Via donttrythis: Seen on the whiteboard in the EFF offices... on Twitpic

BBC News - Device spells doom for superbugs:

Researchers have demonstrated a prototype device that can rid hands, feet, or even underarms of bacteria, including the hospital superbug MRSA. The device works by creating something called a plasma, which produces a cocktail of chemicals in air that kill bacteria but are harmless to skin. A related approach could see the use of plasmas to speed the healing of wounds.

Because the future isn't all about jetpacks and flying cars.

Via ishtar_artemis:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Worm attack bites at Apple iPhone:

Worm attack bites at Apple iPhone
Ikee infected phone
The worm changes the wallpaper of the phone

The first worm to infect the Apple iPhone has been discovered spreading "in the wild" in Australia.

The self-propagating program changes the phone's wallpaper to a picture of 80s singer Rick Astley with the message "ikee is never going to give you up".

Probably one of the funniest things I've read all year.

Better the broken Windows than life with the Mac monks:

Using Windows is like living in a communist bloc nation circa 1981. And don't change it. I admit it: I'm a bigot. A hopeless bigot at that: I know my particular prejudice is absurd, but I just can't control it. It's Apple. I don't like Apple products. And the better-designed and more ubiquitous they become, the more I dislike them. I blame the customers. Awful people. Awful. Stop showing me your iPhone. Stop stroking your Macbook. Stop telling me to get one.

I just burned a full CD of data while playing back mp3s, playing on WoW, and casually downloading a few hundred megabytes of data in the background. Big deal, you say, and with good reason.

But I remember a scant dozen years or so ago when burning CDs took half an hour or more, was equal parts dark art and technology, and when a loud yawn or giving the CD-burner a funny look at the wrong moment would cause a fatal buffer underrun and leave you with yet another horrendously overpriced coaster.

How far we've come, and how little today's kids will ever grasp that...

Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman Discusses CAD Design – Can CAD Programs Replace Hands-on Experience? - Popular Mechanics:

Is Computer Design a Substitute for Hands-on Experience?
Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman admits that computer-aided design—CAD—is one of the most important inventions of our time. But it has its limitations—and no program, no matter how sophisticated, can replace hands-on experience. Here’s why Jamie thinks an engineer’s work is better if he has memories of his own blood smeared on his tools.

Worlds apart from some of the problems I have here, but virtually identical: the technology is mistaken for the solution rather than one of the tools by which the solution is reached.

Defense Tech: Company Says No 'Flesh-Eating' Ground Drones:

The Pentagon has shown it has a great appetite for drones and robots -- everything from missile-firing UAVs to prototype patrol-bots guarding air base perimeters. But a Maryland company working on a program for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, has the idea of giving the robots their own appetites, letting them feed on biomass as a means of fueling themselves.

But as the image of flesh-eating drones refueling off the battlefield dead has spread in recent days, Cyclone Power Technologies of Florida, the company developing the robot's engine, has issued a statement about the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot's -- aka EATR -- diet.

It is vegetarian, the company said in a press statement released Thursday, in response to stories with headlines such as "Dawn of the corpse-eating robots?" and "Pentagon contracts company for flesh-eating robots."

It's a killer robot, but it's a vegetarian. Yeah, that's going to deliver a whole lot of shock and awe... "Fall back! Protect the broccoli at all costs!"

And not only does it go against decades of Daleks, Terminators, Cylons and even old ED-"You have 15 seconds to comply"-209, well, killer robots that also mow down vegetation for food aren't exactly environmentally, are they?

BBC NEWS | Technology | Artificial brain '10 years away':

A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed.

Oh, and do I have a list of people in need of one...

Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already simulated elements of a rat brain.

In fact even one of these would be a step up for some folk.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Twitter to give bushfire alerts:

Australia is to use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to give people early warning of bushfires.

ZOMG WTFBBQ!1!!! kthxbai

Brisbane iPhone buyers stay in bed:

Despite the hype, the nationwide launch of the new iPhone 3G S was met with little fanfare in Brisbane's Queen Street Mall this morning. In fact, not a single buyer took advantage of the early 7am opening time. With the exception of staff and some Apple promotional staff, mall retailers Optus and Vodafone were otherwise empty when brisbanetimes.com.au stopped by. Staff said most iPhone devotees had spared themselves an early rise by ordering the latest model online well in advance. Unlike Brisbane, the launch of the new generation iPhone was afforded more acknowledgment at Optus's flagship store in Sydney, where the Apple faithful braved the night-time winter chill to get their hands on the hot new device.

Queensland: where even the Mac users know how to use the internet :)

BBC NEWS | Technology | Windows 7 pricing gets unveiled:

Microsoft will not be offering an upgrade version of Windows 7 in Europe.  In the past Microsoft has given people already using Windows a chance to upgrade to a new version when it becomes available.  While that option will be offered in the US, Microsoft said its efforts to comply with competition regulations meant it could not do so in Europe.

