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Tram Town
Saturday, May 31, 2003
 
Category: Health (not)
Finally, those of us with a Palm Powered Device and an interest in Healthy Eating can get the information about diet when they need it. I don't think I'll bother.

 
Category: Software
Paull Thurrott in Friday's WinInfo UPDATE:
Microsoft Drops the Ball with IE

Any Microsoft employees that are supposedly working on IE these days should be ashamed of themselves: As I noted yesterday, Microsoft hasn't demonstrably improved the product, from an end-user application perspective, since 1998. Reader Terje Sten Bjerkseth (and subsequently, several other readers) sent me a link yesterday (see the URL below) that presents Microsoft's take on the future of IE, and the news just went from bad to worse. When asked in a recent online chat about the next release of IE, Brian Countryman, an IE program manager, said, "As part of the OS, IE will continue to evolve, but there will be no future standalone installations. IE6 [Service Pack 1] SP1 is the final standalone installation." The reason? "Legacy OSs have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1," he said. "Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS." Sadly, this perspective is skewed and suggests that Microsoft believes IE is somehow at the "zenith" of the Web browser heap. But as I also mentioned yesterday, IE lacks basic--yet important--features, especially automatic pop-up ad removal, that virtually all its competitors have, and adding any of these features wouldn't require changes to the base OS. The problem, in my opinion, is that Microsoft believes that the browser is functionally complete and can only be improved by adding eye candy made possible by the next underlying platform (Longhorn, in this case). That's baloney, and as several readers mentioned, suggests that IE development is important only when Microsoft can use the product to steal market share from other browsers.

He doesn't usually go in that hard but I think his opinion on this one is well-founded.

WinInfo is a good list to be on if you're interested in Windows developments and Apple putdowns but it is a bit too frequent for some people (weekday-ly). It is available here.

That link he mentioned.


Friday, May 30, 2003
 
Category: Audio
Though she has been dead for nearly two years, the buzz on the net about Delia Derbyshire goes on. For those who don't recognise the name, she is the co-writer and the producer of the original Doctor Who theme. It's a little ironic that when you go to this dead electronic music pioneer's "official" website, the display reads "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded".

UPDATE: The website is back, the irony remains.


 
Category: Science
A debunkers' bulletin board makes for some very interesting reading and leads you off to some some parts of the 'net you may never have been before.

 
Category: Astrology
As pointed out by Tim Blair, and thanks to the brilliance of astrology, we now know that Jesus was gay. But look at the last line of Herald-Sun article Tim points at! Maybe they're just belatedly publishing an April 1 gag.

 
Category: Music
TaTu?

Thursday, May 29, 2003
 
Category: Humor
The Chaser finds Saddam alive! Look at it now, the link may not last long.

 
Category: Media
Richard Alston is certainly making it clear why the ABC did not get its requested funding increase.

UPDATE: An article in the Australian by Tim Blair. The war against the ABC is on!


 
Category: Software
Hello World.

 
Category: Nonsense
Will somebody tell Sir Edmund Hillary to SHUTUP!

Wednesday, May 28, 2003
 
Category: Media
Yesterday I spoke about Tim and Imre's radio program. Tim covers it in way more detail today. Phillip Adams IS beneath comtempt. Go Tim! Anyone for a www.adamswatch.com? Can I play the Rachel Lucas role?

 
Category: Weird
Are they Fair Dinkum?

 
Category: Transport
Rachel Lucas has a lovely set of road rules (don't forget to swap left and right for Tram Town driving, though!).

Tuesday, May 27, 2003
 
Category: Media
I find myself disagreeing with Crikey more and more everyday. Yesterday they pointed me at an Andrew Bolt article about Pallid Mishap (anag. from Imre) that I really enjoyed and told me what a lot of nonsense it was. Crikey then went on to say that Imre Saluszinsky and Tim Blair didn't "cut it" on radio with their show The Continuing Crisis. I listened to every episode and still have some of them on my computer. Believe me, they did "cut it". Crikey then redeemed themselves by pointing me at this editorial piece on the ABC from The Australian. Not enough of a redemption to get me to resubscribe, however.

Monday, May 26, 2003
 
Category: Academia
Just in case you thought academics were pondering important and pressing issues, Michael Quinion points at this discussion of the ambiguities of a possessive case noun serving as an antecedent. Michael's World Wide Words makes him one of my favourite mailing list authors. Oops, bad grammar ALERT!

