BaSH PR0MPT

Most of you would have seen the amusing video I posted of about five seconds of footage filmed off a television by an iPhone 3GS, that was looped into a parody, of a Pakistani ‘special police’ officer dealing with a seige where he .. well, he does a barrel roll. He’s laying down and rolls to the left, then looks around and realised he didn’t go too far, so does it again, and again. Not getting behind any cover and just basically making himself look like a dick.

Well, this morning I recieved a DCMA copyright infringement complaint filed by a “michael Green” [sic] who claims original ownership of the content. Given that it sounds like bullshit, and it is defendable as it’s fair use under the DMCA, I’ve decided to fight it and see where it goes.

I’ll update with more when I find out what YouTube has to say on the matter, given their knee jerk reactions to DCMA. Below is the notification I recieved, dramatically it was in stark red. :)

ATTENTION

We have received copyright complaint(s) regarding material that you posted, as follows:

* from michael Green about Pakistani Police Do a Barrel Roll – bashpr0mpt
Video ID: W9pNOY0qtxw

Please note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos that you have uploaded. Please delete any videos for which you do not own the necessary rights and refrain from uploading infringing videos.

If you are unsure what this means, it is very important for you to visit our Copyright Tips guide.

If one of your postings has been misidentified as infringing, you may submit a counter-notification. Information about this process is in our Help Centre.

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material was disabled due to mistake or misidentification may be liable for damages.

For your reference, a copy of this message has been sent to you via email and can also be located in your Account Warnings page.

South Korea deployed a sentry robot capable of detecting and killing intruders along the heavily fortified border with North Korea, officials said overnight.

“Our military has been testing such robots along the border,” a defence ministry spokesman said.

Two robots with surveillance, tracking, firing and voice recognition systems were integrated into a single unit, he said, declining to give details.

The robot unit costing 400 million won ($US330,000) was installed last month at a guard post in the central section of the Demilitarized Zone which bisects the peninsula, Yonhap news agency said.

It quoted an unidentified military official as saying the ministry would deploy sentry robots along the world’s last Cold War frontier if the test is successful.

The robot uses heat and motion detectors to sense possible threats, and alerts command centres, Yonhap said.

If the command centre operator cannot identify possible intruders through the robot’s audio or video communications system, the operator can order it to fire its gun or automatic grenade launcher.

South Korea is also developing highly sophisticated combat robots armed with weapons and sensors that could complement human soldiers on battlefields.

It has a largely conscripted military of 655,000 against Pyongyang’s 1.2 million-strong force, but a falling birth rate means Seoul will struggle in the future to maintain troop numbers.

A New York judge has issued a temporary restraining order restricting the transfer of Facebook Inc.’s assets, following a suit by a New York man who claims to own an 84% stake in the social-networking company.

Paul D. Ceglia filed a suit in the Supreme Court of New York’s Allegany County on June 30, claiming that a 2003 contract he signed with Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg entitles him to ownership of the company and monetary damages.

The suit is being heard by Judge Thomas Brown, who issued the temporary restraining order earlier this month. Facebook has requested that the case be moved to federal court.

In his suit, Mr. Ceglia claims he signed a contract with Mr. Zuckerberg on April 28, 2003, to develop and design a website, paying a $1,000 fee but getting a 50% stake in the product. The contract stipulated that Mr. Ceglia would get an additional 1% interest in the business for every day after Jan. 1, 2004, until it was completed.

In a statement, a spokesman for closely held Facebook said, “We believe this suit is completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously.”

Mr. Ceglia didn’t return calls seeking comment. His lawyer, Paul A. Argentieri, also didn’t return a call for comment.

It’s unclear how Mr. Ceglia might have become involved with Mr. Zuckerberg.

A copy of the contract seen by The Wall Street Journal says it is “for the purchase and design of a suitable website for the project Seller [Mr. Zuckerberg] has already initiated that is designed to offer the students of Harvard university [sic] access to a wesite [sic] similar to a live functioning yearbook with the working title of ‘The Face Book.’”

The date of the contract appears to conflict with previous accounts of the creation of Facebook. Mr. Zuckerberg built a predecessor to Facebook called Facemash in October and November 2003, but Mr. Zuckerberg didn’t register the domain thefacebook.com until January 2004.

In 2009, New York’s Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo accused Mr. Ceglia of defrauding customers of his wood-pellet fuel company, according to a news release from the Attorney General’s office.

The state claimed that he took more than $200,000 from consumers and then failed to deliver any products or refunds. The wood-pellet case is ongoing.

Victor P. Goldberg, who teaches contracts at Columbia University’s Law School, said the Facebook contract lawsuit may get tripped up by the statute of limitations, which is six years in New York.

He also said the contract itself was unusual, because it doesn’t stipulate what else Mr. Zuckerberg would have gotten from Mr. Ceglia aside from $1,000.

Adam Oliveri, managing director of New York-based SecondMarket, a company that helps early employees and investors in Facebook trade shares of the private company, said such trading continues and that he didn’t expect the suit would have much impact on such deals.

“I think people will read this and take it to be a lawsuit that will be dealt with pretty quickly by Facebook,” said Mr. Oliveri.

Facebook has grown explosively in recent years, and has about 500 million users globally. Along the way, the company has wrestled with other challenges over its early ownership and origins, and with user privacy issues.Facebook

What do these three have in common? 100% of ‘unfollower’ script users I’ve encountered match this demographic. On further examination, all of them are wannabe Twitter rockstars, following Justin Beiber, and maybe three or four others, while bragging about their awesome fanbase of 50 – 60 followers, almost all of which are spambots on closer scrutiny. 100%. 100% of ALL unfollower script users. For those who don’t know, they’re lame scripts that spam and try and ‘shame’ people who’ve unfollowed these twats into adding them back or otherwise giving a crap you unfollowed them.

