AnotherWorthlessBlog

TPB Down… And sold???

As I sit down to have a look around my RSS feeds tonight I’m struck by one headline. First in one feed then in another. A short look around the intertubes confirms, TPB appears to have been sold to Swedish gaming company Global Gaming Factory X. Amazing that a name that is synonymous with illegal file sharing and copyright violation is set to be capitalised upon by a legitimate private business, and whats more, this business wants to make TPB legit.

I’d check the TPB blog for further info but the site appears to be non responsive for now at least. All that can be said about this so far is that it’s getting immediate attention from a few corners of the interwebs and I’m sure the mainstream media will pick up on what should be an interesting story.

For now at least, http://www.finanztreff.de/kurse_einzelkurs_charts,i,666994,zeit,8.html, watch the GGFX investors dance like a Texas man who just struck oil!!!

Sources
- http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-sold-to-software-company-goes-legal-090630/
- http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/06/30/its-no-lie-pirate-bay-purchased-by-gaming-giant-closing-track/
And more!!

Tags: copyright, money, piracy, tpb

Connex is dead, long live Metro Trains Melbourne

Firstly, I know I haven’t posted in a while, my life kind of got in the way for a while there. Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, on to tonight’s topic. For those of you who weren’t paying attention to the news today both Connex and Yarra Trams have lost their contracts to manage Melbournes Metro Rail and Tram services. This doesn’t take effect until December so it’ll be interesting to see what happens until then, I can’t see Connex being very driven to improve services.

I’m sure almost all of you first had the response, no more Connex, hells yer! We’ve all associated Connex with everything that’s bad about our public transport system, graffiti on trains, lack of security, delayed trains, canceled trains, and of course, where would we be without the trench-coat wearing cheap badge holding ticket inspectors. But the reality is quite different. Even though Connex seems to have failed at running our rail services for the past few months in particular we could just as easily see a repeat with a new company. In fact, conditions could get worse. We could just end up with slightly different coloured trains that run even slower.

The fact is I believe alot of the blame lies with our state government. Their lack of funding for metro rail infrastructure, especially the continual broken promises to deliver new trains, has left Connex with a car with flat tires. The fact is, it doesn’t matter who’s driving the car, it simply cannot work as well as a car with pumped up tires. As for Yarra Trams, I don’t know why they’re loosing the contract. The trams seem to be as on time as the possibly can to me. Without the government taking some very unpopular action and pushing for clearways and priority lanes to be extended trams simply cannot be relied upon and will always be effected by traffic conditions.

At least those taking over the contracts in December seem to have good backgrounds. With the consortium taking control of the Rail System involving the company that runs Hong Kongs rail system, where a train is late if it takes more than 60 seconds. The Tram System is set to be controlled by a company that runs trams in Paris, a city that has a very good tram system.

Let’s hope these companies do better than their predecessors, otherwise we’re just going to end up with a bunch of money wasted on paint. Let’s just hope that our state government really is interested in improving Melbournes Metro Rail network.

Source – http://www.theage.com.au/national/new-train-tram-operators-for-melbourne-20090625-cxgx.html

Tags: connex, melbourne, victorian government

So I wanted fast interwebs…

And that’s how it started. Alot of you have heard this story already and are probably sickk of hearing it by now but for those of you who haven’t heard it yet here goes.

My current internet in my apartment is connected by a data point to my room by a small ISP that solely provides broadband to apartment buildings. So you’d think that it could have great potential to be fast. Say with an ethernet backbone to the interwebs and big download quotas and awesomeness… But no, that would only happen in imaginationland…

Instead the service that this half arsed ISP provides is 384 kbps down 64 up… A speed that is atrocious when compared with the current services availible in metro areas with an average of 18 mbps down!! The hell… Also the quota on this plan is 2gb… For every 5 days… Who the hell does that, everyone else does it by the month. Seriously… WTF… But my confusion continued when I realised how much it was costing me…

A fifty dollar connection fee… OH NO someone had to create a new account on the central server, like… 5 seconds work… And boom… You get charged 50 bucks… But that aside, how much do you think i’m paying for this broadband service. 10 bucks, 20 bucks, no sir. I’m being ripped off for a large 49.95 per month for this half rate dodgy arse service! I can’t browse and chat on my VOIP at the same time… It screws with it too much. What a fucking rip.