 
Category: Software
Rule #915 is brought to you today by the letter 'P' not.

 
Category: Computers
I've been very happy with my 12" Tool. Thankfully it has no dead pixels.

Sunday, May 25, 2003
 
Category: Life
This is a subject which was dear to my heart some years ago. Here is a Java example. I think John Conway showed me how remarkably complex systems can come from simple rules. I wish I could find a clean link to the Turing Machine that was developed to run in a Life Machine. Here is a nice page leading off to lots of aspects of Conway's games including a link to a Martin Gardner article in an old Sci Am before they left the reasonable world. I remember scouring Melbourne Uni. libraries trying to find all of Martin Gardner's articles about life and then writing a version in PDP-8 assembly language that ran faster than any other version I could find at the time. I was very pleased with myself.

UPDATE: A friend of ours found the Life Turing machine.


 
Category: Life
Life.

 
Category: Radio
Peter Clarke on Radio 1 on Sunday mornings is doing something kinda interesting. He's getting punters to ring in and do 'on-the-fly' reviews of stuff they've seen. This includes, at least on today's program, amateur productions , mainstream theatre, exhibitions and just about anything else folks might be interested in. This would be a great way for 'not-for-profit' organisations to publicise their shows. It's also a great way for the National Broadcaster to not spend money on professional reviewers! Whatever happened to Clive?

 
Category: Media
Journalist working on her back.

Saturday, May 24, 2003
 
Category: Audio
I've just found what could be an absolute killer for theatre applications. Gets you thinking, don't it? How the heck does it get eight 16/44k1 channels through USB 1.1?

[Shot of Semi going off to his spreadsheet]

[Shot of Semi returning]

16 bits/sample * 44,100 samples/sec * 8 channels = 5,644,800 bits/second and USB 1.1 does up to 12 Mbits/second so I guess it could work after all. I don't think I'd be wanting to be sync'ing my PDA on the same bus during a performance, though.

UPDATE: I just found that Audiotrak have something similar. Theirs seems to be aimed more at the DVD viewing user rather than the audio engineering market. It has a software DVD player included but does not have ASIO support and doesn't claim Mac-compatibility.


 
Category: Blogging
You may have thought TramTown was the dullest star in the blogosphere. Not any more!

Friday, May 23, 2003
 
Category: Culture (and Recently Dead Celebrities)
I'd never heard of Horti Hall (where the lunchtime theatre is to be held this year). I was instantly reminded, though, of Dorothy Parker's response when she was asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence. Her death is covered on the somewhat morbid Find-a-Death site. On the same site I was saddened to note that June Carter Cash has only recently fallen into a burning Ring of Fire.

 
Category: Audio
Tape Op Magazine is available for free if you are engineer in the US. It looks like an absolute Crackerjack. Unfortunately, being an audio engineer, I can't afford a subscription from Australia (I need a new mic! I ALWAYS NEED A NEW MIC!).

 
Category: War
Nother interesting article from our friends at Wired.

Thursday, May 22, 2003
 
Category: Theatre
Lunchtime Theatre returns to Melbourne again this winter. Soup, Bread and a one acter for $8 has gotta be good!

 
Category: Web
Interesting article from our friends at Wired.

 
Category: Education
What is Squeak? It is one of Alan Kay's current projects. More about Alan here. And here. And this which also talks about his father, Hector. I could go on forever.

 
Category: Audio
I've been tooling around with AudioMulch and I can see a lot of uses for it in my theatre sound work. Near as I can tell, the author lives right here in Melbourne.

Wednesday, May 21, 2003
 
Category: F1
I am a Formula 1 fan. Go here for a reasonably sound view of the F1 game.

 
Category: Web
53 speaks for itself. Via memepool.

 
Category: Literature
I hadn't come across the VOTH-S stuff before. I'm a very big fan of Kilgore Trout though. Oh, of course I like Kurt as well.

 
Well according to this source I'm gonna die on 1 June 2032. We'll see.

Tuesday, May 20, 2003
 
Category: Radio
I spoke [Eeeekk! link not working. What am I doing wrong with this archive stuff? Look in the archive for 11-17 of May.] about some internal ABC awards for best ABC radio station held in Sydney nearly two weeks ago. I've finally found a reference to it. Nice plate! Also on the page is the audio collage that I described in that post. Navel-gazing twats!

Monday, May 19, 2003
 
Category: The other computing platform.
This makes no sense whatsoever, I mean, where's the screen for a start!! Mac folks are just plain funny!