Thus, this is an urgent plea. If you are female, live in Indonesia, and have ‘beiber’ in any way shape or form in your username, biography, or fuck .. anywhere, please, please, please remove me and go drown yourself in the bathtub. You’re not a Twitter rockstar, you’re just some fucking crazed fangirl, and you’re fat. Yes, you are. No, your mother was lying, she’s biased. Go fuck a yak.

Having finally bothered to upgrade to the latest iPhone OS and firmware I was rather unimpressed with the changes. The ‘multitasking’ is bullshit, you can double tap the home button and get a hot swap menu like a mini version of the windows task bar, but swapping to another program halts the current program. So it’s not multitasking at all, it’s merely hot swapping.

Aside from that there’s a lame animation cut scene between all actions of menu items exploding out or in depending on whether you’re entering or exiting a program. There’s red underline under typographical errors, yet it still refuses to learn profanity.

Oh, also during the upgrade expect to lose all your thumbnails of prior images, they’re still there but you can only access them from a computer. Also you’ll lose most of your apps, and all your SMS backlog; even a restore of prior phone records does not seem to rectify this.

There was a mining tax brought in that heavily taxed non-Australian companies looking to exploit our natural resources (exploit being used in it’s nomenclature as what one does to resources, not implying they were doing anything wrong) which would ensure that we, the people of Australia, get our fair share of our assets, splitting profits with the mining corporations 50/50 almost.

This pissed off the faction leaders most of all and gave them a strong standing point to pretend it was all about the tax. What it appears to really have been about is shanking him as he’d delivered on everything they wanted but was focusing more on the people than the politicking bitches in Canberra.

Even well leading up to this there was an uneccessry emphasis in the media on Rudd being a ‘lame duck’. This was simply not true, but an effective method when you consider the low intelligence of the average person and their liability to ‘feel’ and follow sensationalism as opposed to stepping back and evaluating things critically. Rudd was being criticised like assinine twats in high school would, delving into his personality, his look, his speech, everything but the fact he’d followed through with MORE of his election promises than any prior leader and has truly future proofed our nation.

We still have the same policies being applied but with a different leader. It’ll be interesting to see what happens now Gillard has washed the blood off her hands. Regardless, it’s a sad day for libertarians and democracy in Australia. Governments in the party system arguably enough don’t represent or speak for their people for the most part but now I can truly say;

Our government is illegimate and does not represent the will of the people of Australia. Tyranny and betrayal is superior to the votes cast. And if you rock up with the Minister for Defence by your side you’ll always win the coup.

Farewell democratic lipservice they used to give us to make us at least -slightly- delude ourselves we’re a free state.

Quick to bad mouth the ousted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the media has played a very curious role in the overnight shock coup run by faction leaders and unions in the Australian Labor Party. The first thing you’ll note is, they’re avoiding the word ‘coup’ even though (and I questioned my language and read up on it) that is what went down. News Ltd, who run most Australian news sources went one step further. News Ltd was very apt at pulling apart everything Rudd did mind you, but they went as far as to even avoid reference to factions, in fighting, or even weasel words like ‘leadership challenge’ and opted for the word ‘spill.’

I’ve had a dozen or so people ask me today what a spill is; my response is the same that history will reflect if you try and research this disgusting coup against the will of the people. Spill is what BP’s oil is doing in the ocean right now. And even at present google yields barely a blip of this political ‘spill.’

The media at present are focusing on the positivity, highlighting that she’s a woman and thus it’s exciting, amazing, and different. Claiming that it wouldn’t be the same if it’s ‘another boring man in a suit’ per one News Ltd commentator. They’re lining up for fallacious logic that if you oppose her it’s because you have a problem with a woman in power (creepy, as I wrote that a political commentator just said that on Channel Nine).

I am happy to have a woman in power and think it’s long overdue. Given that the majority of Australians are female, it makes sense. It’s as overdue as a non-white president was for the US, not that the supression of womens rights here is even comparable to the hostilities and suffering of non-white Americans. What disgusts me is; our first prime minister took power through backstabbing a great bloke who followe through with almost all his promises in record time, a man who (as an ALP PM a rarity (ALP aren’t business savvy like the Libs are, for the sake of non Australians, and usually lead us into a lot of debt but improve living conditions where as Libs lead us into the black and fuck our few constitutional rights in the arse)) saw us through the Global Financial Crisis while emerging unscathed with one of the worlds strongest economies.

He was a man of the people and a populis elect by far, but he trod on the toes of union hard men and wanky factional leaders; the same leaders I was proud in 2010 appeared to have no control over the government with them tending more to our interests than the faction leaders.

To this very minute they’re still dodging the word coup.

I’ve been having billing, speed, and now shaping issues since I started with Bigpond when I was lured over to them during the TPG nightmare after calling Tracy in their complaints department who put me onto Scott who was pretty obtuse and was just tennising me around as far as my problem but asked cockily why I don’t just use Bigpond. I replied that I wrote them off immediately because their pricing is utterly unrealistic compared to every other ISP where I’d get for $39 what they sell for $200ish. He told me they can match and pitched $89 flat for ADSL2+ 200GB @ 20MBPS guaranteed. I agreed, he put me back on to Tracy to sign me up, poof lost connection. I’ve been chasing that offer since, and was talked into signing up for $129 plus $9 (phone) for -100- GB with a guarantee of 20MBPS or the contract is void, and I’ve yet to see half of 20MBPS but sure have had some interesting problems since. (For Telstra’s sake I’ve included my most recent phone logs, on my old PC I’ve got a crapload more if you want them.)

