Interesting reads
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@jegga Thanks. Trip down memory lane for me, the amazing war story aside.
Have flown in and around most of the places mentioned. Even had a mate with bullet holes in his twin otter and his crewman hit after being in Buka. Bougainville independence stuff and the PNG government had just sent in a load of mercenaries which upset the "freedom fighters" who shot at aircraft.
Dobodura would be Girua now I think and the Japanese major air base was Rabaul of course, which was buried back in '94 along with my suitcase (never trust a volcano).You might like this Jeg:
Just flying, not war, but a part of history now. The author is also a mate of mine and I thought it was good read (I am biased).
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Snowy said:
@jegga Thanks. Trip down memory lane for me, the amazing war story aside.
Have flown in and around most of the places mentioned. Even had a mate with bullet holes in his twin otter and his crewman hit after being in Buka. Bougainville independence stuff and the PNG government had just sent in a load of mercenaries which upset the "freedom fighters" who shot at aircraft.
Dobodura would be Girua now I think and the Japanese major air base was Rabaul of course, which was buried back in '94 along with my suitcase (never trust a volcano).You might like this Jeg:
Just flying, not war, but a part of history now. The author is also a mate of mine and I thought it was good read (I am biased).
Cheers. That looks good , I might recommend that to a mate too . He lived there for a couple of years in the early 70s when his dad tried to set up a cassowary farm .
He told me that the local bush pilots were still flying a JU52 . The French and Spanish made some post war knock off versions of their own so it could even have been one of those ? Either way a cool bit of aviation history.
How long were you in PNG for ? -
@jegga said:
Cheers. That looks good , I might recommend that to a mate too . He lived there for a couple of years in the early 70s when his dad tried to set up a cassowary farm .
He told me that the local bush pilots were still flying a JU52 . The French and Spanish made some post war knock off versions of their own so it could even have been one of those ? Either way a cool bit of aviation history.
How long were you in PNG for ?3 Years.
There were JU52's in PNG in the highlands (probably Goroka) but thought they would have been gone by the '70's.They were repowered with more modern engines. Remember one of the old guys saying that "to fly one you needed to be a plumber not a pilot". They were also called "JU's" (as in Jews) which is a bit unfortunate given the origins, and probably wouldn't be tolerated today.
I'm intrigued by the the cassowary farm. WTF? Are they tasty? Ostrich is delicious so why not I guess?
So whilst on interesting reads:
They are one fucked up animal.
"so these guys are known to devour each other’s droppings""CASSOWARIES HAVE STRANGE GENITALIA."
I will leave that to those with an "inquiring mind" to read for themselves. Bizarre.
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jegga said:
@snowy no idea what they tasted like ,I think it was an experiment to see if farming them was viable . I don’t think it was a goer
I went up into the Daintree a few years ago to a park that was meant to have Cassowary. Didn't see any. They are basically like a living fossil aren't they? I'd expect Emu would be easier to farm
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canefan said:
jegga said:
@snowy no idea what they tasted like ,I think it was an experiment to see if farming them was viable . I don’t think it was a goer
I went up into the Daintree a few years ago to a park that was meant to have Cassowary. Didn't see any. They are basically like a living fossil aren't they? I'd expect Emu would be easier to farm
I don’t think Emu want to kill you as much as a Cassowary does, even Steve Irwin seemed afraid of them .
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jegga said:
canefan said:
jegga said:
@snowy no idea what they tasted like ,I think it was an experiment to see if farming them was viable . I don’t think it was a goer
I went up into the Daintree a few years ago to a park that was meant to have Cassowary. Didn't see any. They are basically like a living fossil aren't they? I'd expect Emu would be easier to farm
I don’t think Emu want to kill you as much as a Cassowary does, even Steve Irwin seemed afraid of them .
He should have been a little more concerned about sting rays.....
