This graphic from a better man I stole . . .

Finally, a way to put the love and use of Meat in Scientific terms

Conroy's Filter - Public Service Announcement

May I recommend Startpage Australia to anyone who finds the Conroy filter insulting, demeaning or ominous?

This is a Netherlands-based meta-search engine* from the company Ixquick. It claims to be the most private search engine in the world by deleting user IP addresses after searching, using SSL encryption and using an integrated proxy to anonymise all traffic linked through search results. In other words, if you search for "euthanasia help" through this engine, your IP address (and thus your identity) is not revealed to any site which you access by directly following the search page link. If you bookmarked that page and later followed the bookmark, your personal IP address would be visible to that site.The proxy part also means that your ISP - which will have to apply Conroy's filter - can't see your search terms and therefore can't block or record them. Proxies apparently work to circumvent China's Great Firewall as well as the Conroy Wall of Ignorance.

The European privacy consortium, EuroPriSe, found Ixquick deleted all non-personal information within 14 days, and awarded the company its first ICT-focused privacy seal in 2008, so this isn't like Facebook. They really seem to provide privacy.

No doubt there will be any number of ways of brushing aside this ludicrous filter but if enough people use this one, they may put their servers in Australia, thus improving its speed.

*Meta-search simply means that they submit your search terms to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Altavista, uncle Tom Cobleigh and all, and send back to you a summary of the results. Sorry if you knew that already. You can go back and unread the first sentence of this para if you're a fellow geek. Actually, if you apply that recursively, this would be the only sentence left and a very confusing one at that.

Animals of Chelmer

So I get these two phone calls, pretty early & about five minutes apart. First one's a software problem (typical, the room's full of other people's PC's & laptops getting some TLC) and the second is the dear little old lady across the street, who has yet another snake problem. And I realise that for 30+ years, I've been fixing exactly these two types of problem, sometimes for the same people or organisations, though never at the same time. I seem doomed to be half mongoose, half nerd. So I thought I'd put up some snaps of  a few beasties I've known, removed or nursed to health.

This was the latest. A little carpet python from her garden shed.











Kind of cute, so I set it to guard the avocado tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Now you see that hole there? That's yer problem. And yer see how he's all folded up like a spring? Well that means he's about to . . .

Um, yeah. OK, you probably shouldn't do that.

Now this one is a little bigger, though still a harmless carpet.

And these photos turn out to take forever to upload, so I'll resize some, add a few non-carpets, and get back.

Flash! Man Flu Exists!

It would appear, O possessors of the XX (aka Double-crossers) that we were right all along. The men of the planet await your apologies - collectively or en mass.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/09/2868220.htm

As it says on Spike Milligan's tombstone - "See, I told you I was sick"

iPad needs a new word?

Hmm, The Sun, The Australian and the Courier Mail as paid apps? I'm thinking Tabletoid Journalism.

A small Burger Breakfast

Menus here: http://www.locknloadbistro.com.au/menus/LocknLoadBistroBreakfastMenu.pdf

Your booking has been confirmed with Lock n Load (Westend)

Booking Confirmation (27UU)

Restaurant: Lock n Load (Westend) 

Name: Mr Greg Randolph 

Booking ID: 27UU 

Date: Sunday 28 March 10 

Time: 9:00 AM 

People: 6 

Phone: 0412 xxxxxx

Email: greg.randolph@xxx.xxx.au

 

If anyone else can come (and all Burgers and Insignificant Others are welcome), leave a message here and I'll try to increase the numbers. 

The Attacks on Scientology

So Senator Nick Xenophon won't let up on Scientology eh? Xeno-phon or Xenu-phon? Coincidence? I think not!

This is also a little experiment. Do Scientology's enforcers troll the web for negative comments? Do they still put rattlesnakes in your letterbox? Does L Ron Hubbard's fiction stink, even unto high heaven - and I include the ludicrous Dianetics in his fictional oeuvre?