So after 2 months of this I’m ready to stab someone, and decide, for my own safety and those around me I should get the hell away from this service and get a proper DSL service. This is where TPG comes in. I wanted a naked DSL 2+ service with 50gb quota for 59.95. 10 bucks more than my current deal and I get greatly improved quota and speed. Yer… I held myself back just a little there… So I contact TPG, I have to get my phone connected to Telstra first, thanks to the brilliance that is the sale of Telstra.

So I get onto Telstra. Who, are increadibly fast. There is a tech at my door 4 business days later, really nice!

He hooks up my phone line pretty easily and heads off. He’s barely out the door and I’ve logged the request to have the line disconnected so that the naked DSL can be connected. It is now the 4th of April. I sit around constantly refreshing the installation status page on TPG’s website to find out when my service will be activated. 2 days later on the 6th TPG reports it has logged the request with Telstra.

Skip forward in time to Friday the 17th. 8 business days later (the public hols where in there somewhere) and I’m still refreshing that damn page. So I figure I’ll call TPG. They’re very sorry but Telstra has gotten back to them with the 7th of May being the expected connection date. The 7TH OF MAY. And then it hits me. Remember all that industrial action going on over in Telstraville, remember how the strikes are not affecting Telstra customers. According to Telstra. I think I just figured out what is taking up the slack. Telstra wholesale customers, and indirectly end users are being screwed over by the wonder that is telstra!

So in short. This is just another FUCK YOU TELSTRA post. And to those who defend Telstra by saying there are queues and they’ll be getting stuff done as quickly as they can, yer sure. I like the part where they can come to my house and connect my line in 4 days. Yet it takes them almost a month to just walk the fuck downstairs into the basement and change afew patch cables. Seriously guys. Hawthorn exchange might be a high building… But it aint that damn high!

Anyway stay tuned… Maybe I’ll have good interwebs some time in the next mellinium!

Tags: telstra, telstra bigpond, tpg

News Response :: Power firm faces legal action over bushfires

Unless you’ve been living under a rock recently (or possibly in a country other than Australia) you’ll know about the bushfires that recently caused so many deaths in Victoria. Some of the fires (definately the ones near Beechworth) where started by powerlines across the state, and, something that’s not mentioned in this article, is that many more smaller fires have been started over the past couple of months by power infrastructure. The fact is the extreme heat, coupled with the high loads being handled by power infrastructure today, is putting an enormous strain on our power infrastructure. Today people want huge TV’s, computers, gaming consoles and all of this is resulting on an increased load on our power systems. The power companies I’m sure are upgrading lines and supply services as quickly as is efficient but it does seem that current systems are starting to fail under the pressure.

But the main issue of late seems to be the heat, which brings with it alot of problems, particularly relating to cables expanding and contracting with temparature changes. While the heat has subsided now it’s important to remember at the time alot of issues where seen, including the issues with trains not being able to run. The heat and strange wind conditions probably caused the fire at Beechworth (I’m not commenting on the one in the article because I don’t have firsthand knowledge) and it simply could not be contained because of the weather conditions.

But I’ve gone on long enough, on to the article. It talks about a moronic group of bloodsucking lawyers (no offence meant to any lawyers out there, except the ones in the article) taking on the company that manages the power infrastructure that may have started the fires near Horsham. For one thing, this is jumping the gun because the cause hasn’t been established, but secondly, what good is this supposed to bring. It’ll be legal battle that will cost both sides heavily and only result in the power company having less money to maintain a network that obviously needs attention.

So this court case will do nothing except take money away from the companies that did incredibly well under harsh conditions to restore power. I’m disturbed that anyone would be so stupid and damn short sighted as to encourage this case, but it seems they are. It’s court cases like these that add infinite amounts of red tape to everything and make it harder for things to get done. But hey, that’s not important, all the lawyers in this case care about is the money.

