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More about the Xperia X10

I’ve now had a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 for almost two months (here is a link for my first review) [1]. This is a phone that people seem to really dislike because the battery life is poor and Sony doesn’t allow replacing the kernel. I’m happy with mine, happy enough that after buying one for […]

Who is the Best Free Software Advocate?

TED is offering an audition for future TED.com talks in New York on the 24th of May [1]. It would be good if we could have someone advocate Free Software there. The audition is a 1 minute talk, the speakers who pass the audition may be offered full ~17 minute lecture slots at the next […]

Links March 2011

Cory Doctorow wrote an interesting article for The Guardian about Harper-Collins attempts to make self-destructing books [1]. They claim that a traditional book falls apart after being read 26 times (a claim that Cory disputes based on personal experience working at libraries) and want ebooks to be deleted after being borrowed so often. Really the […]

Is Asperger Syndrome a Good Thing?

A meme that keeps going around is that Asperger Syndrome (AS) is somehow universally good. The DSM doesn’t list things that are beneficial, so any diagnostic criteria has to be for something that has some serious down-sides – even if there are positive aspects to it. Of course on the Internet the debate won’t just […]

Some Postfix Scripts for dealing with Outbound Spamming

I’ve just written some small scripts to help me manage spam emergencies on a mail server. I’ve been doing this thing with a bit of manual effort for a while, but after having done it once from a phone I want to optimise it a bit to reduce painful typing.

My observation is that when […]

Effective Computers for Schools

Sam Varghese has written an article that is very skeptical of the educational value of the OLPC project [1].

Are Laptops Any Good for Schools?

Sam cites an article in the New York Times by Winnie Hu about schools removing laptop programs due to a lack of success [2]. Winnie’s article gives an example of […]

Radiation Poisoning

There have been ongoing news reports about the nuclear power plant problems in Japan following the earth-quake and tidal-wave. The Wikipedia page about the Fukushima I nuclear accidents seems to have the best current summary of the situation [1].

I think it’s worth noting that Potassium Iodide can be ingested to reduce the incidence of […]

Climate Action Now Rally Melbourne 12th March

This morning I attended the Climate Action Now rally to support a pollution tax [1]. The event was well attended, my personal estimate of the number of people there was there there was definitely more than 3,000 people, and maybe as many as 8,000 or more.

I spoke to an employee of the APS who […]

How Not to Park a Mercedes

Why is that Mercedes blocking so much of the road through the station car park?

It’s because it’s the second car in a 1 car parking spot!

Here’s a front view.

These were taken in the Coburg Station car park on Wednesday. The car park was about half empty, so the alternative […]

Links February 2011

Australia’s Department of Finance has mandated that the MS-Office document format should be the standard document format for all agencies [1]. Paul Wayper notes the fact that MS doesn’t plan to support it’s own standards and suggests ODF, also known as ISO/IEC standard 26300:2006. [2].

Psychology Today has an interesting blog post by Marnia Robinson […]