I’ve been getting obscenely large bills, but one was a telephony charge error for an install that didn’t happen, but I’m still getting charged $40 something per month for my home phone even though the ‘fishing bundle’ I was offered took into account my Foxtel and home phone. I’m refusing to pay the Bigpond bill until they sort out my speed issue because frankly I don’t trust them, but at 1:20 last night I noticed my speed was about 40 kbps.

Ringing up to complain this morning, I got told that I was over cap (100gb, nowai?) at 55 gb, I pointed out that that was the first thing I checked, she then stated since then I’ve downloaded 450 gb. I professed that as much as I’d like to break the laws of physics, I can’t. She palmed me off to billing.

So, Telstra, if you’re reading this, can you please sort this out for me? My username is bashprompt [at ] bigpond, of course. Let me know if you can halp via Twitter kthx. :)

8:22 AM 15/06/2010 Called Telstra after noting that my service was suspended after refusing to pay an erroneous bill of $607 whilst I have yet to receieve satisfactory service from their Bigpond department (Contract implicitly states in no uncertain terms 20mbps minimum service). Spoke with a female named ‘Miles’, she asked me if I’d be paying, I declined as the bill is still in error and I am not receiving adequate speed per contract.

Period they are claiming for landline is Feb to July, which should be 5@$9.90 $49.50, however the first month was TPG naked DSL thus the cost was incurred by and paid for by TPG, so that should be $39.60.

The period they are claiming for ADSL2+ is March to July which would be 4@$109.90 thus $439, however as I explained to them, and as is written in my case notes as an addendum to my contract I made the signing agent write IN to my contract that I will not be paying nor will I be bound to them for net access contractually until they provide ADSL2+ speeds, of which I am receiving approximately half the speed required for it to be in that standard.

I made a token payment of 40.44 (Receipt# 1667704396) for the landline, which is what they are claiming the ‘month’ bill was, will make additional to meet $49.50 once I sort out the Bigpond issue. Still yet to find the mythical $89.99 flat offer that Scott (manager from complaints) offered me that juped me into signing on with Bigpond with promise that they’d track him down on his offer, I don’t understand why I’m paying $129 for what iPrimus offer for $49 naked.

8:34 AM 15/06/2010 Transferred to billing department, spoke with a woman who explained that they weren’t taking into account my Foxtel and hadn’t set up the billing for the account properly which is why my landline was twice what it should be, she asked several other details of me to be able to find my Foxtel account to link it. After ten minutes of waiting with intermittant comments from her saying the computer was still trying to find my account she terminated the call without comment. They have my contact number, will see if they try and call me back or whether I’ve just been ditched.

7:17 AM 21/06/2010 Contacted Telstra technical support to report my connection running well below agreed speed, pulling 50kbps instead of 20,000kbps (20mbps). Placed on hold. 7:27 AM 21/06/2010 call terminated by Telstra end, ditched again, yey.

7:28 AM 21/06/2010 Called Bigpond back, again, went through to an operator but was placed on hold immediately, spoke with Rachel, explained that I’m calling about the same issue. She said I’ve used 55gb and I’m shaped, I explained I’m on the 100gb plan, she stated I’ve used 450gb from the last time I checked (1:26 AM was when I checked my usage last, with the problem presenting at 1:20), I explained that’s simply impossible. She told me to contact 137663 3 3 regarding billing. I asked why I have to contact billing, she said because they’re closed. I asked why that’s even an issue given that it’s a technical fault, she said that they have very limited access to function on accounts and billing are the only ones who can look into cap issues. I pointed out that this is very unprofessional and that tech support should handle all this behind the scenes as an in house issue not palm the customer off just because they can’t solve the problem prima facie. She had no idea what I was talking about, so I thanked her and will contact billing.

Waking up I found that more people suffered foot in mouth disease, with another racism row in some silly ball sport as always. This time some eighty year old dildo referred to Australian aboriginies as ‘cannibals’, pointing out the ‘lights were off’ so he couldn’t pick any of them. Sunrise featured a backpedal by Koshy for an ‘Italian’ joke, where he tried to argue dissimilarity between the two instances of racism.

One thing I question is, is there a responsibility within the media to ignore, or at least not sensationalise dicks? I mean, it’s all well and good to scream public right to know, but do I really care or want to know that some anachronistic cunt who played some random three letter abbreviated version of football thinks X or Y? Public right to know more often than not leads to sensationalism which makes for ‘good reading’ for the media, but destroys lives and keeps alive debates that shouldn’t even be debatable anymore.

The irony of football variants, for those outside Australia, is that most of the best players in the last few decades have been indigenous Australians, so for ‘footy fans’ to show racism let alone established icons when the victim of their jibes are the people who’ve launched the game to whole new levels of competativeness and talent is pretty daft.

As if the confirmation that the microbes found in the 90′s in a chunk of Mars as life wasn’t a kick in the nuts enough this month, or the finding of LIVING life on Titan, or water on Europa this year. If religion wasn’t disproven enough for people to stop killing each other because X doesn’t follow Y sect or some sociopathic nonsense, then the following is a proof that $deity hates Christians: -

A SIX- storey-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm on last night and burned to the ground, police said.

The King of Kings statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The sculpture, nearly 19 metres tall and 12 metres wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signalling a touchdown in a game of football.

The Dukan Diet. It may well be lauded as the Atkins diet for a new generation with an eating plan promising to drop as much as a half a kilogram a day, the Dukan Diet has been adopted by some of Hollywood’s elite and is now seeing results here in Australia.

It is designed by French doctor Pierre Dukan and is burning up a calorie trail of media hype and hope across 20 countries. The first phase is called the Attack Phase. For 2-7 days eat as much as you want of 72 protein-rich foods.

In the second phase dieters introduce unlimited amounts of vegetables with their lean meats and fish. The third phase adds fruit, cheese and starchy foods and celebration meals a week. The fourth phase follows the basic rules of phase three and continues maintaining weight loss.

