by cameron | May 18, 2012 | Uncategorized
(Photo: Philippe Moreau Chevrolet)
French President Francois Hollande’s new Socialist-led government adopted a 30 percent pay cut Thursday, a gesture of shared sacrifice by leaders who must now reduce the country’s massive debts and tackle spiraling unemployment. (AP)
Can you imagine the Australian government cutting their own pay by 30%?
On the contrary, they recently awarded themselves a massive pay rise.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s pay will soar by $90,000 to about $470,000 – more than either US President Barack Obama or British PM David Cameron are paid.
I appreciate that we need to offer reasonable compensation for people who devote many years of their life to public service, but surely their pay packets should be in line with the salaries of people in private enterprise. In 1999, PM John Howard had to survive on a paltry $289,270. It’s amazing that he could even get by.
It seems to me that we should have salary caps for our politicians and executives from private enterprise. How much is enough?
by cameron | Mar 19, 2012 | geopolitics, US politics
According to Jeremy Scahill, the Obama administration (and President Obama directly) is running a campaign against whistleblowers and journalists (see article at RT.com).
Now it has been divulged that Obama even appealed with the president of Yemen to ensure that one of their own journalists would stay behind bars for telling the truth. Journalist Jeremy Scahill tells RT that Yemeni reporter Abdulelah Haider Shaye was instrumental in exposing the falsities of a covert war in Yemen. In December 2009, Scahill says the press reported that a Yemeni strike had killed 34 members of al-Qaeda. When Shaye went to investigate though, he soon learned through spending time on the ground that the US was actually directly involved in the attack — an attack which took the lives of civilians. Shaye was eventually put on trial for exposing the truth behind the event and allegedly the court introduced false evidence, which in the end yielded a conviction that potentially carried a death sentence. But since the entire case against the journalist was fabricated by his government, the journalist got off with a relatively mild sentence of just five years. Under pressure, Yemeni President Saleh intended to pardon Shaye. This is when he got a call from President Obama himself, personally requesting that Saleh switch his stance on pardoning the reporter.
Is this the Obama people thought they were voting for in 2008? Chomsky says Americans should vote for Obama again in 2012 because he is “the lesser of two evils”. Perhaps. But it’s also important that they understand who they are voting for. Look behind the Hollywood-written speeches and shiny images and pay attention to what his administration actually *does*, not what it says.
Democracy Now has an excellent interview with Scahill who has just returned from Yemen.
by cameron | Mar 14, 2012 | iPhone
My iPhone 4S is constantly running low on battery, especially when I’m travelling (or when I spend all day in the cigar lounge), so I’ve been on the lookout for a portable battery pack – especially since my mate Grant was here from NZ a month ago and showed me his (battery pack, that is… get your mind out of the gutter).
Then I got an email from the folks at Sandberg promoting their “PowerBackup for iPod + iPhone” 420-05 unit. They were nice enough to send me a review unit and I’ve had a few days to test it.
Out of the box it had a 75% charge on the unit but I wanted to test it fully charged, so I plugged it into my iPhone charger for a while. According to the Sandberg site, charging time takes 2-3 hours by AC adapter or 4-5 hours by PC. Mine fully charged on the AC adapter in about two hours.
Then I let my iPhone 4S run down to 0% and jacked the Sandberg in. After two hours, the Sandberg unit was depleted and the iPhone was sitting at 76% charged.
While it was charging, the iPhone was powered up (in sleep mode for most of the time), NOT in airport mode and with WIFI turned ON. I figured it might charge faster with everything turned off, but if I’m using this in a real-life situation, I typically want my phone on while it’s charging.
The Sandberg has four capacity LEDs, letting you know how much charge is in it, and another LED to let you know when they iPhone is charged. It also holds its charge very well. I recharged it after the experiment, and several days later it still has a full charge.
I also tried the Sandberg on my iPad 2 but it wouldn’t charge. It’s not advertised as compatible for iPad so I wasn’t surprised, but I just wanted to test it anyway.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find them for sale in Australia yet. According to the Sandberg site, the RRP on these units is £21.99 (about $33 AUD) but you can find them on Amazon.co.uk for less.
Definitely gets a big thumbs up from me.
by cameron | Mar 8, 2012 | geopolitics, Podcast, science, US politics
Here’s some of the stories I talk about on this week’s show:
Why climate deniers are like the Catholic church
The Unbreakable Smartphone That Lasts For Weeks Without Recharging
What it’s like to wear a brain-stimulating “thinking cap”
Vortex radio waves could boost wireless capacity infinitely
Most asylum seeker rioters turned out to be refugees
Can the people saying “The ALP ruined the economy” now pls STFU?
