Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report | The Andy Kaufman Effect: Identity on the web is a gossamer construct, easily spoofed. How very true.

Fresh Bilge: entry#1860 - A Mother's Plaint: Rummaging in the archives of a website called Signal Shift, I came upon an eloquent complaint written by a mother [of a gay son] in Vermont.

Maybe someone should show this to John Howard.

• Bush a misunderstood, sensitive man: Italian PM - World - www.smh.com.au: US President George W Bush is often misunderstood by those who do not know him personally and are unaware of his sensitive side. Yeah, we see the redneck side screaming "yeehaw let's blow some shit up so's ahh can make mah daddy proud!" Read on...
• Saddam's gun on display at White House. 31/05/2004. ABC News Online: [The gun] is kept in a small study off the Oval Office where Mr Bush displays memorabilia. Sensitive, caring Dubya has kept a trophy from the capture of Saddam.
• Too many quacks in alternative medicine - National - www.smh.com.au: Governments need to review regulation of the complementary medicines industry to protect the public against poorly qualified and unethical practitioners, say the authors of Australia's first national survey of the field.
• NEWS.com.au | Dell, HP in printer war (May 31, 2004). Yay. After years of producing crappy computers, Dell will now inflict crappy printers on the world. Actually that's not quite fair: the hardware is nowhere near as bad as the tech support.
• Mega-patch caused mega problems: network pro - Breaking - smh.com.au . Patches fix problems but they can also create new ones... which really shouldn't be the case with a company as big as Micro$oft, who both know better and can afford to test properly.
• NEWS.com.au | Shock research: sex makes us happy (May 29, 2004). Headline says it all, really :)

Crash Testing: MINI Cooper vs Ford F150. If you hit a wall at 40mph (about 64km/h) then you're screwed in the F150.

Armageddon Almost Not Averted: To launch a Minuteman in those days, one had to 'unlock' the missile by dialing in a code -- the equivalent of a safety catch on a handgun. However, Blair reports, the U.S. Strategic Air Command was worried that a bunch of sissy safety features might slow things down. It ordered all locks set to 00000000 ...

• NEWS.com.au | Saliva tests to lick drug-driving (May 28, 2004): In a world first, Victorian police will start using saliva swabs to randomly test drivers for drugs.
• US Army runs 'low' on bullets. 28/05/2004. ABC News Online: US forces have used so much ammunition in Iraq and elsewhere that its main supplier will not be able to met demand, US officials have said.
• NEWS.com.au | Entertainment | Hilton happy here (May 28, 2004): Paris Hilton wants to live in Australia. NO NO NO NO SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT.... we'll hear even more about the useless twat...
• Church backs PM's gay marriage ban - National - www.smh.com.au. You know, that barely rates as "news".
• Silence is not golden for Maroons - League - www.smh.com.au: 'NSW players were allegedly disillusioned when Queensland retained the series a couple of years ago after the series was drawn,' QRL general manager Ross Livermore said. 'Queensland players were disillusioned that a field goal determined what happened last night after they were slogging their guts out for 80 minutes.' ...so don't be fooled into thinking NSW don't complain about rules :) I'd like to see extra time without the golden point. As in, play the full ten minutes. That way a field goal would only win the game if you also defended your line successfully the entire time. I supported extra time to avoid a drawn series; but I'm not too keen on the golden point. But of course, if Queensland had won I'd probably just keep quiet ;)
• Dad kicking himself over untimely bathroom visit - League - www.smh.com.au: Shaun Timmins's father, Peter, had to wait until 2.30pm yesterday to see the NSW five-eighth's field-goal heroics after missing the match-winning kick because he was in the bathroom.

HOT AIR: Postal Experiments: We sent a variety of unpackaged items to U.S. destinations, appropriately stamped for weight and size, as well as a few items packaged as noted. We sent items that loosely fit into the following general categories: valuable, sentimental, unwieldy, pointless, potentially suspicious, and disgusting. We discovered that although some items were never delivered, most of the objects of even highly unusual form did get delivered, as long as the items had a definitely ample value of stamps attached.

The copyright is 2000... I strongly suspect this experiment would have gone differently a year later (ie. after September 11, 2001).

