The Outspoken Wookie

Aussies face $1.1m fines for data breaches

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Wed, 23 May 2012 05:36:00 +0000

As reported earlier today in CRN, under proposed changes to the Privacy Act, stiff fines may well be enforced. I'm all for "encouraging" Australian businesses to take data security seriously and I think this may well be a good step towards that end.

I'm also all for the ability to prosecute people who leave Wi-Fi access points open to all who wander past them - many homes are still in this situation. If someone war drives, finds an open Wi-Fi access point that could easily have been locked down and then accesses illegal material across this connection, the person providing the open Wi-Fi access point needs to be held responsible for allowing this data access. There's really no excuse.

I'd encourage you all to have a read of the CRN article for more information on the proposed changes.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

NSFW: Radical Islamists Murder Two Homosexuals In Indonesia

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:42:00 +0000

WARNING - the video below contains extremely graphic violence and will definitely disturb anyone with a sense of moral justice

In Indonesia, muslims have taken to beating two gay men to death because their non-existent god, Allah, "told" them to kill these innocent men. What a totally disgusting and senseless waste of life at the hands of extremists who believe in a god of mercy and love (according to this blog on muslim values).

This is disgusting, the Islamic religion needs to wake up to itself and start treating people like human beings and those governments around the world who can take action over this hate crime and similar ones performed in the name of the mythical "Allah" need to take action and take it soon.

WARNING: This is not safe for work. Far from it. It contains real life graphic violence. It *IS* disturbing to see what a group of people can do to other human beings.

Video Link

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Jewish Paedophiles

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:43:00 +0000

Just in case you thought I was only singling out the catholic church and their seemingly rampant paedophilia amongst their leaders, I thought it appropriate to bring to your attention some recent news about paedophiles in the jewish church, too.

Back on May 8th, The Age ran a story about Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Groner who told the parents of two separate boys that even though the church security guard, David Samuel Cyprys, had molested their children, the boys would not need counselling because they were under 8 years of age. Now anyone who has had any experience with children who have been molested knows that this is utter bullshit - Yitzchok Dovid Groner was simply trying to cover his arse and get the church out of having to compensate or do anything beneficial for the children. Oh, and Cyprys has been charged with 53 offences including 6 counts of rape. Have a read of that article in The Age to get a full appreciation of what this paedophile (alleged) put children under his care at the Yeshivah Centre through.

Then, on May 15th, The Age reported that Rabbi Abraham Glick, a witness, has now changed his statement, under oath, to acknowledge that Groner had mentioned the names of two individuals to him in the early 2000s. Isn't it amazing what tricks the memory can play on you right up until you're ittign in the witness stand after being sworn in?

Again, have a read of that The Age article to get a better appreciation of the way this molestation was mishandled by the Yeshiva Centre and the jewish church.

Molestation of the most vulnerable people in our society is a heinous crime. Molestation of the most vulnerable people in our society by someone claiming to represent god (who is, of course, fictional anyway) is even worse - they are claiming to represent a god who loves and cares about them, and then they rape the children. The molesters and those who faciliaated this crime should all be treated the same - the jewish church should be treated the same as any other church who gets found out to be raping the children in their care. Anyone who rapes children or facilitates those who do are the lowest form of scum and need to be punished appropriately for their crimes.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Public discussion enters the age of the uninformed

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Fri, 11 May 2012 01:54:00 +0000

Now, I may not think much of Paul Keating as a human being, but he did well as the Australian Prime Minister. One thing I admired about him was his ability to put his balls forward when he went anywhere and this is a good example of what we're now losing with our inability to treat the incompetent with the respect they so truly deserve.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

How Do We Heal Medicine?

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:16:00 +0000

In my quest to reduce wasted television hours and increase beneficial viewing/education hours, I've turned to TED, the nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. TED started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TEaD Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize. (That text was taken from the About TED page, by the way.)

Anyway, my breakfast TED this morning ended up being "How do we heal medicine" by Atul Gawande which is an excellent way to spend just under 20 minutes of your life. There are a number of lessons in this presentation, but the biggest lesson I found was this:

In every field knowledge has exploded. It has brought complexity, it has brought specialization and we have come to a place where we have no choice but to recognize as individualistic as we want to be, complexity requires group success.

