August 2014 - luv-talk

This Saturday: Peace with Justice in Israel/Palestine
by Lev Lafayette 13 Aug '14

13 Aug '14

Apologies for cross-posting if you have already received this invitation. A few people would know that I organise various political and/or secularist meetings which are conveniently timed just after the LUV Beginners workshops. Given that LUV members typically have a strong and intelligent opinion on a range of issues, the one on this Saturday may be very interesting to many. This Saturday at 6pm, at the New International Bookshop at Trades Hall (Cnr Lygon and Victoria Sts, Carlton), there will be a discussion on "Peace with Justice in Israel/Palestine", an issue which I am sure needs no further elaboration given recent events - but also which I think people have many questions about! The speakers are Sol Salbe, executive member for Australian Jewish Democratic Society, and Michael Shaik, public advocate for Australians for Palestine. The discussion is hosted by the Isocracy Network (http://isocracy.org) Afterwards some of us will be having dinner at #1 Lygon Street, a very good and inexpensive Chinese restaurant. Please come along and feel free to forward this to others whom you think would be interested in seeing peace with justice in Israel and Palestine. Best wishes, -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

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Re: [luv-talk] patents are unquestionable good, right?
by Rohan McLeod 13 Aug '14

13 Aug '14

Lev Lafayette wrote: > On Mon, August 11, 2014 4:42 pm, Peter Ross wrote: >> Here you have Rob Oakeshott who had some first-hand experience. He has a >> slightly different tack - it's not just stupidity.. >> >> http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/topic/politics/2014/08/09/rob-oakeshott-… >> >> "The rules are simple: fight the bastards, bankroll the other side of >> politics, cause them damage until they learn to ignore treasury and >> finance advice and start listening instead to that grubby leveller in >> politics â€“ money. >> >> ........... snip" >> ------------------------ > I have to say, that is one the most pithy summaries of a major problem of > contemporary democracies. The corruption of power is surely a belief in enhanced entitlement for oneself and one's designates; democracy was invented (I believe), see for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy#Democracy_under_Cleisthe… not to express popular opinion; but to curtail the corruption of kings and the influence of elites. As the joke goes: "Here we have relative democracy; which allows voting for my relatives " So if we require democracy in a real world; of 'oh so corruptible citizens'; then surely the problem is to make unentitled influence more difficult; rather than abandoning democracy or attempting reform of the citizens ? regards Rohan McLeod > >

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Sunday 17th - MESH 1pm at Park Orchards & AUG auction ~ 4pm Mt Waverley
by David E Payne 12 Aug '14

12 Aug '14

> > The first meeting of MESH was awesome and it is time to meet again. > > It is on Sunday the 17th of August at 1:00 pm http://www.meetup.com/Easten-Suburbs-Hackers-Group/events/196097372/ (NOTE: "Easten") > > The first meeting was about getting to know everybody and talking about what we should do in the future. > > This one will be about hacking! Do you guys wish to focus on something like 3-D printing or single board computers? > > Remember to bring Wi-Fi capable devices or dongles as we don't have a lot of spare ethernet cables and all of our switches/hubs are almost full. Unless somebody has a switch lying around? > > We don't have free catering this time, so bring something to eat. > > To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/easthack/1a314e36-de9c-457c-adf4-5b803929…. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The AUG.org.au/ auction at Wadham House, 52 Wadham Parade Mount Waverley, will be on the 3rd Sunday of August (17th) , probably starting around 4pm (At least). Anyone can sell their own (any IT related) stuff (or bid/buy) if they pay the normal visitors fee of $2 & there will be "no pressure" to donate anything to the club although it would be welcome. Given AUG is now dominated by gamers I expect MOST of the goods there are likely to be chiefly of interest to gamers. Software will most likely be Amiga or Commodore 64. But you never know.

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Re: [luv-talk] patents are unquestionable good, right?
by Peter Ross 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

From: "Rohan McLeod" <rhn(a)jeack.com.au> > Peter Ross wrote: >> "Rohan McLeod" <rhn(a)jeack.com.au> >> >>> but smaller nations than Australia seem to manage. > ........................snip >> Food for thought: >> >> http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/new-zealand-edges-ahead-of-austral… >> --- >> "NZ's digital economy contributed $2 billion in exports last year and as >> four New Zealand start-ups prepare to list on the NZ stock exchange - >> Gentrack, Serko, Orion Health, Vista Entertainment - twice as many as >> last year, Australian entrepreneurs are wondering exactly what they put >> in >> the water." > > But it's so hard to believe; > here in Australia we have ideological malice constrained by shear > stupidity; > operating according to pure time tested economic fatalism ! > Just can't be right...........:-) Here you have Rob Oakeshott who had some first-hand experience. He has a slightly different tack - it's not just stupidity.. http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/topic/politics/2014/08/09/rob-oakeshott-… "The rules are simple: fight the bastards, bankroll the other side of politics, cause them damage until they learn to ignore treasury and finance advice and start listening instead to that grubby leveller in politics – money. Whether it’s tax or carbon or gaming, this is the policy inertia of Australia today. Money is beating our long-term standard of living to death. It has sent many necessary policy reforms to the doghouse, and it keeps many others on the short chain. Our key decisions for the future of Australia are now being outsourced at a level never before seen. Parliamentary democracy is going through its own sort of privatisation. Bigger dollars come into the party coffers at exactly the same time as less and less of the necessary work gets done. We are trapping ourselves." ------------------------ Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] patents are unquestionable good, right?
by Peter Ross 11 Aug '14

