JohnB

Agreed, I think most Aussies would say bugger the tax cuts, they need it more. The money is to be divided, $500 mill in direct aid, overseen by some sort of joint body. This is to go directly to rebuilding, food, water plants, that sort of thing. The other $500 mill is in no-interest loans to the Indonesian government repayable over 40 years. Don't forget the Germans and the Poms, they've pledged some $900 mill and $700 mill respectively.

Top speed on a 40 line cable is 33 MB/sec. 80 conductor cables start at 66 MB/sec and go up from there. Earlier speeds are dependent on the bus architecture of the system involved. Check out this page at Seagate for the full story. http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ata_to_ultraata66.html Cheers.

All I want is for conventional medicines to live up to the standard they demand of alternative medicines. Far too many do not. (But that is perhaps a topic for another thread.) The point is that conventional medicine failed totally with Theresa, alternative medicine did not. Add to that, we have MRI evidence that the prevailing medical belief that the cartilage will not repair itself is false. Any diagnosis based on this belief is therefore both unscientific and flawed. The fact is that many people are turning to alternative medicines (despite the hysterical rantings of the medical profession) because in many cases they work where conventional medicine does not. If I seem passionate about this, I am. My wife was put through six months of hell, sacrificed on the altar of "Conventional Medical Treatment" with a condition that was later cured in 3 weeks. If conventional medicine had got off it's bloody high horse and listened to the other side for a change, Theresa and God knows how many others could be spared years of pain and suffering. But I guess there's more money in treatment than cure. (And they'd have to admit that they don't know everything, something which is very hard for anyone to do.)

The poor buggers at the Australian Geophysican Institute registered the initial quake but had it centred on land. By the time they had redone their calculations as to size and position it was too late, Sumatra had already been hit. Apparently their equipment only registers to 8.2, so they thought the quake was smaller than it was. I call them "poor buggers" because there's a lot of second guessing going on. Some of them seem to be blaming themselves for the lack of warning. "If only we'd pushed for better equipment. If only we'd been faster with our calculations, we could have issued a warning." That sort of thing. Laymen asking "Why didn't you know, what do we pay you for?" don't help the situation. They feel bad enough as it is. The Pacific centre in Hawaii got the size and place in time, but had no contact numbers for people in the Indian Ocean so they couldn't get out a warning in time. The good news is that an Indian Ocean centre will be set up using the latest technology. There's talk of geostationary satellites, ocean floor sensors, wave sensors, the whole box and dice. Whether it will happen that way or suffer from cost cutting is another matter.

I believe that in some sciences, upholding the current "theory" is viewed as more important than the dispassionate consideration of facts. And Murphy's Law.

Severian, we almost went for the "Seven Hills Institute of Technology" instead. The real crappy think with the Scram jet is that it was a major breakthrough with almost unbelievable benefits for Australia, (Commercial applications) yet when the researchers asked for a mere A$25 million over 5 years they were told to "put in an application and we'll consider it" by the gov. Are politicians especially bred from the shallow end of the gene pool or just generally stupid?

Just when you think it couldn't get any worse. Evacuations of the Andaman Islands are being hampered by crocodiles. The damn things have left the creeks and invaded the towns and jetties. Radio reports today talked about people having to fight off the crocs to get to the evacuation boats. There is also a behavioural shift, rather than hiding like a log, they are now an active predator.

I just thought I'd add I read a newspiece recently on a possible benefit. A South American woman (Argentina I think it was) suffered a major stroke which left her unable to speak and paralyzed down the (left hand?) side, so she couldn't walk unaided either. After an injection of her own bone marrow stem cells (from the pelvis) directly into the effected area, she can now talk again and left the hospital on her own two feet. I think the main problem people have with the research is the "source" of the stem cells. Most people are unaware of the existance of "adult" stem cells. I'm still mind boggled at the diabetes one though. I first it on the ABC radio where they interviewed on of the researchers. Even he was absolutely stunned at what happened, you could hear it in his voice.