This clearly isn't a message just for medicos, it is a message for any industry, especially for the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) industry. Everything has become so specialized that the "sole trader" is pretty much left high and dry unless they are willing to work *with* other people in an organized fashion.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Pell vs Morality

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:02:00 +0000

As I posted recently on Facebook:

George Pell sues @CatherineDeveny over a (pretty funny) tweet: http://t.co/8wejqPpz (via @crikey_news)

To me, if George Pell chose to pause there, it was his choice to pause there, creating the issue all on his own. Calling people in the catholic church out for the rampant paedophilia in the catholic church and its support for the paedophile priests instead of the children whose lives these paedophile catholic priests have ruined, when they leave themselves open like this on AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL TELEVISION in no way should be called defamatory.

It looks to me like George Pell is more concerned about how he himself looks after making a gaffe like this than how the raped children are helped.

Now it looks like George Pell has started something he never expected and something he and the catholic church lawyers won't be able to control. For starters, they are now playing in the real world, not their fanciful world of scared children, brainwashed parents and mythical sky fairies - they are playing with Internet memes, real people with real, active minds who can and will use them for themselves and with people who don't bow, courtsey and bend over to the will of the catholic church.

Catherine Deveny is but one of a great many people who have continued the Internet meme that George Pell started with what seemed to be an intentional pause on Q and A during a comment about the catholic church preparing young boys which has turned out not only to be a clear Freudian slip, but something that the world at large has been gathering more and more anger about lately - the catholic church and their institutionalized protection of the child rapists that seem to be so prevalent amongst their ranks. Why Pell decided to single out Cathering Deveny is not known, but I suspect it is may well be because she's an atheist, gay (Correction - I got that last bit wrong - please see the comments) and outspoken about the abuse that certain catholic church priests have perpetrated on once innocent children - he obviously doesn't seem to think that the catholic church should be treating its own priests like they exist in reality where there are acceptable morals and a functioning justice system.

After Catherine's carefully worded apology on her blog, George Pell stopped proceedings against Cathering Deveny. Sensibly. Likely because his legal team sought counselling from lawyers in the real world who let them know they didn't stand a real snowflake's chance in a mythical hell of succeeding and would only bring the catholic church into even more disrepute regarding their blatant refusal to have paedophile priests brought to justice whilst flagrantly wasting church money on stupid defamation cases.

For another look into this whole sordid mess that George Pell has created, a look at the video of George Pell stating he was involved in preparing boys... for holy communion and some good background on how the catholic church (and George Pell himself) fare regarding child rape here in Australia, have a read of Chrys Stevenson's blog.

The institutionalized child rape in the catholic church and the support of paedophile priests by people like George Pell and Joseph Ratzinger needs to be brought right out into the public spotlight. Hopefully George Pell, as a result of the gaffe he made on national television, has created even more momentum in the movement to bring the catholic church to justice. Sure, there are other institutions who have child rapists amongst their ranks, but the number in the catholic church and its appalling inability to see that these paedophiles need to be brought to justice so that those they have raped can start to recover from these horrific crimes really places it in a class all of its own.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Feaster and the Flying Spaghetti Monster

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:41:00 +0000

Just a reminder to all that as Feaster approaches - the time of year where we give thanks to our Pasta Master for His ultimate sacrifice on Food Friday where He boiled for our sins and after being refrigerated, was rinsed again on Sunday - we also need to remember that cheeses are the reason for the seasoning.

Praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Ramen.

- The Outspoken Wookie

The Best Birth Control In The World Is For Men

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:25:00 +0000

"If I were going to describe the perfect contraceptive, it would go something like this: no babies, no latex, no daily pill to remember, no hormones to interfere with mood or sex drive, no negative health effects whatsoever, and 100 percent effectiveness. The funny thing is, something like that currently exists." Oh, and it is easily reversible, too!

