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apothecary

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Posts posted by apothecary

  2. Posted · Edited by apothecary

    So optus is doing the trial. This explains a lot.

    I have wondered for a very long time why my interent is sooo shit. It just stops sometimes and won't download anything. Sometimes it disconnects for no reason. My god it is the worst internet since dialup.

    I thought it was just my internet but i went to a mates house with optus and his is the same. So them saying it doesn't affect internet speed is a blatant lie, unless optus is just shit anyway?

    I've been thinking about changing providers for a long time (because of the service being so bad) but now i def will, i don't want to support a company that supports censorship.

     

    I'm using Optus FTTN here (edge of inner city Melb) and it is awesome! As a trader reliable internet is priority for me, have no complaints so far for Optus. Previously to this I've used exetel and tpg (tpg sucks for traders, exetel rocks), and optus cable way back in the day when it was called optus@home (all in suburban Sydney).

    Most likely your service degradation is more to do with distance from the exchange coupled with older infrastructure.

    Also, Optus is supposed to contact you by email if you are in the trial, so if you haven't heard from them you aren't in it.

  3. Posted

    I can safely assure you that getting your garden sprayed in the Sydney area will not stop the problem at all. If I noticed one thing, it actually eliminated the redbacks competition to increase numbers. They just go into hiding or try and move into your house!

    Standing collections of cacti pots are the worst because predators aren't gonna sneak their way through a million spines to get to the bottom lips where they live. Spread your potted stuff out, try and figure out what they are eating. Fight the food source as they will probably be much easier to control and if you control the food supply you control the redback population.

    Make the habitat less hospitable for the food (obviously you're a good gardener if there is enough other insect biodiversity to supply such a large number of redbacks). I like fly traps especially, wood ash is good too.

    But like passive said, don't underestimate the ability of one night of hard spider killing work to convince them to move into your neighbours backyard. We even control our dogs fleas this way.

  4. Posted

    Keep writing to your ministers, they don't give a shit about you.

    Keep attending protests, like those for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, those for the new anti terrorism laws, those for APEC, those for the Gunns mill, those for all the shit we hit the street for FOR NOTHING.

    Sign your petitions, they will throw it in the bin unless there is a lobby group bigger than ACL behind it.

    This is all useless action, if you ask me (not that I didn't try it all at one point).

    What do I suggest instead? Keep calm. Don't get hysterical over this rubbish. Be patient. Don't waste your energy trying to fight something that hasn't even been introduced to the Senate. Get ready. This sort of censorship will be inevitable part of the internet in the next 20-30 years IMHO. Learn the technicals. Because it's obvious you don't understand them right now.

    And for fucks sake people, don't forget! We are living in a world where someone directly implicated in Iran Contra is the US Secretary of Defense. Where Liberal politicians who were involved in blatant lying to the Australian people about the Iraq war and "people overboard" are holding government salaries or pensions. Where the rule of law only applies to the political body for one election term. Where lobbyists become politicians.

    You think when this shit falls apart Conroy isn't gonna move into some other cushy govt job? My arse. Just don't forget.

  6. Posted · Edited by apothecary

    There has to be way to save this community and how it stands...

     

    Be patient bro.

    For one I would prefer things to continue as they are exactly until the last possible moment. Closing off membership and similar measures will only provide these fools with their long term goal: crackdown on information.

    When the men with book burning torches are on their way to the monestary the monks don't pick up swords to fight, they faithfully inscribe all their knowledge and send it off to a saner land in hope of its return in a better future.

    This time around it takes 5 seconds for inscription and probably a few hours to send it anywhere in the world safe from harm where it doesn't even need to remain hidden like the old days.

    But either way, just like the monks did we should continue business as usual until the threat presents itself in real form. There is after all, still knowledge to be got!

    Don't let this hysterical bullshit get to you. They still need to introduce this legislation, get a pass in the Senate (which I believe will require floor crossing from both Green and Independent senators who are both on the record as opposed to the deal - as is the IIA), followed by a lengthy implementation process and even lengthier process of stopping hackers from destroying their hard work once a week. As someone in the industry I can safely say technical implementation will be a long drawn out nightmare for these idiots if they can pull it off AT ALL. Still at the end of the day assuming all this comes to pass there is no way for them to kill circumvention techniques off without killing off pretty much all legitimate ecommerce.

    For all we know this is just a doomed-to-fail ploy by Rudd/Conroy to appease the fundy Fielding so he can say "I tried" and get some juice on Fielding for the next floor crossing.

