My first complaint about my Samsung Galaxy S, and it's a fucking big one.

 Despite looking somewhat like an iPhone without being as shit as one, I really have enjoyed my Galaxy these last two years. Pretty much ever since I bricked and then un-bricked it in the same week, after reading several laborious pdfs explaining probably-pretty-straight-forward concepts that I just wasn't getting, it's worked wonderfully.

But I haven't been able to receive some text messages (initially I wasn't sure if they were MMSes or SMSes as they just said 'Download now' and then 'Download failed: Unable to connect to server"). I've reset the MMS APN settings for Optus a few times. And, after they charged me an absolute fuckton (no, seriously, a literal fuckton. it was horrific) that one month during which I foolishly had their default settings still enabled, I subsequently decided it was time to turn 3G data the fuck off.

Turns out Samsungs don't understand the difference between MMS and internet and if you turn one off, they both go off. Fucking ridiculous. I don't know if it is Samsung's fault or Google's, but for some fucking reason I can't send or receive MMSes while Data packets is turned off. And I'm not alone:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=17329

I never thought I'd say this but... Fuck you Google and Samsung, pull your fucking fingers out and sort this the fuck out. That bug was first reported 2 years ago and still isn't fixed. If a turd is on your kitchen top for two fucking years, it's no longer important who put it there - everyone is to blame for not throwing it away. God damn stupid retards, get your shit together.

I knew this would happen; fucking Steam

God damn it. When Steam first came out I was hugely suspicious, bordering on paranoia, that one day I'd wake up and all the games I'd bought wouldn't be playable due to some kind of serverside error or a disconnection from my ISP.

I'm online now, (obviously, as I am posting this) and my computer won't connect to the steam network. The error doesn't give a reason, just that it can't connect. Fuck this.

I want to play Magicka; I was thinking about buying a copy for my little brother because he's well into wizards at the moment and Magicka is flipping awesome. I own a copy (on Steam) and thought I should give a little bit of a playthrough to make sure its not too violent/sweary or to see if such content can be turned off.

I bought this game, Paradox (the developers) have made some great games and charged something entirely reasonable. I'd heard good things, and its fully multiplayer which is a huge plus.

BUT now I can't play a game that I own... because.... Steam. Because Steam is shit. Because it can't connect and won't tell me why not. Because I'm not going to invest my entire Saturday diagnosing exactly what the problem is and attempting to fix it or contact Steam Support to get them to fix it.

I bought Magicka. Ergo I should be able to play it. NOT FREAKING HAPPY JAN.

Java apoptosis object; cascading abortion

Instantiating this object will cause cascading interrupts for all threads (including gui threads etc). It is useful for aborting a multi-threaded simulation from within a catch or something. Be aware, calling new Apoptosis() will end the current thread too, so you can never do anything with the object.

 // finds all the threads and kills them  
 public class Apoptosis   
 {  
      // finds all the threads and kills them  
      public Apoptosis()  
      {  
           ThreadGroup allThreads = Thread.currentThread().getThreadGroup();  
           ThreadGroup parentGroup;  
           while ( ( parentGroup = allThreads.getParent() ) != null )   
           {  
                allThreads = parentGroup;  
           }  
           allThreads.interrupt();  
      }  
 }  

Fuck you Google and your fucking persistent malware that never gives up

So... I start my Windows installation up today and I am welcomed not only with the ding-a-ling of the login chime but also with a message from Dropbox saying it is updating, or starting, or advertising the benefits of purchasing it. Earning it immediate uninstallation.

What it said is not important, only that it was running at all. I am one of those people who has nothing run at start up, choosing instead to actually choose which programs get to run on my computer. I know, what a weirdo.
Normally when something gets installed, it registers itself into one of the 'start my updater/adware/persistence server/self when the computer begins' and therefore, whenever something gets installed, I open up CCleaner and remove it from that list.

So Dropbox appearing at this point means it has re-inserted itself into the list at some point. This flies in the face of everything I consider important in a UI: I interact with my computer to stop something from happening and then this is reversed later without prompting me. Unacceptable; it must be immediately uninstalled. So I uninstall Dropbox (pfft, as if there isn't enough ways of sharing files that I would be forced to put up with unwelcome bloatware), and notice that Google Update is registered in this same list.