Please go here to read more about this. :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

SBS 2011 Standard Factory Installed Errors

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 01:55:00 +0000

Just in case you've been wondering about the number of "these are normal, nothing to see here, please move along" errors that Microsoft constantly generates on a normal healthy SBS 2011 Standard install, here's a KB artcle to help clear some of these up.

I'm sure it was meant to be entitled "Things we fucked up and generate error messages over that aren't really errors, yet we still generate errors for you to freak over, though they aren't actual errors, though you will not like them, though we don't mean error, though you will see error and wonder, though they are benign, though they generate useless and unnecessary noise, though we're clueless..."

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2483007/

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Microsoft Showing What It Thinks Of Its Partners Again

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:47:00 +0000

It seems that Microsoft is again on the warpath against its partners - you know, those of us who provide the sales force and front-line support force Microsoft doesn't have to pay for. And the weapon they have chosen to deploy this time is against their TechNet subscribers.

This is the notice on their TechNet site (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/ms772428):

Beginning in mid-March 2012, subscribers to TechNet Subscriptions (excluding TechNet Standard which are entitled to 2 keys per product) may access a maximum allocation of three (3) product keys for Microsoft Office and Windows Client products in connection with their subscription. The allotted keys may only be used for software evaluation purposes. Once the maximum keys have been activated, no more keys will be made available. Additional product keys may be acquired through the purchase of an additional subscription.

This is another example of where Microsoft is digging away at their partner base - they can reduce the usefulness of these programs only so far. This limit was originally 10 installs, and if you happened to exceed through valid testing, you called and they'd activate for you. Then in September 2010 this was reduced to 5 total activations. Now it is being reduced to 3.

How many people can completely test a number of full deployment scenarios with a grand total of 3 activations of each product? Or, put another way, why is Microsoft charging their partners more and more money for them to test scenarios where they are trying to deploy Microsoft product suites?

There's more on this topic over here: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-slashes-product-key-allowances-for-technet-subscribers/4644

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Wookie's Thought Of The Day

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:37:00 +0000

Remember, most people are turds. Ignore them and move on with those people who aren't. They are the ones who truly matter - the turds will eventually float away! :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Karl Palachuk's SMB Online Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 08:20:00 +0000

It's been a while since I've blown smoke up Karl's arse, but I guess it is time that I started puffing again! :)

Karl's recent blog post about the perils of the major search engines (http://networkedblogs.com/uahWY) is definitely worth a read - personally I've been using https://duckduckgo.com for some time now and am pretty happy with it for general searches.

The main reason, however, is to let you know about his upcoming SMB Online Conference being run in late June, 2012. For those of us who don't have a "+1" in front of our telephone numbers, Karl's recording the seminar as well and making it available as an option to "attendees" later on, and even has some school children lined up that will transcribe it as a part of their work experience! ;)

Karl's been around the SMB IT industry for quite some time and he's managed here to pull together quite a wide ranging and elite group of people to present at this online conference. I'd be willing to bet a vital body part that whatever time and money you invest in this conference will be returned many times over.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Disappointing Microsoft WPC 2012 Keynote

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 21:01:00 +0000

I have to say that I am extremely disappointed to hear that Microsoft is paying Deepak Chopra to help spread his woo at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, 2012 in Toronto. Deepak's ability to spread his mystical bullshit to the world needs no help and certainly doesn't need to be legitimized by a company such as Microsoft.

Remember, anyone buying a ticket for the WPC 2012 and any vendors participating in WPC 2012 are going to be funding this fruitcake and his attempts to spread his woo to as many people as he can.

I honestly expected more from Microsoft here unless of course Steve Ballmer had a hand in choosing this BS artist for the Keynote.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Telstra Core Routed

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:31:00 +0000

It seems that Telstra is suffering from a core routing issue right now as multiple sites inside and outside Australia - from Telstra's own Network Status pages, to the Commonwealth Bank and Facebook are all at various stages of unreachability.

Yes, folks - this is the company who we trust with our phones, Internet and now - for anyone using Office 365 - our data! :(

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Google Chrome Has Lost The Plot

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:20:00 +0000

This is massive. Mind numbingly stupid, too. There goes any chance I'll ever use Chrome as a serious/test browser. This sort of massive security fail NEEDS to be outed and brought to the public's attention, then have the public vote with their mice and use other browsers instead.