Before you rush out and get ripped off by the gimmick, below I will outline the entire diet plan and save you a heap of money. But first and foremost, the entire reason of this post is, I wanted to laugh (and share the lol) at the amount of weight loss expected.

6 kilograms per month. You can SHIT more than that in one or two (pun intended) sittings.

The ultimate REAL diet still remains: Eat less, move more. The end.

Herein lies the scam and gimmickry: -

The Kick-Start Soup Diet recipe
Enough for one person for two daysIngredients
3 tomatoes
2 large cans of crushed tomatoes
2 cans of liquid stock (beef, chicken or vegetable)
2 cups of water
1 packet of vegetable or French onion dry soup powder
1 bunch spring onions
1 bunch of celery, including leaves
2 cups of green beans
3 green capsicums
1kg carrots

2 stock cubes (chicken, beef or vegie)
Method

1. Chop all the vegies into small pieces and put them in a big pot with the remaining ingredients.

2. Add salt and pepper (not too much salt).

3. Boil rapidly for two minutes and simmer until it is nice and tender.

4. If you want it thinner add a bit more water.

Have as much of the soup as you want, whenever you want.

Seven-day eating plan
The quantities recommended are per day.

Avoid toast and cereal for breakfast while on this plan. Stick with the recommended foods for each day.

You should only follow this seven-day eating plan for a maximum of three times in six months.
Day one

SOUP AND FRUIT: Eat any fruit except bananas because they are high in kilojoules. Eat as much as you want. If you do not want soup for breakfast, have a fruit salad instead.
Day two

SOUP AND VEGIES, NO FRUIT: Eat as much fresh, raw or lightly steamed vegies as you like. Leafy greens are great but avoid peas, corn and beans as they are high in sugar. Reward yourself at night with a jacket potato, a little butter or better still, some yoghurt.
Day three

SOUP, VEGIES AND FRUIT: Eat all you want but no potatoes.
Day four

SOUP AND BANANA SMOOTHIES: Make a banana smoothie with low-fat or skim milk because it is a great source of potassium. Have a maximum of three large bananas per day.
Day five

SOUP, BEEF AND TOMATOES: Eat a piece of lean beef or a skinless breast of chicken no bigger than a deck of cards with six luscious tomatoes. Vegetarians can substitute tofu. These quantities are per day. You can go easy on the soup today.
Day six

SOUP, BEEF AND VEGIES: Eat plenty of beef (or skinless chicken or fish) and vegies today. Again, vegetarians can substitute tofu. You might not need soup as much but your body will tell you. No potatoes.
Day seven

SOUP, BROWN RICE, VEGIES AND FRUIT JUICE: You might need more soup today.

Remember: do not eat any bread, fried foods or oil on the seven-day plan.
Drinks

* While on the plan, do not have any soft drinks or alcohol.
* You can drink unsweetened fruit juice or cranberry juice; black, green or herbal tea (you can have skim milk with black tea); coffee; skim milk and plenty of water – six to eight glasses a day.

Side effects

* Because you’re not consuming many carbohydrates, some may find the glucose in their bloodstream becomes too low, causing hypoglycaemia.
* This can cause a range of symptoms, such as headache, sweatiness, anxiety, irritability and drowsiness.
* Don’t worry, it might sound awful but it’s easily fixed.
* Have a sandwich with whole-grain bread, a slice of low-fat cheese and a bit of ham but no butter or margarine. Vegetarians can try a low-fat cheese and tomato sandwich. But only have a maximum of one sandwich per day.
* If these symptoms occur repeatedly consult your doctor.

What happens now?

By the end of the seven days you may have lost as much as 4-6kg, if you haven’t put on those walking shoes and gone for a daily walk you won’t have lost as much.

If you lose more than 6kg on stage one do not attempt the stage again for a few months. Go on to stage two.

You should only follow this seven-day eating plan for a maximum of three times in six months. Once you’ve reached this maximum take six months off the plan and follow the low-GI program.

Once you’ve completed the seven-day eating plan it is time to move on to stage two – a long-term, low-GI eating plan.

Before starting any new eating plan you should consult your doctor to see if it is right for you, particularly if you are taking any medication.

While stage one of the Kick-Start Diet brings rapid weight loss, you should not stay on it for more than two weeks.

At that point stage two begins, where a lot of the carbohydrates you have been avoiding can slowly be returned to your diet.

The most important part of this stage is to be careful about which carbohydrates you add to your diet.
GI carbohydrates

* The ideal carbohydrates have a low glycemic index (GI).
* Foods are ranked on a GI scale from 0 to 100 where a high GI value is 70 or more, a medium GI is 56 to 69 and a low GI is 55 or less.
* Foods with a high GI stimulate your pancreas to produce insulin, which flows out and sucks the glucose into the cells.
* In a short period of time your hunger will come back and you will feel like eating again.
* Good carbohydrates, such as whole-grain bread or an apple, enter the bloodstream slowly and don’t cause a serve of insulin, which means you stay fuller for longer.
* The big problem in all diets where weight loss occurs is that people feel hungry.
* By consuming carbohydrates with a low GI you can get all the energy you need, lose weight and not be as hungry.

Protein

* Stage two also increases the amount of protein from lean beef, lamb, pork and from fish and eggs that can be consumed.
* For vegetarians tofu is important in this stage of the diet.

Fats and oils

* Saturated-fat intake must be controlled; this fat increases the cholesterol in your blood, which can lead to heart attack and stroke.
* The ideal fats are called mono or polyunsaturated fats and come from vegetable oils and olives – but it is still important to use even these fats in moderation.
* The other valuable oil is omega 3, which comes from oily fish and from some vegetables. This oil is heart-protective.

