Author Archives: Michael Wyres

Classy Spam Fail

Got a belly laugh from a piece of spam I found trapped by my filters this morning, showing how truly classy spammers can be: Gee, that’s an attractive email. Let’s open that one! Not!

Coalition NBN Response Broadband Failure

In a most ironic twist, the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, and his communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull tried to deliver a response to this morning’s release by the government of the business plan for NBN Co. As indicated in the screen grab, it was delivered “via broadband” – the same broadband infrastructure the opposition believes is […]

NBN Business Plan to Be Revealed

After months of arguments and counter arguments, the business plan for the National Broadband Network (NBN) is to finally be released today by the minister concerned, Stephen Conroy, almost two months after it was first received by the government. What we see at midday will undoubtedly be a testament to how many black textas are […]

Supermarket Lazy or Misleading

In the midst of the weekly shop, I came across the following special offer: Seriously, what? Certainly confusing. I think in simple terms, you can see that you get two for ten dollars, no matter what items out of Plus, Cheerios, or Milo cereal you choose, but explaining how much you save depending on the […]

Guardian: Up, Down or Blocked?

The Guardian website appears to be down, amid reports that some level of blocking has occurred in regards to their WikiLeaks coverage. I have heard reports that it has been officially blocked in Thailand, but I’ve not seen confirmation as yet. Certainly, it appears inaccessible from here in Australia at the moment. So is it […]

Geelong Advertiser Oopsy

Great to see a new look Geelong Advertiser website this morning – a great improvement on the previous cluttered mess. However, I think a few QC checks went astray: Is it just me, or are these circled links in the wrong place? Oops!

Telstra: The Return

Well, the saga is finally complete. After nine days of shenanigans, the phone lines in my street are completely underground again, with Telstra returning yesterday morning to finally string a cable through the new conduit and re-splice the street line – again. So – nine days to fix a problem that blew most of the […]

Carrie Bickmore Fail

You have to hand it to Twitter and the good humour that can come from it, especially given today’s revelation that Carrie Bickmore has painted Australians as “blokes” and “sheilas” who socialise at “fancy” places called McCafe. Big fail. But here is some of the gold coming through online: “Carrie Bickmore says we go to […]

Telstra Shenanigans

As I discussed in my article in regards to the structural separation of Telstra, there have been some major issues with my own copper phone line over the last week. For some time – (actually, the entire time of more than five years I’ve lived at our current address) – every single time a significant […]

Telstra Separation Goodness

With the passing in federal parliament on Monday of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment Competition and Consumer Safeguards Bill 2010, the structural separation of Telstra is finally in sight, laying the foundations for the full establishment of the National Broadband Network (NBN). Up until now I have held off making any comment since the passing of […]