5614, yes it is one of the old ones and yes, it will work on modern systems, just a bit slow. I use them regularly for a vintage machine I have. (P1 120 mhz It's for playing the old DOS games, and yes it's loaded with Dos 6.22. ) Personally, I find it handy to have a spare lying around so I can grab any HDD and plug it into a system without having to unplug anything else. If you don't constantly have computers in bits though, it's probably not much use to you.

I never thought of that. Hmmm, what will I call it?

One possibility is that it's not the fuse but the power supply itself, I've had circuits burn out in them, so power gets to one part of the Mobo but not others. Usually if there is an actual problem with the tranny, then the first thing that won't work is the transformer fan itself. Is that fan working? Since the problem occurs with both Mobos, I would think that a new transformer is in order. (Even if this doesn't solve the problem, it's always good to have a spare.)

Rasori, we compare the dates, as we do with any historical reference. It's the same thing with the dates that the Pharoahs ruled, that sort of thing. On the topic, It would appear that both the Egyptians and the Mayans were aware of the "Great Cycle", now known as the "Precession of the Equinoxes". This cycle takes about 26,000 years to complete. To measure any cycle you need a beginning point. As I understand it, there are only about 3 stars of reasonable magnitude that become the "Pole Star" during the cycle, currently it is Polaris. A "Cycle" would therefore be from the time Polaris was at a particular point in the sky to the time it was next at the same point. It may seem odd that they both chose the same star, but the odds against are only 3 to 1, better than you get at the race track. It would seem that Polaris will reach this totally arbitary "starting point" somewhere around 2012 AD. (By fudging the figures, you could probably go 100 years or so either side of this date.) Some have interpreted this end of the "Great Cycle" to mean that these ancient peoples believed that the world would physically end. There is no proof that they did have this belief, if anything the opposite is true. My guess is that the whole thing is allegorical. It's similar to drawing the "Death" card in the Tarot, it doesn't mean that you, personally, are going to die, it merely symbolises the "end" or "death" of something. Likewise, the "Death" of the "Mini cycle" of 2004 was a couple of days ago, but we're all still here. The whole "End of the World" thing is a very old game. It goes like this; "The End is coming and I'm the only one who can stop it, (ensure your survival, appease the Gods, whatever) so give me power, (or money, or strangely enough lots and lots of sex ) and everthing will be fine. Tell this to enough people, even today, and some will believe you. Try it if you want, who knows, you might, um, get lucky.

Ahh, but LucidDreamer, one day they will be right.

Possibly a stupid question, but here goes. I was looking at a .jpg posted in another thread showing plate movements over the millennia. (Right hand side of picture.) http://departments.oxy.edu/biology/bbraker/courses/bio105/images/15.3A,B%20Earth's%20crustal%20plat.JPG I realised that in all the depictions I've ever seen, Antarctica doesn't move. Every other plate happily wanders all over the place, but not that one. I"m not saying it's wrong, it just seems "funny". Does anyone out there know why one plate doesn't move? A secondary question. If Antarctica was in the same place for the last 150 million odd years, (and therefore covered with ice since the time of the dinosaurs) then shouldn't ice cores allow us to view the atmosphere all the way back to that time? That's assuming that there wasn't a more recent time when all ice on the planet melted.

Queensland Institute of Technology made and flew the world's first working SCRAM Jet. Beat NASA by about a year. I never went to QUT, but I'm proud of the achievment.

Try living in Queensland, we've had to smuggle them over the border for bloody years. But it's for our own good, doncha know. Yeah Right.

