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The 24 Worst Domain Names Ever

Update at 9.21PM – ABC radio just reported an “earth tremor” accrss the Melbourne region.

Update found on that the USGS website

Earthquake Details

Magnitude	4.7
Date-Time	Friday, March 06, 2009 at 09:55:38 UTC Friday, March 06, 2009 at 08:55:38 PM at epicenter
Location	38.377°S, 145.714°E
Depth	10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region	NEAR THE SOUTHEAST COAST OF AUSTRALIA
Distances	96 km (59 miles) SE (137°) from Melbourne, Australia 458 km (284 miles) SW (221°) from CANBERRA, Australia
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 15.7 km (9.8 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters	NST= 9, Nph= 9, Dmin=448.6 km, Rmss=1.09 sec, Gp=137°, M-type=body magnitude (Mb), Version=6
Source	U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: World Data Center for Seismology, Denver
Event ID	us2009dwau

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The petition is being run over on the myEPG site.

Who are the myEPG team?
The myEPG team are a group of volunteer lobbyists who met at the Australian Media Center Community web site and who share a common passion for digital TV in Australia. We are not associated with any TV broadcaster, TV guide business or other interested commercial operation.

We have started this initiative purely to serve the DTV viewing public of Australia since the ACMA appear blind to the obvious manipulative actions of parties with vested interests.

What is the mission of myEPG?
To have the appropriate Australian regulations and / or laws changed to ensure that FTA TV program guide data is available to all without restraint or fear of legal consequences.

We believe it is the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) who can make this happen by setting conditions on the FTA TV broadcasters’ licences.

We are therefore lobbying the ACMA together with those who influence / control them.

The ACMA is a federal government body, therefore they are there to serve the public of Australia by acting in our best interests.

Lets hope that this doesn’t drag on much longer and that the great team behind myEPG can make some ground on this ridiculous problem.

How Smart Is Your Right Foot?
This will boggle your mind and you will keep trying over and over again to see if you can outsmart your right foot, but you can’t. It’s pre-programmed in your brain!!

1. While sitting where you are, at your desk, in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.
2. Now, while doing this, draw the number ‘6′ in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction!

Well there you go…

Doc Searls is one of those extremely talented and knowledgeable individuals that has been a pretty big influence on lots of people over the years through his many positions, magazine articles, his blog and of course as being one of the four authors of the amazing book called “The Cluetrain Manifesto”.

Back in my podcasting days (as a co-founder of The Podcast Network and as a co-host of G’day World), Doc was one of the amazing people that i am glad we got to interview :)

Get well soon Doc.

Brilliant :)

In all seriousness though, Les Hiddens (wikipedia entry) is an absolute legend.

On a nice sized piece of land with mountain views, the headwaters of the Yarra River not to far away and surrounded by the forests of either the Yarra Ranges National Park or the closed of Melbourne Water Catchment, its a great place to wind down after a hectic week in Melbourne.

It has one problem through…the property is far enough from the nearest town and exchange that i can’t get ADSL, cable or even ISDN to the house. My mobile phone has never worked up there either, as the house is pretty close to the base of a mountain which messes with signal reception. Now over the years i have accepted that i wasn’t going to get broadband speed unless i installed some satellite dishes (which i decided not to do as the monthly limits and access costs are ridiculous even after you consider that i could get the initial equipment and installation completely sub-sidised by the Government) and i actually got used to not having that level of conectivity and availability to the outside world…sort of like being on a deserted island with only crappy tv reception and a great mountain pub just down the road ;)

None the less…in eary 2006 I fired up the modem and the old dial-up account (which is how i survived between 1984 and 1991 when i was big on the whole BBS thing and also how i first discovered the internet through apana.org.au), but after having spent the time between 1991 and 2005 riding on the bandwagon of ever increasing internet access speed which comes with living in the city and also with my various internet and technology related job path…the speed of dial-up was close to useless so i rarely ever used it.

Today things changed for the better :)

On Friday i grabbed a UMTS/HSDPA modem that we had at the office (one of our original test units) and an external aeriel with a long cable and took it up to the country property to test it. After lunch today I got the ladder and mounted the aeriel about four metres of the ground halfway up the TV aeriel mast, plugged the aeriel into the modem…and like magic (after a bit of fiddling with gateways and dns and other things)…i finally got broadband’ish speeds.

I’ve just spent the last 3 hours getting my old NetGear WGR614 wireless router to do its thing and now i have wireless access to the wireless modem…brilliant :)

The next step is to get a permanent modem, a higher gain aeriel, a longer aeriel cable and to permanently mount the aeriel at the top of the 8 metre mast.

Note: Back on again and testing new spam comment stuff…lets see how this goes :)