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

[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.

[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]

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

That was me :-)

[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).

[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.

[frou-frou.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

...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.

[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.