Recent reports put the toll at over 69,000 with at least as many more expected to die from exposure and disease. Aceh Province is the hardest hit as it was nearest the quake, because of complete disruption of communications, death toll for the area is not even estimated. Sri Lanka reports over 1 million homeless. Sri Lankan gov calls for truce with Tamil Tigers to rebuild their nation. Tigers say that no international aid is getting through to them from gov controlled areas. UN officials are calling it the largest natural disaster in History. Australin Foreign Minister announces that there will be an Early Warning System for the Indian Ocean to supplement the one already operating in the Pacific. (Why some idiot thought that if we need one for the East Coast we don't need one for the West, I'll never work out.) Burials have started in mass graves in many areas. Photgraphs and DNA evidence is being taken from the bodies before they are being interred so maybe one day we'll know who they were. 1500 Swedes, 300 Germans, 100 Italians, 100 Australians currently listed as missing. Australia has 4 RAAF C-130 Hercs in the area and has pledged A$35 million in aid. Sorry for the disjointed style, I'm typing as I listen to the ABC news. Late: Satellite photos and helicopters in the area show the waves penetrated 10-15 kilometres inland in Aceh Province. What a mess. Red Cross, Red Cresent, Care Australia, etc all starting to reach the regions effected. They need donations. Money for preference.

Those in the Australian Detention Camps are free to leave and go home whenever they want. Long term detainees are simply there because they are not willing to accept the tribunals decision and are trying every trick in the book to stay. As to whether the policy works, Australia has closed over half of it's detention camps because the number of illegal immigrants has dropped to a trickle. Rather than risking their lives in leaky boats, most illegal immigrants in Australia are now those who overstay their visas. This is not to say that the Australian gov should not have shown more compassion in some cases. The two children whose mother was killed in the Bali bombing is a case in point. For the love of God, let the father in, hasn't the family suffered enough? On the detention side, I understand the new laws in Australia allow for 30 days without charge. After that, a judge must be convinced to extend the period. The judge is not connected to the Security Services and Habeus Corpus applies at all times. My biggest concern is that the laws allow for evidence procured overseas, possibly by torture, to be admissable in Australian Courts. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the area knows that torture does not result in the truth, but in whatever the victim thinks the torturer wants to hear. It also gives the impression that Australia condones torture as a legitimate form of questioning, something which I, as an Australian citizen, am against.

I would submit that the true answer for all persons in this debate is; "Whatever I deem at the time is best for my and my families continued survival." If there is one unarmed intruder coming in the door, showing him the gun or just yelling will probably suffice. If there are 4 guys armed with shotties, then running is a bloody good idea. If the intruder is (God forbid) bending over your child's bed, then "temporary insanity" is probably a good defense. I say this because in that situation there would be no stopping a parent. The fact is that no-one knows what they would do in the situation as it would depend entirely on the circumstances. "Minimum force" is a fine concept when discussing theory, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that if it was your child, you would not think of consequences or anything else until the intruder was a bloody, broken mass on the floor. It's not that you would intend to kill, you just wouldn't care if you did.

There is no need for concern. Even if, as one prophesy says; "A fiery Dragon will cross the sky Six times before this earth shall die Mankind will tremble and frightened be For the sixth heralds in this prophecy. For seven days and seven nights Man will watch this awesome sight. The tides will rise beyond their ken To bite away the shores and then The mountains will begin to roar And earthquakes split the plain to shore." It also says; "And before the race is built anew A silver serpent comes to view And spew out men of like unknown To mingle with the earth now grown Cold from its heat and these men can Enlighten the minds of future man. To intermingle and show them how To live and love and thus endow The children with the second sight. A natural thing so that they might Grow graceful, humble and when they do The Golden Age will start anew." I've always found Mother Shipton rather interesting. "Around the world men's thoughts will fly Quick as the twinkling of an eye." "Beneath the water, men shall walk Shall ride, shall sleep, shall even talk. And in the air men shall be seen In white and black and even green." "In water, iron, then shall float As easy as a wooden boat." "For in those wondrous far off days The women shall adopt a craze To dress like men, and trousers wear And to cut off their locks of hair. They'll ride astride with brazen brow As witches do on broomstick now." "And roaring monsters with man atop Does seem to eat the verdant crop And men shall fly as birds do now And give away the horse and plough." Not bad for someone born in the 1480's. Doesn't mean I believe it, it's just interesting.