• PM targets gays in marriage law - National - www.smh.com.au: Gay couples will be banned from marrying or adopting children from overseas but will be allowed to inherit their partner's superannuation under proposed changes to marriage laws announced today. Howard has openly imposed his own opinion on the country; using the "elected representative" catch cry. Another bit of rushed legislation that suggests to me that he knows he won't get voted back in, so fuck what the voters think.
• Italian law on pizza purity a mouthful - World - www.smh.com.au: It may be too early to talk about pizza police but Italian legislators are mulling a detailed draft law laying down rules to protect real Neapolitan pizza. Personally I think it goes too far to specify where the ingredients used come from; as opposed to what the ingredients should be. But hey, I rarely eat anything that an Italian would call a "pizza" :)
• MTV bans 'Super Size Me' ads - Film - www.smh.com.au: MTV has refused to screen ads for Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock's film about fast food and overeating, because they are 'disparaging to fast food restaurants'. No, really? A film which shows how sick you'd get trying to eat nothing but McDonalds... and it's disparaging to fast food restaurants? Say it ain't so! But you've got to love it when MTV has so completely lost any kind of edge it ever had, that it openly controls its content to avoid offending big business.
• Survey finds more Porsche owners fool around. 27/05/2004. ABC News Online: Among German men, Porsche drivers were the least faithful, with 49 per cent admitting infidelity, followed by BMW drivers at 46 per cent. Among women, Audi drivers were the least reliable, 41 per cent admitting to affairs. The most faithful group were owners of Opel-Vauxhall cars, with only 31 per cent of male and 28 per cent of female drivers in Germany having committed adultery.

Road Squadron - Ship Reference - Shawn Crosby's H-wing.

The Dark Gate Comic Slurper. The joys of syndication. Go pummel this guy's traffic logs, he's literally asked for it.... :)

Dr. Travis Doom: Q: Have you ever actually done anything diabolical? A: Absolutely. I am, after all, a university professor.

drjon: US to re-introduce the Draft in 2005. There are suggestions this might be a hoax, but as yet nobody seems to think the current US administration wouldn't do it.

eyebrow_thief: eyebrows i have claimed. via drjon.

• NEWS.com.au | Man walks free in Euthanasia case (May 26, 2004) / Son freed after helping mother suicide - National - www.smh.com.au: A son who helped his elderly mother kill herself today walked free from a Tasmanian court, a decision hailed for its compassion by euthanasia advocates.
• PM handover to Costello worries voters - National - www.smh.com.au: The poll reveals that 47 per cent of voters believe the Prime Minister will retire during the next term and that 41 per cent would be less likely to vote for the Coalition at the election late this year if they thought that Mr Costello, as is widely expected, would be his successor.
• Microsoft behind $12 million payment to Opera | CNET News.com: Microsoft agreed to pay Norway's Opera Software $12.75 million to head off a threatened lawsuit over code that made some Web pages on MSN look bad in certain versions of Opera's Web browser, CNET News.com has learned. The article goes on to discuss the way Micro$oft has abandoned development of IE now that they've bludgeoned the world into submission. Browsers like Opera and Safari are the real leaders of the pack these days; particularly with things that should be standard like inbuilt pop-up blocking. Note that IE6 does not have "good" web standards support; it's more like "not as horriffic as the old versions". Switch to Opera, kids :)
• FOX SPORTS | League | Gould baits Maroons (May 26, 2004). I guess he felt left out; being the only one who hadn't made a complete arse of himself yet. Who knows, sometime after the ref whistles time on; someone somewhere might focus on some fucking football.
• NEWS.com.au | Older compact discs not aging well (May 26, 2004): The industry is desperate to play down the significance of the problem, fearing record companies will be inundated with demands for refunds or replacements. Don't forget the industry has also fought long and hard to keep it illegal to make any form of backup of these discs. They might have given you something faulty, but they won't take any responsibility on themselves. You don't mind buying all those CDs again, do you?
• Director confident young actors can complete Potter series. 26/05/2004. ABC News Online: Despite speculation that the young stars of the Harry Potter films will outgrow their roles, the director of the latest instalment believes they can see the popular series through to the end. The characters grow up too; so this makes some sense. A bigger concern would be whether Rowling can actually produce the books in time.

Blackmesa HL- by piloux ..::page made by Whabbit::..