Well.... I am... furious. In addition to doing exactly what Dropbox has done (silently re-enabled a service I had previously disabled), it runs this service in the background, making changes to programs installed on my computer without so much as a peep. What. The. Fuck.

Surely Google, a more-reputable-than-average software development company would provide easy instructions for how to remove their software if it is unwanted. I mean, even SecureROM provides uninstallation instructions and they don't even produce anything besides that malware.

This is what I found. And to quote...

Google Update can't be removed by itself. If you remove Google Update processes from your computer, you may find that your Google programs no long function properly and, in many cases, you may see Google Update return automatically.
To fully uninstall Google Update, uninstall any Google applications you currently have installed. Approximately an hour after uninstalling your other Google programs, Google Update should be uninstalled automatically.

Wow. So not only can I not remove it through any conventional means, the only way to remove it is to delete everything Google has ever had a hand in and hope and trust that Google Update deletes itself.

I'm pretty confident the only Google product I have is Chrome. I raged at Firefox some time ago for not doing searches in the address bar (it does do that nowadays) and started using Chrome. Since then, and until now, I have considered both browsers roughly equals. Offering more or less the same qualities and annoyances. Oh how my opinion has changed this afternoon. At least Firefox doesn't come bundled with malware that has a) no announcement of it being installed, b) no indication that it is currently installed, c) resistance to attempts to subdue it and d) no provided means of removing it.

Google Update has literally ruined this installation for me. How can I be sure at any point from now on that Update has actually been removed?

Ugh.. I actually just shuddered IRL at the thought of how long this thing could be around for. Uninstalling Chrome, I thought the only thing I might miss was Incognito mode, which is quite nice if you don't want everything you are doing recorded secretly (well, realistically it still gets recorded - you just don't get a copy). But apparently Firefox does this too now and it's as easy as Ctrl+Shift+P (approximately as easy as Ctrl+Shift+N). Good riddance Chrome (and hopefully Update too)!

Toxic Oil Syndrome

I was at Victoria Market the other day and saw a stall vendor move one of the non-halal chickens into the halal chicken tray after someone had purchased the existing one. Being an atheist, I don't much care whether I eat that which has been forbidden by the gods or not but some people would care. And I think everyone should have the right to make an informed decision regarding their purchase. Even if I think they are wasting their money. I'm looking at you, Apple Macintosh users.

Now I have to admit, I could have confronted the butcher/vendor but I did not mostly because I did not expect it to achieve anything more than perhaps her temporarily moving it back. But she was doing the Wrong Thing. Hardly scandal of the year, and sometimes Wrong Things are too appealing to refuse, but the Wrong Thing nonetheless. I would be astounded to hear that the person who bought that chicken went home and got smote by their god for violating his arbitrary rules regarding slaughtering some living things but not other living things.

And yet, the right to make an informed purchase is far more important than we would normally assume. In Spain there was some kind of embargo on olive oil - I don't know the details, look it up. And what was happening was people were importing some other kind of oil (rapeseed perhaps?) that was not fit for consumption, but could be made "fit for consumption" if you bathed it in chemicals first.

So they did exactly this, then claimed it was regular old olive oil and people bought tons of it and cooked it, ate it, used it to lubricate their sex, whatever you normally do with olive oil. Everything was great, the vendors were making money, circumventing an embargo, presumably no one who bought the olive oil was unhappy with it... and then... the consumers of the oil began to express symptoms of "toxic oil syndrome" (not a pre-existing condition, but one that doctors made up to describe the bullshit that was happening to them).

The main problem here is that each individual in the chain has done Nothing Wrong. The consumers thought they were buying olive oil, used it as olive oil. The importers bought the rapeseed oil expecting it was going to be used to clean engine parts. The retailers cleaned the oil in the way they thought would remove all of its dangerous constituents, and then sold it as "Olive Oil" expecting consumers to not know the difference (consumers didn't by the by). Had they sold it as "chemically-cleaned rapeseed oil" then they would have done Nothing Wrong either, and blame would shift to the consumers who substituted questionable product for olive oil.

