You can count on PPAU (if they register in time) and possibly the sex party to be against it. The nationals recently passed a resolution to block mandatory internet censorship too.

I know who is getting my preferences at the next election!

Our wildlife might though :P

I am sorry for your loss.

Possibly the best OS news I have had since OS X. Big kudos to the Haiku development team for sticking with it!

I dearly loved BeOS, and after Zeta OS tanked I had my hopes pinned on Haiku - I wasn't disappointed!

Cheers,
Steve

I live in Sydney, near Strathfield/Homebush. Last time I poked my head outside at night (~1wk ago), I saw the Southern cross with the naked eye after about 10 minutes in the dark.

With my small 4" I can see the Jewel box, the coal sack nebulae and some others quite easily.

I think for naked eye observing, the difficulty of getting night adapted vision in the city is far more sever than the problem of night pollution.

Not all is lost if you can find a nice dark spot - but watch out for drunks!

I just wanted to say that was brilliant.

To tankgirl. *toast*

PICAXEs are just PICs with custom firmware that makes development and such easier. It approaches arduino level of ease in that programming a PICAXE requires only a serial connection, as opposed to a dedicated programmer or ICSP setup.

Though you are right. AVR IMO is superior to PIC because it has a freely available C compiler (gcc-avr). It might not be pretty, but damn it its free! Arduino is my current electronics platform of choice and I got more done with it over the summer break then I did in the years leading up to know with PICs simply due to the ease of programming and interfacing which blew away all the obstacles that previously turned me away.

That is perfectly understandable, thank you for sharing that with us.

Cheers,
Steve

If I am not mistaken, those are illegal activities. Any institution he donates to would be bind by the law.

If said institution was going to break those laws, then they are not exactly going to respect the letters of the contract either.

I am curious, what kind of research would you object to?

I am really really really sorry to hear that :-(

I was diagnosed with leukaemia (ALL) when I was 21, and I scraped by via cord blood transplant (not my own). I can only wish your daughter would have been as fortunate.

*hug*
Steve

As someone who is the recipient of 2 set of cord bloods, I thank you on behalf of future leukaemia patients.

Cord blood is a god sent for many ethnic groups who require bone marrow transplant due to lack of collection facilities in less modern countries.

Cheers,
Steve

I picked the bone marrow transplant, chemotherapy was destroying me emotionally and physically. I much rather risk the transplant then 4 years of chemo myself.

Been 2.5 years since the transplant, no relapse. I can only hope this remains the case.

I would like to point out that the use of umbilical cord blood (cord blood for short) is more than merely as a source of stem cells for some future potential treatment. It is currently an extremely important source of stem cells for stem cell transplant, the only "cure" for diseases like acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The reason being cord blood contains "virgin" immune systems which causes significantly less graft-vs-host issues when compared to using blood donated from an adult.

Another good reason is that is a good backup source of *good* stem cells. Should your child be later diagnosed with some form of leukaemia, one treatment option is to wipe the slate clean and then implanting know good stem cells, i.e. cord blood. The probability of you being able to donate your stem cells for this and other procedures is low, because your child would inherit HLA from both parents, so a full match between child-parent is low. Best bet is child-child.

My knowledge of such things come from the fact I am the recipient of not 1, but 2 set of cord bloods. One from Australia, one from USA. Thanks to the people who banked their babies cord blood and made it available, I am alive today. If I had to pay for it, my family certainly would have, so you _can_ make money from it, if that is your wish. Though if you had to pay out of your own pocket, it would be a good insurance policy.

Cheers,
Steve