• Spike's last laugh - National - www.smh.com.au: Two years after he died aged 83, relatives of the Goon Show creator have erected a headstone on his grave bearing the star's epitaph: 'I told you I was ill.' It's a pity they argued over it - it was his wish after all. But hooray for Spike's last laugh :)
• NEWS.com.au | Athens angered by Aus travel alert (May 25, 2004): 'Telling them (extremists) that there are holes in Athens security procedures and our preparations can be circumvented - when all of our preparations are designed to achieve the opposite - is bad security strategy.' Yeah, that's right - security is perfect if you tell people it's perfect. That works. Sure. Was that another explosion in the distance?
• NEWS.com.au | Brother, where art thou? I'm innocent (May 25, 2004): Michael Brendon Warner knows what it means to be his brother's keeper. For his brother's sins, the 27-year-old pensioner gets locked in police cells every time he travels to Sydney. I had a flatmate once with the same problem - his name is the same as a crim; and he gets grabbed every once in a while. The major problem I guess is that Police probably get the 'wrong person' claim every other day. So they don't believe it when it's real, either.
• Bush tortures pronounciation again - World - www.smh.com.au: Two rehearsals for his prime-time speech today were not enough to keep US President George W Bush from mangling the name of the Abu Ghraib prison that brought shame to the US mission in Iraq.
• Berry highly sexed - Health - www.smh.com.au. I can see the pickup lines already: Hey baby, want to see my strawberry patch?
• NEWS.com.au | High-roller shows his hand (May 25, 2004): ONE of Crown's Casino's biggest gamblers says he has developed a casino-beating blackjack system. ... Crown spokesman Gary O'Neill said the casino was unconcerned. I wonder if the full quote was 'nah we're not concerned, we'll beat it back out of him when he tries to leave'?
• You've got mail - but it'll cost you - National - www.smh.com.au: Members of a group invited by search engine Google to test its new email service are selling their account sign-ups for more than $100 on the auction site eBay. I'm keeping my Gmail account, personally (yes, I really do have one).
• Bilo supermarket chain fined for breaching Food Act. 25/05/2004. ABC News Online: A national food chain which operated a supermarket with a vermin infested bakery and delicatessen has been fined $70,000 in the Cairns Magistrates Court.
• Record industry sues more music swappers. 25/05/2004. ABC News Online: A US music industry group says it had sued 493 more people for copyright infringement as part of its campaign to stop consumers from copying music over the Internet. 'We won't stop until we've sued everyone we want as our customers!' said one soulless minion of evil.
• Gene may hold cowlick's secret. 25/05/2004. ABC News Online: Parents used to blame Grandpa for that annoying cowlick that refused to be tamed by brush or lotion, but scientists now say a single gene could be to blame. Fucking cowlick. *grumble*fuck*grumble*
• BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Swedish elk steals bicycle

• Slashdot | University Capitulates, Switches Off Spam Filters: Is this the beginning of the end of e-mail? They literally got spammed into submission.
• Slashdot | Testing didtheyreadit.com's Mail-Tracking Claims
• Slashdot | Large-Scale Paper-To-Digital Conversion?: I've just been asked to digitize several dozen sets of lecture outlines at the university where I work. Basically, professors want to hand me a big (often 100 page) stack of their handwritten lecture notes (with messy text, equations, and diagrams; sometimes double-sided) and expect me to post a PDF-or-something-similar to their course's web page. Answer: you poor bastard.

Gambian rodents risk death for bananas - World - www.theage.com.au

• Why Telstra charges more for paying by credit card - News - www.smh.com.au: Telstra had increased charges for its customers paying bills by credit cards because it could, a Senate committee was told today.
• NEWS.com.au | Entertainment | Moore takes the gold (May 24, 2004): MICHAEL Moore's unceasing campaign against US President George W. Bush gained momentum yesterday when his new film Fahrenheit 9/11 became the first documentary in 48 years to win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
• NEWS.com.au | Office loo source of sickness (May 23, 2004): Research shows the workplace could be a significant source of illness, with dodgy canteens, a lack of handwashing and 'tight buildings' contributing. To which I say WASH YOUR HANDS YOU DISGUSTING FUCKS. Not to mention the fact the bogs in my workplace are cleaned about once a year. YUCK. If that's why I feel so sick today... well, I wouldn't be surprised.
• NEWS.com.au | Stun-gun call after fatal standoff (May 24, 2004): A MAN who threatened an officer with a samurai sword has become the second person shot dead by Victorian police in three months. The shooting has revived calls for the force - once the most trigger-happy in the nation - to be issued with stun guns. Meanwhile people are advised not to attack armed Police with swords as this is likely to be detrimental to your health. I thought they had CS spray...? I guess not.
• Four Corners: Till Debt Do Us Part: Australia?s total household debt now stands at $650 billion ? about $32,500 for every man, woman and child ? and it is rising fast.
• Work on wind farm set to start. 24/05/2004. ABC News Online
• Volcanologists spy pink 'dinosaur' on remote webcam. 23/05/2004. ABC News Online

Dilbert | 2004.05.22

Yahoo! News - $132K of Grant to Combat Goth Returned: Almost half of a $273,000 grant awarded in 2002 to fight the Goth culture in Blue Springs has been returned because of a lack of interest - and the absence of a real problem. ... Assistant City Administrator Eric Johnson said despite the change in focus, the project helped dispel myths and stereotypes associated with the Goth culture.

• worth1000 photoshop comp - fruit/veg hybrids
• Boing Boing: Video games make the Baby Buddha cry
• Boing Boing: Google's spyware best-principles proposal
• Boing Boing: Duct-tape messenger bag II
• Boing Boing: Design evolution of the vice-card

Blogger: User Profile: heretic - Posts Written: 2,166. Words written: 123,317. Outbound Links: 3,352.