Obama announces top award for Israels Peres
by cameron | Mar 6, 2012 | Music
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx8RNvhKTMc&w=420&h=315]
One of my favourite Bowie tracks. Carlos Alomar (his lead guitarist during the late 70s) was completely bad-ass.
by cameron | Feb 27, 2012 | Iran, Podcast
On this episode, I talk about socialism, Iran, quantum computing, faster-than-light neutrinos and how to make bad memories disappear forever.
by cameron | Feb 14, 2012 | Podcast
First podcast for 2012! Sorry it’s been so long between shows – this episode took me FOREVER to edit. Blame Ira Glass.
Anyway… I’m fascinated with the long-term effects of colonialisation. We all know that colonialisation is usually a disaster for the indigenous population while the colonial power is occupying their country – but what about once they leave? Does it get better? Or worse? And why?
Today’s show has two guests – Adam Shand talking about his recent trip to Zimbabwe and Petros Kondos talking about why he and his family are emigrating from South Africa.
by cameron | Dec 20, 2011 | Uncategorized
A few weeks ago the nice Fredu Liu from BFM 89.9 business radio in Malaysia did an interview with me about how TPN got started and our current business model. The interview is now online.
Listen here if you want to hear me get called “The Podfather”. Don’t tell Ricky or Adam.
by cameron | Dec 14, 2011 | free will, science
The book is called “The Three Illusions” and it looks at science and philosophy. It’s my guide for living with what I call “permanent peace” and the philosophy in it has been the basis of how I’ve lived my life for the last 20 or so years.
Thanks for the folks who have proof read it for me over the last six months and given me notes, including Chrissy, Tony Kynaston and Russell Buckley.
by cameron | Dec 9, 2011 | Brisbane, Melbourne, Uncategorized
Dear Melbourne IT Leadership Group,
I would like to send my sincere commendations to a member of your hosting support team by the name of “Sank”.
In the last week, I have been screwed around ROYALLY by several of your staff. Sank was the only one who seems to know what he’s doing.
On 30 November, I received an email regarding one of our domain names ‘nelsongoc.com’. The email advised “The following account has been deleted and is no longer accessible.” This is, I might add, a completely useless email. It tells me nothing about the situation. So I rang your support line and spoke to a gent (whose name I unfortunately didn’t write down) who advised me that our domain name was registered through to 2019 and that this email was only regarding our hosting service. I asked if allowing this hosting service to expire would affect our MX records on the domain, as they were pointing to Google Apps. He assured me that letting the hosting expire would not affect our MX records in any way. So we let it expire.
A week later, our email for this domain (which we use to run several businesses I might add) stopped working.
So I rang again last night (8 Dec) and spoke with someone else who told me the same thing as the gent on 30 Nov. I explained that our email had stopped working but he assured me it had nothing to do with the MelbourneIT side of our service.
After scratching my head for another 15 minutes, I rang back AGAIN and this time spoke with a gent called “Niz” who explained that everything I’d told had been incorrect and that I did, in fact, need your hosting service to re-direct our MX records to Google Apps. He offered to set up this service for me – at a cost of $219 p.a.! I asked him if there wasn’t another way to change the MX records – after all, every other domain name registration service we use has this functionality built into the domain service – but he assured me that there was no other option. So I agreed to proceed with setting up the new hosting service. He sent me an email with the new login for the service a few minutes later. However when I tried to login to the DNS section, I was asked for the login a second time but it wouldn’t work.
So I rang your support line for the THIRD time that day and spoke to a young lady who assured me that the DNS login was the same as the Hosting login and worked on her side. She advised me to send an email to the support department with the details of the MX records we needed changed and that they would do it for us. This was about 6pm Brisbane time last night.
This morning, around 9am Brisbane time, I rang Niz again to see if the MX records had been changed. He put me through to Sank.
Sank advised me that what Niz told me about needing the Hosting service was INCORRECT. He said there is a way to change the MX records on the backend of the domain. He then proceeded to walk me through how to set it up. He then put me back through to Niz to cancel the hosting service.
SO……. it took me FOUR calls to your technical support department before I actually got hold of someone who knew what they were talking about.
What kind of operation are you running in there?