11 Aug '14

"Rohan McLeod" <rhn(a)jeack.com.au> > The Australia market is tiny; so obviously an export orientation is > vital; > but smaller nations than Australia seem to manage. As a 'sometime' > aspiring inventor my > sense is that the Australian venture capital market is quite > unsophisticated compared to say; > that in California. Food for thought: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/new-zealand-edges-ahead-of-austral… --- "NZ's digital economy contributed $2 billion in exports last year and as four New Zealand start-ups prepare to list on the NZ stock exchange - Gentrack, Serko, Orion Health, Vista Entertainment - twice as many as last year, Australian entrepreneurs are wondering exactly what they put in the water." .. "When asked if it would have achieved the same success if launched in Australia, the response from Richardson was emphatic: "Not a chance," he said. "I love the play-hard-globally attitude of the country." ... "There's only 4.5 million people in the country. We don't have the distraction here of a buoyant resources sector so we've had a government focused on saying what's happening in the next 40 to 50 years," --- Regards Peter

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Fw: Re: who says petitions etc don't work
by David E Payne 10 Aug '14

10 Aug '14

Doh! meant this to go to the list, even though I'll probably make more trouble for myself... ] 8 ~ [

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Re: [luv-talk] patents are unquestionable good, right?
by Rohan McLeod 08 Aug '14

08 Aug '14

Tim Connors wrote: > Some people might want to respond to the one sided article here: > > https://theconversation.com/grants-arent-helping-australian-tech-but-patent… I am redirecting to luv-talk on the assumption we are not talking solely about software patents. Let's put the question this way if patents, in Australia were eliminated; which is what a generalisation of the open-source software development philosophy might suggest; would R&D opportunities in Australia improve ? It is I think important to recall that a 'patent' is really just a "title to an idea" and as such is much like a generalisation of a design registration, which is more like a "title to a prototype". I wonder whether eliminating patents; making patents much cheaper or enforcement costs lower' is really the issue. The Australia market is tiny so obviously an export orientation is vital; but smaller nations than Australia seem to manage. As a 'sometime' aspiring inventor my sense is that the Australian venture capital market is quite unsophisticated compared to say; that in California. There is an interesting essay entitled "What is the Difference Between Gambling and Investing" here http://www.investorguide.com/article/12525/what-is-the-difference-between-g… <http://www.investorguide.com/article/12525/what-is-the-difference-between-g…> and my own thoughts here Gambling_Investment_and_Stochastic_Profit.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0aOfcVEMVoKWHZRNlNGdFg3TlE/edit?usp=shari… regards Rohan McLeod >

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Re: [luv-talk] Can anyone help with an urgent bitcoin transaction?
by Peter Ross 08 Aug '14

08 Aug '14

From: "Russell Coker" <russell(a)coker.com.au> > On Wed, 6 Aug 2014 13:24:36 Brian Parish wrote: >> Useful info. And yes the hole has been closed on this and every other >> NAS >> we know of out there, but of course that's just this hole... > > So they directly attacked the NAS? Can you provide any information on how > that happened? I'm sure I'm not the only person here who has clients > using > NASs for important stuff and not backing it up well. http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=88770 http://www.zdnet.com/ransomware-attacks-synology-nas-devices-7000032335/ Regards Peter

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Swap meet at MAUG meeting from 8:15pm tonight, 7 Kellaway Avenue, Moonee Ponds.
by David E Payne 07 Aug '14

07 Aug '14

This meeting will be the AGM and Swap meet (attendance fee is $3) MAUG AGM's are notoriously short... lasting on average 5-15 minutes If you sell something we ask that you pay $2 or a fair percentage of the sale towards the user group. We expect to have a range of hardware and software for sale. That includes a couple of A500's and an FPGA board https://groups.yahoo.com/group/MAUG for the MAUG egroup. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Dav* > "Some of the above comments seem to be critical of Allen > Shaheen for > being a slimy, incompetent, "MBA-weilding moron" with no > qualifications whatsoever to run a software product company. > As > someone who has worked with him, I'd just like to set the > record > straight: Allen does not have an MBA. > > -- Ex ArsDigita, April 25, 2001" (who mis-spelled > "wielding?") > http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/

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Can anyone help with an urgent bitcoin transaction?
by Brian Parish 06 Aug '14

06 Aug '14

We have a customer who has been bitten by synolocker. So at present their NAS is encrypted, their backups are not looking good and therefore they are willing to pay the 0.6 bitcoin ransom demanded and hope to get their data back. Catch is that we have not previously established a bitcoin account and it seems that there's no good way of doing that which allows the required transaction within the short time limit required. So I'm looking for someone who has a bitcoin account, who can do a 0.6 BC transaction for us without having to serve 7 day waiting periods. We can do a verified EFT transfer to cover it plus a bit extra for your trouble if you can help us out. thanks in advance and best regards Brian

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