That's a lot of 'net shit. But still, I maintain it's high quality 'net shit.

Fresnel Lens: Random Destructive Acts via Focused Solar Radiation. See what the sun can do?? :)

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

• NEWS.com.au | Rodeo rider denies drink riding (May 21, 2004): He said police refused to give him a test to determine his PCA reading. Instead, he said, his blood-alcohol level was judged according to police observations of his behaviour.
• NEWS.com.au | Scientific search for the perfect fit (May 21, 2004): A three-dimensional human body surface scanner is being used to create a more accurate image of the dimensions of Australian women.
• NEWS.com.au | Bush incompetent: top Democrat (May 21, 2004): The top Democrat in the US House of Representatives has sparked controversy by calling US President George W. Bush 'incompetent,' particularly in his management of the war and subsequent unrest in Iraq. Remember kids - it's only libel if you can prove it's not true.
• Broncos get their points back - League - www.smh.com.au: The NRL appeals committee has ruled Brisbane should have its competition points restored but be fined $75,000 over a breach of the interchange rules. A hell of a fine under the circumstances, but at least they got the points back and can have a fair chance in the competition. The way interchanges are handled is being changed as a result (not that the NRL can bring itself to admit fault); so hopefully this sort of crap will be avoided in future.
• RedNova News: Caffeine May Prevent Liver Damage

Mark Driver mentions on his Blind Wino blog that Just Another Empire is going to have a second print run. Huzzah for that! I still heartily recommend the book to anyone who is looking for something a little different.

If you're quick, you might snag one of the first-run signed copies.

• Broadband bait does the trick - News - www.smh.com.au. Yep, lots of people have signed up for shit broadband - $30/month with a 200meg limit? I do more than 200megs with my 56k dialup access. If you actually do anything more than email, you're either going to pay a great deal of money in data charges, or you'll be "shaped" back down to modem speeds for about 90% of the time. Plus, they still don't want to know you if you live in a unit.
• NEWS.com.au | Tycoons get wealthier (May 20, 2004): The richest 200 people in the country increased their combined wealth by $8.3 billion to $71.5 billion in the past year according to the BRW Rich 200 List. I wonder if any of them actually pay tax? Packer boasts about avoiding it...
• The Australian: 200 missiles found on roadside [May 18, 2004]: More than 200 anti-aircraft missiles have been found alongside a major highway in Russia's Far East, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported Sunday quoting military officials.
• BBC NEWS | Technology | Rivals challenge iPod's dominance : Apple's iPod may be the flavour of the month, but there are better and cheaper choices, says a computing magazine. What? Apple's product overpriced and overhyped? Not actually the best product? SAY IT AIN'T SO!

Imaginary Girlfriends - Find Your New Imaginary Girlfriend Today! You can literally buy everything except the actual relationship; including the breakup. From the site: This is a service provided by a real life girl where she will pretend to be your long distance girlfriend by sending you personalized love letters, emails, pictures, leave phone messages (if you want), and provide other girlfriend-like services. This relationship appears real to others that may see these things, but it is not.

Yeah, this couldn't go bad at all. It's not inviting stalkers or anything. It's not like people will form an emotional attachment to the imaginary relationship...

Freaky shit.

• NEWS.com.au | Deadly weapons cache seized (May 19, 2004): A frightening, multi-bladed knife destined for Melbourne's streets was among a cache of weapons seized by Customs yesterday. Well, frightening is a word. So's impractical. I can't imagine any crim seriously taking to the streets with this tucked down their pants.
• Probe hears fire, police rivalry hampered 9/11 rescue. 19/05/2004. ABC News Online: Rivalry between New York's police and fire departments and conflicting advice from emergency teams on September 11, 2001, hampered efforts to save lives as the Twin Towers collapsed in a smouldering heap, the commission investigating the attacks says. Here's me thinking that jurisdiction pissing matches were just a figment of Hollywood's imagination.
• Precious cello saved from CD cabinet fate. 19/05/2004. ABC News Online: A Los Angeles nurse has found a stolen Stradivarius cello worth $5 million next to a rubbish bin and planned to turn it into a CD cabinet until she discovered it was the instrument the whole town was searching for, according to her lawyer. You would hope they'd honour the offered reward. Would have been one hell of a CD case though.
• Australia to see the light on tourism - National - www.smh.com.au. New tourism campaign. Woo. Although I was interested to see a clip from the famous Paul Hogan ad... apparently it's misquoted as "throw a shrimp on the barbie" when actually he says "slip another shrimp on the barbie". Funny how these things happen. Misquote it again, Sam.
• Fidel Castro can live to 140, doctor says - World - www.smh.com.au: Fidel Castro's doctor denied rumours that the president's health was ailing, saying today the 77-year-old leader is in excellent health and claiming he can live at least 140 years. Apparently cigars have preservative qualities ;)
• Secret Lib poll reveals why PM is worried - National - www.smh.com.au. Simple reason that didn't need a poll: the budget only sounds good to someone who is going to have a baby later this year. The Breeder Budget marginalises pretty much everyone else; particularly those who earn less than $52k and are curious to know whose arse that "average" figure was pulled out of. That, and people don't like a government that openly tries to buy votes. Oh, and Howard proving himself to be an arrogant, lying fuck might have some influence as well; but I'm only guessing there.

