a2jfreak.net

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The 10.10 version of Ubuntu (codename Maverick Merkaat), a free operative system is to be released in the next few days. French Wikinews contributor Savant-fou (Baptiste) has interviewed Fabrice (fabrice_sp on Ubuntu), an Ubuntu’s MOTU (Master Of The Universe), member of the development team of the operative system.

Ubuntu is a computer operating system, based on Debian, which is created collaboratively by thousands of people. There are three official Ubuntu versions: Ubuntu Desktop Edition (for desktop and laptop PCs); Ubuntu Netbook Edition (for netbooks); and Ubuntu Server Edition (for use in servers).

Saturday, September 17, 2005

A story about a man carrying over 30,000 (sometimes reported as 40,000) volts of static electricity in his body, allegedly generated by a wool sweater and nylon jacket combination, is circulating through major news outlets. The story, carried first by the Warrnambool Standard, says that the man, Frank Clewer, a 58-year old cleaner from Dennington, involuntarily created a scene by causing fire departments to evacuate three buildings where he had left his mark, before he realized he was causing the burn marks on carpets and allowed the fire department to help him.

The story has been picked up by The Register, Guardian, BBC, USA Today, Reuters, local agencies of ABC, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other news outlets.

Several unanswered objections mark the story as a possible hoax:

• Clewer enters and exits his car several times in the story — if he opened the car by touching its presumably metal lock, he would surely release some electricity into the car through his hand; everyone has at some point experienced the painful shock of touching a door handle or car keys to a lock. Though the car might not be grounded, it would still be at a lower potential and thus energy would be transferred. This would be noticeable; the story does not comment that Clewer understood what was happening to him.
• Firefighters supposedly “used a device to check static electricity on him and his belongings.” While firefighters would be likely to carry a high-voltage multimeter around to measure the current and voltage ratings of downed power lines, it is unlikely that the same device could measure such a large voltage resulting from a very small amount of static energy without de-electrifying it.
• For such a large voltage to be stored, humidity would have to have been extremely low on that day for the air around him not to ionize and source current, removing the static energy.
• If he was carrying such a large voltage, his hair would probably have stood on end, as this is a notable effect when one touches a Van de Graaf generator. Note: It is uncertain at what voltage this effect begins, and since Van de Graaf machines routinely exceed Megavolts of electric potential, this may not be a verifiable objection.
• This statement: “Firefighters took possession of Clewer’s jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.” (Reuters UK) First, there is no reason they would need to take possession of the jacket — the static electricity could be dealt with by simply dumping water on it. Second, the jacket could not “give off” an electric current without some continuous source of energy, which, in storage, is impossible. It is possible that the jacket could hold a voltage, but the effects of this would not be visible — if they were, they would be short-lived as the jacket would lose its static energy. In any event, the current would be miniscule.
• The amount of energy stored on Clewer’s person and possessions could not have been more than a few Joules; this is unlikely to have burned carpet.

The equation for stored energy in capacitors is:

Where U = energy, C = capacitance, and V = voltage. A human body by itself typically has a capacitance of around 250 pF, which would mean a voltage of 30,000 V would produce energy of 0.11 joules. Even if Clewer’s possessions resulted in a parallel capacitance of 1 microfarad, this would still only result in an energy storage of 450 J. This amount of energy would be insufficient to burn carpet or char plastic, although a spark could ignite flammable vapor or gas.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

New Zealand First is calling for gangs to “be outlawed” out after the New Zealand police discovered stun guns cash and large quantities of drugs.

The drugs found included Methamphetamine (“P”), Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy) and cannabis, which, according to police, is to be worth thousands of dollars altogether.

The seven stun guns, capable of disabling a person, were discovered at houses and in cars in Hamilton and Tauranga on Tuesday.

New Zealand First’s law and order spokesman Ron Mark said Parliament should pass legislation to outlaw gangs “once and for all”.

“How many more of these discoveries is it going to take before we see some effective legislative action to stamp out gangs? While we applaud the efforts of police we feel that the passing of legislation to outlaw gangs once and for all is well overdue. Outlawing gangs would eliminate much of the organised crime within New Zealand, including drug manufacturing and distribution,” Mark said.