Admittedly, the current system has its flaws, however dropping it without offering a valid alternative is utter madness!

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Roger Waters - The Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Outstanding!

Testing an Android ICS Tablet

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:54:00 +0000

As Android's latest incarnation - Ice Cream Sandwich - had just hit the market, there wasn't a lot of choice in tablets in early December, 2011 when I was looking for an Android tablet to play with. The Asus Transformer Prime hadn't hit the market, most existing devices were promising updates by around mid-2012, and, well, I wanted something to have a look at in December 2011, not in June 2012 - that's why I decided to buy the Ainol NOVO7 Basic ICS tablet and see how it held up.

Initial Thoughts

First, let me say that this is a $99 ICS tablet so I didn't expect much - not in the way of physical build quality nor in the implementation of ICS. I bought mine directly from http://www.ainovo.com and paid their overpriced $60 shipping cost (which, due to a number of issues on their end, didn't result in the tablet arriving at my doorstep until 5th January, 2012 - definitely the worst $60 on freight I have ever spent in my life and the communications from Ainovo, well, let's just say they left a lot to be desired). Right now, Ainovo have no stock available of any of their tablets. What I *would* recommend people seriously looking at getting one of these tablets do is to head on over to McBub and buy it from there - not only is it a mere US$110, but that also includes freight to Australia!

The Ainovo tablets, being cheap, have cut a few corners. One major one is their choice of CPU. The average Android tablet runs on one of the many ARM implementations, however the Ainovo NOVO7 Basic (and Paladin) tablets run on a MIPS implementation - an Ingenic JZ4770 CPU clocked at 1GHz with a GC860 graphocs co-processor. The existing NOVO7 Advanced and the upcoming NOVO7 Elf and NOVO7 Aurora tablets run an Allwinner A10 CPU that is ARM based, so these more expensive tablets will have a slightly different (read: better) ICS experience than the cheaper Paladin and Basic tablets.

Having said that, the Ingenic CPU is no slouch - I wouldn't like to compare it with an i5, but then I wouldn't like to compare the power consumption with an i5 either! :) As far as usability for a cheap tablet goes, this Ingenic MIPS-based CPU definitely handles well. The biggest issue it has is that most Android developers are expecting their applications to run on ARM-based CPUs and their code seems to have been written with ARM-based extensions, meaning that certain applications such as Skype, Facebook, Flash and World Of Goo are not available for the NOVO7 Basic tablet. This is a bit annoying, but there's often workarounds or alternates - unfortunately this isn't the case with neither Flash nor Skype. :(

There's 512MB of RAM installed and 8GB of Flash storage. There's a MicroSD card slot, inbuilt microsphone and speaker and standard 3.5mm headphone socket as well as B/G/N Wi-Fi, however there's no provision for a 3G/HSPA SIM nor BlueTooth. A 3G USB device can be connected, and there's an adapter provided that you can plug your USB 3G dongle into. The screen resolution is 800*480 and there's also a mini-HDMI connector that can deliver up to 1080P60 output - I've not yet tested this output.

Android ICS 4.0.1 (as shipped)

The version of Android that's supplied with the NOVO7 Basic is the 4.0.1 release, which means that there's already a newer release of ICS available - however there's no official NOVO7 Basic ICS 4.0.3 ROM upgrade available yet (as at the date of this post, 28 Jan, 2012). I found this unofficial NOVO7 Basic ROM at Pandawill Forum, however the download is glacial and you'll need to rename the .zip file to "update.zip" and follow the upgrade instructions on the Ainovo support site to upgrade your NOVO7 Basic tablet.

On the stock ROM, I found issues with both Dolphin Browser HD and Pulse new reader - when trying to browse anything, they both displayed heavily corrupted text and images, to the point that they were both utterly useless. The vast majority of applications, however, that would install on the NOVO7 Basic ran without a hitch. They weren't mindblowingly fast, but they ran decently enough.