QDB: Quote #35966:
<Murray-Mint> I'm up for Fuedalism
<Murray-Mint> as long as I can be the Lord
<Flirbnic> No way. Me!
<Mort-Hog> In two lines, we've summed up the fundemental problem of feudalism.

• NEWS.com.au | Comfort food really works: study (May 15, 2004): The Australian Centre of Neuropsycotherapy has found that steam cooked potatoes could provide greater use of serotonin for treating the disorder than taking anti-depressants. I've always said chocolate was a rank ameteur in the comfort food stakes :)
• NEWS.com.au | Women rape men in AIDS fury (May 18, 2004): South Africa, where human rights groups say one in two women risks being raped, is grappling with a new twist to its biggest public health problem: women who rape men, often at gunpoint, in a deliberate attempt to infect them with AIDS.
• Stop expelling students for sex practices, say parents - National - www.smh.com.au: Pregnant schoolgirls and gay students are the victims of discrimination practised legally by private schools using loopholes in the law, a study has found. See, it demonstrates good christian values to exclude you from education if you're pregnant or gay. Love thy neighbour, unless they don't love the same way as you.
• Manly bans beach smoking - National - www.smh.com.au: Manly Council has banned smoking on beaches, setting the example for other coastal councils. Huzzah! Actually I'd rather see the ban on smoking in pubs and clubs go through (Qld Government proposes tough anti-smoking laws. 17/05/2004. ABC News Online).
• Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' turns up heat on Bush. 18/05/2004. ABC News Online: US film-maker Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary, examining President George W Bush's handling of Iraq and the war on terrorism, has premiered at the Cannes film festival, to audience cheers and applause.

Reuters.com | Peace and Profits for Mafia in Sicily: The new strategy is to avoid exorbitant rates, such as the ones applied to Grassi's factory, but to cast the protection net much further afield, even to small shopkeepers. ... When Mafia bosses today hear on the grapevine that a member is not happy and is considering turning state's evidence, they no longer kill him or his family but send envoys to listen to his complaints and try to keep him in the fold.

Atlas Games | Lunch Money: Sticks and Stones: Lunch Money: Sticks & Stones™ adds even more pain and mayhem to the dark, frenetic world of Lunch Money. This long-anticipated 55-card expansion set is designed to be mixed in with the original Lunch Money card game. New weapons like Chunk, basic attacks like Spank and Evil Eye, defenses like Backlash and Hide, and specialty cards like Tantrum, Cooties, and Wedgy make Lunch Money: Sticks & Stones a necessity for every Lunch Money fan.

Orders are being placed as I type.

• Pentagon denies secret interrogation deal. 17/05/2004. ABC News Online: United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is under renewed pressure to resign after reports he approved a secret operation that encouraged the abuse of Iraqi prisoners to gain better intelligence. Yeah sure. Rumsfeld will resign when you pry a signature from his cold dead fingers. / Iraqi torture victims to seek compensation - After Saddam - www.smh.com.au: Iraqis tortured in US captivity in Iraq plan to file a class-action suit in US courts seeking compensation. Americans must be getting all choked up - the world is adopting US traditions. *sniff*... it's beautiful...
• Moore tells of documentary 'pressures'. 17/05/2004. ABC News Online: US film-maker Michael Moore says he faced pressure 'from the beginning' to stop him making his controversial documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
• Lamborghini becomes cops' anti-getaway car. 17/05/2004. ABC News Online: Italian police have taken possession of a sleek, 500 horsepower, two-seater Lamborghini Gallardo, which can hit a top speed of nearly 300 kilometres an hour. Watch recruitment applications for their highway patrol go completely nuts... :) I'm told they use Skyline GTR twin turbos for the same kind of thing in Japan. Also a damn nice incentive...
• Hunt's fork stunt gives security something to chew on - National - www.theage.com.au. Talking about jailing Hunt for this is stupid. You have a pissed-off traveller who was humiliated at the checkpoint; who then proceeded to the departure lounge and - with no planning whatsoever - obtained ten metal forks and boarded the plane with them. My questions is: if Rex Hunt did that on the spur of the moment, what can a terrorist accomplish given weeks of planning?
• A cutting room floor in your own lounge room - National - www.smh.com.au: A budget-priced DVD player that automatically edits bad language, sex and violence out of popular films could soon be on sale in Australia after proving a hit in the US. The film industry is making an arse of itself complaining about this - with this sort of machine, their movie can remain intact for the rest of us who can cope with some bad language. Let people who want censorship have censorship, so that the rest of us can watch the movies as they were created.
• Cashed-up taxman launches blitz - National - www.smh.com.au: The Tax Office has launched its biggest anti-avoidance blitz against taxpayers ... It will use data-matching technology with Centrelink and banks to lift its strike rate. There you have the problem: they are going after taxpayers, not the big fish who pay no tax in the first place. On top of that, they plan to use Centrelink's data to do it. Centrelink can't find its own arse with both hands, let alone get their records straight. Using their data is almost criminal.
• Redfern riot blamed on heroin trade - National - www.smh.com.au: The 'true cause' of the continuing conflict between Redfern police and residents of the Block was the lucrative heroin trade - and not racism, a police sergeant has said in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry.