Exercise

* Just as exercise is terribly important in stage one of the Kick-Start diet, it is equally important for weight loss in stage two – the GI component.
* Thirty to 60 minutes of exercise a day is ideal for weight loss to occur.
* Try walking to a puff, gardening or even housekeeping; whatever you do, exercise is essential for weight loss.

Side effects

* If not consuming many carbohydrates, some may find the glucose in their bloodstream becomes too low, causing hypoglycemia.
* This can cause a range of symptoms, such as headache, sweatiness, anxiety, irritability and drowsiness.
* Plan to eat small meals every three hours if you find you have such symptoms.
* Avoid rushing to eat high-GI foods when you feel the symptoms, as such snacks will make them worse.
* If symptoms occur repeatedly consult your doctor.

Watch what you eat

Here are some tips for controlling your food intake from Professor Jennie Brand-Miller, author of Losing Weight: The New Glucose Revolution.
1. Use hunger as a cue for eating, not the time of day.
2. Eat a low GI carbohydrate food when you’re hungry – these foods are the most satiating.
3. Slow down when you eat to give your stomach a chance to let your brain know that it is full.
4. When you’re thinking about eating, ask yourself how hungry you really are.
5. Delay eating for 30 minutes – true hunger will return.
6. Don’t buy foods you don’t want to eat.
7. Indulge in the occasional treat; lollies are more satiating than chocolates.
8. Give yourself time to make changes in your habits; it takes about six weeks for your tastebuds to readjust.
9. Once you have served your meal put the remaining food away so it is out of sight.
10. Keep busy during the day.

11. Don’t restrain your food intake excessively – be sensible about it.

The 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 78th running, also known as the Grand Prix of Endurance, with nearly 250,000 spectators at the scene and billions watching. The race took place on 12–13 June 2010 at the usual Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France, and was organised by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO). Fifty-six cars participated in the event, organized into four categories, with only 27 finishing, and one poor bugger not even starting. It was, as usual, dominated by Germany, England and France.

The race was won by the No. 9 Audi R15 TDI plus driven by Mike Rockenfeller, Timo Bernhard, and Romain Dumas as Audi swept the overall race podium to earn their ninth overall victory, placing 1st, 2nd and 3rd with their 2009 Audi le mans prototype (LMP) R15 TDI plus running a 5.5L V10 turbo engine.

A new overall distance record was also set with the winning car completing 397 laps and covering 5,410.7 km (3,362.1 mi), bettering the distance set in 1971. Honda, under the guise of HPD, won on their debut in the LMP2 category at Le Mans in the hands of Strakka Racing placing 5th in an Acura ARX-01C.

Larbre Compétition earned famed tuner-house Saleen their first LMGT1 category victory at Le Mans since the car first appeared in 2001, proving that Saleen can do more than just tune up Ford and GM sports models turning them into breakneck suicide machines.

French racing team Oreca beat out Astin-Martin’s Lola placing 4th pushing AM-Lola to 5th, using their new is a Le Mans Prototype built by Oreca Racing in 2009. The Oreca-01 replaced the Courage-Oreca LC70 raced previously by Oreca. It is powered by an engine from Japanese engine company AIM Power. It is a tuned Judd engine that develops 650 bhp 485 kW, all of which kicks in at 7300 rpm. And yes ladies and gentlemen, my car almost puts out nearly that many kilowatts; so what do you say next year you all donate to BaSH’s suicide fund and help me churn out a LMP? :P

The current smash hit game by Remedy, Alan Wake, is one of the few games I’ve followed since dev and bought within a day or two of it’s release in Australia. This is a rarity for me but I’m a big fan of horror survival thrillers. Only expect 470ish gamer points out of this from your first play through, just getting that out up front as I found it pretty disheartening as far as bang for buck goes.

The game play is very dynamic and funky, it’s got a third person RPG feel to it, with the shooter side taken care of through your recticle, which is a torch light. The game feels massive, but the reality is it isn’t as sandbox as it seems; your paths are very limited and the game is very much on rails. It kind of feels like what Final Fantasy XIII wanted to be when it grows up, except minus upgrades, leveling, grinding, etc.

It does committ some of the biggest crimes in gaming though. Two paths, the wrong way always leads to some item you need. Every friggen major cut scene you lose all your shit, over and over and over. It relies on atmosphere and freak outs which has zero effect on me, and it felt a lot like Silent Hill. Silent Hill turns me off fast because I know that the only winning move is not to play, it’s on rails with very little requisite put on cunning, intelligence, or any element that differentiates a geeky gamer from the generic garden variety.

The plot is very derivative, but in this instance I would say that’s one of the games strong points. Some things I feel were influences to the screenplay and narrative of this game would be a mix between Stephen King’s regular narratives about writers, Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds, a giant heap of James Cameron’s In the Mouth of Madness, a strong element of King’s The Mist, and a little hint of The Abyss.

You can almost predict the story as it progresses but it’s a fun little game. It got me into it pretty good but aside from wrong-way-leads-to-loot there’s also the down to go up / up to go down stupidity you find in almost all games, with the least expected logical route being the most logical route because you know they’re trying to fuck with you. Also they put an emphasis on finite weapons so you feel vulnerable, and the whole as soon as you’re feeling relaxed / successful there’ll be a deus ex machina to bring on the dread.

It didn’t feel as futile as Silent Hill though tbh, proof is in the fact I finishe it! ;

8/10.

Today I wanted to find a new bass guitar. After selecting instruments > guitars > bass guitars, even still I had to use about fifty -tags to remove ‘straps’, ‘stickers’, ‘posters’, ‘dildo’s, you name it. There’s so much chaff if you search cheapest first too, it’s woeful.

I think wanted to see how cheap iPhone 3G’s are selling, again same situation, I’ve got twenty -tags in the heuristics and zip, so much rubbish associated with the keywords, even in the actual categories.

