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Website Hosting, CCNA, Refugees, Factional News, Free Trade and Numbers!
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!
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!
Re: One Nazi link deserves another ;-)
A cause for irony.
They replayed the ACA interview where the journo asks the question, and his response boils down to:
"That was a long time ago, and I have been fully assimilated. I am Australian."
Sad, I'm refering to ACA, I know.
While we're on the subject, GNT on Monday featured a White Australia Game from 1914 (http://www.abc.net.au/gnt/history/Transcripts/s1157608.htm)
while Grant Stone was on last night.
Re: One Nazi link deserves another ;-)
"That was a long time ago, and I have been fully assimilated. I am Australian."
So the criteria he uses for himself is different to the criteria that he uses for others. Typical.
I have to find a copy of that White Australia game - I can just imagine what it's like - bold white Australia surrounded by hordes of yellow and dark skinned individuals (plus a modicum of danger within the Empire's Borders!
Sounds reminiscent of the cover on Shanghai Trader (a great game, I may add).
Was particularly impressed by this section of the interview..
REPORTER: What would happen if someone called you a bloody dago?
MAN: Well, it only happened to me once in my lifetime in 51 years in Australia.
REPORTER: And what did you do?
MAN: I punched him on the nose.