• Slashdot | Flash Mob Gang Warfare: Apparently two Dallas gangs, after trading insults in a chat room ... arranged a time to meet and duke it out in real life. The gang members were later identified and arrested with the aid of a digital video tape of the brawl. According to one officer, 'Some of them actually signed in with their true names, so that helped us identify people.'
• Slashdot | RIAA Loss Report Contradicts Nielsen Sales Record: Nielsen's Soundscan (Which tracks retail point-of-sale numbers for the music industry) shows a 10% increase in sales from Q1 2003 to Q1 2004. The RIAA bases their claims on how many units they ship to stores, not how many units are sold or how much income is generated. Unethical? Definitely. Surprising? Hell no.
• Slashdot | Anti-HIV Virus Developed
• New flaw takes Wi-Fi off the air | The Register - theReg picks up the story linked yesterday.
• Survey finds most professional geeks are men | The Register - the world is stunned.
• Student uncovers US military secrets | The Register - US military now forced to consider something more advanced than black texta.

• Latham's pitch to voters who feel left behind - National - www.smh.com.au / Costello accuses Latham of policy pinching. 14/05/2004. ABC News Online. Imagine if both parties simply did the best thing for the country, instead of the best thing for their future in the next election. Goodness, what a thought.
• Pentagon concedes interrogation techniques illegal. 14/05/2004. ABC News Online: Top Pentagon officials have conceded some of the interrogation methods approved for use by the US military on Iraqi prisoners may violate the Geneva Convention governing treatment of war prisoners. No really. D'ya think??
• First half of Athens Olympic stadium roof in place. 14/05/2004. ABC News Online: 'It's a sign of the capacity of the Greeks ... if they can do that, they can do all the rest,' said Denis Oswald, chief Games' inspector for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Athens on Wednesday. I'm waiting for the press conference given by someone with a dodgy Greek accent, just saying 'she'll be right mate' to everything.
• FOX SPORTS | League | Broncos sweat on verdict (May 14, 2004): AFTER a hearing lasting nearly five hours yesterday, the Brisbane Broncos still do not know whether they can reclaim the club's two lost competition points. In true Fox style (ie. crap journalism) this article also slides into the topic of Motu Tony leaving the Broncos. You could tell that would be covered, just by the headline... right?
• NEWS.com.au | Bikini turns its back on the strap (May 14, 2004). I'm amused that you can't get the top wet or it falls off.

i was feeling guilty about the effect my freaked-out lj feed is having on various friends lists, until i noticed neil gaiman's feed is doing the same thing ;)

oh wait... neil is more interesting than me and people will put up with it for him. dang.

Robots.txt Validator, for those of us who only set up a robots.txt about once a year. If that.

• NEWS.com.au | Device found outside bank in Athens (May 13, 2004): Officials at the time ruled out any link to the Games and blamed the blasts caused by dynamite sticks, timers and detonators on Greek far-left extremists.
• Bush and Hezbollah condemn beheading - After Saddam - www.smh.com.au: "Hezbollah denounces this horrible act which does an immense wrong to Islam and Muslims by a group which falsely pretends to follow the precepts of the religion of pardon and essential human values," the party said in a statement. ... Ezzedine Salim, this month's chief of the Iraq Governing Council, insisted that 'decapitations and mutilations are unacceptable and have nothing to do with Islam'.
• China jails outspoken journalist. 13/05/2004. ABC News Online: A Chinese freelance journalist who posted Internet essays commemorating the ill-fated 1989 pro-democracy protests has been jailed for two years without trial, a US rights group said on Wednesday.
• Use home grown pot, not Canada's: Brogden - National - www.smh.com.au: Cannabis used for medicinal purposes in a groundbreaking NSW trial should be grown in the state rather than be imported from Canada, Opposition Leader John Brogden said today. Mr Brogden said he had no idea why Premier Bob Carr thought it was necessary to import the drug from Canada.
• NEWS.com.au | QUT researchers find WiFi flaw (May 13, 2004): The flaw operates at lower network layers than most previously-discovered security flaws in 802.11 networking, and affect any network operating at the 2.4GHz frequency - which is the sole frequency used by the most popular wireless protocol, 802.11b.
• What's in it for me, stupid? - Science - www.smh.com.au: Lemurs, once believed to be cute but basically stupid, show startling intelligence when given a chance to win treats by playing a computer game, US researchers reported today.

