Website Hosting, CCNA, Refugees, Factional News, Free Trade and Numbers!

[tcpip]

As well as my numerous sysadmin and coding tasks this week has seen me take up the new roles for organizing webhosting and domain registration. Three clients so far - not bad for something I started on Friday! Email me if you want an inexpensive website/domain which comes with plenty of decent services - if you really know me, you'd also know I wouldn't be suggesting this if I didn't think it was a good deal.

Took my first CCNA class at RMIT on Saturday. Made a cross-over cable (because I needed one), set up a LAN with a Cisco router and switch and played around with some basic TCP/IP connectivity tools. Not exactly complex stuff, but they assure me that eventually the course has a 65%+ fail rate.

Have been to two refugee related functions this week. The St Kilda branch of the ALP hosted a community event with the Brigidine nuns working with refugees and the Federal member for Melbourne, Lindsay Tanner. I took the opportunity to remind the meeting that once upon a time a person was required to sit a test in Scots Gaelic in order to enter Australia and John Howard has in the past opposed immigration in general and "Asian" immigration in particular (see his comments from August 1988. The second event was a the guest speaker at the Coburg branch meeting last night. I was introduced by the chair as the reason that he didn't resign from the ALP at the last Federal election. That statement was embarrassingly kind.

In related news, the Socialist Left in an attempt to avoid having to hold an election for the executive has requested that I withdraw my executive nomination and instead go on their selection committee, an act I'm quite happy with. I must say I'm impressed by the fact that Frans, with half of the former Pledge (i.e., about 5% of the SL) has managed to pick up two out of fifteen SL executive positions (himself and Jenny). He does do the numbers very well - but then again, he also has a degree in mathematics ;-)

Sunday's presentation at the Unitarians was from Dr. Tim Woodruff, National President of the Doctors' Reform Society. He highlighted on the main negatives of the so-called Free Trade Agreement, that of the threat to the Pharmaceuticaal Benefits Scheme which has been an enormous success story for Australia. His conclusion was very strongly worded: "The changes in the Free Trade Agreement are going to kill people" and in doing so he highlights two Achilles Heels in the FTA - health and intellectual property. Not surprisingly these are directly related to a proiri, axiomatic conditions to economic logic and therefore cannot be subject to the same logic as economic science itself (I wish more people understood Godel's theorom and applied to economics).

Tonight there's a Free Trade Question and Answer night at Trades Hall (7.30pm) organized by "Public First". It's chaired by Marcus Clayton (Public Interest Lawyer, Slater & Gordon) and speakers include David Ristrom (Greens), Senator Lyn Allison (Democrats), Senator Gavin Marshall (ALP), and Alan Moran (Institute of Public Affairs). The Liberals and Nationals declined an invitation (they really suck, don't they?).

Pythagoras would be proud. I have never been antithetical to the claim that all reality consists of numbers and as part of that process I consider myself someone who can budget better than a Scottish Calvinist. However, this week has finally seen me shake up my sedentary lifestyle and start a serious regime of physical activity in an effort to make my kilojoule output greater than my kilojoule input. You know what I mean. Let's see how I'm coping after a month.

It just gets worse. Four new "extremely critical" IE vulnerabilities found..Stop using it.

Brain breaker for the week is from, dammit, someone on my friends list posted this... Who was it? Anyway... Doom for sysadmins!

Comments

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Another brainbreaker ....

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4029&n=1

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

First post to caseopaya again?!? Is this some sort of race ;-P

re: the brainbreaker ... I'm surprised it isn't 100% ;-)

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Nope - just an indication of how bored I get at work - sorry to disappoint you ;P

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

What *is* happening with the PBS? I keep hearing allusions to it, but it doesn't seem to be newsworthy enough to hear much detail.

And it is a matter rather close to my heart...

Yes, I'd be dead if I were American.

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

What *is* happening with the PBS?