 
Category: Audio
First Sonic Foundry, now Syntrillium. They'd better not hurt Cool Edit or I'm gonna get angry. There was one salesman there who thwarted me when I tried my damndest to upgrade to Cool Edit Pro. They can hurt him if they like.

I have to say that in my experience a buyout like this is for the technology not for the product's revenue stream. I suspect we will have to consider this the end of the line for CoolEdit. Though I use ProTools and Sonar for tracking and mixing, CoolEdit is my first stop for simple and quick editing.

I found out about this stuff from the PCDAW mailing list. Very useful if this stuff interests you.


Sunday, May 18, 2003
 
Category: Web
If you don't go anywhere near memepool for a few days you will get excited when you get back there. I'm kind of happy to say we pointed (well, if I could ever unblogger our archive stuff, anyone?) to something before they did!

 
Category: Beautiful
memepool points me at hand lithographed seed packets. Breathtaking!

 
Category: Trams
I read that Melbourne has the third biggest tram network in the world and have spent some time finding the bigger two. St-Petersberg has 700kms of track. That's HUGE! Moscow has somewhere just shy of 445kms of track. Both have much more rolling stock than Melbourne as near as I can tell. Kiev will have about 70kms in ten years' time. Melbourne has 250kms of track and 400 cars.

Tram Stuff on TramTown.


 
Category: Web (or Humour)
It's all been getting a bit serious here at TramTown. Like an argument between enthusiasts about whether the new Siemens trams should be called D1 and D2 class or D3 and D5 class. Now this is a bit more like fun (if you are using an appropriately enabled browser, etc. etc.)!

Saturday, May 17, 2003
 
Category: Web
Why hadn't I seen Sp!ked before today? The risk section is of particular interest.

 
Category: Media
Susan Maushart's column in today's Australian Magazine starts:

IT IS a truism that you can tell a lot about people by the cars they drive. So why have I always resisted the idea? Maybe it’s because my first car was a doggy doo-doo brown 1972 Ford Pinto – the model US consumer advocate Ralph Nader infamously dubbed “unsafe at any speed”.

But from Ralph Nader's own site this:

After several years of lawyering in Hartford and footloose world travelling as a freelance writer, Nader arrived in Washington and began work on a book elaborating on the themes of his Nation article. His rendezvous with history was nearly derailed when he left part of his completed manuscript in a New York City taxicab. With customary determination, however, he rewrote the book in breakneck speed and published Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile (Grossman) in November 1965.

The chief target of the book was General Motors' "sporty" Corvair, whose faulty rear suspension system made it possible to skid violently and roll over. The corporate negligence that had produced the various Corvair defects, said Nader, was "one of the greatest acts of industrial irresponsibility in the present century." More generally, Nader's book documented how Detroit habitually subordinated safety to style and marketing concerns. The main cause of car injuries, Nader demonstrated, was not the "nut behind the wheel" so often blamed by the auto industry, but the inherent engineering and design deficiencies of the motor vehicle that was woefully uncrashworthy. Solutions must focus, accordingly, on the vehicle itself.”.

So Ralph Nader's quote was from a book published seven years before her Pinto was made by Ford. And while the book was aimed broadly at the motor industry it took particular aim at the GM Corvair.

Okay, Ford did recall the Pinto in 1978 following a campaign by Nader's Center for Auto Safety, but surely that doesn't justify a silly unresearched lie, does it? Am I just being a pedant?

UPDATE: I've just read that Susan M. claims to have "a genetic predisposition for intellectual nitpicking". She'll just have to take my punch on the chin, I suppose.


Friday, May 16, 2003
 
Category: Television
I feel that I have waited an appropriate mourning period (in internet terms) before another post after the Stan Rofe stuff. So now I refer to Entertainment Geekly which is one of the few places you can find references to one of my favourite ever TV shows, Seeing Things. It reminded me a lot of Night Stalker but perhaps a bit more "subtle". When Night Stalker was on, my father, who never swore, once asked if I really wanted to watch "that smartarse in the white Mustang". I said "yes".
I always thought The X-Files was a bit lame, probably because I had a couple of really good predecessors to benchmark against.