The touch screen was a little insensitive at times and a little too sensitive at other times - the experience with it was far from slick. I've used a number of touch screen devices and this was the least enjoyable to deal with.

The single speaker is placed on the back of the unit and isn't all that loud - you can definitely hear it, but you'd struggle to hear anything it was outputting in anything other than a moderately quiet environment.

Video performance is quite good - there's a couple of included video files in both .wmv and .rmvb format and it plays all of the Quicktime sample files with only "Sorenson" showing any artifacting as well as the DIVX and MP4 encoded Shark Tale trailers (the .ogv file will not play).

The "Spiderman" game is shipped with the NOVO7 Basic, and being a non-game player, I couldn't care less, however for the review, I rane the game, had it download around 300MB of updates/data, and ran it. It played well - no issues with speed, however the sensitivity of the touch screen was the only issue I had with the playability of the game.

Android ICS 4.0.3 (unofficial)

When I upgraded to the unofficial 4.0.3 ROM, I found the touch screen immediately more responsive and predictable - it now works like I would have expected it to - a big improvement.

I also noticed a whole pile of apps installed that are Chinese-only, including the AnZhi "GoMarket" app that can be used to update the apps that are pre-installed with the 4.0.3 ROM. I've not found much use for any of the other pre-installed Chinese apps as they are, well, basically in Chinese and I have as much comprehension of Chinese language as the modern US Republican Party has of social responsibility - so I'll likely uninstall them to gain some space back.

Apps that worked poorly on the default 4.0.1 ROM - in particular Dolphin Browser HD and Pulse news reader - work well under 4.0.3. This is excellent news for me as I'm a huge fan of the Pulse news reader app and running it on the NOVO7 Basic is a much better experience than on my iPhone 3GS. Apps that don't suport MIPS CPUs obviously still will not install (I'll out Skype, Facebook, Flash and World Of Goo here again).

I can't be sure, but the performance of the tablet under the unofficial 4.0.3 ROM seems a little snappier - nothing major, but it does feel a little more responsive overall.

Spiderman needed to re-download its updates/data/whatever and when finished, was as playable as before with the addeed bonus that the more responsive touch screen made the game better.

Angry Birds is included with this 4.0.3 update as well and it, too, plays rather fluidly.

Android's Biggest Letdown

The default mail client in Android, whilst it does actually connect to Exchange servers and allow connections to multiple Exchange servers, is a dog. It is a very, very basic mail client and needs a lot of improvement. One of my biggest gripes is that when moving an Inbox item to another folder, the folders are listed in alphanumeric order, not in the order that I have under my Inbox - which makes the subfolder structure you have in Outlook totally invisible to Android's mail client. That's right, if you have multiple folders called "Newsletter", say from multiple vendors, then you will see a number of "Newsletter" folders when attempting to move an email with no sane way to work out which one actually is. That's utterly and mindnumbingly useless!

TouchDown, for US$20 resolves many of the issues with the native Android ICS email client and will most be definitely be an application I'll be purchasing in the very near future.

Overall

The NOVO7 Basic is quite usable - the Labtech, Mobile Noter, Documents To Go, Foxit Reader, DropBox, SpiderOak, SugarSync, Box.net and Trillian apps work, various Wi-Fi and network scanning apps such as Wifi Analyzer and Fing work, Mobile Noter and SharePlus apps work, Kindle runs well... All up, even though there's no Skype nor Flash support for the MIPS CPU this tablet is built around, the tablet is a decent tablet with a few small quibbles - especially at the price.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Australian Open's Sexual Vilification and Baseless Hatred Arena

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:44:00 +0000

I posted this on Facebook:

I keep seeing "Margaret Court Arena" at the Australian Open and reading it as "Sexual Vilification and Baseless Hatred Arena"

and then the following in reply to a comment suggesting she (Margaret Court) has a valid opinion:

MC: "Our Constitution is based on biblical principles and our nation is great because of it."
HT: Actually, no, our Constitution is expressly *not* biblical based. Chapter V, s116 of the Australian Constitution:

116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

MC: "Let me be clear. I believe that a person's sexuality is a choice. In the Bible it said that homosexuality is among sins that are works of the flesh. It is not something you are born with."
HT: I'd like to see where her proof is of homosexuality not being a choice. All medical and scientific evidence to date shows that this is simply not the case.

