Tram Town
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
| Category: Cars An economist explains why 'The motto of all environmentalists should be "Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine"'. |
Monday, February 26, 2007
| Category: Apple The Fruit Company flog their dog'n'bone during the Oscars -- makes a change from the Super Bowl I guess. |
Saturday, February 24, 2007
| Category: God ..., well not God but one of his local marketing guys, weighs in on global warming and speaks a lot of common sense... and one big clanger. We know that enormous climate changes have occurred in world history, e.g. the Ice Ages and Noah’s flood, where human causation could only be negligible.I don't know how George Pell interprets the Noah's flood story, my understanding is that the flood was the result of a proliferation of sinners on the planet, presumably human, that needed to be de-proliferated by some divine force. In the circumstances human causation could hardly be considered negligible. Regardless, invoking an old testament story in support of a fairly sound scientific comment would appear to this observer to be unnecessarily exposing one's self to criticism. Just One Guy's Opinion™ |
| Category: Telcos DB suggested a couple of posts ago that I might have an opinion on Telstra's BACK Telstra campaign. I don't really have much of an opinion because I'm dumbfounded. The web page looks like it was put together by a novice using FrontPage v1.0. The argument for de-regulation doesn't really go anywhere. The indignation at Australia's being only 17th seems a little shrill and quite shallow (afterall, most houses I know with broadband have at least four users which would mean upwards of 70% of the population have broadband at home). What their arguments really lead to is that the part of Telstra that is monopoly should be split from the part that isn't and the monopoly should be regulated. This probably should have happened during the original privatisation or even before, IMHO. Whatever, surely the copper has a limited life in usefulness anyway. |
Thursday, February 22, 2007
| Category: Phone Companys As anyone who knows me will know, I don't mind The Big Telephone Company. I have my landline, mobile(s) and cable broadband with them -- I have no major complaints, and when they have an outage, they seem to manage it quite well (IMO, YMMV). When I got home last night they'd sent me this via snail-mail. I reckon that it seems to be whinging absolute rubbish. Hello, these guys had a monopoly for 200 years. PMG, Telecom, Telstra -- well, maybe a bit of an exaggeration. Competition must be a wonderful thang I guess. I'd be interested in Semi's opinion on this cos I might be being a bit harsh. (the leech bit is a classic but) And what they ask us to do to solve the problem involves: 1. Register as a Telstra Active Supporter 2. Talk to family and friends 3. Contact Federal MP 4. Contact ACCC 5. Organise Community Meetings 6. Set up a local supporters group 7. Write letters to newspaper editors 8. Ring talkback radio 9. Involve influential community members etcetera |
| Category: Viromunt It looks like I'm doing my bit for the green health of the country by owning a Wii. Does that mean I can continue to use incandescent globes? |
| Category: Geekiness Jessica Hagy has a blog where she publishes jokes that she has put onto index cards. It's a very Vennish sort of thing. Recommended even if it is a bit "cute". |
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
| Category: ESP W-class who sometimes (but very rarely) blogs here at TramTown was caught out reading Womans Day at the weekend. She found psychic Ann Ann's page:  It includes the following question:  |
Monday, February 19, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
| Category: Warmongering Nigel Calder worked for New Scientist back in the 50's and 60's. He has recently written a book about solar forcing in climate change. He wrote an article for the Sunday Times of 12 Feb 2007 pimping the new book. It is a good read. Sorry for yet another CAGW post. This is the last time I will apologise for these posts, though. |
| Category: Audio For the last few years I've been using this for audio editing. For the current production however I've tried the new version and am pretty happy with it. YMMV. |
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
| Category: Warmening There's a really interesting article in the NYTimes that demands reading right through about climate science. |
Friday, February 09, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
| Category: Monkeys It's hard to believe that these Truck Monkey videos have been around for over a year and I had not heard of them. I heard of them today, though, on Buzz Out Loud. BTW If you are vulgarity averse, all these videos are viewable except for the odd inclusion of the TISM one. |
| Category: OS's Interesting article on Microsoft -v- Apple -v-Sony -v- Nintendo, etcetera. "We may be witnessing an historic changing of the guard, which takes place in every generation. Remember IBM? They were invincible. How could they be beat? By a couple of geeks in a dorm room, that's how. Microsoft rises. And then another snot-nosed kid with a great idea and a dorm room made it happen in the box business, enter Dell. Then others got wise and squeezed their efficiency-based margins to nothing. Apple rose like a phoenix, crashed and rose once again, by virtue of innovation and a customer-centric ethos. Sony was like IBM. Now they've been bloodied by the customer-centric and community-oriented Nintendo. And now there's Google, the poster-child for the democratization of the Internet and the ever-flattening, increasingly frictionless world." YMMV. |
| Category: Music Jobsy has published an article about Apple not being a keen supporter of DRM. He dismisses iPod lock in somewhat disingenuously using a dodgy statistical argument. The current DRM regime does Apple little harm and much good. Surely Jobsy, by publishing this piece, is acting against his shareholders' interests. |
| Category: Ejucashun
The latest |
| Category: Common Sense There's a terrific article over at The American Spectator by Hal G.P. Colebatch entitled Marauding Youth Chic. |
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
| Category: Apple(s) Apple Inc inks deal with Apple Corp. It appears that the fruit company has the better part of the deal frankly. |
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
| Category: Democracy The AEC has an interesing page on the voting rights of indigenous citizens: Ask Australians when Aborigines got the vote and most of them will say 1967. The referendum in that year is remembered as marking a turning point in attitudes to Aboriginal rights. In one of the few ‘yes’ votes since federation, 90.77 per cent of Australians voted to change the Constitution to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aborigines and to include them in the census.I learnt quite a bit from the page. Incidentally, until about ten years ago I would certainly have said 1967. |
Thursday, February 01, 2007
| Category: Religion Over at the Skeptic site there are two really good reviews of The God Delusion that are well worth a read. Click here. |