Microsoft practice the fine art of "willful compliance".

* sigh *

Audio problems with the computer, and it's happening across multiple applications to varying degrees. It sounds like a loose connection, so at best I'm looking at having to crawl around the floor behind the desk; at worst I'm going to have to do that and fiddle with sound cards and drivers.

Have also run out of daytime cold tablets (don't ask) and the night-time ones I'm on at the moment are leaving me unenthused about the prospect of computer repairs.

Warren Ellis: 'I plan to invest in anti-carnivorous robot security':

I am staring at a picture that I am hoping to hell is a Photoshop job. It depicts a men’s single urinal that has a robot arm attached to either side. The robot “hands” – black, gripping mandibles – are spread in a gesture of welcome. The human mind has a tendency to anthropomorphise, and it doesn’t take you long to identify things that could be eyes, and look – it’s a sort of little Mr Potato Head thing with those arms, and oh my God that gaping porcelain maw and before you know it you’ve stopped sleeping and urinate only into empty mineral-water bottles.

Windows 7 Release Candidate Customer Preview Program:

Watch the calendar. The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start.

A-hah-hah-hahaha!!! That's just too funny - how many people are going to remember that in a year's time, or pay attention to the system warning notices that this is about to happen?

Gah! What were Adobe thinking when they decided to turn Dreamweaver from what was essentially a user-friendly WYSIWG editor into an abominable piece of crap that isn't usable by anyone? I could understand if they were trying to kill off the last vestiges of the Macromedia line to clear the field for their own products, but they don't have one.

Simply resizing a font or changing text alignment in a static html document means having to either edit source code or fiddle with css settings ... even where the static page isn't referring to a style sheet.

As an exercise in user alienation, it's one of the best efforts I've seen in a long time. Time so start downgrading until I find a version that's actually usable again.

Bligh under attack from farmers and greenies | The Courier-Mail:

THE Queensland Government is facing heavy criticism of its vegetation management regime from both the farming community and conservationists.

Conventional wisdom has it that if you're upsetting everyone, you must be doing something right. But this is the Queensland Government, so the odds tend to favour them just having coming up with something so bad as to be genuinely hateful. And they were still better than the alternative...

Caboolture, North Coast train lines delayed by fault | The Courier-Mail:

RAIL commuters have faced another horror morning on the southeast's system, with signal failures at Petrie early this morning causing havoc across the peak-hour.

Practically the definition of a slow news day: The Courier Mail is so starved for anti-Labor stories to run that it resorts to reporting that (shock! horror!) Queensland Rail is experiencing delays in peak hour.

Big booze book of tactics exposed | theage.com.au:

A TREASURE trove of secret alcohol industry documents, exposing "big booze" tactics used to fight government regulation, has been uncovered by Australian researchers.  The documents show the recent spat over the alcopops excise followed a strategy set out in the United States more than a decade ago, said Curtin University researcher and health policy expert Mike Daube.

I'm only surprised that anyone else could be surprised by the discovery.

Croupier took pity on losers | theage.com.au:

SOME have grown to hate the job, others got sick watching unhappy losers while still others got greedy, bored or frustrated with it.  Some croupiers at Melbourne's Crown casino have illegally dealt gamblers handy favours against the house over the years for a variety of reasons.

Just a nice story to throw in...

Return arrivals, says Andrews | theage.com.au:

FORMER immigration minister Kevin Andrews says Australia should seek to negotiate with Afghanistan and other countries to repatriate boat arrivals before their claims for asylum are considered.

Mr Credibility speaks! Oh, wait - it;s Kevin Andrews. For a second there I thought it was someone with some clue as to what they were talking about. A Teletubbie, for instance...

Mr Andrews said Australia would obviously be in a good position to get the Afghan Government to take people back.  With Christmas Island excised from the migration zone, Mr Andrews said he believed such an approach arguably would be legal and should be examined.

And for those unfamiliar with the illustrious career of Mr Andrews, particularly with regards to what is or isn't legally appropriate, I refer you here for a summary of the highlights.

Take your seats: what a difference cancelled votes might have made | smh.com.au:

NSW has the highest rate of informal voting in the nation. More than 211,000 votes within the state were rejected at the last federal election because ballot papers were not filled in correctly. But more than half of those voters probably believe they cast a valid ballot, according to a new study that suggests voters are confused by the different rules for federal and state elections.

This is why Australia doesn't need Diebold machines - the electoral system has a much simpler way of allowing votes to get cocked up.

The 15 seats with the highest informal votes were all in NSW, including the battleground of Bennelong where the 5764 votes ruled informal were more than double Maxine McKew's winning margin of 2434 votes over John Howard.

And without wanting to take away from McKew's victory, which she worked hard for, the possibility that Howard was unseated because the federal government has never implemented preferential voting is just too funny to ignore.