 
Category: Radio (GREAT radio)
Back in the mid 60's, when I was about 6 or 7, my Uncle Jack gave me his old Mullard valve radio. It was very cool to be a kid of that age with his own radio in his bedroom. My favourite station was "The Greater" 3UZ. Now I'm probably gonna be shouted down on the details, but I reckon Stan the Man was the DJ I listened to most at that stage. Am I the first to coin the term Mid-Pacific accent? It was a bit like Covey's BJ the DJ bit but slightly more this side of the Pacific. That was Stan. I think we will be playing Keith Glass' When Stan Was the Man on our 96.5 radio show this Sunday afternoon at 1600.
By the way, the photos in DB's post are from The Laurie Richards Collection. Could that be Tiger Lounge, Crystal Ballroom, The Jump Club (famous for its Desperately Seeking Sushi Bar) Laurie Richards?
[no links, no need, just good memories, but make sure you click on all of the links in DB's post]

 
Category: Recently Dead Celebrities
Vale Stan the Man.

 
Category: Music or Parody or maybe Culture even
Eminem has no sense of humour .

 
Category: Science (good or bad?)
People either love or hate Bjørn Lomborg. John Brignell at Numberwatch has a very different criticism of Lomborg than the usual green knee jerks (left as an exercise for the reader to find). By the way, am I committing some sin by using the correct Danish character in his name or are most other people publishing on the net just too lazy? And whatever happened to Lomborg's website?

 
Category: Television
Great Australian TV Moments .

 
Category: Theatre
Malvern Theatre Company's current production of Tom Stoppards' Arcadia is bloody good, quite a bit darker than previous versions I've seen. You'll probably be hard pressed to get tickets but it's well worth it. My only criticism is that the sherry glasses are considerably smaller than those you get at Heidelberg Theatre Company.

Thursday, May 15, 2003
 
Category: Television
Happy Fun Pundit hates Star Trek. I'm with him there.

 
Category: Politics
Michael Duffy on The Aussie Whinger. A nice piece of writing. Pointed out to me by Tim Blair's blog. The Continuing Crisis is Tim's column in The Bulletin. It was also a short-lived Friday night radio show in umm... 2001 I think. Tim's co-host was Imre Saluszinsky.

 
Category: Web
I've pointed at James Lileks' Bleat before and I'll do it again. Monday's was great, so was Wednesday's.

Wednesday, May 14, 2003
 
Category: Engineering
Hydrogen was not to blame for the destruction of the Hindenberg. I read about it this morning during a magic moment in the Apr/May 1997 edition of Air & Space magazine, a Smithsonian publication. Another long-held belief pounded into the dust! I feel a bit of a goose taking so long to hear about this, though.

Tuesday, May 13, 2003
 
Category: Music
I liked Julie Burchill's work back in the late seventies when she wrote for NME. How the hell is she able to write such sensible stuff AND work for the otherwise execrable Guardian.

Monday, May 12, 2003
 
Category: Web
Google News goes local. Well, local for us at least.

 
Category: Politics (or humour?)
This whole deck of cards thing is going to a lot of places that I find amusing. By the way, I mentioned Foxnews recently, Newsmax (where this particular deck of cards appears) is about two steps to the right on every dimension. I reckon that with a healthy dose of skepticism you could watch Foxnews and have a reasonable idea of what is going on in the world. The same cannot be said for NewsMax but I go there any way. This particular link is via Rachel Lucas and her dog Sunny.

 
Category: Technology
The very first computer I owned was a Commodore Vic 20. Several folks (including Semi) advised against this technology end-of-life purchase, I think it was around 84/85. If you remember what a Vic20 was you'll probably think that this is pretty cool. Thanks Mike.

 
Category: Audio
I'm about ten days off the pace with this news of Sony buying most of Sonic Foundry's assets. I wonder what this will mean for the less mainstream products. I can't really imagine Sony having any great interest in keeping a niche product like Acid alive and I for one would be very sad to see it go.

Sunday, May 11, 2003
 
Category: Radio (Melbourne)
I'm listening to Who Stole the Show? on SYN-FM 90.7 at the moment. It is well worth the listen. I will be keeping my computer-room radio tuned to 90.7 for the forseeable future (though I might seek out the communards at the ABC periodically to bask in 774's pride at winning an award for best ABC station - is this bizarre or what?). More bizarre, after hearing a roughly ten minute segment during drive at about 1645 on Friday night which was a paste up of so-called highlights of 774 (aka Radio One, or 3LO) which, according to Libby Price (filling in for Virginia Trioli), was to celebrate the award, I can't find any evidence of the conference or award that Virginia and Jon Faine were up in Sydney for... anyone?. Longest sentence on TramTown award goes to Semi-Conductor (oh, also, it's Logies Night).

