On the Net

with Chris Goh

A poor state of affairs

Eucalyptus Drive in Macquarie Fields is the main street that the majority of Housing Commission houses run off, and I lived there for many years as I attended high school. Now I live in the adjacent suburb of Ingleburn. Macquarie Fields has received much publicity in recent weeks due to the riots and it's a shame that the media has decided to focus on the riots rather than the causes of them. It's not the death of two teenagers in a stolen vehicle that has prompted this riot (that's only the excuse), it's really the deep-rooted social issues where teenage mothers with no job and very little support let their children roam the streets. It is about parents and single parent families becoming long-term unemployed and having no other passtime than drinking and watching Foxtel (The highest sales for cable tv are in Housing Commission areas).

Youths stealing vehicles isn't something new in Macquarie Fields. Every second day you are likely to see a car in the area stripped and often burned, add to that the frequent break-ins by desperate neighbours, and even if you know who they are - nothing can be done about it because you live in the same neighbourhood as them, and when the police go, you're alone. Then you have the neighbours who would earn a little bit of extra cash by selling things they aren't supposed to sell. You can see that all these factors combined create a problem, and you see not just one generation staying in a Housing Commission house, but many. It's a cycle that is hard to get out of. There are also the elderly and genuine people who have illnesses in the area. You would think that in an area with such a density of these people social service offerings would be plentiful, but no, it's not the case. Will it change? Our attitudes towards the poor has to change. So often people who are more fortunate say that those on welfare are lazy bludgers, but as in the playground, those who call others names never take the time to understand the cause of what they are seeing.

Hotnews

There are CAD projects that help you build cars or planes, so why can't you use a computer to help you reconstruct a knee? Well, the new Ci System virtually maps out a whole knee reconstruction surgery to one tenth of a millimetre accuracy and patients can just receive a local anaesthetic because only a small incision is required. The program is destined to be used in the future for total hip replacements and spinal surgery.

In Los Angeles, women forced to have a hysterectomy because of uterine fibroids have another option that can kill these painful tumours with a procedure called SonoWave, which uses ultrasound instead of surgery.

The big news in the electronic world is that the Sony chairman, CEO and president has resigned due to the poor performance of Sony products, bar the Sony Playstation. Sony now has their first non-Japanese boss, Sir Howard Stringer, who is from Cardiff and was Sony's head in America.

Microsoft is expected to launch the first ever attempt at a clustered enabled Operating System in an attempt to enter the SuperComputer market by November. The first version will have only basic functions that Linux clusters have been doing for years but there is no real worry yet in the market place.

The news of the week is that Bill Gates will soon become Sir Gates as the Queen is about to honour him with an honorary knighthood. It has raised a few eyebrows in the IT world.

The Astrophysicist who brought us SETI@home, which allows people to use their computers idle time to assist the search for extra terrestrials, is now the president of Planet Quest. In 15 years only 136 planets have been discovered outside our own Solar System, but using SETI technology people can now use their computers idle time to help search for new planets. Visit www.planetquest.org.

New South Wales Uni researchers have discovered that red seaweed found in Botany Bay (and only seen off the east coast of Australia) contains Furanones, which eat bacteria and are non-toxic. They, under the guise of Biosignal, have created a synthetic version of this. The applications are wide ranging from treating effluent to treating bacteria in your mouth with toothpaste.

Fuji Xerox is going 100 per cent green in China, where all waste will be recycled. The Chinese Government will certify them as eco-friendly.

Hotsites

www.find.com

Slowly becoming my search engine of choice. Though not as quick as Google it is giving me great and accurate results and the directory structure it presents to you makes things easier to find.

www.golfdigest.com

Okay golf fanatics; this is surely something for you. Golf digest has everything a keen golfer needs, from instructions on how to play to up-to-date news on all things golf.

www.thebartend.com

Now one has to always be careful when recommending a joke site, because you never get a chance to read through them all for a review, and often someone might get offended. The Bartender has some crude and often very funny jokes, and it's a good place to go to cheer yourself up.