The fact is, even if the power lines started the fire, what right do people have to claim money from them? IMHO none… Not an ounce… Fires are often started by faulty electrical equipment, but obviously these people seem to think that ANY faulty equipment is unnaceptable which means that power companies will have to shut down power more often to ensure that such things don’t occur again, and yet they still will. These fires happen all the time, a possom gets fried by lines somehow and some sparks hit the ground, the heat causes earthing cables to warp an then they break causing sparks, and usually the CFA is on hand to secure the incident before it gets serious.

The fact is the weather was so shocking there is nothing that could be done to prevent the fire getting large enough to be unmanageable. People need to accept that these fires happened, stop trying place blame (except in the case of arson) and rebuild their lives. Cases like this do nothing for anyone in the long or short term, eventually the people may get some small settlement, or they may not, in the long run everyone looses.

Except the lawyers, I’m sure they’ll sue again when the milk in their office goes off because the power company had to cut power to do complex checks to ensure their lines are still safe… And I’m sure they would to…

Article Source – http://www.theage.com.au/national/power-firm-faces-legal-action-over-bushfires-20090313-8xj2.html

Tags: black saturday, CFA, fire, stupid lawyers

News Response :: Doyle calls for ban on hailing CBD taxis

Well it seems our new Lord Mayor of Melbourne is calling for a ban on the hailing of cabs in the CBD… What a great idea, we’ll obviously have a bunch of really nice cab ranks around the city so that people can… I’m sorry… Whats that… FOUR… Four cab ranks for the whole CBD. For the ENTIRE CBD, and you can’t hail cabs elsewhere. What a stupid idea, people out on Saturday night aren’t going to want to find a Cab rank at 3AM because they can’t hail one on the street. Not to mention the issues associated with pushing everybody towards just a few cab ranks. I think I speak for all people who go out at night in the CBD when we say, just leave things the way they are. People who go into parts of the CBD where it is dangerous shouldn’t be there alone anyway, and if you want to fix that then hire a whole bunch of security guards to patrol the CBD at night and to assist police.

Articl Source – The Age – http://www.theage.com.au/national/doyle-calls-for-ban-on–hailing-cbd-taxis-20090304-8o35.html

Tags: melbourne

News Response :: Black Saturday warning fell short, Opposition says

Well it seems what we all knew was coming has already started. It would seem that the state opposition has decided it’s been long enough to attempt to gain some political ground on the Black Saturday fires. The opposition has begun attacking the state govt for apparently not providing enough warning about the horrendous weather conditions that where expected for Black Saturday. To that I say, bullshit… Absolute utter nonsense… There where plenty of warnings including detailed warnings that filtered down through all levels of the CFA. Hell, my home brigade which is not even in what I would categorize as an extreme risk area put handouts in everyone’s letterboxes advising them to use caution and to report all fires. We also advised them to make the decision to leave or stay early.

As the horror stories begin to filter out about what people have seen over the few days after black Saturday that appears to be a re-occuring thing. There wasn’t alot that fire authorities could have done to warn these people when the CFA itself had no idea of what was coming. Especially when the fires where actually active. There where so many large fires appearing around the state that it took some time to put into place the incident management teams required to manage such events. Especially from listening to the Beechworth area fires develop live on a CFA scanner it was just complete madness.

The fact is that not a lot could have been done to save the lives that where lost. People would not have left their homes on Black Saturday and the fact is that that is all that could have saved them. If people had have left that morning they would have been fine. But why would they? All people would have done, had they been warned more, is try to fortify their house. Which would have been pointless. When you hear about fully loaded CFA appliances fleeing houses they where tasked to protect what chance does some bloke in a singlet with a garden hose stand.

The fact is, nothing could be done to prevent the tragic loss of life that occured on Black Saturday. An emergency alerting system may have decreased the number but IMHO people would not have left, nor does the CFA have the power to make people leave, when they should have. People still would have stayed, and prepared for the worst, and then, at the last minute as they saw how bad the fire was, they would have fled for their lives as occured on Saturday.