Informed purchases are more than just "something nice" that all businesses should do. It should be the law. In a lot of cases it is the law. But then what is with "extra light" olive oil (it has nothing to do with 'extra virgin' or 'low fat' by the way), meat pies made out of pig snout and camel lips, soft drink with 16 teaspoons of sugar per glass, or "cage-free" eggs?

Our government really needs to pull its finger out of its arse and address the lawlessness of labelling and consumer confusion.

Thanks mencoder, you're not a piece of shit...

1 duplicate frame(s)!
Writing header...
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.
Pos:8557.1s 205169f (99%) 440.55fps Trem: 0min 1570mb A-V:-0.029 [0:1535]
Flushing video frames.
Filters have not been configured! Empty file?
Writing index...
Writing header...
ODML: Aspect information not (yet?) available or unspecified, not writing vprp header.

Video stream: 0.000 kbit/s (0 B/s) size: 0 bytes 8557.090 secs 205169 frames

Audio stream: 1536.000 kbit/s (191999 B/s) size: 1642995712 bytes 8557.270 secs
Segmentation fault

Samsung are as bad as Sony

Mohammed Hassan found a keylogger (spyware that monitors what you type) on his fresh-from-Samsung laptop.

As is expected, the 300-billion dollar chaebol lied through its teeth and claimed it didn't know what was going on. They tried to confuse Hassan with technobabble (and presumably other typical corporate dodge tactics) and shifting blame to Microsoft. This probably worked for many of their previous complaints but Hassan is an IT security professional (i.e. this kind of thing is his home turf) and he eventually got the company to cave and take responsibility for their actions. Hassan: "Samsung wanted to gather usage data without obtaining consent from laptop owners."

more here: http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/sec/2011/040411sec1.html

So how do consumers avoid problems like Samsung's keyloggers and Sony's rootkits? At least with Sony, you had to play their CDs to get your computer infected. But your passwords, credit card numbers and personal details can be monitored by any Samsung laptop you use.

Now even fucking Google is trying to put me in a box

• "This video is not available in your country."
  
• "Willkommen bei YouTube!
  Vorgeschlagene Sprache (von uns festgelegt): Deutsch
  Du kannst die Sprache über die Links oben neben dem YouTube-Logo ändern.
  Klicke auf "OK", um die Einstellung zu übernehmen, oder auf "Abbrechen", um die Website in Englisch anzuzeigen.

WHAT BULLSHIT IS THIS?? Everything I love about the internet seems to be going to shit lately. Why would I only want to look at videos made by people from my country or my language? If I wanted to talk to the people around me, I wouldn't do it through fucking Youtube. Youtube, and most social networking sites, chat rooms, and probably even most websites are all about people who don't live down the road from you. It's so fucking awesome to chat/play games/watch videos with people from Karachi, Milan, Shanghai, Antarctica... ok, its not always awesome. But it has the potential to be awesome. You can share opinions about politics, video games, culture, dodgy companies and annoying bastards.

Your sex, race, age, religion all count for nothing unless you specifically choose it to. Sure, that leads to situations made famous by anti-technology activists like 60 year old paedophiles pretending to be 11 year old girls. OK, just as a side note here (and its sort of relevant in a way) why the FUCK is 'paedophile' supposedly incorrect spelling according to the US spelling dictionary? I know they spell it 'pedophile' (yeah that's better underline that one bitch). But surely, surely, surely, surely they should consider the CORRECT spelling as at least an alternate and not INCORRECT. Pfft fucking ridiculous. But yeah, somewhat relevant - why would I encounter that problem unless I was on the internet? It's not like I would walk through Grosvenor Square and have someone stop me and say 'excuse me sir, paedophile should be spelled without an a'. And then I'd right click him and select Dictionary -> English_AU. You can be yourself on the internet, without fear of anything being unladylike if you're a lady or too white if you're white or stupid if you're American. There's also no fear of retribution: if you're an arsehole by nature, you can be an arsehole.

Being on the internet, being an internet personality, its an international thing. You aren't bound by rules or laws of any specific country (except sometimes of wherever the server is located). On the internet, youre not part of a country, ethnic group, sex or anything you cant avoid being part of in real life. The beauty of this chaotic, uncensored, raw environment is amazing and boundless. Sure, letting people do whatever they want also creates its problems. But that just makes it interesting and having experienced countless viruses, including loss of control of computer, data loss, components being fried, I don't think you can say I haven't yet experienced the worst of it. And yes, I've also encountered tubgirl, kitten stomping, prolapse pics, cp, snuff, church of fudge, swap.avi, pain olympics, pretty much everything.

The internet is fucking great, now Australia is trying to censor and moderate everything thats going on. Fucking wicked. Obedient K Rudd will most likely cower to the demands of Sony et al, and force ISPs to block torrents as well as porn. Facebook will start to cost money, or be taken over by Microsoft and crammed with even more ads than it has now. Wikipedia won't be open to editing by anyone. In fact, possibly, Australia will block it altogether. And Google, the company thats supposed to have a shred of good will and decency, they are putting me in a box. I can't watch Australian videos because I'm in fucking England. This is such bullshit. And Tor takes a million fucking years to download youtube videos. FOR FUCKS SAKE!!

Australia treats you like a child: banned content in Australia

No film, book or video game should be "refused classification" i.e. banned in Australia. We have a range of ratings from those suitable for small children right up to those unsuitable for Australian states. Adults have the right to chose what they will be exposed to, and Australia does not have the right to
chose on their behalf.

Between 1930 and 1940 the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) banned films because they discussed communism, blasphemy or simply were "not in the public interest" (this film dealt with child birth). Currently the reasons the OFLC use are a little better: Cannibal Holocaust is a very graphic 80's film about cannibalism and Ken Park is a film about a group of adolescents with abusive homes; you can see the reasons for banning but it still comes down to Australia's belief that Australians don't have the ability to chose what they want to watch.

It's understandable why Wolf Creek or Underbelly would be banned until the respective trials were closed, but we not only have an R18+ rating (the commonly accepted age where people are considered adults in Australia) but a further X18+ which can not be sold in Australian states (only territories). So there is no argument that the reason is that some material is unacceptable for children (of course there is a lot of films that are unacceptable) as the rating scheme goes high enough to exclude all non-adults.

But it is important to be very careful with what is given the highest rating and what is banned altogether. In China, films and books are banned if they represent the government in anything but a positive light, if they suggest Tibet or Taiwan are their own independent countries. I doubt it is like that currently in Australia, but the fact that we could go in that direction is incredibly concerning.

So it comes down to: Australia believes Australian adults can't choose media that they will think acceptable. If someone will be offended by graphic imagery of cannibalism, then I would think they wouldn't watch a film named Cannibal Holocaust. Even if the content is not obvious in the title, it is most likely obvious in the blurb; but at the very least: it will be obvious in the listed reasons to why the film received the classification - maybe R18+ high level violence, depictions of cannibalism, sexual references

So this brings me to the reason why I bothered to write this at all.... Fallout 3 has been refused classification by the OFLC because it contains drug use. Now, there a second problem here: video games do not have an R18+ rating so anything that does not fit into the MA category or below will be refused classification. This is a string in censorship of otherwise good games: Manhunt, Postal 2, GTA SA, GTA 4. The first pair for violence, the second for sexual content.

I haven't even got onto books yet, and at this stage it looks like I might give it a miss. You may think, well books and literature are one thing but video games are different. If anything, video games should be LESS subject to censorship laws: an FBI study showed that only 12% of psychopaths played violent video games while 24% watched violent movies and 30-something% read violent books. An Australian study showed that the playing of violent video games does not render children prone to violent behaviour.

Basically, if Australia thinks that Australian adults can't appropriately make a choice about what to watch then they are treating them like children. Children can only watch G or PG movies. Similarly, Australians can only watch up to R-rated movies and play up to MA-rated games, and some things are totally unsuitable for the Australian adults mind like blasphemy, cannibalism and drug use. Who gave them this right to choose on our behalf? Who gave them the right to treat us like children? Oh... right.

STOP YOUR FUCKING WHINGING: The Melbourne Model

The VCE is one of the best high school certificates in the world, based on esteem, subsequent university grades and rigor. In fact it is so good (remembering the V is for Victorian) that is being adopted by other countries, including Hong Kong and the UAE.

Why is the VCE so good, and yet our universities rank significantly below those of other countries. Firstly, there is funding. It costs 12x as much to study at Harvard than at Melbourne, Monash or ANU.

Secondly it is structure: consider Finland's educational system. PISA (who rank educational systems based on student intelligence rather than grades) rank Finlands system 1st and 2nd in all four of its categories: Maths, Literacy, Science and Problem Solving. It's up there with Hong Kong and South Korea (whos national median IQ is 107, while Australia's is 98).

Finland has prep then 9 years of primary/secondary and 3 years of upper secondary (not dissimilar to prep then 6+4 primary/seconday +2 VCE). So what is different about Finland?

• Education, including tertiary study, is free.
  Smart, poor kids in Australia are forced into uneducated work while stupid, rich kids pave their golden path over the top of our educational system.



• Meals are provided in schools, for free.
  Australia complains about our kids getting fat then makes them pay for coke and burgers at the canteen. What the fuck is that? We have ads for how important breakfast is, then expect 5 year olds (and 18 year olds) to do it themselves.



• There are no private schools
  Face it: private schooling is stupid. Schools like MacRob and MHS accept only the smart kids then train them specifically for VCE exams to optimize their ENTERs. What happens when they go to university? They are underprepared philosophically and personally and have to rely on their natural intelligence instead of their schooling.



• Finland has trade schools
  Why go to a university to study to be a mechanic? Universities should specialize in either higher education or trades. Specialised universities produce better graduates.



• Finland has a 3-4 year bachelor course, followed by a 2-3 year masters course
  Sound familiar? The Melbourne Model has a 3 year bachelor degree followed by a 2 year masters. This gives bachelors the option to change fields, which is very important if they get three years into a Medicine degree and decide they want to do Vetinary Science. In the old system, they would have to start from scratch.

Australians come 5th in Science and 4th in Literacy (on the PISA graph). Our national median IQ is 98, but hey - that's higher than the USA's (owner of several of the top 10 universities) and Finland's. There is no reason why we can't top the PISA graphs, and the university ranking charts.

The Melbourne Model is great for the students of University of Melbourne and for Australia as a whole. So many people claim that it is a ploy to make students pay for an extra year. Yes, you will be there an extra year. But you will have a internationally recognised master's degree, and for every year the quality of your education will be better. So fuck all you people who want to go in and out of university just so you can have some paper to hang on your wall. We don't want you anyway, we want people who want to learn. Who want to expand their mind, their intelligence.

The changes to the Arts faculty were long overdue. Arts students agree, there were many duplicate subjects and subjects that were a waste of time. And cutting those redundant subjects means laying off the lecturers and tutors who taught them. You can't shut down a subject and keep the staff, that doesn't make sense. As for increased workloads, I invite those staff members to take a look at the workloads of some of the Science and Engineering professors before complaining about no longer getting friday off.

In short: free school is good, free food is good, trade schools are good, private schools are bad, cuts to arts were necessary, Melbourne Model is good so STOP YOUR FUCKING WHINGING!

I hate Firefox

OK. So yesterday I had like a million bookmarks, compiled over the last n years... Now I have none, wait no... Now I don't even have the toolbar. Why is the toolbar gone? Good fucking question.

It keeps asking me whether I am happy changing from https to http and vice versa. OF COURSE I AM FUCKING HAPPY. I CLICKED THE GOD DAMN LINK DIDN'T I??? For fucks sake, how many times do I have to select the 'don't bring this shit up again' before it stops fucking telling me.

OK, so you have like a million tabs open. I always do, don't know why. Bad attention span maybe, maybe I just like Wikipedia a lot. But, go to close one, and BAM! Just as I click it scrolls over to another tab so I close the wrong one. WHAT THE FUCK FIREFOX?? L2NOTBEAFUCKINGPIECEOFSHIT

Next problem: SLOWNESS. I have done all the speed enhancements... but guess what? It's still fucking slow as... can it not download a pdf in the background while I look over the remainder of the site? NOPE. THE WHOLE THING HAS TO STAND STILL WHILE THE LITTLE MENU BOX TRIES TO GO AWAY. For fucks sake. Konqueror doesn't do this shit.

Hmm... I am going to try out IceWeasel. I have had enough of this shit.

You know what the funny thing is? I still like it better than IE.