One disappointing thing I learnt is that Appleworks is not Y2K compliant. Damn.

I have always thought that I wouldn't be worthy of the title Uber-geek until I had written my own OS from scratch, and the Apple ][ hardware is delightfully simple.

I want it to be multitasking, although I haven't researched the interrupt options in the 6502 yet. To be pre-emptive the Apple would probably need a thunderclock card or similar.

The memory issue worries me - it may need to be all based around relocateable code and memory handles, like Classic MacOS. One smart (maybe) idea I had was to assume an Apple with loads of ramcard expansion, and then to let each process have nearly all of a 48k/64k page. The code could be fixed, and the scheduler would swap between the pages as well as switching execution point. Of course on a real Apple ][ (as opposed to an emulator) the number of processes would be limited to the number of memory pages you had (A Franklin 500 would be nice!) and processes would be limited to around 40 or 50k.

If anyone has any ideas please post a comment!

He had many things to say - some very controversial (for the UN at least) - including:

• that the UN is "crossing it's fingers" that no terrorists have nuclear material - in the face of 600 known cases of illicit trading of plutonium and other fissile material;

• that the UN's current policy of only using force in response to an attack is no longer sufficient. He floated the idea of "collective pre-emption", saying that pre-emptive attacks are appropriate in certain circumstances, but only in an environment of agreement within the UN member nations;

• that the world can no longer sustain "narrow blinkered national interest", advocating revolutionising the current vetoe power

• that the imbalance of power in the middle-east, due to Israel's nuclear capability, is unsustainable, and that middle-east security dialogue must be based on trust

He also had things to say about North Korea, nothing new there.

His implication on a number of occasions was that it is only a matter of time before terrorists get their hands on, and likely use, nuclear material.

It's a scary world at the moment.

Go check it out!

http://www.blackwhite.tv/

And here is an article about the internals of the Diebold aggregating server:

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/scoop/S00065.htm

If it is true, then it is rediculously scary on so many levels. Using Access is such a bad thing for starters, even if the code is perfect (which apparently it is so not). Do you see your bank storing your data in Microsoft Access? They quite possibly use Sybase, which is bad enough, but they wouldn't dream of using Access.

How did these things ever pass security audits????

Well, he's been in court lately, with coverage provided here by the Sydney Morning Herald.

It's amazing that people actually fell for this - even more amazing that they cam from Dubbo of all places!

Buildings include the historically significant (eg. Walsh Bay Piers 8/9), architecturally important (eg. various Seidler buildings) and the beautiful (Macquarie Lighthouse).

Included in the regular ticket were 38 properties and focus tours of other properties were available for booking (at an additional fee).

Highlights of my day were:

• Walsh Bay Piers 8/9 (recently the headquarters of Murdoch Magazines)
• Macquarie Lighthouse
• The Penthouse (Harry Seidler) and the Seidler Offices

I shot a few rolls of film, so as soon as I have them developed I will post a few highlights.

It's really amazing to see so much of the diversity of Sydney's architecture in one day. It is truly a city with depth of character that after 4 years is still surprising me every week.

There was also an "Epilogue" comprising short talks by architects and other people that I would have LOVED to have gone to (Harry Seidler was speaking), but Kath and I had friends in town to entertain.

It's just a pity that Arafat couldn't bring himself to really pursue the changes necessary for peace in his region.

Now it's all history.

Update: Apparently not true : Arafat may have liver failure [smh.com.au]

Leaping tall buildings with a single memo. Or something like that.

If it were to eventuate that the electronic voting software was written in Hypercard I'm not sure whether it would be dumbfoundingly stupid, or sublimely cool... (Has anyone ported Hypercard to Linux yet?!)

A related site, blackboxvoting.com has people writing in their voting experinces. It's not pretty.

I really appreciate the simplicity of Australia's paper voting system. But then there's not quite so many of us to count ;)

Update:

Here's more, courtesy of the Risks Digest:

Touchscreen voting spawns glitches

And More:

Courtesy of Wired.com:

E-Vote Glitch Inflates Bush Total