MC: "Lies just don't seem to matter much any more."
HT: She's completely correct there and backs her arguments up with a lot of them. Oh, and deception.

MC: "I can't understand, if we are a blessed nation under a biblical Constitution, why there is such a push to change it?"
HT: We're not a nation under a biblical Constitution - is she trying to spread a lie here, or just be deceitful?

MC: "That is why I believe we need to protect marriage because it has been God-ordained from the beginning."
HT: Nope, marriage was invented by mankind. Just like all gods are a human invention.

MC: "A nun at my primary school once gave me the cane and it was one of the best lessons of my life."
HT: So, being physically beaten by a religious figure is a life affirming and character building experience and one of the best lessons of her life? She really didn't learn much, did she?

-=-=

And the above rubbish is just from her latest article in the Herald Sun tabloid. The whole feeling of this and her previous comments about homosexuals exudes hatred.

On top of that, she'd doing expressly what her god forbids her to do according to I Timothy 2: 11 - she's not learning in silence and is attempting to have authority over men - and worse, calling herself a reverend. (Now, I don't believe any of this "women should STFU" rubbish, but her god believes it.) So, by her own standards, she's being disobedient by choice (unlike homosexuals, who are almost all born that way).

I've never, ever met a homosexual person who has chosen to be homosexual, they have all eventually accepted who they are after a lot of grief and then had this followed by even more grief. I'm sure some people choose to have homosexual liaisons as they are working out exactly who they are and some of those may well like the experience, however this would be a serious minority of people identifying as homosexual. Those who can't even entertain the thought of forming a deep, personal, sexual relationship with someone of the other sex are like the vast, vast majority of we heterosexuals who can't imagine the thought of forming a deep, personal, sexual relationship with someone of the same sex - we're all born the way we're born.

And yes, working in the entertainment industry for as long as I have, I've met more than my fair share of non-hetero people. They, like we heteros, are mostly good people, a few bad apples, mostly highly moral people, mostly loving and caring people and definitely people I've been happy to be associated with over the years. There's very, very few people that, throughout the course of my life thus far, I've been displeased to have had anything to do with - and without fail, these people have all been heterosexual!

Margaret Court needs to pull her head in and start looking at the world around her without her bigotry spectacles. Maybe she'd see people for who they truly are instead of through a tainted film of myth-based hypocrisy and be a better - and definitely nicer - person because of it. :)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Facebook Comments, Likes and Hackers

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:03:00 +0000

I've seen a number of people posting Facebook Fallacies such as the following:

With the new 'FB timeline' on its way this week for EVERYONE...please do both of us a favor: Hover over my name or photo above. In a few seconds you'll see a box that says "Subscribed." Hover over that, then go to "Comments and Likes" and unclick it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar for everyone to see, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it LIMITS HACKERS from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You'll know I've acknowledged you because if you tell me that you've done it I'll 'like' it. Thanks

What they suggest doing has some mix of reality and mythology. Reality: Unsubscribing from friends' comments and likes will definitely stop them showing up in your ticker, however it will also stop them showing up in your feeds, so you'll never see your friends' comments again unless you go and visit each of their pages. Mythology: it won't limit hackers in any way.

What WILL protect you from hackers is to check your Privacy settings and ensure they are configured as you need them and to - and I'm disappointed I need to keep reiterating this point everywhere I go - use a secure passphrase and change it from time to time.

If you want to read a little more on this current Facebook Fallacy, please go here and read Carole's writeup.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Indian Religious Insanity

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:08:00 +0000

I had a read of http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081078/Facebook-Google-ordered-remove-anti-religious-content.html and really wonder about the sanity of anyone who, in 2012, still believes in gods, goddesses, fairies, astrology and other mythology and - more to the point - believes that censoring some Internet sites in one particular country, whilst claiming they are not trying to smother free speech, so that inappropriate references to these mythological creatures will be removed is not only possible, but even logical and/or sensible.