“Section 98A of the Crimes Act makes participation in an organised criminal gang a criminal offence but the Minister has informed us through parliamentary questions that prosecutions were brought under that section on a mere dozen occasions in 2004-05 and 18 times last year.”

“It is time for the police to be armed with definitive legislation carrying a high maximum sentence to better enable them to charge these thugs as it seems that the longer that gangs are allowed to flourish the more heavily armed they are becoming.”

The head of the Waikato police crime control unit, Detective Sergeant Karl Thornton, said the seizure of the stun guns was a major issue that the public should be aware of. It is alarming that drug dealers are equipping themselves with weapons like stun guns.”

11 people will appear in Hamilton District Court later this week on drug charges and with possessing restricted weapons.

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

A 17-year-old boy has died and a 16-year-old boy is in a serious condition in hospital after a fight broke out at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney, Australia, on Monday at around 8 p.m. Sydney time (10:00 UTC).

According to New South Wales Ambulance Inspector Mark Whittaker, the 17-year-old, who worked at the event, went into cardiac arrest after being stabbed in the chest in front of his parents. Paramedics performed CPR on the teenager before loading him into an ambulance. He died while being transported to Westmead Hospital. The 16-year-old suffered stab wounds to his leg and is undergoing treatment.

A 15-year-old boy was arrested at the show and was taken to Auburn Police Station for playing a small role in the stabbing, according to police. He appeared in a juvenile court and was granted bail on charges of affray, carrying a knife in public and being armed with intent.

Strike force detectives are still trying to track down others involved in the stabbing. They believe the stabbing was not a random attack, and instead was a planned confrontation between two groups.

The carnival’s adult section was closed to allow forensics teams to inspect the area.

The show’s manager Murray Wilton denied claims that event security failed. He said it was impossible to check the bags of all attendees, and they had decided to carry out random bag checks instead.

Event organisers have promised full refunds will be offered for people who no longer wish to attend the show.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave his condolences and said: “All our kids will be going to the Royal Easter Show. My kids will be going to the Royal Easter show. We want them to be safe. This is a very distressing event. The violence that is there, that has no place. It has no place in this country. It has no place at an event where people are coming to enjoy themselves.”

Superintendent Danielle Emerton of the New South Wales Police Force has reassured people the show is still safe and asked for the public’s help to find others involved in the stabbing. She said: “We know that there were thousands of people at the show last night and we know that there’s a lot of vision that is out there,” urging anyone with information about the incident to come forward.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Venezuela’s government has opened a granite processing plant in the state of Bolívar, with the intention of providing about 25% of the granite required nationwide.

Ricardo Menéndez, vice president of the Productive Economic Area, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has yearned for the creation of this project to empower Venezuelan construction. Granito Bolívar is reportedly the most modern Venezuelan granite plant, not consuming community water or electricity, and is also the largest, with a daily capacity to supply enough material for use in construction of about 820 houses.

Menéndez said, “These granite blocks are the natural resources of our country, are the wealth we have as a country and often [some] simply decided to remove this richness from our country and take them to other countries” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?Esos bloques de granito son la riquezas naturales de nuestro país, son las riquezas que tenemos como patria y que muchas veces sencillamente esas riquezas decidieron sacarlas de nuestro territorio nacional y llevarlas a otros países}.

According to Menéndez, with the help of a state plan, Venezuela intends to exploit its 40,000 million cubic meters or more of granite reserves, generating a set of factories. “[T]he central theme is that these plants, all these factories, are for the construction of socialism; that means using our potential, develop the value chain within the country and of course that yields benefits from the point of view of the production system’s organization…. [Granito] Bolívar is not only the vision that historically we had of exposing richness, but the industries, basic industries we have, that level of our workers in the basic industries and in addition the development of the potential we have in the state” ^{((es))Spanish language: ?el tema central es que estas plantas todas estas fábricas son para la construcción del socialismo, eso significa utilizar nuestras potencialidades, dessarrollar la cadena de valor dentro del país y por supuesto que eso genere beneficios desde el punto de vista de la organización del sistema productivo … Bolívar no solamente es la visión que históricamente se tuvo de exponer las riquezas, sino que son las empresas, las empresas básicas que tenemos, ese nivel de nuestros trabajadores de la empresas básicas y adicionalmente el desarrollo del potencial que tenemos en el estado}.

