When Good Leaders Hit Bad Times. In early-1993, Australian unemployment peaked at nearly 12%. In 1992-1995, six of Australia’s eight states and territories ousted their government. By contrast, unemployment averaged 5% in 2003-2006. In these years, no state or territory government was ousted from power. In Australian politics, conventional wisdom has it that the state government oustings of the early-1990s…
Monthly Archives January 1970
Google Adds User Photos to Street View. Just noticed a very cool feature for Street View. Last month Google added "User Photos" to Google Maps. These are geotagged photos from Google's Panoramio free photo upload service for geotagged photos, but presented with a slick Flash-like interface. Well, now Street Views where photos are available will show an icon in the…
External Link: Apple Updates AirPort Design Guide. Apple has revised its guide for planning and building Wi-Fi networks, formerly called Designing AirPort Networks. The new guide, Apple AirPort Networks, is a fairly in-depth effort at explaining with step-by-step instructions how to configure Apple base stations for various kinds of networks and tasks. Copyright © 2009 Glenn Fleishman. TidBITS is copyright ©…
Sony Reader Gets 500,000 Free Public Domain Titles from Google. Google made a practical move with some of the 7 million books it's scanned from academic collections by making 500,000 titles with no remaining copyright protection available to Sony for its electronic book device, the Reader. Reports indicate only books from 1922 or earlier were included, as 1922 is the…
Odds Of Tipping: Better Than Even Chance Of Major Changes In Global Climate System, Experts Predict. According to the estimates of climate scientists in a newly published expert survey, there is more than a 50% chance of major changes in the global climate system if global warming proceeds at the current rate. Should average global temperature increase by more than…
As Planet Warms, Poor Nations Face Economic Chill. A rising tide is said to lift all boats. Rising global temperatures, however, may lead to increased disparities between rich and poor countries, according to a recent economic analysis of the impact of climate change on growth. [ScienceDaily: Latest Science News]
Unemployment rate on upwards trend. The unemployment rate data published this morning shows a not surprising continuing rise in the unemployment rate. The headline rate is 5.2%, up from 4.8% a month ago, and a low of 3.9% last year. It is well to remember that this is still a very low unemployment rate, but the worrying issue is that…
Australian vocational education and training: Research messages 2008. This report is a collection of summaries of research projects published by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research in 2008. It includes conference papers; occasional papers; and an overview of research highlights. The summaries are grouped under 5 NCVER themes: Industry and employers; Students and individuals; Teaching and learning; VET system;…
Unit pricing iPhone app. The ACCC recommended that all supermarkets provide unit pricing for goods that would allow consumers to compare the price per unit for, say, toilet paper, to the price per 4, 6, 8 or 12 pack. I’m not sure what happened to that policy but in the meantime an iPhone app has appeared that does just that.…