Yeah, this is an area I'm concerned about too.... I mean its bad enough as it is sometimes especially for things that are not listed on the PBS *sigh*

As you said, at least we don't live in the US where they pay upwards of 150% more for medications than we do!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

In a nutshell? The FTA allows drug companies to seek changes and reviews of PBS decisions. The panel deciding whether the PBS is in breach of the FTA is, of course, made up of trade experts, not health experts.

In other words, it is unlikely that anything will happen right away. Give it five to seven years however there is an extremely strong possibility that we will be paying US prices for pharmaceticals.

[cptjohnc.livejournal.com]

As an ignorant american, I'll bite: What does the FTA have to do with the PBS? My quick googling on the topics didn't reveal any connection.

Is the problem that there is a weakening of intellectual property laws or a strengthening? If I read it right, it is a strengthening, which indicates to me that Oz must be a maker/sonsumer of lower priced knock offs, which is how the PBS works and why the FTA will hurt it? Am I right?

If so, there is one factor that needs to be considered: Drug therapies advance because of R & D... This R & D is pretty darned expensive, at least here in the US... If the drug companies lose revenues, I do not expect them to pull the plug on profits, but rather on some R & D programs that might be marginalized. They've done this before.

I know I sound like a champion of the big drug companies, but I do believe that the (relatively) free market is necessary to produce significant break-throughs in most areas. Admittedly I chafe when I hear about new 'diet drugs' and the like, but if these profits support R&D in other areas...

I'm interested in more on this though... any good links?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

See here for some discussion of this. AFAIK, IP laws aren't a major part of it; the PBS achieves lower prices because a centralised buyer has more power than individuals buying their own drugs.

Drug companies love to pull the R&D argument, but the article points out that the drugs most affected by the PBS are 'me-too' drugs - that is, those that offer little advantage over an existing drug. (For instance, a company might modify a competitor's product just enough to avoid paying royalties, which is nice for their balance sheet but doesn't particularly advance the state of medical knowledge.) Genuine innovations still go at a high price, so there's no real disincentive to R&D here.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

[Unknown site tag] wins hands down with regard to the links, so on the other matters...

Whilst a bit of a tangent, I'm a big believer that R&D in public health issues should be carried out by public tertiary education bodies... Sure, let the drug companies churn out their 'elective drugs', whatever, and yes, make sure that the R&D uni people are allocating resources according to need (if not "market demand"), but those are different issues.

WRT the intellectual property law, Australia has more lenient IP than the United States. That's why you find texts on Project Gutenberg Australia that you won't find on Project Gutenberg US. The FTA means that we will have to follow the US system.

In both these cases we are referring to something which is axiomatic to economics and because it is axiomatic it is outside of economics as a science. A free market assumes freely available information and actors without coercive health conditions. This is not to say that the provision of such goods doesn't have a cost, but rather that they must be paid for collectively in order for market choice in everything else to exist as they should. Does that make sense?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Brain breaker for the week is from, dammit, someone on my friends list posted this... Who was it?

That was me :-)

Doom for Sysadmins....

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes it was, yes it was....

I can't wait to install it. It's going to be a scream...

Also I imagine the overhead will be a good opportunity for network load testing. ;-)

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

Re Howard's 1988 comments, do you have an actual quote or link thereto? (Have heard *of* them often, but never the actual comments).

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Some excerpts here.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. My old mentor Bruce Tapper has the front page of The West Australian where he makes the comments. Bruce had collected the article because it was the hook from which he did his PhD (a young man bashed a taxi driver to death because he "hated Asians") - seemed nicely juxtaposed with Howard's comments.

Socialist Alternative have a link here and amazingly Gerarld Henderson tries to put a positive spin on it (the man has no shame) here.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Based on the comments on AM today, I got the very distinct impression that Labor will pass the FTA come hail or nuclear fallout.

That was a bit sad.

In other news, there was also the Federal Multiculturalism Minister (no idea of his name) who seems to be trying to play politics with the recent anti-Asian, pro-ANM graffitti in the Southern suburbs.

He was either implying the Gallop Government wasn't cracking down hard enough, or all of us over in the West are rapid anti-Asians.