For the construction of the plant, supplied by 23 quarries, the government of Bolívar provided about 30 million bolívares (US$4.7 million) and the national government €2.3 million (US$3 million). Bolívar reportedly has reserves of about 40,000 million tons of red, black, pink and white granite, sufficient for domestic demand for 200 years.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Members of Australia’s Health Services Union (HSU) will go on strike in Victoria next week in a dispute over stalled wage and career structure negotiations. Over 5000 physiotherapists, speech pathologists and radiation therapists will walk off the job next week, effectively closing the state’s 68 largest health services.

The strike will force the closure of intensive care units and emergency departments across the state.

It is feared the strike could continue into Easter.

National secretary of the HSU, Kathy Jackson said admissions would be crippled, while intensive care patients would have to be evacuated to New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia as hospitals will not be able to perform tests or administer treatment.

“When an ambulance shows up you can’t admit a patient without an X-ray being available, you can’t intubate them and you can’t operate on them,” she said.

“If something goes wrong in an ICU you need to be able to X-ray, use nuclear medicine or any diagnostic procedure,” said Ms Jackson.

Ms Jackson said the HSU offered arbitration last year, but the state government refused. “They’re not interested in settling disputes, they hope that we are just going to go away.”

“We’re not going away, we’ve gone back and balloted the whole public health workforce in Victoria, those ballots were successful, 97 percent approval rating,” she said.

The HSU is urging the government to commence serious negotiations to resolve the dispute before industrial action commenced.

The government has offered the union a 3.25 per cent pay increase, in line with other public sector workers but the union has demanded more, but stopped short of specifying a figure.

Victorian Premier John Brumby said the claim would be settled according to the government’s wages policy. “The Government is always willing and wanting to sit down and negotiate with the relevant organisations . . . we have a wages policy based around an increase of 3.25 per cent and, above that, productivity offset,” he told parliament.

The union claims it is also arguing against a lack of career structure, which has caused many professionals to leave the health service. Ms Jackson said wages and career structures in Victoria were behind other states.

Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said he was not in support of the proposed strike and called on the government to meet with unions. “There could not be a more serious threat to our health system than has been announced today.”

“We now have to do whatever is possible to stop this strike from proceeding,” he said.

The opposition leader will meet with the union at 11:30 AM today.

Victorian Hospitals Industry Association industrial relations services manager Simon Chant said hospitals were looking at the possible impact and warned that patients may have to be evacuated interstate if the strike goes ahead.

Monday, February 27, 2006

The Australian federal treasurer, Peter Costello, has announced a study to compare the Australian taxation system with those of other countries. It will include overall tax levels, as well as indirect tax, income tax and company tax systems. Mr Costello says that the results are intended to inform discussion of the future of the tax system.

“The aim of the study is to provide a public document that compares Australian taxes to those in other countries. This will identify those areas where Australia leads comparable countries and those areas where it lags. It will enable a focus on the most important areas,” Mr Costello said in a media release.

The study will be lead by Mr Richard (Dick) Warburton and Mr Peter Hendy. Mr Warburton is Chairman of Caltex Australia Ltd, and has been Chairman of the Board of Taxation since its inception in September 2000. According to its website, the Board of Taxation is “a non-statutory advisory body charged with contributing a business and broader community perspective to improving the design of taxation laws and their operation.”

The Australian Democrats welcomed the study but warned that nothing would be achieved without serious reform of the tax system.

“The Inquiry announced yesterday by the Treasurer may turn out to be a step in the right direction but will be a pointless exercise if it ends up being simply a ‘desktop’ report,” said Senator Murray, Democrats Tax Spokesperson.

“The problem with Mr Costello’s approach is that in contrast to the approach taken on the GST, the New Tax System, and the Business Tax System, he has seen income tax change to be solely part of the budget process. Across the whole of the political and public policy spectrum, there is strong agreement that reform is needed, not just tax cuts, and that the income tax system needs redesigning, not just fine tuning.”