Danny Yee >> Pathologically Polymathic (blog)

October 2006

<< September 2006 | November 2006 >>

Australia's new copyright law - OnlineOpinion [via EFA]
"This is a fundamental reshaping of consumer law through the guise of copyright. The loser here is the Australian consumer."
Billmon is no liberal - Whiskey Bar
publicly shared intelligence and the Shipping Research Bureau - FirstMonday
where Open Document Format stands in the EU - NF [via OSWALD]
inside the Windows Vista End User Licence Agreement - Register
an obituary for travel writer Eric Newby - Economist
Saddam Hussein's trial is a farce - Guardian
on the front lines of Baghdad's civil war - Guardian
right-wing invocations of science fiction and fantasy - Prospect
but the latest season of Battlestar Galactica is hard for them to swallow
lying by redefining common words
"we don't torture" - "I didn't have sex with that woman"
Google bought YouTube instead of the New York Times - SusanMernit [via /.]
applying the lessons of Vietnam to Iraq - Informed
if sane people were in charge of US foreign policy, this might happen
Poland, Nicaragua propose to ban all abortion - Guardian - Guardian
removing exceptions for rape, incest, and women who will die otherwise
Peter Nadas on the Hungarian Revolution - OpinionJournal [via Far]
"The Hungarian Revolution was the last European revolution. A bloody end of the romantic and idealist history of the long age of revolutions, an end painful and embarrassing for everyone."
ethnic cleansing advocates to join Israel's ruling coalition? - Hz
a look at Google's legal battles - Barista
Evolution of the Insects [review]
splitting Telstra up would be good for shareholders - SMH
as well as good for competition
"Your words are lies, Sir" - Crooks+Liars [via MSpeak]
attacks on RFID-based credit cards - Register
"Despite assurances by the issuing companies that data contained on RFID-based credit cards would be encrypted, the majority of cards tested did not use encryption or other data protection technology"
Finland's passion for Latin - BBC [via 3q]
New Zealand Historical Atlas [review]
I've been wrestling with vi digraphs, xterm fonts, and macrons
all so "shūkyō" comes out right in Shinto
Maharashtra claims part of Karnataka - FL
the borders of many Indian states follow linguistic lines
Israelis are much keener on torture than the Spanish - Economist
Hungarians are divided by the anniversary of 1956 - Guardian
Debian renames Firefox/Thunderbird to IceWeasel/IceDove - InetNews [via OSWALD]
as a result of conflicts of trademarks and logos
in praise of Unicode Standard 5.0 now available - Consortium [via OSWALD]
is not addressing climate change Howard's biggest failure? - SMH
water at $20 a bottle, matched to your food... - JWalk
how the 1956 invasion of Hungary rift the British Communist Party - Guardian
revealed in detail by MI5 monitoring
the Spanish on Gibraltar are as bad as the Chinese on Taiwan - Guardian
but the Treaty of Utrecht was in 1713, you'd think they'd have got over it by now
The First World War in Africa [review]
New York uses public transport, but has a garbage problem - TreeHugger [via ProRev]
some Australian deserts are getting more rain - SMH
it's just the south and east, where the farming is, that are parched...
a rant about "Full Frame" digital photography - Secrets [via DPR]
use of NSW anti-discrimination law for censorship - austlii [via EFA]
"ORDERS: 1. Within fourteen (14) days of the date of this decision, the Respondent is to remove from every website controlled by him any material concerning homosexual men, lesbians, homosexuality or the gay lobby"
cost of East Javanese mud volcano reaches US$180 million - SMH
"More than 400 hectares, eight villages and 3300 families have been affected by the mudflow and attempts to control it have not yet been successful."
the US may be able to avoid a recession - MSpeak
it's not impossible for manufacturing to grow fast enough
a new subject category for my book reviews - naval history + fiction
the weirdness that is England's New Forest - Barista
the US No Fly list includes dead people, heads of state, and "Robert Johnson" - CBS
but the names of actual terrorist suspects are too confidential to put on such a widely distributed list...
some commentary on Dalrymple's new book The Last Mughal - Kit - Amazon
Iceland resumes whaling, though no one wants the catch - Guardian
I won't be visiting Iceland again while they're doing this, though I do want to go back
Australian anti-sedition laws used to supress political criticism - News
a comic satire from late-colonial Vietnam - Dumb Luck [review]
the French threaten to fire on intruding Israeli aircraft - Haaretz
who will the New Zealanders back here?
amateur planespotters monitor US torture flights - VV [via AntiWar]
the US is holding an estimated 14,000 people without charge - Majik
a sane WIPO ruling on boycottwalmart.com - Register
a roundup of comment on the Lancet Iraq mortality study - Deltoid
can Ray Ozzie turn Microsoft around? - Wired [via WMW]
nine paradoxes of counterinsurgency - Toms [via Informed]
a roundup of Pamuk Nobel Prize coverage - CR
I have reviewed My Name is Red and Snow
labelling things "unacceptable" doesn't make them go away - WP
socially traumatised elephants are on the warpath - NYT [via Barista]
an amusing Russian textbook - LanguageHat [via CT]
"Where do they work? They work in factories. How do they work? They work with enthusiasm. What do they do in parks? In parks they think about life. About what life? About life in factories. That's how shock-workers live!"
can a sociologist understand physics by studying physicists? - Guardian - CT
Israel's ambassador to Australia is a racist bigot - Haaretz
Australia and Israel are alike because they are in Asia but "don't have yellow skin and slanted eyes"
UK commander Richard Dannatt in his own words - Mail [via RtoS]
400 to 800,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion - CSM - Deltoid
with the usual substance-less cries of "not credible"
socialism contains the string "cialis"... - Quiggin [via EFA]
I am away for ten days, walking in Tasmania
some great wildlife photos from Kenya - BirdsArt
Papua New Guinea's AIDS epidemic: a photo essay - EurekaSt
Israel violates Lebanese airspace again - Yahoo
the UN force needs anti-aircraft capability and authorisation to use it
an online book Security Engineering - Cam [via Risks] - Amazon
the bits of this I've read so far are excellent; I'm tempted to ask for a review copy
Hamas and hope for Israel+Palestine - MSpeak - FAIR
librarians speak out about banning of jihad books - SMH
"How can you refute arguments or understand the thinking of the people who are making these arguments if you can't have access to them?"
the DDT astroturf campaign aims to discredit Rachel Carson - Huffington [via Deltoid]
a online environmental encyclopedia - The Encyclopedia of Earth [via MongolBio]
"by a community of experts", under a CC attribution-sharealike license
Clay Shirky tries eating lutefisk - Usenet [via Barista]
Bill Clinton backs Ubuntu - BBC [via OSWALD]
a guide to using the Internet anonymously - Accra
some nice nature photography - JuddPatterson [via BirdsArt]
an ex-Soviet prisoner on "cruel, inhumane, or degrading" - WP
finally, some answers about Guatemala's 200,000 murdered - WP [via MSpeak]
but still no prosecutions of the murderers
the US Senate has passed the McCain Torture Act - MyDD [via SideS] - Onion
and while they're at it, abandoned habeas corpus

<< September 2006 | November 2006 >>

Pathologically Polymathic (blog) << Danny Yee