by cameron | Nov 24, 2006 | Uncategorized
Des Paroz sent me a link to this article in The SMH that talks about how inaccurate the food labels in Australia are.
Julie Robotham reports:
Of the 19 products that claimed to be low in fat or calories, 19 per cent exceeded the fat content published on the panel while two-thirds contained more calories than specified – in one case by nearly three times.
So it’s even worse than I imagined. I knew you couldn’t believe it when a food product is claimed to be “lite” or “low fat”, for reasons I’ve discussed here before. This new data just makes it even harder though to know how many calories you are consuming and what percentage of those calories are coming from fat. In a country where Type 2 Diabetes and obesity are on the rise, we need to do a much better job of
a) educating people how to eat sensibly and
b) making sure that food manufacturers accurately report what their foods contain
This should partly be the responsibility of the government, partly of the media (congratulations to Fairfax and Julie for getting this story out) and partly it lies with us, folks. We need to vote with our dollars. Perhaps someone should start a “website of shame” that highlights companies who aren’t giving us accurate information.
by cameron | Nov 23, 2006 | science, Uncategorized
From David Berlind over on ZDNET:
Judge Leonard Davis ruled that a patent granted in 1996 to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, is valid. The patent describes the implementation of several aspects of the 802.11a and 802.11g wireless standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The court also ruled that Buffalo Technology, a small maker of Wi-Fi routing gear, had violated this patent….
…..More than 100 companies could end up paying royalties to CSIRO for use of the technology, claimed Daniel J. Furniss, a partner at Townsend and Townsend and Crew, the law firm representing CSIRO.
I know people who know people at CSIRO. I’ll try and hook up someone for the show in the immediate future to get to the bottom of this. It seems that not only did CSIRO invent insect repellant, gene splicing and myxomatosis, they also invented wifi. Hot damn. Maybe they can explain why I can’t get my modded xbox to talk to my new netgear router and therefore have to waste lots of blank dvds to get the latest episodes of Weeds, Heroes and Studio 60 onto it.
by cameron | Nov 23, 2006 | Culture Jamming
Some quotes to think about…
So by the end, they (MSNBC) were ordering us, if we booked one guest that was anti-war, we had to book two that were pro-war. If we booked two guests on the left, we had to have three on the right. At one meeting a producer suggested booking Michael Moore and she was told for ideological balance she would need three right-wingers. It became more of a nightmare, as the war got closer; and then we all got terminated three weeks before the invasion was launched, and it was purely political.
– Jeff Cohen, noted US TV media critic
“You can educate the people about what is happening in the world, but you can’t ever go to impose a will which is not their own,â€
– Venezuelan-U.S. Attorney, Eva Golinger, author of new book, Bush vs. Chavez: Washington’s War Against Venezuela (Monte Avila Editores, 2006, Caracas).
Q. How has Microsoft Australia demonstrated that it is innovative?
A. Microsoft Australia values innovation very highly both internally and also in terms of our engagement in the local economy. ….. ……..
Another good example has been the joint venture that Microsoft sponsored with PBL to create the start-up company NineMSN which has been an innovative and successful new company in Australia.
.. Microsoft Australia CEO Steve Vamos. My spies at Microsoft Australia don’t agree with that statement. I keep getting told that most of the innovative people have left the company in the last few years and that the company is getting more and more like IBM every day. NineMSN is an example of innovation? Jamming together Australia’s biggest media giant with the world’s largest software company nine years ago?
Steve also mentioned Victoria.Net which (I believe) was the idea of one of my old managers, David Sajfar. Great idea for bringing together Microsoft’s developers in the local market but… cmon… it’s a portal. Those two things were Steve’s top examples of local Microsoft innovation? A nine-year old JV with Packer and a portal? Sheesh. Buy Google stock.
by cameron | Nov 23, 2006 | climate change, Podcast
It’s my great pleasure today to have Doug La Follette on the show. Doug is a United States academic, environmental activist, and politician. He is the current Secretary of State of Wisconsin. Known as an environmental activist before running for public office, in 1970 he was a Wisconsin organizer of the first Earth Day for Gaylord Nelson, and co-founded Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade (now known as Clean Wisconsin) with Peter Anderson.
We talk about the history of the environmental movement, how you can figure out the global warming facts from the climate change disinformation, and what you and I can do to make a difference.
To get the facts, Doug recommends these websites:
STEPHEN H. SCHNEIDER, CLIMATOLOGIST
THE HEAT IS ON
by cameron | Nov 23, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized
In today’s news:
The Pew Internet and American Life Project said Wednesday that 12 percent of Internet users have downloaded a podcast, an increase from 7 percent earlier in the year.
However, only about 1 percent said they download a podcast on a typical day — unchanged from the survey earlier this year. The rest do so less frequently, perhaps only once.
link
I read this as “lots of upside”. 🙂