    At the moment, the only tangible outcome I see from this "look ma - no brains" exercise of the Labour government is that a shitload of one of their core demographics (left leaning under 30s) will be voting Green or other next election. Society at large may be totally apathetic to this shit, but the same internet wave which Obama and Rudd tried to capitalise on is certainly going to come back and bite them in the arse before too long.

    "We put this fence here, but damn if it doen't stop water going in that giant hole over there"

    Glory%20Hole%20-%20Monticello%20Dam.png

    • Like 1

  7. Posted · Edited by apothecary

    You can get a high speed VPN to any sane country for 5-10USD a month. I would go New Zealand, in terms of internet technology they have been ahead of us for almost a decade. Their pipe speed to other countries is probably significantly faster than ours.

    Australian geeks are some of the most tech savvy and vindictive in the world. The countrywide USB sneakernet has been transferring pirated movies/music/books/software/everything at a bandwidth faster than the the fastest Australian domestic internet speed for almost three years (roughly 5.5 megabytes per second to express post a full 500GB hard drive anywhere in the country for less cost than a 500GB/month download quota on any ISP). Use specific VPN darknets will start popping up everywhere and before long, hooking up to each other to provide a fully functional and undetectable internet-within-internet.

    Said it before, will say it again, I remain largely unphased. Wake me up when the government is willing to block encrypted traffic on the HTTPS port to all hosts who aren't on a whitelist of somesort.

    I have used all the below tools at one point or another and can assure they all function equally well to circumvent this rediculous measure in short order in an undetectable manner.

    Read all your prohibited material using these tools and an ubuntu livecd (or similar solution winxp livecd for example) to ensure no illegal data is written to your hard drive (from whence it can be recovered). You can save useful docs onto a heavily encrypted (using truecrypt or similar) USB stick.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network

    http://www.darknet.org.uk/2006/03/ssl-vpns-and-openvpn/

    http://www.torproject.org/

    http://www.haystacknetwork.com/

    http://www.i2p2.de/

    http://freenetproject.org/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_protocol

    http://www.ssh.com/support/documentation/online/ssh/winhelp/32/Tunneling_Explained.html

    http://souptonuts.sourceforge.net/sshtips.htm

    http://freenx.berlios.de/

    http://thomer.com/howtos/nstx.html

    I'd incite you all to some subversion, if they hadn't already made that illegal a few years ago...

     

     

    It has to start somewhere It has to start sometime

    What better place than here, what better time than now?

    All hell can't stop us now

    All hell can't stop us now

    EDIT:

    Just spotted this on WP, suits well, cred to Reebdoog:

    First they came for the hackers. But I never did anything illegal with my computer, so I didn't speak up.

    Then they came for the pornographers. But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway, so I didn't speak up.

    Then they came for the anonymous remailers. But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi, so I didn't speak up.

    Then they came for the encryption users. But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway, so I didn't speak up.

    Then they came for me.

    And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

  8. Posted

    If you think this won't happen here, that's foolish. Frankly, it is obvious to me that it is ALREADY happening. ETS in it's current form is a sticky sticky mess from an environmental and financial perspective. I don't like it. We should have a hard rolling tax on emissions (not just carbon) which increases YoY and by usage as well as a tarriff on any imported products which are not meeting stringent emissions rules. That way the polluters pay and they can't just offshore to China to sell our resources back to us.

    http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?pageId=118953

    By Jerome R. Corsi

    © 2009 WorldNetDaily

    WND research reveals the European Union's cap-and-trade exchange is vulnerable to a sophisticated form of corporate extortion in which EU bureaucrats in Brussels are manipulated into paying hundreds of millions of dollars in carbon permit bribes to keep companies from moving jobs to Third World nations.

    In fact, it appears the scam is already under way.

    The crux of the scheme is this: European steelmakers have threatened to leave the EU for India, eliminating the jobs of thousands of workers in the process, unless the EU grants the steelmakers free carbon credits worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

    Eurofer, a European trade group, is at the center of the scheme. The web of the plot, however, weaves in not only several companies, but also the United Nations' climate change chief:

    * Among its members, Eurofer represents two EU steelmakers, Corus Redcar and ArcelorMittal, each of which has ties to India as well as to Rajendra K. Pachauri, the Indian industrial engineer who has been chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, since 2002.

    * Eurofer appears to have coordinated a threat to the European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading System that its steelmakers would move their operations from the EU to India unless the EU cap-and-trade exchange issued them – at no cost – carbon emissions permits worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

    * Once the bureaucrats in Brussels acquiesced, Corus Redcar and ArcelorMittal maneuvered to cash in windfall profits from the EU carbon permits given them at no cost.

    * Additionally, Corus Redcar has now announced a decision to close operations in Great Britain nonetheless and relocate its steelmaking activities to India in order to gain additional U.N. carbon credits.

    Ironically, EU and U.N. officials who might have thought requiring cap-and-trade permits would operate as "protection racket" in which EU companies need to buy carbon credits to continue operations, have now found themselves on the losing end of the reverse scheme.

    In the final analysis, the winners are the European Union corporations willing to play hardball with the European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading System, and the losers are the EU middle class workers that are held hostage in the scheme.

    (Story continues below)

    Furthermore, WND research on the EU emissions trading system continues to suggest "follow the money" may explain the enthusiasm the U.N. has shown in pursuing global caps on carbon emissions, despite doubts surfacing in the scientific community about the validity of the underlying global warming hypothesis.

    Rajendra K. Pachauri

    Last week, WND reported a Mumbai-based Indian multinational conglomerate with ties to IPCC Chair Pachauri stands to make several hundred million dollars in carbon credits simply by closing Corus Redcar, a steel production facility in Britain with the loss of 1,700 jobs.

    Another carbon trading scam tying back to Pachauri involves Great Britain's richest man, Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian citizen who resides in London.

    Mittal stands to gain a £1 billion windfall, not from the operation of his ArcelorMittal steel company, but from carbon credits given his company – at no cost – by the EU emissions trading scheme.

    The London Times has reported that after ArcelorMittal and Eurofer intensively lobbied EU bureaucrats in Brussels, the company was granted far more carbon permits than the company needed in order to operate under EU carbon emission regulations.

    According to the Times, the steelmakers represented by Eurofer threatened to move plants to India at a cost of 90,000 European jobs, to take advantage of lower labor costs in India and additional carbon credits that would be issued by the U.N. for relocating to a Third World country.

    ArcelorMittal, now free to sell its surplus carbon permits on the market or hoard them for future use, stands to gain around £1 billion by 2012, when the prospect the eventual gain could be even greater.

    Currently, EU carbon permits are worth about £12.70, but the EU has stated an intention to drive the price above £30.

    "Between 2008 and 2012, ArcelorMittal stands to gain assets worth £1 billion at today's prices for scant effort," Anna Pearson, an expert on the trading system known as ETS, told the Times. "For them the ETS has been turned into a system for generating free subsidies."

    EU steelmaker has ties to U.N. climate chief

    On Dec. 10, 2007, U.N. climate chief Pachauri accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC – which shared it with Al Gore – for their work on global warming.

    But Pachauri also has a role in the businesses working the system to profit from carbon trading credits.

    In 1974, the TATA Group – which operates the Corus Redcar U.K. plant – provided the financial resources to found the Tata Energy Research Institute, or TERI, a policy organization headquartered in New Dehli, India, of which Pachauri has been chairman since the group was formed.

    As WND reported last week, Corus Redcar accumulated a reported 7.5 million EU surplus carbon allowances, or EUAs, given the company free by the ETS after the lobbying effort with Brussels bureaucrats.

    Continued business ties between TERI and TATA are demonstrated by a press announcement on the TERI website dated Feb. 4, 2009, in which Jairam Ramesh, the Indian minister of state for commerce and industry as well as minister of state for power, announced a joint venture with TERI and TATA power to extract and use carbon dioxide for the propagation of micro-algae.

    Strong-arm tactics win carbon permits in cap-and-trade exchange

    The European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading System, or EU ETS, began operations in January 2005, billing itself as "the largest multi-country, multi-sector Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading system world-wide."

    The ETS acts as a cap-and-trade exchange in which EU bureaucrats set carbon emission limits for various corporations emitting carbon in their operations.

    Corporations emitting more carbon than permitted under the EU carbon emissions scheme are required to buy carbon permits on the ETS exchange.

    Corporations with excess carbon permits are permitted to sell those permits on the ETS exchange.

    The Corporate European Observatory, a public interest research group headquartered in Brussels, documented in a Dec. 7 report entitled "The EU: A Hollow Champion for the Climate" how the financial crisis (and intense lobbying) let "polluting industry off hook."

    The report concluded that the ETS is vulnerable to extortion-like tactics exerted by corporate groups, such as the steelmakers represented by Eurofer.

    The report also indicates EU corporations seeking concessions on carbon credits have employed strong-arm tactics, including threats to move operations to lower-cost countries with less onerous carbon emission restrictions outside the EU, which would result in substantial numbers of European jobs lost.

    As a trader, every day I see government manipulation in the currency markets which FAILS ALMOST EVERY TIME. For example, the Bank of Japan and Swiss National Bank intervene in spot markets often to weaken their respective currency against USD and Euros. But it never works. The moral of the story is: hard market lessons are like a bandaid, you need to get it over with as soon as possible, let the market set the price because in the end it will anyway.

    To me this situation is identical. We need to step in now and set some hard rules on how this will work from which there can be no loopholing or escape. We need to set a dollar value on the environment, and make no mistake that value will end up being higher than anyone is willing to currently pay. But wiggle all you want, sooner or later we will be paying the dollar value of the environment, willingly or unwillingly.

    The market is human nature, you can't fuck with it. You can try but it never works. The environment is nature, you can't fuck with it. You can try but it never works. All that will happen is the price we strove so hard to avoid paying will be extracted from us down the line by nature in what will probably not be a nice way.

  9. Posted · Edited by apothecary

    This isn't simply a client side issue T. There are multiple errors in the CSS and JS for the site. The PNG file which is your logo might need to be resaved as a jpeg or saved under an older PNG compression.

    I can confirm (with no browser cache enabled in all instances):

    Windows XP IE7.0.57 doesn't show the logo.

    Safari 4 MacOSX doesn't show the logo.

    Firefox error console reports the following errors (under linux and windows XP):

    post-861-126084401315_thumb.png

    IE reports the following errors:

    post-861-126084402122_thumb.png

    Since both IE and ff reported similar JS line number for their error I'd be willing to hazard a guess this is the problem with the logo loading.

    I really dislike Google Chrome. Considering Firefox 3.5 benchmarked as faster or just as fast anyway, with all the extra stuff it does, I much prefer it. Use Safari 4 at work which is also good (as long as you don't have to do web development).

    Picture 2.png

    Picture 3.png

    Picture 2.png

    Picture 3.png

  10. Posted

    "Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way." Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.

    This is pretty much word for word what Bear was saying would happen when he spoke EGA...

  13. Posted

    I'm sure the amount of tickets could be expanded if a bit cheaper (working out the same), although... I personally would probably pay more still :) It is well worth it! So much worth it that cash doesn't even seem to play a factor in the decision, I suppose for entheonerds its a kind of pilgrimage.

    Do we need some kind of entheo propaganda machine to help enlist more entheo-warriors? Do we actually believe in mind expansion and do so by expanding this community too? Or do we like our little social clique too much? Does too large a collective dilute the power/clarity of the movement by creating a zombie mass-mindedness like the mainstream machine?

    just some thoughts...

     

    I definitely noticed some "zombie mass-mindedness" from supposedly enlightened individuals this years EGA, especially during those talks which were discussing the science of issues.

    The issue doesn't revolve around that however, it is centered largely on the problems with insurance, site capacity, ability to put on a good event for N number of people, logistics and safety for those N people etc. It isn't a doof, it isn't run like one, so nobody can simply say "we are short X number of dollars, we better try and get N number more people to come next year".

  16. Posted

    Mind you 'most safe' in this statement is comparative so a lil respect/caution and care should be advised. also note the 'may'.

     

    Research like this on this topic is seriously needed (imho) ans seriously appreciated! :)

    tantra did some research on Justicia pectoralis (I believe?) which also reported coumarins, since your assay indicates the involvement of non-alkaloid activity and there is no calystegines you might be (I might be!) interested in checking out this plant to see if there are similar effects?

  18. Posted · Edited by apothecary

    I don't get it Chiral, Abbott did exactly what you want, he admitted to the use and being under the influence of bhang lassi. His story pretty much sounds like most naive lassi drinker stories, no?

    Alright alright, I admit it, I only posted the article because of the picture. I wanted to put it as my avatar. If TA really did have the glowing psychedelic halo along with that lost grin all the time I might even vote for him.

  19. Posted · Edited by apothecary

    I believe latifolia (and other Brunfelsias) analysed to discover coumarins like scopoletin as well as the normal tropane alkaloids but not calystegines.

    Studies have indicated significant cytotoxicity from this plant. Tingling extremities could be a sign of this. Please be careful. I am assuming you are aware of the anticholinergic nature of orally ingested tropane alkaloids which could also be detrimental. If you notice any strangeness in your vision or diuresis please ingest electrolytes and choline supplement immediately.

  20. Posted

    Annabel Crabb aka "The Stick" has been laying her moniker into Abbott since this kerfuffle started.

    This latest piece I just had to share due to the general flavor of the article, but the picture alone is worth every penny.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/11/2768477.htm?site=news

    r484948_2488723.jpg

    Last weekend, in the rash of interviews celebrating Tony Abbott's elevation to the Liberal leadership, People Skills was asked the inevitable question about marijuana.

    The correct answer to this question, in case you are wondering, has changed over the years.

    Once upon a time, it was: "Certainly not, you impertinent wretch. How dare you."

    These days, the correct answer - to be supplied with a self-deprecating laugh - is: "Of course! But it didn't do anything for me, I'm afraid!"

    And Tony Abbott duly supplied it. But then he went further, adding that on a tour of India on his way to England to take up the Rhodes scholarship, he had once consumed a lassi that was offered as a house speciality, and turned out to be "some sort of hemp yoghurt".

    Once this nightmarish concoction kicked in, Mr Abbott recalls, he was "away with the fairies for about 12 hours".

    In a life story that is a tapestry of such unlikely anecdotes, this revelation is not irreconcilable with the Tony Abbott we know.

    But those missing 12 hours are a story waiting to be told.

    Vision splendid

    My own theory is that during his travels in yoghurt-land, the young Mr Abbott experienced a vision.

    A vision of pyrotechnic luridity, full of strange portent, in which apparitions rose from the dead and the natural order of things appeared in sickening reverse.

    Like Coleridge, who dreamed up Kubla Khan in an opium stupor but was prevented from getting it all down on paper by the knock of an unfortunately-timed person from Porlock, Mr Abbott came out of his trance and hastened to Oxford, and the dream was mislaid.

    The young man's subsequent spiritual discomfiture is plainly apparent; he spent some time in a seminary and flirted with the Democratic Labor Party before packing his bags for Canberra, to work for Liberal leader John Hewson.

    Decades passed, and it was only this week that he was able to give flesh to his vision.

    But give it flesh he did, in what became the Great Reshuffle of 2009; a strange and exotic political event to cap off a year of wonders.

    The natural order of things was, as predicted in the Yoghurt Vision, wrenchingly inverted.

    The National Party, best known for its tendency to regional mendicancy, was magically placed in charge of the kitty, through the installation of Barnaby Joyce as shadow finance minister.

    Apparitions rose from the dead just as forseen; the spectral visage of Philip Ruddock, having napped for two years in a casket of loose earth, was once more seen at the table of power.

    Kevin Andrews, his lustrous black helmet undimmed by 24 months of being hidden under the stairs, stepped out into the light, suit neatly pressed.

    Perhaps the most haunting disinterment was that of Bronwyn Bishop, ushered back into service to look after ageing Australia in tandem with the Senate's stately, raven-haired Connie Fierravanti-Wells; a sort of "Bronnie and Connie Show" sent to remind the oldies that life can be full of surprises, even towards the end.

    Even Kevin Rudd seemed haunted by the manifestations, if a little confused.

    "Took the boys to the movies last night to see Zombieland," he Twittered the next day (I am not joking about this, by the way).

    "Zombieland gives me a whole new perspective on what to watch out for in politics. Boys loved it. I'm not sure."

    The cast and characters of the Yoghurt Vision are due in Sydney this morning to gather for their first shadow ministry meeting.

    Many are already applauding Mr Abbott's courage and radicalism.

    For others, it's all a little too much.

    As the great Hunter S Thompson once wrote: "A drug person can learn to cope with things like seeing their dead grandmother crawling up their leg with a knife in her teeth. But no-one should be asked to handle this trip."

  22. Posted

    Hows the situation wt? Hope all is well for you and your pups.

    Soak up this rain Melbournites 'cos the BOM is forecasting a sunny warm weekend up at the border (olé) temps ranging from 16-29 over the weekend.

    I am anticipating a lot of lying on my back looking at the sky.

  23. Posted · Edited by apothecary

    What about CERN, Didnt they fire up the LHC yesterday?

    From the site, "Last night the LHC accelerated both beams to 1.18 TeV with 2 bunches per beam for the first time."

    "LHC beam commissioning continues, aiming towards higher intensities at 450 GeV."

     

    Interesting thought, I hadn't considered it.

    A is the LHC B is the town mentioned in the article from first post. Thankyou Google Maps and Wikipedia :P

    Not that this map means anything, but as soon as you wrote that I wanted to see it on the map.

    EDIT: Oops, looks like B got a little cut, follow the purple line pls.

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    snapshot69.png

    snapshot69.png

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