There were a few other items, including a typewriter (if any of you have an old one you don’t want .. let me know!) which had posters, stickers, magnets, photocopies of fucking newspaper adverts from the 1950′s, EVERYTHING but typewriters.

There’s just so much pollution on eBay that there’s not even any point in reporting dodgy listings because the sellers use applications which list a metric fucktonne of items at the same time, so even if you spent your entire life reporting and flagging you wouldn’t even make a DENT in the mountain of crap piling up.

eBay really need to change the way they sort and file things, or restrict sales prices. You’re pretty much guaranteed the first fifty pages listed cheapest first will be $0.01 items with $55,000 postage tags, and if you choose cheapest first + cheapest postage you get friggen photocopies of the item you want. Seriously, wtf?

The singer’s own choice “Alejandro”, initially saw poor reception radio-wise, thereby was not seen as a viable choice for a single. A quarrel then arose between Gaga and her label where “Alejandro” was ultimately chosen to be released. Through her account on Twitter, the singer remarked on the decision, “Alejandro is on the radio. Fuck it sounds so good, we did it little monsters.”

^– PROTIP: NEVER ARGUE WITH THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE A LIVING SELLING SHIT MUSIC TO US IDIOTS. Your management were right, your song flopped first release, and now it’ll flop again.

With the double dipping that musicians are doing these days of re-releasing year old tracks with video clips to try and rechart or at least drive more attention to their work, Lady Gaga has made her first absolutely pathetic decision as the smart business woman she ultimately is; her song choice.

Alejandro was a weak B-side on her second album that feels like it was released a decade ago now, it’s been regurgitated by tasteless twats in TV stations on adverts in the form of snips or bytes, but on viewing this video not only did I find the song as utterly lamented, uninspired and lackluster as I did the first time I heard it, and the tenth to twentieth time I heard it until I -deleted- it from my iPhone entirely (I was friggen embarassed as hell when that shit came on the radio in the car man, c’mon.) I’ve got to say that Lady Gaga herself was equally rank in the clip.

It’s a drastically different style than the rest of her clips, her first few tended to be very artistic but then she seemed to get into the ghetto groove rap clip genre teaming up with whats-her-face, you know, that other bint. Anyway, her make-up was repulsive, she had huge manky nails and grossly applied nail polish, and her hair looked like a drunken Western Australian shearsman took to her whilst pissed off his norks. It’s the most unflattering I’ve seen of her, short of any candid photo of her that hasn’t been post produced, or her wonderful ‘before surgery’ photos, back when she had the dog face, well, doggier face.

This new clip left me facepalming repeatedly, but it also gave me a sense of irony as musicians grasp greedily at the potential coffer filling nuggets of gold from obsessed fans–of which I might ad I am far from, and never will be after this release–but it’s kind of amusing to see something from someone so usually massively successful fall flat on it’s face receiving horrific reviews all over the place. God, even Wikipedia seems to slam it, and that’s their neutral review.

Has she lost her edge? I have a feeling she’ll recover, but who knows, let’s watch and find out. Oh, and if a Lady Gaga PR monkey happens by this (and let’s face it, PR data miners probably will), here’s a big protip, SEX TAPE, SEX TAPE. Got it? Gave Paris a career, a vag slip didn’t save Britney or Lindsay though, so clearly it’s the sex tape man. But don’t let Gaga do the directing! As much as I’d enjoy seeing an alsation and two black midgets rail her pooper, I think something more home porn would suffice, k?

She has Tweeted about everything from here lofty career goals, her self doubt to her love life but Lara Bingle has declared she is no longer a Twit deleting her Twitter account yesterday. Non-Australian’s may remember her as the buxomly boobied bint behind the “Where the bloody hell are you?” tourism campaign that got many a conservatives knickers in a knot over in the UK and other countries, Australian’s just remember her from the single lonely solitary naked picture of her on the internet that made her throw a wobbly and break up with her boyfriend (fiance? whatever, she’s suing him for ‘half’ his ‘fortune’ regardless, so may as well be husband, right?) and .. well, not much else.

Currently in New York, Bingle came under fire after asking her more than 16,000 Twitter followers whether they thought she should pursue legal career at the prestigious New York Law School. It seems the proceeding criticism by a gossip columnist about the model’s lack of a high school eduction was the final straw, as Bingle deleted her long-held account just hours later. Please take a moment to note that I’m well over 16,000 followers and in no way an international celebrity; so for lack of a better perjorative, Lara .. NERNER. :)

Unlike many celebrities Bingle has always been very open on her social media account using it both to communicate with fans, friends and former partner Michael Clarke. During the very public breakdown between the bikini model and the cricket captain earlier this year, her updates kept the world informed on her very private feelings.

She also made her feelings clear on just what she thought of many of fellow twits too posting “I wonder just how many of my followers are actually haters!!!’”

Well it seems finally too many to handle.

With the recent slaying of a Chubb security guard, the greater population of Australia have finally begun to realise how anachronistic we are as a nation, and NSW especially as a state. Dismiss this as you may–by you I mean the mug who’s paid to read the @nswpolice twitter account daily in the PR department–but my demographic reach is pretty bloody huge and I’m definitely not being radical in what I’m about to say.

In the 1960′s you outlawed mag wheels because they were ‘unsafe’, now you can’t buy a car without them, you were slow to allow the legalisation of lap and sash seat belts, and air bags, oh no, they’re so dangerous. That was the police force then, back when it was rife with corruption and idiocy that clearly was ousted with the modernisation of humanity as a whole, right?

