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Tesla Motors announce a Sedan…

Tesla’s CEO has announce a move of their company to ramp up their capability to manufacture zero emission cars. The mentioning of a Sedan (Model S) brings the technology into the realm of a justifiable purchase. The Roadster, while very appealing, would have to have waited until the kids grew up.

I have been watching their development for half a year now and I am impressed with the rate of development in Tesla.

Hopefully their cars will be ok to import…

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2008 09 18 Marc 1st Life
Opinion
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Update on weight loss

As an update on my last post on weight loss I have only 6.5kgs left to go in achieving my goal weight!

The bad days have been harder and harder to be bad on. I have lost interest in so many of the junk foods I use to eat. They make me sick now. Chocolate however remains ever present.

It will be interesting to see how I transition to maintenance mode once I achieve my goal.

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2008 05 26 Marc 1st Life
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Two Melbournes

Two Melbournes

I had some time between meetings early one morning so I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne and managed to capture this image of two Melbournes. The old Melbourne represented by Government House to the left and to the right Eureka Tower one of the newest buildings in the city.

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2008 05 26 Marc 1st Life Comments (0) Permalink

Just what is IPTV?

This morning I was catching up on my blog reading and found the following

The best definition of IPTV is “the QoS-assured delivery of standard- or high-definition network or studio programming in either broadcast or on-demand form using the IP protocol.” … Tom Nolle, President, CIMI Corp.

Apart from the tautology of IP protocol I agree with Tom’s assessment.

Over the last 18 years I have been involved in a number of iTV and IPTV laboratory and field trials, studies, business cases; you name it. Many executive and product management staff in the telecommunications industry have rarely shown a full understanding of Television and to make matters worse of recent times the term IPTV has be shanghaied by many to the point of weakening its meaning, which Tom seems to be trying to reinstate.

In fairness to those telco executives the TV executives have even less of an understanding of the telecommunications industry; to the point of distrust in many cases.

The TV industry, be that free to air, or Cable TV, or Satellite TV, have spent millions of dollars and many, many years in building brand value through the reliable delivery of linear TV content. This is what Tom means by … QoS-assured delivery … in his definition of IPTV.

This point is often missed by the many offerings today that purport to be IPTV solutions.

The other party that is often misunderstood is the asset owners who value the quality of experience, which directly translates into the quality of delivery in the linear TV world as well as the IPTV world. Their desire to protect their assets, and thus their revenues, is understandable. However over the years I have seen content negotiations fail due to a lack of respect for this position from telco executives. This is one of those challenges I love about IPTV as a successful IPTV deployment is more than the sum of technology parts.

Later today I will post what I think an IPTV experience should be; linear and yet not.

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2008 05 07 Marc Opinion
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Weight loss

From my early twenties I have always carried a little too much weight. Especially around the middle. I remember fondly eating as much as I liked when I was growing up and always being slim.

I have been on Sureslim in the past and did lose weight but it was a real struggle for me to get down close to my goal weight and there seemed to be no bright way forward post the weight loss. I have also visited the gym and always managed to build muscle under the fat. This time round I have turned to Body Trim and after three weeks in I am losing weight, eating more and not feeling that it is a struggle! I don’t even have to go to the gym!

On average I have been losing 1.5kg per week. With about 12kg to lose in total I am starting to feel I can make it and more importantly sustain it.

While that is all positive the Body Trim folk have some way to go with facilitating the education process. I think this is especially true of those that have been through other systems.

The DVDs and book are concise. Which is to say there is a real possibility of missing important information the first or even second time around. At least it was for me. Their forum however makes up for it.

To me the most impressive part of the system is they tell you why you need to do things and importantly when. My favourite aspect is the once a week bad day. Initially I went over board and ate what proved to be the most sickening pizza I had ever had. It was partially the pizza, but just as importantly I think it was also a change in my tastes. Dark chocolate however has proved to be resistive to such changes!

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2008 05 05 Marc 1st Life
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ANZAC Dawn Service

ANZAC Dawn Service

With over forty thousand people in attendance at my first Melbourne’s ANZAC Day dawn memorial service I was moved as to how reverent and well behaved everyone was. This photo is after the service as people moved to pay their respects within The Shrine of Remembrance.

2008 05 05 Marc 1st Life
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A timely reminder of Bandwidth verses Throughput

Ken Rutkowski’s recent world broadband VodCast was a timely reminder of just how much confusion is generated by the use of the term bandwidth and what is expected — throughput.

Throughput
is the actual speed data will transfer at from one point on the network to another. The actual speed, throughput, of a network is very often much less than the stated Bandwidth. The hardware used to communicate, heavy/light traffic, etc…can effect throughput.
Bandwidth
is more often quoted than Throughput since it is easier to calculate and not subject to changes in many variables.

The important thing to note about throughput, which is what customers actually measure, is that it is defined between two points of the network. The choice of which points is very important.

The Hon Senator Stephen Conroy has stated publicly and within the current NGN RFP that the goal is at least a 12Mbps network that can support high definition video conferencing. There is mention of contention ratios, which coupled with a knowledge of the network architecture can be used to determine a likely throughput, but there is no quantified statement given for them or for a throughput figure.

The implications of the inclusion of high definition video conferencing in the stated application suite that the new network should support should hopefully bring about a network for Australia that approaches the capabilities Ken mentioned in his VodCast. One where the Bandwidth and Throughput are near equal.

Lets hope the respondents rise to the challenge, the reviewers take this into consideration, and that Australia catches up for all our sakes.

For a written version of the detail of the VodCast see World Broadband Speeds

2008 04 23 Marc Opinion
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Jungle Disk announce just another edition…

Jungle Disk Reseller edition has just been announced. This opens up a number of interesting possibilities for ISPs. Especially if they are close to Amazon’s S3 servers.

I have been waiting for their Workgroup Edition to come out to give it a try for my own business.

2008 04 22 Marc Technology Comments (0) Permalink

I just heard the silliest thing on the 2020 coverage!

Watching the 2020 conference just now I found the suggestion to name the new Australian government portal to ourgov.com to be utterly misguided.

For one thing our goverment isn’t a company, but more importantly the domain is already owned!

ourgov.com 

The information in this whois database is provided for the sole purpose of assisting you in obtaining information about domain name registration records. This information is available “as is,” and we do not guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a whois query, you agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes and that, under no circumstances will you use this data to: (1) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that stress or load this whois database system providing you this information; or (2) allow,enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass, unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via facsimile, electronic mail, or by telephone to entitites other than your own existing customers. The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of this data is expressly prohibited without prior written consent from this company. We reserve the right to modify these terms at any time. By submitting an inquiry, you agree to these terms of usage and limitations of warranty. Please limit your queries to 10 per 
minute and one connection.

Registrant:
The Web Group
PO Box 41201
Washington, DC 20018
US

Registrar: DOTSTER
Domain Name: OURGOV.COM
Created on: 16-MAY-04
Expires on: 16-MAY-09
Last Updated on: 16-MAY-07

Administrative, Technical Contact:
., . twebgroup@yahoo.com
The Web Group
PO Box 41201
Washington, DC 20018
US
801-606-7123
801-606-7123

A much better solution would be our.gov.au. They can even have it for free.

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2008 04 20 Marc Opinion Comments (0) Permalink

Home Compute Centre takes shape!

Thanks to a generous donation from Pete Jones the rack and a number of servers are mine!

Now to solve the puzzle of which cables go where and power them up. Not having been powered up in a long time this might prove interesting.

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2008 04 20 Marc 1st Life Comments (0) Permalink