">My Big World Of Crap

Yes, yes, I know I am easily amused!

One of the things I find fascinating about Japan is the amazing toilet technology. I mean, a lot of time and effort has been invested at some stage in getting toilet science to the point it is now.

I don’t know how I’ll cope when I go home without the “warm seat” button, especially when winter comes around in Canberra.

Other interesting functionality includes various spray options … I assume the pink button is for girls, the blue for boys, and “powerful deodoriser”.

Go Aussies!  More evidence of how smart a country we are …. Australia has one of the highest rates in the world for Firefox usage.  Good to see 31% of us have ditched Internet Explorer and moved to a far superior browser.

Oceania (Australia and NZ basically) leads the world with 31%, followed by Europe 28%, North America 21% and the rest further behind.

Here is a map showing the levels of Firefox penetration by continent.

So whats with the 69% of Australians still using Internet Explorer …. get with the program people and change over to Firefox.  You won’t look back.  Do yourself a favour and download it.

I heard this on the radio this morning and laughed.

The American Dialect Society selected “subprime” as its word of the year for 2007.

But the one I liked was its choice for “most creative” word of 2007 - “googleganger”.  a googleganger is “a person with your name who shows up when you Google yourself,”.

So, having heard this term for the first time, I couldn’t resist a good old vanity google to find my googlegangers.  I’ve got to say there are stacks of us …. journalists, CEOs, sportsmen, academics, all sorts of people, even the actual real me is on the net.  Wow, I’m impressed with how much we get around …. and its not like my name is Smith, or something that common.

So, do you have any interesting/famous googlegangers?

Just found this in my spam box for my gmail account.

Honestly, I’d buy whatever it is you’re trying to sell me, whoever you are (the picture doesn’t show it but it was from “unknown sender”) , wherever you are.

Found this here.

Todd Moeller, from the USA, got 2 years jail for spamming over a million people.  He was caught in a sting operation after agreeing to send junk email advertising to around 1.2 million people.  Suck shit, Toddy.

There should be much more of this happening.  What exactly do spammers hope to achieve?  I’m supposed to read a poorly written email from someone who’s first language is clearly not English, and think to myself “oh yeah, I have been having trouble getting it up lately, better get some viagra” or “yeah, sure I could use another couple of inches”.

Scum of the internet, die you bastards! Die!

Today started well …turned the computer on and got the blue screen of death (Unmountable_boot_device) during Windows startup. Aaaggh!!! Wasted an hour or so trying to figure out the problem and managed to recover it.

Then, we had a flood in the laundry as the washing machine overflowed. Haven’t figured out why, but after we cleaned up the water, and emptied the machine, it seems to be working fine.

So what next?

This is a bit of a worry.   Software firm 2Clix is suing the owner of the Whirlpool internet forum over comments posted on the forum which were highly derogatory about the company’s product.  2Clix is asking for $150,000 in damages and an injunction requiring Whirlpool to remove forum threads highly critical of 2Clix’s accounting software.

In a statement of claim filed with the Supreme Court of Queensland, 2Clix said the comments, published in two threads between between late last year and July this year, led it to sustain “a severe downturn in monthly sales”. 2Clix claimed the statements were both false and malicious, and said it contacted Whirlpool about the matter this year but Whirlpool refused to take the forum threads down.

Amanda Stickley, a senior law lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology, said if 2Clix won there would be severe consequences for website operators as they would have to be “very vigilant in checking material on the website and remove anything that could cause injury to someone’s business reputation”.  She also said it would be very difficult for 2Clix to successfully sue the owner of the forum (Simon Wright) for injurious falsehood over comments made by Whirlpool users. It would have to prove the statements were false, that they were made in malice, that 2Clix actually suffered damage in the form of monetary loss and, critically, that Wright had intended to cause 2Clix monetary loss by allowing the material to remain on the website.

“I don’t think you could actually prove that for a web operator, that they personally intended the damage because of their malicious intention, especially when it’s posted by a third party that they’ve got no relationship to,” Stickley said.

I believe she’s probably right and that the case is unlikely to succeed (admittedly based on my very limited knowledge of the law).  However its a concern that legal action is used to gag free speech and (presumably) legitimate comment on a product or service.  No doubt the company is hoping that Wright will be threatened by its deeper pockets and presumably greater capacity to fund legal action, and pull his head in and take the comments off the forum.

I have to wonder why companies, or individuals, take this sort of legal action.  I’d have thought that leaving it on the forum probably exposes it to a few dozen, or hundred, potential customers.  The publicity associated with the legal action gets it all out into the wider public domain, and sees all the dirty linen aired for all to see.  I have a professional interest in the type of software that 2Clix makes, so found all the comments in the Whirlpool forums extremely interesting - never would have heard it without it attracting my attention via the news reports of the court action.

A report estimated the possible loss of work productivity of employees using Facebook as up to $5 billion a year.  This number was arrived at on the basis of one employee per workplace, an hour a day, with 800,000 workplaces in Australia.

Of course, the author of the report has a vested interest in saying this.  Internet security firm SurfControl Technology wrote the report, no doubt with a view to emphasising the need for internet monitoring and blocking software, which no doubt it can sell employers.

As well as the timewasting cost, SurfControl also reported a concern that Facebook presented a security exposure:

“Hackers will no doubt be targeting Facebook as an attack mechanism because of (its) popularity and power as a platform,” Dr Cullen said.

“It’s only a matter of time before a security loophole is discovered and exploited.”

However, it does have its supporters.  According to Tammy Tucker from marketing communications agency Haystac:

“Social networking sites like Facebook enable us to connect with our clients, media representatives and our 40 plus staff in our Sydney and Melbourne offices.”

And even SurfControl acknowledge it can have benefits for business:

“A lot of enlightened employers are encouraging socialising as part of the working experience because it makes people want to be at work longer,”

Of course, its not Facebook that is the timewaster, but the employees.  Take Facebook away and you’d find most of those employees inclined to do so would find other ways to waste time at work.

According to astronomers, the Milky Way galaxy weighs 3 x 10 to the power of 42 kilograms.

Now we have the answer, what is the question?  Oh, hang on, thats been done before.

I think I need a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster before I go to bed.