Spitting Into the Wind

It's not uncommon to hear of dictatorial governments that have blocked internet sites, cutting access to sites that spread information that could be harmful to the dictators. China's internet policy has been mentioned quite a bit in the lead-up to the Olympics. In today's news it was revealed that an Italian judge has completely blocked a popular file-sharing site:

A judge in the northern town of Bergamo, Italy, has ordered Italian ISPs (Internet service providers) to block access to the Swedish file-sharing Web site The Pirate Bay in a crackdown on the illegal sharing of copyright material over the Internet.

This is a first for Italy, and it is impossible to connect to Pirate Bay from Italy. Pirate Bay responded by inviting Italian users to switch to OpenDNS to bypass their ISPs' filters or use the alternative URL http://labaia.org - "the bay" in Italian. But Italian authorities were quick to block access to that site, along with alternative Web addresses and even future addresses connected to Pirate Bay. The alternative site works for me, but possibly not for people inside Italy.

Italy's Prime Minister is out to put an end to copyright infringement and is strangling the free information with his media connection. He is the founder and majority owner of Fininvest, a media and finance conglomerate that controls much of the nation's television market within the Mediaset empire, as well as the film company Medusa. Last month the same judge ordered the closure of Italy's leading Bit Torrent Web site and prosecutions are being prepared against three of its administrators.

The Pirate Bay is facing a lawsuit at the moment from the MPAA, who is demanding $15.4 million from The Pirate Bay to cover claimed losses from torrents of "Harry Potter," "Syriana," "The Pink Panther," "Walk the Line" and 13 episodes of the television show "Prison Break." The MPAA recently won a $110 million judgement against TorrentSpy but the tracker receives more than 20 million visitors a month so it doesn't seem to have slowed business any.

Posted at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) |

I was happy tonight to the point of shedding a tear or two when Terri won Big Brother Australia. I'm not normally a Big Brother fan, and felt like I was forced to watch it because the kids just loved the show. As the weeks went on I got into the show as much as the kids, and was interested in the evictions and the voting, and the general carry-on.

Terri deserved that money probably more so than anyone: the crap she put up with all those weeks. Good on you girl. $250,000 is nice compensation. It's a lot less than the original BB winners got though, I remember someone being a millionaire after winning Big Brother.

I won't go so far as to say I'm going to miss the show. And if it's the last season of BB I'm actually happy. I don't particularly like any of the reality shows (with the exception of Australia's Biggest Loser, I love to see the weight being shed), and I'll welcome something else to watch on TV.

Posted at 9:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) |

A British pensioner believes he has produced the world's largest family tree after tracing nearly 10,000 relatives.

Roy Blackmore, 76, has spent the past 28 years and £20,000 ($A41,000) scouring census registers, cemeteries and archives to find the names of 9390 family members. He has been able to trace his relatives back to the Cerdick family in AD500. Included among them are Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror as well as a Wild West cowboy, Civil War soldiers and a former French king.

Mr Blackmore's interest in exploring his heritage stemmed from being an orphan as a child.

I have a couple of Aunties who spend alot of their time tracing family members. I imagine it would be very interesting and genealogy is a fascinating topic, with lots of online resources.

Posted at 4:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) |

Recently I wrote about the plight of the Tasmanian Devil and it's listing as an endangered species. Scientists have recently observed that the Tasmanian Devil is maturing much more quickly than usual and devils as young as one are bearing young in an attempt to save themselves. It's incredible to think that a survival instinct has occurred so quickly to allow that to happen.

Adolescent pregnancies are now rife in the population as the marsupials fight back against the deadly facial tumour that threatens their survival.

Unfortunately, scientists don't think it's enough to help the endangered devils beat the catastrophic cancer. The grotesque facial tumours grow on the face and mouth, stopping the devils from eating and leaving them to starve to death. The cancer has more than halved the wild devil population since it emerged in 1996, with experts warning the species could be extinct by 2020.

News.com.au

Posted at 12:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) |

The way we use every day resources such as paper, contributes to our carbon footprint, so it's time to re-use, recycle and reduce the use of paper around our workplaces.

The pulp and paper industry consumes a huge amount of energy, forests and water, so by switching to recycled paper we can make real savings in energy and water use. And help save the world's remaining virgin forests.

WWF's forests expert Jana, has put together a few tips on reducing the impact of paper use on the environment.

Worldwide, the pulp and paper industry is the fifth largest industrial consumer of energy. Producing recycled paper uses up to 70% less energy than virgin paper, as well as using far less water.

• According to environmental charities, for every tonne of 100% post-consumer recycled paper purchased instead of virgin fibre paper, we save at least 30,000 litres of water and 3000 - 4000 KWh of electricity, which is enough power to run an average three bedroom house for one year.

• Nearly 80% of the world's original old growth forests have been logged or severely degraded.

• 34% of documents printed are used for less than 5 minutes, while 22% are never used.

New Google Earth Layer Shows Global Deforestation

See the rates of deforestation across the world on Google Earth. »

Posted at 7:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) |

I couldn't help feeling appalled after reading a news story about a 15-year-old boy in Brisbane who had boiling water poured over his face, neck and shoulders. My heart goes out to him. Fifteen is an awkward age for any boy, but this kid now will probably never look the same again.

A 37-year-old man has been charged with one count each of grievous bodily harm and torture. I hope he gets a sentence deserving of the act.

Just yesterday I read about a guy who jumped a queue in a supermarket in London and ended up in a coma after an irate woman called her boyfriend on the phone, who king-hit the man in the back of the head.

These are such senseless and thoughtless acts that these people will have to live with for the rest of their lives. What ever happened to "calm" and "polite"? We live in a changing world.

Posted at 7:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) |

Superstitious Chinese have looked for cosmic explanations for the earthquake, the country's deadliest natural disaster in three decades. Many noted that the earthquake occurred exactly 88 days before the Beijing Olympics, which opens on August 8 - 8/8/8 - at 8:08 pm, in line with Chinese numerology which considers eight a lucky number.

Speculation was heightened when China's seismological authority revised up the magnitude of the May 12 earthquake to 8.0 on the Richter scale.

A deserted Catholic seminary outside Pengzhou, China - shown in 2007 - was a popular spot for wedding pictures.

The century-old seminary in Pengzhou was destroyed after an earthquake struck China's Sichuan province on 12 May.

Posted at 10:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) |