There are many things to take from this, but that the agencies involved didn’t provide enough warning, is CERTAINLY NOT one of the things to take from this. The warnings where there, there is no need to put people into a panic as was done a few days ago with the text message. Besides, what would the text have said???

People have already hammered it into them NOT TO LEAVE if a fire front approaches, so a message stating that would be pointless, a message stating that bad weather conditions where expected would also have been pointless as nobody would have chosen to leave. They all would have stayed and fortified themselves and more deaths may have occured. It doesn’t help that everyone is in such a spin over the catastrophe that was Black Saturday at the moment that they will jump everytime the smallest bit of hot weather approaches. Victoria Police and the CFA need to learn about crying wolf.

Fact is, none of this is helping, so the Victorian Opposition should just shut the hell up and find something that they can actually make a difference on, like, say, getting us some more trains in Melbourne. Anyway I’ve said my rant, and I hope someone takes something from this article written from the POV of a CFA Volunteer who is frustrated by people constantly saying more could be done. We can’t freeze time and that’s what it would have taken to fight these fires. There are some fires you cannot fight, and the ones on Black Saturday where those fires.

Article source – http://www.theage.com.au/national/black-saturday-warning-fell-short-opposition-says-20090309-8tb3.html

Tags: black saturday

News Response :: Canned drones a ‘must have’ for bushfire surveillance

Well, it seems someone did beat me to my idea of using UAV’s in firefighting efforts. They would be invaluable on the recon side of things, able to fly into conditions with extremely limited visibility and much more varied weather than a standard firespotter. They could also be used as mobile communications repeaters, far enhancing fireground communications in Victoria’s often hilly and difficult terrain.

However, it should be pointed out that the drones that this article is talking about are the global hawk drones such as those used by the US Military in Recon and Search and Destroy missions. They would be given to the Military and then they could lend them to the CFA while still operating them should they see fit. It’s a shame to see this article suggest that the drones would have been used during Black Saturday. I beleive that it would take the military several hours just to give the CFA permission to use one of their drones on a mission and then the use of the drone would be limited and via the Defence Forces.

Which is all well and good but the amount of red tape that you would have to pass through to get one of these in the air would be extremely high. It would be much more usefull if the CFA was able to obtain a couple of short range UAV’s for constant Recon of a fire and to monitor it in real time.

Also in response to one of the last paragraphs in the article

Senator Johnston says Australia needs the drones because of their flexibility and capability, particularly with respect to bushfire monitoring.

“I actually think it would have gone on to have been able to provide evidence as to arson,” he said.

Senator Johnston is the Shadow Minister for Defense and this is a poor attempt at using the fires during Black Saturday to their advantage. I find it VERY unlikely that the Drones would have done anything to assist in the investigation of arson. For one thing, the drones would not actually be in the air when the fires started but would assist after the start of the fire. Probably several hours if they where controlled by the defence forces, after all it took them several days to even talk about getting involved with the fire effort in the past few weeks. So, no, Senator Johnston, this is one voter who’s seen straight through your crap to a thinly veiled attempt at using the fires as a platform.

After all, I also see the opposition whinging about spending at such a time, whats so damn important about Australia having Global Hawks…

Article Source – ABC Online – http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/03/2506362.htm?section=justin

Tags: black saturday

News Response :: Go to jail? That’s fine, says toll rebel

It sounds good doesn’t it, let’s stand up to those bastards that put the tollways over our roads and use the roads without paying. I’m a political prisoner, blah blah blah… I just got sick of the tolls… Well seems like this moron did, and finally decided, screw the law, screw the fact that Transurban built and maintains this road privately, I’m going to drive on it without paying because I, am somehow different from the rest of you and should be treated differently.