As has been said, the registry clogs itself, especially if you're installing and uninstalling a number of proggys. Personally, I use System Mechanic as it will find and delete unused registry entries. I ran it on a system at work and removed some 2,000 entries. Opening even a small program will cause windows to access the registry hundreds or thousands of times. (Use Regmon and open defrag, you'll see what I mean. ) Any extra registry entries slow down the process. There is also the "temp" files which are nothing of the sort. Disk Cleanup only gets the temp files that are in the Temporary directory of Windows but most programs don't stash their temp files there. The system I mentioned above had over 1.5 gigs of temp files that System Mechanic got rid of. (Some of them were dated as 2 years old.) SM also has a Start Up optimizer feature that replaces the Start/Run/Msconfig bit, making life a lot easier. Oh yes, and it can also get rid of that bloody annoying 400 millisecond delay on menus, a 0 setting is amazing. I don't sell the program, but I do believe it's an absolute must for the moderate to heavy user. It can recover unused and defrag the RAM on the fly. Trust me, you'll love it.

The "colour" part of the three c's is starting to go by the board a bit. The rarest diamonds are the Argyle Pink diamonds, which while coloured have a beautiful clarity. Also the blue and green diamonds are staging a bit of a comeback with the rise of exceptionally good artificial sapphires and emeralds. The best fakes can only be detected with an extremely powerful microscope as they can pass any other test.

While I can fully agree that there are problems with many of the "Alternative therapies" around, I wouldn't write them off. My wife came down with a damaged Meniscus, the cartilage in the knee. We went the full route (short of surgery) to attempt to heal it. Six months of physio, walking on a cane, the whole box and dice. No luck. With accepted wisdom, as shown on this site, http://www.arthroscopy.com/sp05005.htm there is no real cure and surgery was the only option left. We were put onto a sports therapist who studied Chinese medicine and went to see him. Three weeks later the cane was no longer needed. Interesting to note that when our normal General Practioner was told of the treatment, namely poultices, she laughed and said "That's what we put on horses". She didn't like it when I pointed out that we do that because it works. A couple of years later, Theresa tripped going up some steps and again damaged her knee, but just bruising this time. MRIs were ordered to make sure. The point of the story is that we now have two sets of MRI pics, the first showing the damage to the Meniscus and the second showing no damage at all. Of course, MRIs are just "anecdotal evidence" with no basis in scientific fact so we shouldn't pay too much attention to them. The specialist who ordered the second set was to say the least amazed when he saw the first set. (We specifically asked him about Meniscus damage.) Placebo effect is a possible answer of course, but that doesn't explain how something without a blood supply that is not supposed to repair itself did so. Just something to ponder.

Mulsing is the main reason. According to the 60 minutes interview I saw with their leading loony, PETA believe that we should employ some thousands of people to wipe the sheeps' bottoms. Mind you, when asked about whether swatting flies was bad she replied "Well the jury's still out on insects". Oh dear. She seemed to be convinced that all farmers drive rollers and are filthy rich. As to their tactics. They will target stores overseas that sell products made from Aussie wool. Usual thing, smear themselves with red paint and roll around on the footpath outside. The idea is to blackmail the store into not using Aussie products. If that doesn't work they get some vegan celebrity to cause a stir and have media coverage of the "Celebrity Arrest". ( I'd like to see that tried here, might be a celebrity in the US, but over here he'd just be another number in the cell block.) The Wool Industry body has served her and her organization with a writ for "future damages". The organization does not believe in hunting, fishing (hunting in water), wearing leather or any other animal product, horse racing, eating eggs or cheese or drinking milk. I've never understood why they'll throw paint over women wearing furs, but not Hell's Angels, just cowards I guess. They appear to be pathologically certain of their moral stance and therefore feel that any tactic they use is therefore "right". The arguments put forward are the same as any terrorist group; "Give in to our demands and no-one gets hurt. And if someone does, then it's your fault for not giving in to our demands."

Thanks Coquina. From that I would conclude that the Tunguska event was unusual only in that the actual detonation occurred low enough for the air blast to affect the surface. While there may have been similar events in the past, if it was older than say 5,000 years, I dare say that there would be no evidence left of that fact. Trees rot and new forests cover the evidence.