Benny Ling’s Bling

via Internet Needs – GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them..

via INFOGRAPHIC: The History Of Facebook’s Default Privacy Settings.

via JESS3 / The State of The Internet on Vimeo.

Where does x264 fit in all this? H.264 is certainly not going away, not for quite a while. In most sane parts of the world, software patents are a non-issue. But in the end, none of it matters for x264: we will continue our quest to create the best video compression software on Earth. Unlike Adobe, we don’t sit complacent when we are the best; we keep trying to become better. We add new features, improve compression, support new platforms, improve performance, and there’s far more to come. We don’t care that many H.264 encoders are so bad that they can be beaten by Theora or Xvid. We don’t care if VP8 comes out; that’s just another encoder to beat. We are here to ensure that the best choice is always free software by constantly making free software better.

via Diary Of An x264 Developer » Flash, Google, VP8, and the future of internet video.

Did you know? Unless you have a 3Mbps internet connection, you can't use Facebook. Without 12Mbps internet, you can't even email files! And just forget streaming video without at least 18Mbps internet. Welcome to the internet, according to AT&T.

via AT&T’s Warped View of the Internet – Internet – Gizmodo.

So for the next couple of weeks, I get to be a hermit.

I’m not sure if this makes me happy or not – what I do know is that I’ll probably be cooped up inside my room, dilligently studying for whatever exam I have, madly cramming stuff into my head in the hope that at least some of it’ll stick.

Heh.

Whether that’ll work or not is anyone’s guess, but I might as well try.

On the flipside, I’ll have plenty of time to sleep. No more early mornings, except to post the damn Mactalk.com.au news on Mondays and Fridays.

Another plus is the fact that I’ll have plenty of time to procrastinate. Which means more awesome blog posts to follow!

This post part of Blogtober 2009. It’s almost funny to think that I’ve blogged something every day of the month – even scarier to think that I’m more than halfway there!

Internode is well-regarded amongst serious tech users for its plans and customer service, but offers such a large range of plans that casual users might well be put off. The new Easy Broadband option costs $49.95, and involves pretty much a no-brainer installation with the fastest available speed from the exchange, and a 30GB data quota. The plan doesn’t include a standard hardware option, the notion being that users might well already have one.

The big catch, though, is that unlike most other Internode plans, the 30GB total includes uploads as well as downloads. Internode argues that this makes it easier to compare with Telstra and Optus, which both have the same approach. I still reckon it would be better not to endorse that kind of dodgy behaviour by emulating it.

via Internode Easy Broadband Has One Catch | Lifehacker Australia.

Yet another reason I love Internode.

The deal pretty much goes like this: I’m paying $50/month for 1500/256 with 10GB downloads.

This easy broadband plan from Internode will change that to a minimum of 1500/256 (the plan itself offers the fastest speed available on the exchange), with 30GB “usage”, for the same price.

What’d that, you say? Uploads are counted against quota?
Meh, that’s fine – when my largest month in terms of uploads was the small side of 7GB, I’ll be getting an extra 13GB of downloads for free – and a possible speed upgrade to boot. Factor in the fact that I’m getting all this for the same price that I’m paying now, and you can see why this choice is a no-brainer – you’d have to be nuts to not take it

Now, if only Internode started building ADSL2+ on the Kingston exchange…

via Things to Do Without Access To The Internet « GraphJam: Music and Pop Culture in Charts and Graphs. Let us explain them..

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A

via YouTube – Contra Speed Run NES.

The konami code seems to have swept the internet lately, and I blame Facebook for starting it.

Konami Code Sites lists all the websites that you can preform the konami code on – but first, you have to preform the Konami Code on the website itself…

Good times.

via History of the Internet on Vimeo.

Contrary to what you know, the internet is NOT a series of tubes.

Heh – guys, this is the a large chunk of the TCE Computer Science curriculum in 8 minutes.

Well worth the watch. Watch it already!

Excellently presented, with beautiful animation, and a somewhat cool voice-over.

Many in Australia, and those overseas interested in censorship would have now read a post from the Australian Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy responding to concern over the implementation of the Great Firewall of Australia.

I won’t rehash what’s already been reported, but having read it several times since publication, it’s what’s left out that makes the proposal even more scary.

via Great Firewall of Australia: What’s not mentioned makes it even more scary.

Oh noes.

If you have a look at the image on that post (duplicated here for the lazy amount you), then you’ll see that Australia will become and Internet Black Hole.

Australia’s hugely controversial ISP filtering plan received a lump of Christmas coal in its stocking with the release this week of a new report that points out the many difficulties with such a scheme. The current government’s response is to make clear that the report was commissioned by the previous government—which apparently makes it a bit suspect. A live trial of the filtering system has been delayed into January, but it is still going ahead.

via Aussie government’s own report trashes ‘Net filtering.

Senator Conroy – let’s just get this over with and dump this already.

Stop wasting our money, and focus on something that really matters – FTTN FTW!