Author Archives: Michael Wyres

Gillard’s First Agenda Item

Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister today. Of course, her being a female is irrelevant, and in the fullness of time, we’ll find out if her rise to the leadership will be a good or bad thing. The thing is, she KNEW she would be become Prime Minister today. Couldn’t she have run […]

Amazing Scenes at Canberra Airport

There were amazing scenes at Canberra Airport this morning, with what might be the final flight of “Milky Bar Kid Airlines” leaving for Brisbane amid rumours of a fuel spill during final preparations for depature. One passenger is believed to have reported that a male flight attendant made the following announcement as the aircraft taxied […]

Ultimate Conroy Facepalm

In [yet another] major embarrassment for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, the Privacy Commissioner has labelled the inadvertent Google Wi-Fi data collection bungle – (the same bungle that Conroy called “the biggest privacy breach in history”) – as “not so bad”. Google Wi-Fi Snooping Not So Bad: Privacy Commissioner There are several golden snippets from the […]

Deeper Look at Telstra/NBN Deal

The dust has settled a little since the surprise announcement yesterday of the $11Bn deal between the National Broadband Network Company (NBN Co), and Telstra, that will see the NBN rolled out using predominantly passive Telstra infrastructure. Namely, this is Telstra’s network of pits, ducts, and some cabling infrastructure. The deal will see the gradual […]

Where is Kevin Rudd’s Left Hand?

Exactly which part of Stephen Conroy’s anatomy does Kevin Rudd have a hold of in this shot? Some have said yesterday’s Telstra / NBN Co deal has taken Telstra by the short and curlies. Maybe our Prime Minister has a different set of short and curlies in mind?

Telstra NBN Deal: First Thoughts

One of the biggest issues – particularly in terms of cost – for Australian ISPs at this time, is access to the local copper loop to provide DSL service. DSL services – (whether they be ADSL, ADSL2, SHDSL or any other xDSL based service) – cover the vast majority of all internet connections in Australia. […]

Another Conroy Lie!

As is my habit in the car, I tend to listen to ABC NewsRadio, as this is often the only chance I get to absorb news media during any given day. Travelling home from work this evening, I stopped to listen to some live senate discussion about film and literature classification. Normally I turn off […]

Another Spellchecker Fail

I have never really understood in this age of spellcheckers – (and similar) – in modern computer systems, how obvious spelling mistakes can creep into newspapers – both in online and print versions. Of late, Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper has been particularly good at missing really obvious stuff, but it is a phenomenon that finds […]

The Case of the Little Pink Pussycat

There has been a lot of talk both online and offline since yesterday’s revelation that the Australian government wishes to force ISPs to log internet browsing histories for an extended period of time for all users, without the need for a warrant. Without jumping to Orwellian conclusions – (lets remember, this is only a proposal […]

Government Seeks to Out-do Google Privacy Breach

Hot on the heels of the wild accustion by Stephen Conroy that Google had committed the “single biggest breach of privacy in history”, and in the spirit of “anything you can do, we can do better”, comes the revelation that the same government that he is a part of, via the Department of the Attorney-General, […]