Question: when is a permalink not a permalink?

Answer: when it's generated by Blogger.

What am I on about? Well, the relaunched blogger now creates a single page per post, for the purpose of adding comments and giving the post a permanent link. So what's the problem... that's a great idea, right? Well, blogger bases the URL on the contents of your post (specifically, the heading). For example, this very post has the permalink http://cheshrkat.blogspot.com/2004/05/changing-permalinks-for-fun-and-profit.html

Now, here's the problem. If you change the title, eg. if you re-edit the post to correct a typo, the permalink changes. Hence, the permalink isn't permanent at all. So why not use the old format, with your multi-post archive page and a link anchor? Well you can still do that, but you better pray nobody does something crazy like using the URL where they found the single post and all the comments (like i said, crazy...).

Sigh.

Numeric permalinks may not look pretty, but they work. I understand the desire to be groovy and use plain text, but if it changes anytime the user edits the contents of the post; you've got a problem. I guess bloggers will just have to use the old-style link as a permalink; and hope for the best.

• Wired News: Browser Hijackers Ruining Lives
• Cry to beat iris scanners | The Register
• Google Blog, a crossed meme? that aside, the page makes the classic forget-to-set-the-white-background mistake. they really should know better.

• US hostage beheaded on camera - www.smh.com.au. Nothing justifies this. Violence in the name of god, whatever the particular name may be, is why I cannot stomach religion (faith is ok, just not religion; if you get my meaning).
• NEWS.com.au | Families win in Budget splurge (May 12, 2004): Families and high earners come out well in the 2004 Budget - but single, low-income earners get nothing. That's the demographic which is well-publicised as being unable to purhcase their own home. / Latham predicts early election as Labor criticises 'wasted opportunities'. 11/05/2004. ABC News Online: 'Well 60 per cent of the country has been forgotten. Three out of five of the Australian families and singles do not receive a single cent in tax relief or family assistance,' he said.
• PM anoints Costello as successor. 12/05/2004. ABC News Online: Prime Minister John Howard says Treasurer Peter Costello is the logical person to succeed him as Liberal leader, but insists he is not ready to give up his job just yet. ...and anyone who couldn't figure this out for themselves, please line up in front of the automated head-smacking clue stick.
• Mexico snaps UFOs - World - www.smh.com.au
• NEWS.com.au | Ban for low-rider jeans sought (May 12, 2004): Louisiana [is] considering new legislation to outlaw low cut jeans. The proposed bill on denims that reveal underwear or too much skin was approved by the state's House Criminal Justice Committee last week.

NEWS.com.au | Millionaires caught in 250km/h road race (May 11, 2004). Unsurprisingly, Jamiroquai is one of the guys involved.... :)

Accessible Web Publishing Wizard for Microsoft Office. After a brief play with this, I'm pleasantly surprised. Not perfect, but leagues ahead of the shit HTML that office apps produce natively.

The referrer logs turn up some great search terms this time... apparently this site is right up there if you search for "how to dress like guybrush" (ARR!), or "screaming barbarians". Feel the random :)

Art Direction and the Web: A List Apart

USB Floppy Disk Drive RAID

• NEWS.com.au | Quad crash boy 'deserves award' (May 10, 2004): Tyler, suffering broken ribs, abdominal, arm and internal injuries, walked 2km home to get help. That really is amazing.
• New Aboriginal party 'to oust Howard' - National - www.smh.com.au: Although there had been state-based indigenous parties in the past, [party co-founder] Mr Frankland said he believed this was the first time Aborigines had formed a national political party.
• German teen confesses to creating Sasser. 09/05/2004. ABC News Online: An 18-year-old German man faces up to five years in prison after he confessed to creating the Sasser Internet worm which infected millions of computers worldwide, according to police. It's a bit rich that Microsoft put up a bounty - it's their system which was vulnerable. Would you be sympathetic if your bank was robbed because they left the back door unlocked? Yes, the robbers have committed a crime but the bank would be held responsible as well. With software people just don't seem to care.
• Koala cull call sees MP blitzed with hate mail - National - www.smh.com.au
• Costello refuses to commit to future as Treasurer. 10/05/2004. ABC News Online. Personally I can understand Costello not wanting to buy into this question just before delivering the budget - he's probably just a little bit busy right now. It is his job after all.
• Video game skills may give edge in life - ITNews - smh.com.au

