lizardb0y's blog

Build your own at http://www.stclaire.com/safety_sign_builder/

According at an article on Stuff, Canterbury health workers have described the health system as "sexist", saying that despite men sufferring poorer helth and having a higher mortality rate, "...there appears to be significantly more health promotion targeted at women."

Report co-author and Sport Canterbury events and marketing manager Jonny Kirkpatrick said it was difficult to attract funding for male-focused health projects.

"Men are partly to blame themselves because of the `she'll be right attitude', but it starts at the top," he said.

"The awareness around women's health is fantastic, but men get breast cancer too and as many men die from prostate cancer as women of breast cancer."

The report's main recommendations were raising awareness around men's health and making services gender appropriate.

I remember discussing this issue with friends over 20 years ago, when I was told that a group doing a prostate cancer awareness leaflet drop had been warned by Police to stop for "indecency" or somesuch thing. This isn't a new problem, but it is a largely ignored one. The Movember team deserves huge recognition for the efforts they've made raising both awareness and funding for men's health issues. Cheers guys!

From: Defective by Design
Date: Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 1:17 PM
Subject: iPad DRM is a dangerous step backward. Sign the petition!

Dear supporter,

Today, Apple launched a computer that will never belong to its owner. Apple will use Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to gain total veto power over the applications you use and the media you can view.

We've launched a petition calling out Apple's new product for what it is: a frightening step backward for computing and for media distribution. Can you read it, sign it, and share with friends?

I read on Ars Technica that:

"We wanted to ensure we took every logical step to deter player griefing," Ben Jones, a designer at Zipper Interactive, told Ars. "Features like protected spawn areas, vote-kick and auto-kick at a certain team kill threshold help to preserve the ideal gameplay experience. You'll also receive negative experience points for TKing, and in a game where XP is vital to progressing your character, we feel that's a solid deterrent."

Can anybody explain WTF this means? Is this even English?

After nine months deliberation, Simon Powers has released a cabinet paper detailing a replacement Section 92a; the controversial law withdrawn in March this year which could have seen Internet users summarily disconnected by ISPs if accused of copyright infringement, and would have left ISPs no option but to do so.

The new ammendment introduces a notice-and-notice process, whereby ISPs are required only to pass on notices of infringment from copyright holders to alleged infringers. Should the user be served three such notices the copyright holder may choose to escalate to the Copyright Tribunal for redress.

Unfortunately all this good work could soon be derailed by super-secret ACTA negotiations, considered to be so super-national-security-sensitive that the citizens of involved nations cannot be trusted to hear what is being discussed.

The Cabinet Paper
National Business Review
Ars Technica