Archive
Category: Weblog
Random assortments, selected for semantic content.
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A Fresh Take on Public Transportation
Owing to some minor disruptions at Melbourne’s equivalent of Grand Central Station, I alighted upon a different train to travel home from university this afternoon. Perhaps it’s just a measure of the banality of my everyday existence to say that I was utterly captivated by the novelty of this experience: new trackside sights, stations of… Read more →
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State Censorship and Cyber Autonomy
A recent report published by Privacy International suggests that internet censorship is at an all time high. In addition to extensive regulation by non-democratic states, the study points to the heightened sensitivity of many Western governments in response to a perceived terrorist threat. However, it is noted that an active censorship poses an even greater… Read more →
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News Snippets
Just some quick news bytes before I return to my riveting pursuits. The gallery has also been updated with a few new pictures of the Freehills debating final, Julian Burnside’s public lecture, and other university events. TCP/IP your days are numbered: this new bongo drum protocol looks set to revolutionise data transfer (not). For want… Read more →
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Federal Spam Bill Set to Achieve Nothing
On the local (Australian) front (pardon the anchor cliché), the recent tabling of a tough national Spam law has received industry accolade, and looks set to pass when it is read for a second time next month. Under the proposed legislation, entities engaging in electronic mass-mail practices face penalties of over $1 million a day.… Read more →
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Galileo End of Mission
According to the NASA website, the Galileo spacecraft will shortly be manoeuvred into a descent path which will send it plunging into the Jovian atmosphere. This will mark the end of a 14 year long mission ranked among NASA’s greatest successes. On Sept. 21, NASA’s Galileo mission will come to an end when the hardy… Read more →
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Nutty Power and the RIAA
Gympie, Queensland has a new ‘green’ power plant fuelled entirely by the discarded shells of Macadamia nuts, which burn cleaner than other fossil fuels (less CO2 emission). “Mmm… Macamadamia…” In completely unrelated news, C|Net news has an insightful article examining the validity of the RIAA subpoena process and the potential ramifications of the new bill… Read more →
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Copyright May Protect ‘Functional Structure’
Pumfrey J of the High Court of England and Wales yesterday granted leave to appeal in a copyright infringement case between two rival airline ticket-booking software developers. Though the competing products were programmed in entirely different languages (Cobol and Visual Basic [heh]), Pumfrey J noted the similarities in ‘functional structure’, drawing an analogy to the… Read more →
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Consumers Challenge Deceptive Hard Drive Marketing
Throughout the day today I’ll be presenting a brief overview of some current happenings in IT litigation; interesting issues continue to be explored by various legislatures, and there are an increasing number of IP/IT cases being heard in Appeal Courts. My Applied Mathematics lecture was cancelled without notice this morning, so I have 3 hours… Read more →
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Senator Voices Internet Privacy Concerns
Senator Brownback of Kansas, America yesterday introduced a bill which appears to address the privacy concerns voiced by many internet and P2P users over the RIAA’s recent campaign against online music piracy. Brownback said the DMCA subpoena process raises serious privacy and due-process concerns. “There are no checks, no balances, and the alleged pirate has… Read more →
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Punitive Damages
Another quick Tuesday afternoon roundup, meticulously crafted after a long day at university. One can only debate the efficacy of access to the justice system so many times… On with the show: Domain names: 50 000 free .id.au names have been released by aUDA to promote the new local domain suffix. Get yours now (then… Read more →