Wil Tan » rants http://dready.org/blog musings on internationalized identifiers: domain names, OpenID, TLDs Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:11:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Why 1/5 of Americans Can’t Locate The U.S. http://dready.org/blog/2007/08/26/why-15-of-americans-cant-locate-the-us/ http://dready.org/blog/2007/08/26/why-15-of-americans-cant-locate-the-us/#comments Sun, 26 Aug 2007 06:45:57 +0000 wil http://dready.org/blog/2007/08/26/why-15-of-americans-cant-locate-the-us/ Found this gem on Digg, made my day!

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]]> http://dready.org/blog/2007/08/26/why-15-of-americans-cant-locate-the-us/feed/ 0 Whirlpool, aaNet, Exetel, and XXX http://dready.org/blog/2005/08/07/whirlpool-aanet-exetel-and-xxx/ http://dready.org/blog/2005/08/07/whirlpool-aanet-exetel-and-xxx/#comments Sun, 07 Aug 2005 01:31:35 +0000 wil http://blog.dready.org/2005/08/07/whirlpool-aanet-exetel-and-xxx/ Here’s a piece of interesting news from Whirlpool — Australia’s most popular community driven broadband news site. Quoting a forum user’s remark, “Whirlpool just grew teeth.” And so should they, good on them!

I shall explain why this post has three other names besides Whirlpool…

The WP story got me curious as to who the ISP in question is. After swimming around some forum posts, I found this ZDNet Australia article – which explained that aaNet Communications is getting sued by Exetel for severing 4000 ADSL connections without notice.

SUB PLOT: On the fateful morning of 14th April 2005, I woke to up find that my ADSL connection was down. At first I thought it was my crappy Netcomm NB1300+4 (there! Another company involved in the saga) modem acting up again but after several reboots without results I knew something was wrong. So I tried ringing up Exetel (my ISP) several times but the line was constantly busy. Only on the second day did I manage to get through to Exetel and was advised that I was one of those unlucky 4000 customers whose connections came from aaNet – then their wholesale ADSL provider. Thank God I was reconnected relatively promptly (after 2 days or something) and the Exetel personnel was very polite and apologetic, though I do not remember being compensated for it.

This still does not explain what was so objectionable about the forum post on Whirlpool that triggered aaNet’s reaction. The clue was in Whirlpool’s article that started my entire “investigation” – ASIC record. So I zoomed to the ASIC search page and found this record, with my attention drawn to a document entitled “Notification of Application to Wind Up Company Under S.459p, 462 or 464” dated 1st August 2005. I don’t know what this means, but it doesn’t sound good and it is no wonder that this could undermine the confidence of aaNet’s customers.

And the last piece of the puzzle? Sorry, I’m not telling because it connects me, albeit very remotely, to one of the ISPs in question.

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]]> http://dready.org/blog/2005/08/07/whirlpool-aanet-exetel-and-xxx/feed/ 0 If you’re not using Mozilla/Firefox http://dready.org/blog/2004/06/30/if-youre-not-using-mozillafirefox/ http://dready.org/blog/2004/06/30/if-youre-not-using-mozillafirefox/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2004 23:31:41 +0000 wil http://blog.dready.org/2004/06/30/if-youre-not-using-mozillafirefox/ What are you, nuts? I should ask, who are you? I don’t get it, with GAPING security problems such as this and this, why haven’t you switched to Mozilla or Firefox?

Like many, I have gone through many rounds of browsers switching. Until 2 years ago, when I decided that I had it with IE and settled on Netscape 7 almost exclusively. The only time IE gets to run is when I visit retarded sites like this (but I’m glad they’re few and far between, thanks to the folks at mozilla.org).

Do me a favour, make the switch now, and get the Mouse Gesture extension for maximum productivity.

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]]> http://dready.org/blog/2004/06/30/if-youre-not-using-mozillafirefox/feed/ 1 For sale http://dready.org/blog/2004/03/01/for-sale/ http://dready.org/blog/2004/03/01/for-sale/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2004 01:09:35 +0000 wil http://blog.dready.org/2004/03/01/for-sale/ Our car is a wreck, I don’t have a photo of it but whoever has seen before knows that it is. It’s a 1978 Mercedes 280SE, maroon colour. We got it two years ago for $2.6K when it was nice and shiny and sort of vintage-looking, then we spent a bit on repairs. One fine day in our old neighbourhood (St Peters), some a**hole had to splash acid all over it, and the damage was permanent. Ever since, we just didn’t bother taking care of it.

We still took it around (or did it take us around) and it’s served us well. But ever since Ray loaned us his car for a month and we realized how much petrol we couldn’ve saved, not to mention the fact that we simply can’t live without air-con during summer, especially when the heat waves strike. And the engine sort of goes weak after running for about 15-20 minutes (actually the “OEL” level drops too low I think). The odometer isn’t working, it shows something over 300,000km but that hasn’t changed ever since I got it, God only knows how much it’s travelled. I haven’t got money to bring it to a mechanic but there isn’t much point because the mechanic almost refused to fix it saying that it’s a waste of money!

Anyhow, we decided to try selling it for two grands. See what happens..

I wish there was a reality automobile make-over show! I will definitely qualify. If anybody knows of one please nominate me :)

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]]> http://dready.org/blog/2004/03/01/for-sale/feed/ 0 Acrobat Bloat http://dready.org/blog/2004/02/29/acrobat-bloat/ http://dready.org/blog/2004/02/29/acrobat-bloat/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2004 14:37:18 +0000 wil http://blog.dready.org/2004/02/29/acrobat-bloat/ With each incarnation of Adobe Acrobat Reader it gets more sluggish and clunky, and in version 6 they’ve outdone themselves. On my PIII 1GHz notebook, it takes 8 seconds to start up for the first time. I do not have the patience to wait for my computer the slave, not for something as trivial as a document viewer.. and while it’s loading in the browser it’s even more unbearable.. I can’t do anything but watch everything go blank. It’s not long enough to go make a coffee either.

THAT does it! I’m switching to GSView.

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