Today's topics of interest so far

News.com.au has an interesting article about how an international group of boffins want to start getting down some regulations on how to deal with the rapid progress of computer and robotic technology. The are soon to publish a code of ethics, dealing with numerous topics, but the number one of interest to the article was the concept of "computer love". What happens if robots get just too damn sexy?! Another major goal of the code is to try and ensure that Terminator movies don't become reality, by preventing scientists from making robots that will not always remain subservient to humans.

Also of interest in the news (for Australians anyway) is the possibility of Harry Kewell being suspended and unable to play in Australia's next match against Croatia, all just for calling the referee of Sunday night's game a few names. What's the big deal really, the ref deserved them and he should know it. They should also cut Kewell a bit of slack seeming as he was obviously going to be upset after he did STUFF IT completely in front of goal during the game, which must have been one of the worst blunders in his entire career. Open goal, no goalie, 3-5 metres away, completely misses. Bugger!

Lastly, as always, gizmodo has a handfull of articles to keep everyone amused. Including the development of camera blocking technology, the can detect the presence of the image producing sensors and then send out a beam of white light to render any image being captured useless. There is talk of using them in movie theatres to stop the pirates. I never did like those in cinema recordings anyway, sound and image quality were always crap, though it was funny sometimes when someone in front got up for a pee and all of a sudden the movie had a new character. There's a batman begins case mod that's pretty cool, and speaking of cool, take a look at the usb powered airconditioned shirt for all the working sweaty backs out there.

I'm sure there's more out there to find but I can't sit at my desk and time waste all day now can I?!

Yeah, Bloody Yeah

I think that my exact words last night during the World Cup battle between Australia and my current host nation Japan were, "Eat that Japan!!" as the second goal slammed back into the net. After 80 minutes of tension and building bitterness, fueled by having to witness a fairly obvious foul turn into a Japanese goal, it was great to finally get that release. Somehow I also felt that opening the window and yelling "GOAL!" out into the night air was also appropriate. Justice had finally been served.
I also just read an article on news.com.au, which quoted the Australian goalkeeper, Shwarzer, as saying that in his conversation with the Egyptian referee after the game, the ref had admitted and apologised for the mistake in awarding Japan the goal in the first place. The referee had said he was glad that Australia had won, because it basically meant that God's will had been done in nullifying his error.
Well, at least I know that my will had been done, if nothing else, cos for some reason I really wanted to win. I didn't fancy coming into the office today to all the smirking faces of the Japanese teachers and students. I knew that they wouldn't have rubbed it in too much, but that probably would have made it worse, because all the taunting would have been going on in their heads anyway.
Instead, being the victor rocks!

Macbook arriving tonight!

Should be a bit of excitement around the apartment tonight. Gonna be unboxing the newest edition to our computer family, a 13" Macbook. I know, I know, it's not the Pro, so what's the point right. Well, it's so far been well touted on the net as a good machine for the bucks, and even with the integrated video memory, it doesn't slow down too much unless you're a pro yourself, and you're giving the giving the processor a real high speed hammering: this is unlikely to happen to me for quite a while cos I'm still a relative newbie to such graphic intensive programs, even photoshop still gives me the begeebies when I look at all of the functions, and then the layering starts up, aaarrghhh, I'll get there though.
When I finally become able to touch the machine, after my wife has thoroughly violated it, her love of macs has been getting excessive of late, I should be able to use it as a good training machine to help me on the way of becoming "Dez, video and graphics superpower", or simply "Dez, more full of crap than ever before", he he. But anyway, at least the machine looks good.

More Water Power

It's great that this information is finally seeing the light of day on mainstream media, but why oh why does it have to be shown on Fox news. From the comments of almost anyone out of the US, the credibility of everything is in question if it is shown on Fox news.

If it is true then someone up there (the administration, not heaven. There's a thought, maybe I should be using the words down there), must have gotten their hands on enough of the pie to make this release profitable enough to run with. Or maybe its just cos now that citizens of the US are finally paying petrol prices on par with what the rest of the world has been paying for years, there's finally enough incentive to run with it, and that it would be almost impossible to keep quiet with the public eye focused so keenly on alternative energy sources.

Water Power

How can there not be enough good people in the world to have gotten this thing going? This guy should have moved out of the US long ago and started production. Problem was that he was also just as greedy as the people with businesses he was trying to replace. I wonder how many years it is gonna be before the market even gets a whiff of this new technology. How much more of the world are we gonna need to burn through first? Many of the problems in Iraq and with the current power talks in Iran would be greatly affected by the production and use of such devices.

Note- for those in poor internet starved Australia, this clip is over 16 mins long so it will probably take a bit of your monthly download limit to get, but you've gotta see it. It's a clip taken from a show originally aired in 1995, but I hadn't seen it so there must be others out there like me. I remember hearing of such a device in 1996, and heard that the plans had been bought out by Shell, but there may be another explanation.