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canefan said:
jegga said:
@snowy no idea what they tasted like ,I think it was an experiment to see if farming them was viable . I don’t think it was a goer
I went up into the Daintree a few years ago to a park that was meant to have Cassowary. Didn't see any. They are basically like a living fossil aren't they? I'd expect Emu would be easier to farm
Saw two last year near Mission Beach. Amazing creatures - bet they taste awesome
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I snapped this one in PNG. Strange animals.
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antipodean said:
I snapped this one in PNG. Strange animals.
When you see them from the side they look very dinosaur like with the crestal plate
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What Is This Thing: Found Hooked Up to My Router
Homicide of flatmate: 100% justified.
Hacker News discussion:
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The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies
I enjoyed this line:
Two of Elemental’s biggest early clients were the Mormon church, which used the technology to beam sermons to congregations around the world, and the adult film industry, which did not.
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Interesting comment from Hacker News:
I have worked in card payment industry. We would be getting products from China with added boards to beam credit card information. This wasn't state-sponsored attack. Devices were modified while on production line (most likely by bribed employees) as once they were closed they would have anti-tampering mechanism activated so that later it would not be possible to open the device without setting the tamper flag.
Once this was noticed we started weighing the terminals because we could not open the devices (once opened they become useless).
They have learned of this so they started scraping non-essential plastic from inside the device to offset the weight of the added board.
We have ended up measuring angular momentum on a special fixture. There are very expensive laboratory tables to measure angular momentum. I have created a fixture where the device could be placed in two separate positions. The theory is that if the weight and all possible angular momentums match then the devices have to be identical. We could not measure all possible angular momentums but it was possible to measure one or two that would not be known to the attacker.
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Responses from Amazon etc:
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Ironic that the rain comes down in Sydney as I post this - but its a piece from the Guardian about the current drought.
The content is interesting and - having lived through a couple of 3-year droughts on a farm in Northwest NSW as a lad - quite poignant.
However the maps and data are the key thing for me. Some good shit in here, being a 4-part series. Regardless of what you think of climate change, there are some interesting comparisons to previous "big dry" events.
I've only read Part 1.
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End of an Era - Thoughts on uBeam Founder Stepping Down as CEO
One meeting in particular pushed me over the edge, and I told the CEO that I was extremely unhappy, and we should discuss a way to amicably separate. I knew the transducer and acoustics side better than anyone, and would give the company as much time as needed to transition and pass over my knowledge. It was a tense meeting, and I went home after, and there were then a series of ... interesting ... emails and phone calls with Perry, that ended with no conclusion. Ironically, among the demands from the company was a statement for the press about how I still believed in uBeam's goals and the technology, but I declined. I got a text the next morning to come to the downstairs company conference room, and to bring my laptop, lab-book, and any company property - it was clear what was about to happen. I arrived and the room had CFO Hushen and CEO Perry. It was tense, and Perry sat at the head of the table in her position that she used when about to be CEO-like and give a prepared speech - straight back, leaning slighty forward, hands together. She looked at me and said: "Today will be your last day with the company. But before we go on to that, it is important that you understand that you are a quitter. You have quit on me, you have quit on yourself, you have quit on the company, you have quit on your team, you have quit on.... wait what are you doing?" At this point the speech was so ridiculous I had picked up my phone to start taking notes because this was too good not to write down. I looked up and she seemed shocked and demanded "Are you texting someone? I'm talking." and I looked at her and said "Just taking some notes." Sadly, this seemed to throw her off, and I never did hear the rest of that prepared speech. She simply mumbled then moved to telling me that I would now give an exit interview, and was again perturbed when I declined. She insisted and the CFO, acting as HR, had to step in and say that wasn't necessary. I handed over my laptop and the few items I had, and made a clear instruction that the company was not to make any statements or quotes that were to be attributed to me - I heard from the team that about ten minutes later they were all told in a company meeting by the CEO that "I wanted them to know that I wished them all the best and success for the company, and still believed in the company mission" or something similar.