The Indian IT Minister, Kapil Sibal, states "There were some demeaning, degrading, clearly pornographic depictions of gods and goddesses which no reasonable, sensible person anywhere in the world would accept, on any site." Now, I'm sure that on Reddit and various comedy and pornography sites, many reasonable, sensible people would see this and accept it as a matter of more than acceptable free expression by some people.

Personally, although I wonder how any reasonable, sensible person can believe in myths such as gods in 2012, I don't find depictions of gods banging each other (or other things) particularly amusing, however I cannot see why such images should be censored. They are, after all, images depicting mythological, non-existent beings - somewhat like the explicit cartoons of Meg and Quagmire or Barney and Wilma getting busy.

**UPDATE**
The United Nations, back in July 2011, issued a new statement on the extent of freedom of speech under international law. It says that laws restricting blasphemy as such are incompatible with universal human rights standards. So, this whole issue in India is going against the UN's Human Rights Statements. Go India! (Read more on this Statement here.)

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Firefox Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:28:00 +0000

Are you sick and tired of the bugs in your old web browser? Well, do we have a treat for you!

Here at the Mozilla Foundation we've heard your complaints and taken action - the only action possible. With Mozilla Firefox, every time you open a new browser session, you'll get a Fresh new version of Firefox. That's right - if you found issues with the old version, just close it and re-open it and a new version will be automatically downloaded and installed. We've re-worked our development teams so that they generate new versions every 1.76 seconds, so you'll never again have to be stuck using an old browser.

Firefox Fresh - the new way to browse every single time you open it!

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Christopher Hitchens

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:36:00 +0000

I was saddened to hear of the death of Christopher Hitchens even though it was not unexpected. He was a man true to his convictions, who didn't tolerate nonsense nor woo woo, who loved life for what it actually was, not tainted by some belief in a mythical sky fairy, who was both intelligent and an intellectual, who was an excellent author, debater and personality and who was and will continue to be an inspiration to myself and many others.

Hitchens died on Thursday 15 December, 2011 of pneumonia, a complication of his oesophageal cancer that was no doubt caused by his love of cigarettes. It still amazes me that intelligent people can be suckered into smoking and find the addiction too hard to overcome, despite knowing the damage smoking can do to oneself.

I fondly recall the Intelligence Squared debate where Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry opposed the motion that "The Catholic Church Is A Force For Good In The World" sitting opposite Archbishop Onaiyekan and Ann Widdecombe. The audience vote before the debate was roughly 32% For, 52% Against and 16% Undecided, yet following thoughtful, fact based and persuasive arguments by both Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens, the end result was 12% For, 86% Against and 2% Undecided. If you have not seen this debate, then I'd strongly suggest that investing a mere 2 hours to watch all parts of this debate will be well worth it.

I have read some of Christopher Hitchens' works and feel that I know some of his thoughts and beliefs. I don't necessarily agree with everything he believed in, but I sure do feel that he had a pretty decent grasp on reality - the reality that we all live in, without it being tainted by belief in any of the great number of myths that a great many people still believe in. I will definitely be reading more of his work.

We have all lost a great man and a great leader in the fight against nonsense. My condolences to his family and friends - you have lost a great man that you loved.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Sharing A Little FSMas Cheer

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:29:00 +0000

I have just reinvested this month's Kiva repayments into loans to more people. So far, this is how my portfolio looks:

Total Amount Lent	$4200.00
Total Amount Repaid	$3309.89
Total Amount Lost	$ 16.06
Total Refund/Expired	$ 29.01
Outstanding Portfolio	$ 845.04

Out of a total of 168 loans and $4200 loaned, I have had 4 loans end with a loss and that total loss was just $16.06 - That's a total of 2.4% of my loans have not been paid back fully, with a total of 0.4% default rate (in cash terms). I'm pretty happy with that and would consider this to be quite a bit better than your average bank would see in their books! :)

I'm also pleased to say that I'm a member of the AASFSHNR lending team which currently has a total lent amount of US$5,678,275 and climbing and also the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster lending team which is sitting at $875,175 and looking at reaching their first US$1m in loans in the near future - it will be good to help the FSM team reach this significant milestone.

