Greg Smith in Western Australia

 The Australian referendum to recognise Australian Indigenous peoples in the constitution through the establishment of a Voice To Parliament body was quickly defeated. Current counting stands at 60% No. I voted No. But not against Aboriginal peoples or against recognition. I voted against the Voice To Parliament which was to be given constitutional powers to consult with all levels of Government. While not having any veto power, it's influence would be significant. My No stance developed over time.  After announcement of the referendum, big business, sporting interests, unions and associations fell over each other to announce support and provide campaign funding. To my mind this could only be the result of a lot of background lobbying of company boards and various management teams. Then when the legal implications were questioned, the Solicitor General released a carefully crafted and clearly forced statement stating the proposed amendments were legally "safe" in his opin...

It's May 2013.  Apple is becoming a follower rather than leader in the innovation stakes.  Microsoft is still puzzled and wandering where past glories have gone.  Unless either can change the game - change the rules - they will go the way of countless other tech companies. Where is there hope?  Well, it's in the ability for someone to make 1 + 1 = 7.  Steve Jobs had it.  He saw a mouse driven computer and could see the possibilities.  He was the most enthusiastic guy in the room.  Others saw problems - he saw possibilities. I'm not a game console type of guy - but have a look at Microsoft's Kinect technology in this Youtube video.   The technology is great, and brings us closer to HAL9001 computer interactions.  It's really wasted on a game console. So what's the best way to really use Microsoft's Kinect - to build the technology into everyday devices and lifestyle?  I don't know.  But Steve Jobs would have. If ...

You may remember that 2004 and 2005 were the years of the email virus. 2007 and 2008 are definitely the years of SPAM email. I run a small home server with Postfix. It just does email for my self and immediate family members - about 12 or so accounts. It gets about 400 SPAM emails a day. This takes some filtering. What's interesting is how SPAM is changing. Initially we had direct SPAM - a server would send out thousands (or millions of emails. These were easily blocked by IP address. Then we had open relay SPAM - an internet search would see what mail servers were mis-configured for relaying and emails would be directed through that server. Again reasonably easy to block, even so some legitimate emails might have been blocked. Now we have zombie SPAM - virus infected computers are transformed into mail senders. You will see today that an IP will just send SPAM once and then you'll never see it again (presumably the owner sees his PC melting down and gets it fixed). S...