 
Category: Audio
Bob Katz is an acknowledged expert in mastering. Go learn about him at Digital Domain. His articles are often very enlightening. Your mileage may vary.

 
Category: Humour (computer geek)
Got back from a weekend film shoot to find a pointer to Windows RG in my mailbox. If you find this sort of thing funny you'll find this funny (I suppose).

Friday, May 09, 2003
 
Category: Music
I think it was on London Calling that they had a little kid singing Guns of Brixton. If you like little kids singing popular songs, then check out Eugene .

 
Category: Music
If you are anything like me you still have a considerable investment in vinyl records. This tutorial does a pretty good job on explaining what's involved in converting your analogue collection to digital mp3's. Whilst it's Mac based the process is similar on Windows PC's.

Thursday, May 08, 2003
 
Category: Science
I don't much like Greenpeace. But you'd probably already guessed that.

 
Category Television
Welcome to Possum Lodge where "if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy". Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati.

 
Catgory: Movies
Did I tell you all about Best in Show? I laughed a lot. It is written and directed by Christopher Guest and he plays one of the lead roles. This was also true of Waiting for Guffman which I have on Rgn1 DVD. It's also great fun. A scan further down the list has him involved in a couple of other favourites, The Princess Bride and This is Spinal Tap. And, hey! He's married to Jamie Lee Curtis. And he worked at SCTV. And with the National Lampoon in its best days! This is one guy you can't tell to "get a life". I'm sure looking forward to seeing A Mighty Wind.

 
Category: Science
Junk Science. All the junk that's fit to debunk! Including an interesting Space Shuttle item from FoxNews. It must be wrong though because everything on FoxNews is according to the Australian press commentariat.

Wednesday, May 07, 2003
 
Category: Humour
!smut alert! I mentioned memepool reverentially yesterday. We first found lil' pimp at memepool as well. Is Sony ever gonna release the movie? They admit it exists.

Tuesday, May 06, 2003
 
Category: Music/Culture/Art
Since I was a kid (well, almost) I've always been a very big fan of Brian Peter George St.John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno . From his work in Roxy Music to some of his more recent opinions I've found him interesting. The work that he and Peter Schmidt did with Oblique Strategies has also had a fascination for me. And now it's available for OS X.

 
Category: Television
Now, here's a book I'd like. But tell me, whatever happened to Sylvia? And her mother?

 
Category: Humour
Look at this great Private Eye discovery. I expect this link to last about a week so be quick about it.

 
Category: Web
memepool is one of the original blogs. Their archives go back as far as September 1998. In their first week they contained links to such gems as Binaural Beats, Objectivism "explained" and, um, contact lenses. More recently, this impressed me. memepool is the spiritual ancestor to our sort of blog and I "dips me lid" to it.

Monday, May 05, 2003
 
Category: Culture
We've seen those playing cards that the US forces have been issued with the fifty or so most wanted featured, but here's a novel twist. (You may need to scroll down a bit.) Now if they'd just bring out a Mac version.

 
Category: Humour
OK, I'm a smoker but even I have a problem with this.

 
Category: Humour
More on everyone's favourite Iraqi information minister.

 
Category: Web
We've been googled.

 
Category: Advertising
The new Honda Accord ad is amazing. Running at two minutes long and apparently NOT CGI'd at all. Reminiscent of that Apple ad.

 
Category: Technology
I know lots about DVD's.

 
Category: Television
I always loved it when TV shows started cross pollinating. You know the way it worked with a character in one show appearing in another show. The Beverley Hillbillies , Green Acres , and Petticoat Junction managed to do it to a T even though the latter did Jump The Shark when Bea Benaderet died.

Sunday, May 04, 2003
 
Category: Theatre
I saw Shoe Horn Sonata this evening down at the Williamstown Little Theatre. Directed by Chris Baldock and starring Shirley Cattunar and Mary Little, this is one of the must-sees of the year. I can't even begin to imagine a better pair of players than Shirley and my good friend Mary. I disagreed with a few of the script decisions made by John Misto but it is a fine piece of work no matter. It is technically a very good production with sound and lighting and slide show working together very nicely. It's always hard to get tickets for a WLT show but try anyway. Booking details can be found at the VDL website.

 
Category: Language
Apparently (or is that allegedly) acronym is itself an acronym .

 
Category: Music
Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy .

 
Category: Fantasy
I'm one of those people who is forever throwing money at George Lucas (like he needs it!). This page on starship dimensions (how big's ya starship?) is great fun. It also does some great stuff with Javascript for moving the vehicles about the page for direct size comparison with others. Unfortunately, layers are not always right. Nonetheless, I have never seen this done before.

 
Category: Politics
I was having a discussion with someone last night about Bowling for Columbine and I decided to put up a few links which point out what some people consider to be Mike Moore's deceptions.

 
Category: Television
I found "Which Doctor Who Season Are You?" on James Russell's site. Someone reading this will like it.

 
Category: Humour
A site for those of us who spent several weeks looking forward to the daily blurb from the Iraqi information minister. Found at: Slatts.

Saturday, May 03, 2003
 
Category: Audio
Everything you need to know about transmission line speakers. In particular, look at the section entitled Laying Pipe with Audio Lego.

 
Category: Science
John L. Daly of Still Waiting for Greenhouse points to Envirotruth. I'll admit to being very sceptical of all things green and I love these sites. I promise I try to be objective but dissing of the likes of Bob Brown always brings a smile to my face.

 
Category: Sport
Except maybe something like this .

Friday, May 02, 2003
 
Category: Audio
I have been a bit of an expert amongst my friends in the so-called hi-fi caper. About twenty years ago a close acquaintance told me this was just around the corner and I said BULLSHIT. I was "wrong".

 
Category: Politics
While I accept that the war is over in most regards, there is a Debkafile article that makes me wonder whether we have seen the end of real fighting. Can anyone tell me why I should not wonder about this?

 
Category: Culture (we don't, and categorically won't, have a sport category)
If you are amongst the few inhabitants of the blogosphere who don't read Slatts' Blog, you may have missed this. It is one of the more extreme Football Governs Culture pieces I have seen but it makes at least a little bit of sense... doesn't it?

 
Category: Television
Everyone knows Thunderbirds and since Carlton International got the rights there's been LOTS of merchandising. But let's not forget Stingray , Joe 90 and all the rest .

 
Category: Music (or Movies)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a film about a botched male to female sex change operation and the fall of the Berlin Wall. There are movies in the world as good as Hedwig (most of them made by Bob Altman), but there are none better. It is a ten out of ten on every ranking. It is available on region 4 DVD and may even be in the discount bins by now. Just get it.
Also available, with a bit of effort, a movie soundtrack and an album of the live show. The Origin of Love is in my top ten best songs ever written.

 
Category: Web
I know nothing about HTML, I don't want to know anything about HTML. Tram Town FORCES me to know a bit. Thank Goodness for an Index of Elements .

 
Category: History
Whilst doing some in-depth research for a future post I stumbled across this fascinating site.

 
Category: Web
Googlism, whilst not associated with the Google group of companies, gives a fascinating insight into our Prime Minister.

 
Category: Finance (or is that Web?)
Pretty Flash economists.

 
Category: Music
I'm always on the lookout for Gram Parsons info and this page is en extra double bonus because of all of the Byrds stuff.

 
Category: Science
John Brignell's Number Watch might sometimes be accused of being nearly as hysterical as the media it watches so closely. It's not pretty but the content is great.

 
Category: Politics
Bargarz is not happy about Cuba's election to the UN Human Rights Commission (of which, as he rightly points out, Libya is the chair). [you'll have to scroll down a page or two to see this post because article links do not seem to be doing the trick today]

 
Category: Politics
This is all the encouragement the government needs to shut down all Arts funding. Next stop? The ABC.

Thursday, May 01, 2003
 
Category: Science
Against Nature was a three part documentary which the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) showed a few years ago.
Characterising environmentalist ideology as unscientific, irrational and anti-humanist, this acerbic and polemical three-part series turns 'Green' ideas on their head.
Of course the ABC felt it necessary to apologise before episode two and three because so many of its viewers couldn't stomach the truth. I wonder what Uncle made of it at the time.

 
Category: Madness
Rachel Lucas appears to be less than impresssed by this little bit of Californian Political Correctness.

 
Category: Engineering
I was reading about the Ford 1901 Racer while sitting on the throne this morning and the article mentioned that it was difficult to steer because Henry Ford did not know about the Ackerman Principle. I felt very ignorant in the magic of that moment but Kartoo came to the rescue by pointing me to this RC model car site and, in particular, this page. Full marks to RcTek who appear to maintain this site out of the goodness of their hearts.


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