In this holiday season, aside from giving praise to His Sauciness, our Pasta Master, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, would you also consider spreading a little cheer to those in needs of a loan to help them build their businesses or improve their education or housing? If you'd like to accept a Kiva Invitation from me, just click this link.

Thanks to Kiva, we can make a change for good in many people's lives.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

Vibrams FiveFingers

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 09:10:00 +0000

OK, so I've known about the Vibrams FiveFingers range (well, some of it) for some time and know a few people who have some and quite like them, but it wasn't until I recently posted in Facebook that my physio recommended that I buy some supportive, anti-pronation shoes to help my recently (2011-10-23) badly sprained ankle that I actually considered buying some. And if it wasn't for a friend suggesting that I look at them, I'd have totally forgotten about them!

So, as Joanne suggested I take a look at these instead of buying "normal" shoes, I did just that. And I'm glad I did. The exclusive Australian distributor for Vibrams products is Barefootinc, and right now they are at the end of a sale on some of their line, so now was a perfect time to make the leap.

I decided to buy a pair of Mocs for around the house, mainly in winter when it *does* get just a little chilly here in Brisbane. They'll also be great when I'm staying in a hotel somewhere. I also bought a pair of Sprints to walk in as I need to get back into walking a few afternoons a week to help get rid of a few(1) extra kilos and also to start strengthening my ankle now I can walk on it sans crutches and heavy strapping.

I've been wearing the Mocs for most of the past week since they arrived and find them to be quite nice. They have a soft, kangaroo leather upper which appeals to me - I eat a lot of roo anyway, so walking around in the carcasses of my conquests seems only fair. (Please note, I buy my roo pre-packaged in plastic.) As they are designed exclusively for indoor use - they don't have the same soles as the majority of the Vibrams range - I've been wearing them mainly indoors and also out to the car/bin, but not out on the footpath or road. I can see these being well used as time goes by...

I only received my Sprints on Thursday and wore them last night when a mate and I went to Nandos for some excellent Portugese chicken (much better than that sub-par Oporto stuff). I wandered around a bit in them and was pretty happy with the way they seemed to alter my standing/walking posture and also they felt good to walk in.

This evening I took the Sprints for a walk around some fairly flat streets (until my ankle's strong enough, I'm keeping clear of the hills I normally encounter on my walks). I was quite comfortable walking in them and was impressed with how "natural" they felt when walking. OK, let me just say that unless I'm on a client site I'm generally always barefooted around home and the office and have been for many, many years. I don't hate shoes, I just prefer to be barefooted. So wearing the Sprints when walking felt like I wasn't wearing shoes (which I wasn't in the traditional sense) and really did feel good.

I walked for about 50 minutes and probably about 30 - 35 minutes into the walk I decided to walk on the grass beside the footpath and see how my ankle handled the uneven surface, which has been a HUGE issue over the past few weeks. Well, I can report that in the Vibrams Sprints, my ankle felt fine - both on the footpath and on the grass/uneven surface. I even considered walking a bit further but the rain was just starting to fall and I decided that I'd prefer to keep my phone dry and head out again tomorrow.

So, with the way I feel my standing/walking posture improve when wearing these VFF Sprints and the fact that they are extremely comfortable to walk in, I'm now considering a pair of black KSOs a size or so larger so I can wear them with Injinji socks (also from Barefootinc) to replace my normal shoes (Adidas runners that actually feel pretty good for regular shoes) most of the time.

(1) Well, OK, a few more than a few(2)
(2) And maybe a few more than that

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

LuminAID - Real Light From The Real Sun

noreply@blogger.com (Hilton Travis) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:44:00 +0000

If you were looking for a way to spread the true light this FSMas/holiday season by helping a small business owner trade for a few extra hours a day or to allow a school child to study at night or a family to see without needing to burn fuel that produces toxic gases, then LuminAID may well be the project for you.

Instead of spreading religious mumbo jumbo about some mythically-endowed son, spread something truly useful for people - real, electromagnetic light in a waterproof, inflatable form, powered by the real sun.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie