Okay so it only LOOKS like a tampon... because I was getting some very bad visuals from the article heading...
Posts by tkioz
448 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jul 2009
From the Department of WTF: New USB tampon flash drive
Turing's rapid Nazi Enigma code-breaking secret revealed
Megaupload case near collapse: report
Monday 23rd April 2012 04:15 GMT 
How disgusting... from what I've been reading it's like they want this case dismissed... funny and sad thing is even if it is, Megaupload is cooked, the company is dead, and from what others have said they can't even sue the U.S government to recoup their loses because it's "immune" to lawsuits...
How iiNet beat Big Content
Friday 20th April 2012 04:19 GMT
Mike is dead on when he talks about legal content, most of what is "pirated" can't be obtained in a legal manner, if Big Content took away the stupid country based filtering on services like Hulu and even more disgusting blocking purchases on sites like Amazon they'd see an increase in sales and a drop in piracy...
If you aren't selling, why are you bitching when people pirate?
NBNCo shoots down Turnbull's satellite argument
CSIRO orders 2,144 core, 174,720 GPU upgrade
ISPs should get 'up to' full fee for 'up to' broadband
Oz parliament may investigate tech price discrimination
Monday 16th April 2012 00:41 GMT
About Bloody Time!
It's disgusting when I can buy a game from a UK retail site for $50AU including postage half way around the world but the very same game in an Australian store is $109AU... Hell it's even worse for PS3 owners... since many of the discs are actually manufactured in Australia at the Sony Blu-Ray factory in Sydney! Yet it's cheaper to buy from half way around the world!
It's disgusting when I log into Steam from an Australian address and games are listed $89US.. but my friends in the states see them for $49US... yes... we get charged in USD no matter what... but there is an "Australian Surcharge"... I suppose it's because we download the games from ISP provided mirrors... oh wait you'd think that would lower the cost... but oh no.
And that's just games. No it's about time our government did something about it, and not what the likes of Harvey Norman want done either (i.e taxing imports), but forcing local retailers to actually compete with online and imported goods by slamming the big importers who price gouge us.
Even when our currency was 40% weaker then it is today, I could still buy two products for the price of one via international sites...
It's time to fix this mess, the local retailers only have themselves to blame, they were the ones that supported the massive price hikes that harmed Australian consumers, so time to feel the pain boys and girls.
DoJ could start Apple ebook price-fixing lawsuit this week
Wednesday 11th April 2012 23:26 GMT
Re: Observations
Authors? What are you talking about mate... I buy a lot of ebooks (4-5 a month on average) mostly from Bean and Amazon... I love supporting authors... if I didn't I'd just pirate them...
What I don't support is middle-men taking the greatest cut, just like in the music industry.
eBooks are going to destroy the publishing industry, and not a moment too soon, let the authors get 50-70% of the sale price, rather then the 1-2% they get from the deadtree version, unless they are "mega name" author that has the clout to get a bigger cut.
CSIRO patent-trolls ALL OF AMERICA!
Wednesday 11th April 2012 23:18 GMT 
Ars
Ars lost a reader in me over this... they were a good site for some news, I really enjoyed their lulzsec coverage... but the entire article and their behaviour in the followup, and then in the comments was disgusting.
Banning people for "substance free trolling" because they DARED to call them on the biased jingoistic nature of the article? yeah that's a site I want to support.
Wednesday 11th April 2012 23:14 GMT
It was also likely a starting point. people who point to the $4 per unit thing and cry "troll" need to be slapped... They've obviously never purchased anything outside a major chain store...
You start very high, your opponent starts very low, and you find common ground somewhere in the middle that you can both live on.
US Trade Rep criticises tech trade barriers in Oz, NZ
Wednesday 11th April 2012 23:09 GMT 
US Trade Reps...
Can suck on lemons.
Firstly the United States is the very last nation that has any cause to complain about other nations behaving in a protectionist manner; the way they behave when it comes to agriculture is disgusting, for a place that prides itself on the "free market" they sure don't act like it when it's not in their interests...
Secondly... They are complaining that we want to keep medical records located in Australia so they are subject solely to our laws? Seriously? And bitching because we want to keep control of vital infrastructure? Seriously?
...
I repeat my earlier statement, they can suck on lemons... rancid overripe lemons... it might improve their disposition.
Five charged after fanboi sells kidney for iPad and iPhone
Blighty slaps £100m spending cap on govt IT projects
Champagne at CSIRO after WiFi patent settlement
Monday 2nd April 2012 03:37 GMT
About freaking time I say. Disgusting behaviour by big American corporations, claiming that because it was a government funded organisation that developed it they shouldn't have to paid royalties... that might be how it works for American government science... but Australia isn't America!
Half a billion is chump change compared to what they should have paid in royalties... disgusting...
Oz national broadcaster goes open with archives
Monday 26th March 2012 23:03 GMT
Tops!
Good on the ABC, been a leader in online media since the early days of the 'net.
I remember reading a few years ago that they were in the top 10 of raw online content, pretty sure that's changed with all the video sites out there these days, but it's good to see them releasing this stuff, far better then sitting in some dusty vault or server room like most broadcasters around the world do.
Dot Pharmacy: New web weapon in war on duff drug peddlers
Monday 26th March 2012 12:57 GMT
I can see it as a useful tool, if the UN wasn't such a useless bureaucratic mess this sort of thing would be perfect for it, but as it stands a multi-national body would work well.
Frankly I don't really see the point of buying medication online, then again I'm Australian and our PBS lets me afford pretty much any medication I could ever need over the counter... so it's not a big deal to me... I guess it's similar in other countries with socialised medicine... you know civilised countries...
But I could see it as a decent working solution for countries where the dollar rules, and hey it's not like it would be mandatory.
Huawei banned from Australia’s NBN: reports
Giant kangaroos wiped out by humans, not climate change
LightSquared hits FCC right where it hurts
Tuesday 20th March 2012 17:23 GMT
The FCC let them spend 1.1bn and are NOW tell them they can't do it?
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I'm thinking it's very likely that the existing carriers and telcos are behind this, the very last thing they want is competition, especially from someone who can provide a cheaper and better service...
Pirate Bay plans sky-high flying proxy servers
Monday 19th March 2012 21:48 GMT 
Assuming they had the cash a boat with a tethered blimp would be possible fairly easily.
I'm not sure if the tech is there for drones flying 24/7 but it's damn close...
I wonder what the legality on taking down UAVs in international airspace... or ships for that matter? Would a U.S vessel boarding a "Pirate" ship hosting servers in international waters be considered an act of piracy?
SourceForge pulls off fake, 'Trojan-wrapped' Anonymous OS tool
New Yorker sues Apple: 'Misleading and deceptive' Siri ads
Tuesday 13th March 2012 04:33 GMT 
Beta or not, it's advertised as a finished product in the marketing materiel, fine print shouldn't matter, the capabilities the product is displaying should, especially when they are non-farcical (such as a flying car) but rather something people can realistically expect in the product.
Frankly marketers get away with far too much these days and need to be cut down to size.
The seven types of online commenter
Monday 12th March 2012 04:47 GMT 
I think they are missing something with the "non-contributing" posters, just because they don't add information and may only consume and occasionally thank and ask doesn't mean they don't add value to a community. I think this study undervalues "view counts" and "reply counts" even if the relies are just a few words saying "thanks", regular posters like to see their content is appreciated, and seeing the number of people who have read, thanked, or even hit +1 to something you wrote keeps them contributing.
Greenland melt threshold lower than thought
Monday 12th March 2012 03:38 GMT
While personally I don't doubt man-made climate change, I personally think the greenies are going about how to fight it all wrong, instead of wanting taxes and reduced emissions, they should be demanding companies invest in technology to contain and reduce the effects of climate change.
Let us burn all the crap we want, our civilisation relies on it, but at the same time big companies that make profits in the tens of billions should be forced to put a few of those billions into research on how to undo the damage, things like carbon absorbent algae.
Big Brother refunds Facebook credits after vote crash blunder
Stolen iPad leads to 780lb crystal meth seizure
Two Brits in court over Michael Jackson back catalogue hack
Monday 5th March 2012 14:40 GMT
Re: SOCA Again?!
While this is a lot more serious then run of the mill piracy, after all someone did hack into a secure network, a crime, to me "serious crime" involves possible or actual bodily harm done to someone.
No matter how "elite" you are, hacking into a network and nicking songs is very unlikely to physically hurt someone.
Citrix drops Rush Limbaugh over 'slutgate' slurs
Metro breakdown! Windows 8 UI is little gain for lots of pain
Saturday 3rd March 2012 14:10 GMT
...
The odds of me using this on my desktop are slim to none. It's bloody horrible, I'm sure it works great on tablets and smart phones... but as a desktop OS? get bent, everything is too big, too in your face, menus and icons for me should be hidden out of sight and out of my bloody way.
Windows 7 was a great leap forward... Windows 8 just seems to be a huge fail.
Germany stalls over ACTA treaty ratification
Saturday 11th February 2012 14:59 GMT 
.
The problem with over-reaching on copyright laws is being illustrated plain as day here, after looking at ACTA I'm seeing nothing objectionable really, but because of things like DMCA, SOPA, PIPA, and dozen other proposed laws and actual laws, it doesn't really matter.
It's like the boy who cried wolf. The public is sick to death of governments and big corporations and automatically assumes anything coming out of their mouth's is a lie, never mind the actual text of the treaty. The public sees a law being pushed by big corporations with hot-topic words like "copyright" and "piracy" and automatically sees "censorship".
And the corporations have no-one to blame but themselves, they were the ones that sued kids for downloading MP3, they were the ones that wanted huge board powers, they were the ones that pushed and pushed and now they are feeling the backlash. And frank if the people don't want it... well... they are making their voices heard... and governments might love the big cheques that come in from the "contributions" but they like being in power a great deal more, as illustrated by the government suddenly "rethinking" ACTA.
Death of IE6 still greatly exaggerated, says browser hit squad
Online ad body: Let's slather 'opt out' icons everywhere
Friday 20th January 2012 13:26 GMT
People see ads online? what's this nonsense?
Most "savvy" people will have an ad blocker installed and they work almost perfectly now, the only time mine gets turned off is for sites that I visit a lot and am willing to put up with a little advertising to support them (if they don't have a subscription option).
The industry only has itself to blame for people blocking ads by default now, they were the ones that came up with popups, popunders, etc.
NASA shuts off Voyager 1's central heating
Exotic Russian rock CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
Secret list of celebrity .xxx domains removed from market
Sydney newspaper hacks Wi-Fi networks!
Tuesday 19th July 2011 07:25 GMT 
This is interesting...
This is interesting, IANAL, but I remember getting legal advice oh about 5 / 6 years ago when I was working retail IT in Victoria and being told point blank that it doesn't matter how you gain access to a system or network, if that access is unauthorised you are in fact breaking the law. Something about how the law is written, it doesn't matter why you are doing it, or if you believe that you are authorised (in my case when asking about resetting a customers password, we needed a signed statement of ownership from the customer).
It's the same as being charged with burglary even if the door to the house is unlocked, using an unprotected WiFi without the consent of the owner is still against the law, because there is no legal requirement to secure it, only a common sense one.
Steve Jobs screws my wife (out of $944)
Assange ambushes Australian Prime Minister on live TV
Facebook equity offer closed to US investors
Tuesday 18th January 2011 00:33 GMT
delying an IPO?
I wasn't aware that any company was ever required to go public if it didn't want too. If he wants to keep control of the company, no big deal, personally I think a lot of companies would be better off if they had never went public, the second they do it becomes about the share holders and ends up being run for the lowest common denominator.
Spain grovels to penguins over 'Linux' anti-terror plot
Thursday 13th January 2011 05:46 GMT 
I can sort of..
I can sort of understand why they might be unimpressed about it, it doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with the actions of the Spanish Security Service, having something you have a vested interest in used as a publicised code name in an operation that very well may lead to violence isn't something most people would approve of.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