Liberal MP Russell Broadbent undermines Malcolm Turnbull on temporary protection visas | The Australian:

MALCOLM Turnbull's call for the reintroduction of temporary protection visas has been undermined by another leading Liberal who called them "a very harsh instrument" that "didn't work last time". The Opposition Leader's move - part of an aggressive attack on the Rudd Government's immigration policy - has been rejected by the Government and opened old wounds within his party.

Ah, the Coalition ... what little moments of joy they bring in an otherwise tedious working day. 

Russell Broadbent, the backbench MP who earned the particular ire of John Howard for his stance on refugees, told The Australian Online TPVs did not work.

Try as they might, the Liberal party still can't quite seem to rid itself of members who insist on being, well, so damn liberal about things.

But former Howard immigration minister Kevin Andrews insists that TPVs remain Coalition policy ... Mr Andrews, now in charge of Liberal Party policy formulation,

And just in case you missed that, let me repeat:

Mr Andrews, now in charge of Liberal Party policy formulation.

Yeah, it makes me laugh, too.

said that unless specifically stated otherwise, the Coalition's policies from the last election still stood.

... just in case any of the Turnbulls' neighbours were wondering why Malcolm wakes up screaming in the night.

Soil was alight on Black Saturday | The Australian:

THE climatic conditions leading to the Black Saturday bushfires were so extreme that fuel reduction would not have made any difference, a leading scientist has said. David Karoly, from the School of Earth Sciences at Melbourne University, told a seminar last night the climatic conditions experienced in Victoria on February 7 were unprecedented, with temperatures so high the soil caught on fire.

Now that's an impressive - not to mention frightening - image: heat so intense that the earth itself starts to burn.

BBC NEWS | Health | Many unaware of alcohol calories:

Many people are unaware of the calorie content of alcohol, a survey shows. Four in 10 did not know a glass of wine has the same calories (120) as a slice of cake, or that a pint of lager and a small sausage roll have 170 each.

Yeah, well, coincidentally four in ten people also use velcro sneakers because they can't work out how to tie their shoelaces, either. Place your bets on how much overlap there is. The stupid cannot be saved.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Robots of the future unveiled:

Experts predict that an ageing world population and continuing global military conflicts will be the two main drivers of robot design and function in the coming years.

And when the design specs eventually intersect we'll have confused old age pensioners roaming the streets in GPS-guided powersuits, inadvertently gunning down the postman because they left the kettle on and the safety off.

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Quiet Sun' baffling astronomers:

The Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century. There are no sunspots, very few solar flares - and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time ... Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.

The nasty yellow face, it's plotting something, yes it is...

Obama opens door to prosecutions on interrogations | Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama opened the door on Tuesday to possible prosecutions of U.S. officials who laid the legal groundwork for harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration.

I imagine some people are wishing Bush pushed out a few more of those presidential pardons in his last days of office.

Could lice prevent asthma? | Health | Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Could lice be the secret to preventing asthma?

I don't know, but I sure as hell don't intend to inhale them from a puffer.

Research on mice shows that those carrying the most lice had calmer immune systems than uninfested rodents, and they said their finding may have implications for studying the causes of asthma and allergies in people. The study, published in the BioMed Central journal BMC Biology, adds to evidence supporting the so-called hygiene hypothesis, which holds that the rise in asthma and allergies can be linked to hyper-clean living.

Hmm, lice or asthma? Tough call...

Oracle embarks on Sun courtship, troops cheer | Reuters:

SANTA CLARA, California, April 21 (Reuters) - After one false start, weeks of speculation and roller-coaster swings in its share price, the company once synonymous with the rise of the Internet has finally landed an attractive-looking buyer.

Wow, that just makes Sun sound so classy.

Faltering Sun Microsystems, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, rallied from the collapse of talks with International Business Machines Corp to hawk itself to Redwood City, California-based software giant Oracle Corp.

Because "we both hate Microsoft" is the perfect basis for a buyout.

IT with Warren Ellis (via @warrenellis,  http://twitter.com/warrenellis)

warrenellis I'm going to block everyone who tells me to get a fucking Mac, by the way. Shove your toy computers right up your arse until you just die.

warrenellis And to round out the abuse: Linux! An OS written by and for unemployed pasty Finns in frightening knitwear and pointy fucking hats.

Robot scientists can think for themselves | Science | Reuters:

London (Reuters) - Watch out scientists -- you may be replaced by a robot.

Two teams of researchers said on Thursday they had created machines that could reason, formulate theories and discover scientific knowledge on their own, marking a major advance in the field of artificial intelligence.

Such robo-scientists could be put to work unraveling complex biological systems, designing new drugs, modeling the world's climate or understanding the cosmos.

It's not that I'm particularly technophobic; it's just that I don't have confidence that a non-human intelligence (or reasoning construct) will find any logically valid reason for working towards the benefit of humanity.