What a moron, thinking you can just drive on CityLink and not pay the tolls. Here’s a reality check, the road is PRIVATELY owned by transurban. What possible right do you have to drive on it without paying. Pay up like the rest of it or stay the hell off the toll roads. It really is that simple. Have fun in jail, 12 days doesn’t feel like alot for someone who owes that much, I reckon they should just repo her car…

And then you hear her ramble on about being called a polotical prisoner, BULLSHIT, you aren’t a political prisoner, you are just some whiny woman who wanted to take the CityLink without paying because it suited you. But she goes on, somehow trying to link her plight with the fact that executives get paid millions and they don’t go to jail, blah blah blah… Seriously, The Age, I’m dissapointed in you for writing this crap, it’s in no way balanced and in my eyes it’s an article that belonged in the Herald Sun so that it could be thrown into a fire when winter comes  to keep warm…

Get over it lady, I hope you enjoy your 12 days of jail, if I had may way you’d have your car repo’d…

Article Source – http://www.theage.com.au/national/go-to-jail-thats-fine-says-toll-rebel-20090305-8q30.html

Tags: above the law, lazy people

News Response :: Google puts top-secret Brit nuke base on map

This article is written in response found in The Age stating that Google had unblurred a top secret British Nuclear Base. There isn’t too much to be discussed about here, aside from the fact that anyone who can get rockets onto British soil probably wouldn’t need to use Google Earth to plan their attack… Also the fact that, anyone who knows ANYTHING about Google earth will notice that the blurring of the old photo is not in fact due to the sensitive nature of the base but the fact that it is a previous generation photo of a lower resolution that the one seen on the left. The photos have just been updated with new satellite data.

If Google wishes to blur out a military installation or a nuclear power plant it normally just restricts the level of zooming users can do by displaying a message stating that images at that resolution are not available due to the sensitive nature of the installation at that location. They do not “blur out” a photo. Therefore Google hasn’t magically put it on the map just now, it’s just that they updated the image and it obviously slipped through the gap. I think The Age tech section needs to find a writer that knows something about what they’re writing about!

Article Source – The Age – http://www.theage.com.au/news/home/technology/google-puts-topsecret-brit-nuke-base-on-map/2009/03/03/1235842389474.html

Tags: google

Fire Warning… Text???

Victoria is obviously still in shock after the fires that occured just a few weeks ago. However, is it really right for the CFA/Victoria Police to be scaring the hell out of residents accross the state by sending a SMS to all Victorian residents telling them that extremely dangerous weather is afoot. Now, it appears it was, and the winds seen yesterday where damn strong and did a fair bit of damage. However, was there really the need to freak people out by sending them this text message? IMHO, hells no. All this message did was make people get even more hyped up than they already where. ABC reported calls from people saying they had either not received the message and also calls from people yesterday saying that they had stayed home from work to protect their properties when it simply was uneccesary ( Source – http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/03/2505706.htm ).

Yes the winds where bad, and yes it did appear that it was going to be a very bad day, but the agencies involved need to find a healthy mid-ground between having people caught unawares and scaring people that need not be concerned. The fact is that those who needed to be immediatly concerned would have already been paying attention to either ABC radio or would have been to a fire meeting regarding already active fires in their area. New fires that started yesterday had the potential to be nasty but there is always the potential for bad fires and those that live in such areas are most likely people in country areas that are already aware of approaching severe weather events through radio/TV services and also through friends and by… Oh… Looking out the window.

I understand that both the CFA and Victoria Police do not want a repeat of the deaths seen a few weekends ago but they need to find a healthy medium, not to mention they need to properly implement a system. SMS messages are notoriously unreliable, and many people didn’t receive them at all. Not to mention there is the whole crying wolf aspect to this thing. I hate to say it but the CFA has been crying wolf for a while both internally and of course externally in an attempt to jump on possibly serious weather conditions early. There really is no need for this. All it does is de-value CFA warnings about upcoming conditions. I certainly don’t place as much value on the warnings I’ve been receiving.

I beleive that Australia needs an Emergency Alerting system like that found in America where government agencies may take complete control of every TV/Radio channel as well as call Land and Mobiles in the event of an Emergency. A system like this should be implemented and may have saved many lives over the course of Black Saturday. But I suppose that won’t happen for a few years until this damn useless commission is finished… And that’s before I even get started on the 140 appliances that have been brought over from NSW when we are nowhere near fully deployed. I’m sure the NSW RFS has area’s to defend just like the CFA, they just seem to be willing to be better mates and help out a bit more than we do…

Tags: black saturday