The Great Blogger Relaunch ... We have comments. Yay, woot, etc :) Plus Blogger has provided standards-compliant templates created by some of the best in the biz. Opera is no longer crippled to the lo-fi system, and the new interface - while it will take some getting used to - seems pretty nifty. Some of my pet hates have been addressed! :)

So anyway, I've added the ability to comment on new posts; and linked the Atom XML feed and livejournal syndication page (pity I can't turn off comments for the lj feed since I don't actually see them unless i read my own feed). speaking of lj, sorry for anyone whose friends list just got flooded by the feed freaking out. i suspect the permalink format has changed.

UPDATE: so far unable to get comments working, probably since republishing the blog is timing out. i suspect blogger is getting hammered like all hell.

UPDATED UPDATE: trawled further into the help resources and discovered the original code fragment delivered to my screen was incomplete. The automatic insert routine doesn't appear to work so well; but hey. Anyway, we seem to be up and running. Bear in mind that the current design(s) do not include styles for the comment system, so they might be ugly until I work something out.

Penny Arcade! | Green Blackboards (And Other Anomalies).

ADC #005 is now out. The only surprise being Covenant slipping from #3 to #6 despite touring Australia (well, three gigs, but near enough). They may jump back up in the next chart.

Now, where the hell can I buy WAT by Laibach? Mental note: harass Jarrod at GUP to stock it.... :)

Part 4 - Albatros Overload. See also: www.yetisports.org.

Edit in 2021: this game has been ported to HTML5 since the death of flash... Yeti Sports - Play Yeti Sports on Crazy Games.

Apple patented by Microsoft - News - ZDNet: U.S. Plant Patent 14,757, granted to Robert Burchinal of East Wenatchee, Wash., and assigned to Microsoft, covers a new type of tree discovered in the early 1990s in the Wenatchee area, a major commercial apple-growing region. ... Microsoft has filed with the Patent Office for a certificate of correction to re-assign the patent to Burchinal, the representative said.

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: Colophon - Welcome to zeldman.com?s May 2004 redesign, code-named The Spring of our Hope.

Yep, Zeldman has redesigned, again. I like the overall effect, but I'm continually amazed by Zeldman's choice of colours. Specifically, non-contrasting colours. I have trouble reading this page. I had trouble reading the default stylesheet in the last design too. For an accessibility/standards guy; Zeldman really hates contrast. Maybe the site looks sweet on a Mac, but on my work PC (LCD monitor) it makes my eyes bleed trying to read more than three words. So I have turn off the whole lot.

But hey, it's not my site.

fidius.org: What's My Pirate Name?: Your pirate name is: Black Tom Flint. Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

• NEWS.com.au | Bomb blasts rock Olympic city (May 5, 2004): THREE bombs that police believe were intended to kill or injure have exploded at a police station in the Greek capital Athens.
• NEWS.com.au | Jail for biker who ran police ragged (May 5, 2004). The guy has been quoted as saying he did it for a rush to help get over depression.....which was caused by the death of a friend in a motorbike accident. There's logic for you.
• Experts being recruited for cloud seeding trial. 05/05/2004. ABC News Online: Snowy Hydro has begun recruiting experts for its six year experiment to increase snowfalls in the Snowy Mountains in southern New South Wales.
• NEWS.com.au | Nude beach sparks barge flip (May 3, 2004): PARTYGOERS wanting a glimpse of nude sunbathers at the only nude beach in Texas rushed to one side of a barge, prompting it capsize and dump all 60 people into Lake Travis.

The Whiteboard, by Doc Nickel - 300th strip. Not made into a big deal on the site; but go Doc!

Change the Color of Visited Links (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox). I'd be curious to know how he gets the figure of 74% websites using different colours for visited and unvisited links. That aside; sometimes it's good to have someone like Nielsen state the bleeding obvious so you can back yourself up on it if management question you. The sky may be blue, but senior managers want stats, damnit! after all, they didn't really hire you because they thought you knew what you were doing.

But hey, I run a firewall so it's business as usual for my workstation (well ok, really it's just a small amount of knowledge a generous helping of dumb luck on my part). What You Should Know About the Sasser Worm and Its Variants. It's windows patch time again, kids.

eBay item 4146756343 (Ends Apr-28-04 15:37:01 PDT) - SIZE 12 WEDDING DRESS/GOWN NO RESERVE. Be quick, these things only last a couple of days after the auction closes.