The Observer has an interesting article about how Neil Dixon, a Chemistry teacher in the UK is doing hands-on demonstration of basic sciences for his students.

The trick, apparently is to make big explosions/fireballs using fairly mundane things: in this case, a bunsen burner and powdered milk.

Check out the photos, they’re actually pretty darn cool.

Gotta love this version of Wikipedia:

Do a search for “George Bush“, and you get:

• George Herbert Walker Bush, who was president from 1989 to 1993.
• George Walker Bush, who became president in 2001, is now president, and is the son of the other one.

What are terrorists? Well apparently the article is too complex (It doesn’t once use the phrase “they do bad things” or “they are bad people”)

The story I wrote about yesterday has made it to digg (little wonder with News.com.au having the digg icon on it).
digg - Vegemite banned in the United States.

Some funny comments on there:

“ojk007″ offers some helpful hints on how to eat vegemite:

How to eat vegimite!

1. Get a piece of bread or a cracker.
2. Spread as much on as possible. (the more you put on the better it tastes! Trust me im an Aussie!)
3. Eat as Slowly as possible.

A Funny thread on whether A Current Affair or Today Tonight would take up the story.

“Young Aussie battlers stripped of their pride through unnecessarily outrageous bans on Vegimite”

Angostura obviously has no idea what kind of fight they’re getting into, and should be divorced shortly:

Ah. As a Brit married to an Australian, you can imagine that there is an ongoing ah - discussion about Marmite v Vegemite. Marmite was the original, and Vegemite is essentially a watered down version created for the delicate ozzie palate.

/Flame on

… flame on indeed.

JHawk24821 starts a funny thread with this comment:

When I read that it was banned, the first thought that came to mind that it was somehow related to terrorism. I was asking myself how Vegemite could be seen as dangerous, then it occurred to me that someone probably took it on a plane, or tried to at least, and the airports nut balls thought it was a bomb.

Finally, jumanous has a rather pointed comment.

That has to be the most ridiculous thing I have heard all year!! You can have a rocket launcher or an AK47, but God forbid you eat Vegemite on toast. I have now officially heard it all.

I took this screenshot from my Google homepage on Friday:

Apparently someone at the BBC News Desk has a sense of humor…

Ian points out an article on News.com.au that The US FDA have made Vegemite Illegal.

Apparently it’s because of Folic Acid, and border inspection guards are even searching people (presumably Australians) at entry for Vegemite.

Australian expatriates in the US said enforcement of the ban had been gradually stepped up and was now ruining lifelong traditions of Vegemite on toast for breakfast.

Kraft spokeswoman Joanna Scott said: “The (US) Food and Drug Administration doesn’t allow the import of Vegemite simply because the recipe does have the addition of folic acid.”

Crazy… just… crazy.

Chocolate Hazelnut Tart

Coconut Sorbet (3 ingredients, quick!)

Caramel Apple Cake

Peanut Butter Toffee Bars

Key-Lime Merangue Pie

Shaker Lemon Pie

Robert Scoble posted an article today about a company called Soasta that is doing Web development (in the .NET Environment, no less) on Macs. It’s a sort-of* reposte to the article I linked to yesterday, about someone switching back from OS X.

…by using a Mac for development systems they can run Linux, Windows, and OSX on a single box. [...]

But the Executive Chairman, Ken Gardner, saw that he was more productive when he switched from a Windows machine to a Mac. He also noticed he was more productive when he worked on a 30-inch screen.

Every worker there has TWO 30-inch screens. One at home and one at work. Ken knew his employees would work more if they had nice equipment at home too. So, he bought everyone a MacPro for the office (faster, so gives coders incentive to work in the office) and a MacBookPro for taking home.

There will probably be something up on ScobleShow soon-ish.

* = I highly doubt Robert saw my entry yesterday, so it’s more likely just a coincidence in the timing

I havn’t had time to read the bill yet (216 pages? Just for an ammendment?), but Kim Weatherall has a short post summarising the new changes.

Relevant quote from Kim’s blog:

The bill includes:

• The TPM Amendments (the OzDMCA, or new anti-circumvention laws) - material that I’ve discussed
• The new copyright exceptions (outcomes of the iPod inquiry)
• The new copyright enforcement provisions; and
• Some stuff on signal piracy/pay television; and
• Some stuff on the Copyright Tribunal.

It is only now that we can see, altogether, the whole unholy complicated mess that this piece of legislation is. Just wait until you see the next edition of the consolidated Copyright Act.

The whole bill has been referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. Submissions are due 30 October; the Committee will report by 10 November (and we assume, the Bill will pass in substantially unamended form shortly thereafter).

(The bolded bits are per Kim’s post).

It’s interesting to note that there’s 10 days left for people to put forth a submission (including today), and then a further 10 days for any submissions to be considered and any ammendments to be made to the bill. &emdash; Get speed reading, now.

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(Added at 12:10PM)
The news that there’s going to be a .au version of the DMCA is disappointing, although not entirely unexpected given that the US-AU FTA went through.

Yes, I think I should have the legal right to buy Region-Protected DVDs from the UK or US, and play them on my PC or DVD player.

I should also be able to do the same thing with Region-Protected games bought in other countries, on my locally purchased game console (if I ever decided to purchase a console, that is).

(I’m talking legit stuff here - not “backups” of games and things like that)

If in either case I needed to override the built in region protection to do so, I should not have to break the law.

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(Added at 12:21PM)

Actually, just go to the Lawfront site - they’ve got a whole bunch of good commentary on things I’ve discussed recently, including the IceTV Case.

Interesting post: HCI User Advocate: Switchback: Horrors of a Windows Power-user Trying to Switch to Apple OS X

Apple does do many things extremely well, but they communicate that pretty clearly. My aim here is to point out that Apple life isn’t all roses. Technology remains hard and that there is almost always a set of trade-offs associated with the choice of any platform.

I’ve had a half-completed post sitting in my queue for months now about why I’ve got no intention of switching to Apple.
The article points out a lot of the issues I had with using OS X at Ian’s place - though it was on a smaller screen (14″ Powerbook G4, iirc) - I still had a few of the same issues.

I’ve read the Dilbert comic strip fairly regularly for a few years now (it seems to come with the office cube worker territory), but I hadn’t known that Scott Adams has a blog.

A lot of people (Yes, I’m looking at you Scott Kurtz) rip off Dilbert for being un-funny, boring, etc. This is possibly because they don’t work in a cube farm.

It’s like trying to explain why The Fruit Fucker has me laughing madly. (Read this little excerpt of the FF story: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4). Same goes for Scratch too. (Scratch Fury, Destroyer of Worlds, to mere humans)

Anyway, I wanted to point out a funny post about “Dangerous Containers” Scott Adams put up on the Dilbert Blog.

There’s also some good thoughtful posts, like the economics of war.