Wrong. It’s 2010, you’ve got CCTV all over the shop, you’ve got friggen biometrics at central station recording faces, you’ve got DNA profiling of people locked up for being drunk or louts, you’ve got firearms, chemical weapons, batons, high powered luxury performance vehicles (of which I’ve seen many doing burn outs around Prospect in a certain field near the reservoir, heh) fucking choppers, speed checking planes, speed traps, multi-nova’s coming in, red light cameras doubling as speed traps, and oh, I forgot to mention, this is SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA. Not fucking Los Angeles. You’re equipped with what the LA cops use to contain rioters, murderers, serial killers, and drug barons. And you’ve got 1/3rd the crime rate of the UK.

What do they have in the UK? A kosh, a loud voice, and a really fucking small cheap efficient car.

Now that I’ve utterly lambasted you and pointed out the heinous stupidity of our modern ‘force’, I submit to you one more thing that’s food for thought.

I will type this slowly because I know your legal department read slowly, ready?

Why .. are .. ballistic vests .. prohibited .. WEAPONS?

Are you worried someone’s going to slap the shit out of someone with a ceramic insert? Seriously, this is patent nonsense. I really recommend you take note of the backlash that law has taken in the media of late, and I really hope you don’t oppose their legalisation because no other nation in the world has any form of passive protection, and VERY few indeed have any legislation infringing PERSONAL protection (unlike your laws that practically make it illegal for any home owner to own any item or device that can in any way save themselves or their family from harm and thereby making them entirely reliant on your protective coverage (see: 1970′s standover tactics of the mafia, am I right?)) because it’s nonsense.

The only possible reason I can think that you guys oppose it is because you’ll actually have to learn how to shoot, OR possibly because you’ll have to use ammunition which isn’t illegal under the geneva convention of warfare like your hollow points are; but let’s face it, dead men tell no tales, am I right boys?

Don’t be stupid, provide the poor bastards who carry our cash with protection, in fact provide anyone with passive protection any free person deserves.

We may have seen some grainy images of the new iPhone leaked onto a website earlier than Steve Jobs would have liked but the Apple boss still had plenty of surprises up his sleeve when he officially revealed iPhone 4 today. It goes without saying that every time Stevie steps up to a microphone our world is revolutionised and we take ten big paces into the future. It’s a shame Billy and he don’t play well together, we’d be a brave new world with those two.

On to the brain candy. The new iPhone 4 features an all-new look and design, an updated operating system and the ability to make video calls.

Jobs took the stage to deliver his keynote address for the WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC) at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco today for the expected new iPhone reveal. “Stop me if you’ve seen this before,” Jobs said tongue-in-cheek on stage in reference to the incident which saw an early version of the new iPhone end up lost/stolen in a Redwood City bar and turn up on the Gizmodo tech blog.

iPhone 4, which will be available in Australia in July, is just 9.3mm thick – which is 24 per cent thinner than the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S. In fact, Jobs called the iPhone “the thinnest smartphone in the world” . iPhone 4 will be available in black or white and in 16GB and 32GB capacities.

“This is our new baby, we hope you love it as much as we do,” Jobs said.

The iPhone 4 is framed with an aluminium band which is designed to not only provide structural strength and more volume to cram in all the technology but it is designed to work as the phone’s antenna as well.

There are two microphones, one for use during calls and the other to assist with noise cancellation for better audio quality while making those calls. But the real eye-catcher was the 3.5-inch touchscreen which boasts an all-new technology called retina display.

Retina display provides 326 pixels per square inch to deliver a remarkably sharp screen which is greater than the limit of the human retina at 300 pixels. The screen resolution is 960 x 640 which is four times better than the existing iPhone. Also four times better is the iPhone 4’s 800:1 contrast ratio.

Web pages now render much clearer, as do pictures and video. Speaking of pictures and video, there is also an upgraded camera on board with 5MP resolution and with a built-in LED flash for low light conditions.

On the video side, the iPhone 4’s new camera can also capture high definition video at 720p at 30 frames per second (That’s HDTV by most providers standard, although most TV’s are 1080 by now, and NTSC frame rate (NOT the japanese version which is the bane of all low price high quality videographers worldwide) perfect for more than just home pornography.)

Videos can even be edited in the device with Apple’s new iMovie app built especially for iPhone, as opposed to having to purchase a suite like ‘ReelDirector’ to edit your footage.

The app takes the smarts of the full-blown application and shrinks it down for use in the iPhone and includes the ability to add titles, transitions and music like other non-OEM products with nothing special about it other than it’s free.

The 4G features an additional front-facing camera which can allow for Apple’s new video calling service called FaceTime, not to be confused with socialising (see: ass kissing) or with ‘face time’ of the bedroom variety.

Users can switch between the front and back camera and also tilt the phone into either landscape or portrait mode.

This will only be possible between iPhone 4 users and, in the US at least, only over Wi-Fi for the time being with Jobs alluding to the fact it will eventually be available across the cellular networks, but Australian’s … don’t hold your breath. Telstra still haven’t gotten near 4G requirements yet, and their infrastructure rollout of 100mbps lines that for the last ten years was slotted for 2009, then 2010, is pushed back beyond 2012, or at least so my source in Telstra’s network logistics advises me.

Under the hood, Apple has also included its own speedy A4 processor along with a larger battery which can deliver even longer battery life with enough power for 10 hours of video playback and up to 40 per cent more talk time.

Also on-board is a new gyroscope (!) which gives the iPhone the ability to give on-screen objects six-axis motion. (!!!@!$)

Jobs demonstrated this with the Jenga app, which showed a tower of wooden block which could be rotated at a number of angles.

But it was not all smooth sailing for Jobs on stage with his demonstrations. During one demo where he tried to show the enhanced screen compared with the regular screen by viewing a website, the over-loaded Wi-Fi network in the room wouldn’t budge.

Knowing he had more demonstrations which would rely on the wireless connection, he even asked attendees to switch off the Wi-Fi connections on their laptops to allow the presentation to continue.

The demos which followed, including the first video call between Jobs and Apple’s industrial design chief Jonny Ive, went without a hitch.

