. congratulations. perhaps we might finally get the space industry we've all been waiting for ever since Apollo was concluded.

Computing smart-scope gunsight for US snipers

cphi
Joke

now snipers will have to take shots while hopping on one leg...

sorry has to be said

City Police still using Terror Act to bother photographers

cphi
FAIL

could have been worse

oh well at least he wasn't beaten up, maced, arrested, convicted of assaulting a police office and deported. http://www.rifters.com/crawl/

MIT boffins on track of portable 60-watt seawater desalinator

cphi
FAIL

only power!?

as others have pointed out - this article misses the point of the technology. fresh water is never in short supply providing you've got a coast line and enormous amounts of power. RO plants are springing up around the world for precisely that reason. the problems with RO are precisely that of energy. they are hideously expensive to run, particularly if they're going to use green power and not contribute to 'burning' through our limited fossil or nuclear energy supplies.

if it's even less efficient than ROs then this seems like a useful gadget but with precisely zero relevance to global water supplies.

Aussie censor balks at bijou boobs

cphi
Flame

what the f*ck is wrong with my country

rhetorical question

US will complain to China about Google hacking

cphi
Grenade

actually they were flying in international airspace

and they only emergency landed in China because an incompetent PLA jock kamikazed them.

spying yes - not stealing. they were simply passively listening in on chinese military signals. not aggressively hacking their systems.

Avatar renders this earthly life meaningless

cphi
Unhappy

poor guy

Last time I felt that way was watching star wars for probably the 20th time at the age of seven. at 35 though - at least it seems he can hold down a job.

Apparently there was constant stream of defections from the New England colonies to the natives in the 17th century (and little in reverse), so Cameron's tapped into a real sentiment - more um 'aggressive darwinian pressures on that lifestyle' (suicidal maniac) not withstanding.

The Great Aussie Firewall is dead: Long live the firewall

cphi
Troll

and Conroy's a bloody pom!

just to add insult to injury :)

BAE mounts the Last Charge of the Light Cavalry

cphi
Grenade

british tanks not great?

'Britain hasn't produced especially great tanks' - I was under the impression the Centurion and Chieftain were quite superb - they certainly had long and successful histories - and that the Challenger 2 is as good as any of its contemporaries.

also - the reliance on air power was what tripped up the Israelis during the early stages of the Yom Kippur War. It's a bit worrying that doctrine is becoming so reliant on having both air superiority and limited enemy air defense.

Today marks 'least productive' day of year

cphi
Pint

holy sh*t - I thought it was just me

October used to kill me in the UK - all the while everybody crapping on about beautiful autumnal colours. one of the reasons I came back home to Aus. Beautiful weather here today by the way...

Aussie censor wants power to ban iPhone apps

cphi
Big Brother

depressing but not surprising

it's depressing to say but as an aussie we got the govt we deserve. on the whole we're a conservative/reactionary bunch - think Texas minus a bill of rights - and I'm convinced this is the sort of govt most people want. as I was saying - depressing...

Shock jock blames Britain for hack attack

cphi
Pint

don't know what you're missing

Listening to the Savage Nation was one of the highpoints of my commute home in the states. Like a mini Nuremberg rally every night. Brits don't know what they're missing...

US military cyber force activated

cphi
Stop

and how are these guys going to get through basic?

I can't really see the borderline aspies who're actually going to do this cyber warfare sh*t getting through the whole 'twenty push-ups - on your knuckles' business.

Archbishop condemns Facebook, email, footballers

cphi
Happy

not too late

to rail against other forms of impersonal communication like telephones and letters

Pocket Universe 1.7

cphi
Dead Vulture

this got past Reg editorial control?

shouldn't -

'and a link to Wikipedia will inform you of their details and statistics'

be replaced with

'and a link to Wikipedia, the controversial encyclopedia that can be edited by anybody irrespective of qualifications, will provide more information, although given Wikipedia's well established and intrinsic lack of reliability, it's a shame a more substantiated source wasn't used.'

there - I think that should pass muster

Steve Jobs snubs LSD daddy

cphi
Flame

this isn't a bloody race

What's with the amateur psychology? Bill Gates is reallocating pretty much all of his resources (over the long-term) to ameliorating diseases in the 3rd world (not pissing it away like those Live Aid idiots). The people whose lives (hopefully and probably) will be improved by this couldn't care less about whether he gets a warm and fuzzy feeling out of it. Steve Jobs so far has chosen not to - perhaps he will, perhaps he won't. That's his perogative.

Top British judge suggests ban on 'cruel' killer roboplanes

cphi
WTF?

only 'taboo' for the allies

@Psymon - indiscriminate bombing was never considered taboo by the nazis - think Guernica or Rotterdam. Bomber Command might well have perfected it (although I doubt it did much to assist the war effort in Europe) but it certainly wasn't a British precedent. I don't think it was a particularly strategic decision either - I gather it was more a matter of the RAF's inability to hit anything smaller than a town (without an equivalent of the Nordstrom sight), or protect the bombers on deep daylight missions (without an equivalent of the P-51). The yanks, who certainly weren't squeamish about slaughter in Japan, never bothered with carpet bombing over Europe.

Uni students invent 'radiation-proof' cloth for Moon tents

cphi
Flame

uh-huh

so we can get rid of all that concrete shielding in nuclear power plants and replace it with 'radiation-proof' textile. sure

Aussie firewall blocks Wikileaks

cphi
Flame

depressed aussie

my first response to all those slamming aus and aussies was basically eff-you - then had to concede you're basically right... I'd blame the govt - full (on both sides) of repressed, self-righteous luddites but then a people always get the govt they deserve. it's difficult to contain the contempt for my fellow aussies who passively or actively support this censorship.

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