The fact that Van Tongran has about 17 followers (according to ACA last night) seems to have slipped his notice.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I got the very distinct impression that Labor will pass the FTA come hail or nuclear fallout.

Yes, I suspect that as well. More votes for the Greens.

or all of us over in the West are rapid anti-Asians.

I still remember the "Asians Out or Racial War" posters that were splashed all over the city in 1989... And going toe-to-toe with some Nazi's in the Hay Street Mall. Very unpleasant.

The fact that Van Tongran has about 17 followers

Don't kid yourself. He has a lot more than that.

[frou-frou.livejournal.com]

I need a website. Actually, I probably need two. Please?

.tchriing!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, talk about working for those that you want to help ...

How many pages for each site? No need to be precise, just a rough guess. The standard business plan is $100 per annum, which comes with 50 megabytes of space, 5 gigabytes of traffic per month (very generous in my opinion), free webmail and/or pop3 mail, free MySQL database, custom error pages, shopping cart script and so on and on.

There is the cost of composing the site as well, but I have an enormous collection of templates that accumulated over the years. This can keep the costs way down.

What domain names are you looking for? Send me a few so if one is already taken I can arrange for an alternative. Global domains (.com, .biz, .net) are $27 per annum, and .au domains (.com.au, .net.au etc) are $77 for two years.

How does all that sound?

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Marcus Clayton, there's an interesting chap, one of the good guys, and a reason to have some faith in the legal profession as a potential avenue to justice.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, now the penny drops... Marcus Clayton defender of the Rabelias editors and who won the payout for the Richmond School protestors against excessive force by the coppers...

...very small world!

[paula-angela.livejournal.com]

The second event was as the guest speaker at the Coburg branch meeting last night.

*splingkht* ??

Well, I was the chick sitting to your left at the branch meeting.

When you friended me on LJ I did wonder who you were, but friended you back anyway - we have common friends & your bio looked interesting. Last night, the name "Lev" sounded vaguely familiar, you looked vaguely familiar, and I wondered if you thought you recognied me, but without clear context I wasn't about to bail up the charismatic guest speaker and say, "don't I know you from somewhere?"

Your LJ icon is a REALLY BAD photo of you!
I have a digital camera, and am happy to take a better one.

Re: ...very small world!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

That ljicon was taken in the server room in East Timor - which had no natural light.... Also, my hair was a lot shorter then...

I tagged you (iirc) after that thoroughly enjoyable Tom Leher night with ummm... was it 17catherines? (C'mon brain work with me....)

Hmmmm.... That makes at least five Labor Party members on my livejournal... (myself, yourself, blowsaidjulian, splodgenoodles and shocko (I think)). Any others wanting to 'fess up their party membership?

[greg.livejournal.com]

Give me some more information on the webhosting. How much will you charge me for secondary? Or colo?

And CCNA is step 1 right? CCNP is the one where if you pass you basically get a job with Cisco? It's been so long since I've been in the loop of the whole CC world.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Give me some more information on the webhosting. How much will you charge me for secondary? Or colo?

OK, general hosting all depends on how big the site is and how much traffic you expect (pretty standard really). The standard is 50 meg of space, 5 gig/month traffic, $100 AUD/year. That also comes with unlimited POP/webmail accounts, 20 subdomains, custom error pages, PERL/PHP, three MySQL databases, a whole bunch of CGI scripts (including a shopping cart and message board).

I'll get back to you on secondaries and colocation.

And CCNA is step 1 right?

Yep, that's right. Having finished my PhD in the social sciences, I thought it was about time I did something serious with comp sci, rather than just having it as a very long term hobby. I intend to go all the way to CCIE.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

OK, can't do secondaries or colo for you (or not yet anyway). Can do secondary mail servers, however for $20AUD/annum.

If you're really after secondaries rather than hosting may I recommend the following:

http://www.autons.net.au/

Run by zey. Knows what he is doing. Has more degrees than I have sharp pencils.