Jobs also announced the iBooks app and the included iBookstore will also be available for the iPhone 4 along with the ability to buy, read and synch the same books to the page you’re up to on an iPhone, iPod Touch or an iPad.

This feature, seen already with the Kindle device and its iPhone and iPad apps, will be another part of Amazon’s territory Apple will be moving in on.

iBooks will now also be able to read PDF format documents along with the epub format books.

Jobs also showcased iAds which are ways for developers to create free and low cost apps that can be embedded into mobile web pages on the iPhone.

Revenues for iAds – which will run in the second half of the year and include some of the world’s biggest brands such as Nissan, BestBuy, Target, Disney, Unilever and AT&T – are already up to more than $US60m.

This represents 40 per cent of the projected mobile display advertising revenue.

The iPhone 4.0 software is now called the iOS4 software because it will now run on the iPhone and the iPad.

The 4.0 operating system will be available to iPhone 3G and 3G S users from June 21 for free.

Evidence of life has been discovered on Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan.  Analysis of data sent back by NASA’s Cassini probe suggests primitive aliens are breathing in Titan’s atmosphere and feeding on fuel at the surface. The startling discoveries, made using an orbiting spacecraft, are revealed in two separate reports. Organic chemicals had already been detected on Titan but the liquid is methane, not water, and scientists expect life there to be methane-based.

The first paper said hydrogen gas flowing down through Titan’s atmosphere disappears at the surface, suggesting it could be being breathed by alien bugs. The other paper reports there is a lack of a certain chemical on the surface, leading scientists to believe it may be being consumed by life. Scientists had expected sunlight interacting with chemicals in the atmosphere to produce a coating of acetylene on Titan’s surface but Cassini detected no acetylene there.

Experts warn there could be other explanations for the results. But taken together, they fulfil two important conditions necessary for methane-based life to exist. NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay said: “If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth.”

Scientists believe that when the Sun swells up, swallowing Earth, conditions could be ideal on Titan. Professor John Zarnecki, of the Open University, said: “We believe the chemistry is there for life to form. It just needs heat and warmth to kick-start the process. “In four billion years’ time, when the Sun swells into a red giant, it could be paradise on Titan.”

Another thing that flew under the radar that is about 8 months old is the findings on those microbes in the Martian meteorite that caused such a HUGE fuss in the mid 90s (from a meteor found in the 80s!) amongst scientists (and theists / creationists for sure!) has been found to be exactly what it looked like, (paranthetical abuse!) microbes from Mars!

NASA scientists have produced the most compelling evidence yet that bacterial life exists on Mars.  It shows that microscopic worm-like structures found in a Martian meteorite that hit the Earth 13,000 years ago are almost certainly fossilised bacteria. The so-called bio-morphs are embedded beneath the surface layers of the rock, suggesting they were present when the meteorite arrived, rather than being the result of contamination by earthly bacteria. “This is very strong evidence of life on Mars,” said David Mackay, a senior scientist at the NASA Johnson Space Centre in Houston, who was part of the team of scientists that originally investigated the meteorite when it was discovered in 1984.

In a 1996 study of the sample, Dr Mackay and others argued the microfossils were evidence of life, but sceptics dismissed the claims, saying similar-shaped structures may not be biological. The new analyses, the product of high-resolution electron microscopy, make a strong case for the Allan Hills 84001 Meteorite having carried Martian life to Earth. The microscopes were focused on tiny magnetite crystals present in the surface layers of the meteorite, which have the form of simple bacteria.

Some argued these could be the result of a carbonate breaking down in the heat of the impact. The new analyses show this is unlikely to have resulted in the structures seen in the rock. Close examination suggested that about 25 per cent of the crystal structures were chemically consistent with being formed from bacteria. “We feel vindicated. We’ve shown the alternate explanation is absolutely incorrect, leading us back to our original position that these structures are formed by bacteria on Mars,” Dr Mackay said.

Scientists say the meteorite was broken off the surface of Mars by the impact of an asteroid, and reached Earth after floating through space for about 16 million years. It landed in Allan Hills in Antarctica. Scientists were able to trace the meteorite back to Mars, as its chemical composition matched the relative proportions of various gases measured in observations of the atmosphere of Mars made by the Viking spacecraft in the 1970s. The meteorite also preserves evidence of liquid water on Mars.

Europa’s unlit interior is still considered to be the most likely location for extant life in the Solar System. Life could exist in its under-ice ocean, perhaps subsisting in an environment similar to Earth’s deep-ocean hydrothermal vents or the Antarctic Lake Vostok. Life in such an ocean could possibly be similar to microbial life on Earth in the deep ocean. So far, there is no evidence that life exists on Europa, but the likely presence of liquid water has spurred calls to send a probe there.

Let’s not forget water on the moon people. We live in some pretty exciting times! It’ll definitely challenge the status quo between the baby boomers and their strong theological views (and those zombie like masses of American teenagers brainwashed by them) and the more cold clinical evil villainous scientist types like .. well, like us!

When I am in a high reception area with some time to kill, I tend to exploit the fact Facebook let’s you see peoples phone numbers. I don’t often get reception because Vodafone AU is pretty hit and miss, but I pay a $99p/m flat fee. I also use an iPhone 3GS which has an unlimited potential for conference calling.

So .. what I tend to do is, call people on my facebook and say simply, “Please hold, you have an incoming urgent call.” then conference in the next person, from there on people can talk to each other while I’m off dialling in the next party and so on, until I end up with a dozen random people all haplessly confused, all accusing each other of calling them, while unbeknownst to them I’ve got my headset muted.

So, if you’re on my facebook, in Australia, and have had a strange call from a dozen or so equally confused persons, I apologise.

This in no way means I will cease such behaviour, y’know, just saying. :)