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No Internet Censorship
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May. 15th, 2008 @ 09:27 pm
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*Puts on serious Electronic Frontiers Australia anti-censorship campaigner hat*
EFA has a new web site opposing the governments internet censorship proposal
Spread the word.
Seriously, its bad policy, simply a very bad way to achieve its stated goal even if you agree with that goal (which, as someone who strongly opposes censorship, I generally do not). Despite talking to him about it in person, I'm unable to work out whether Stephen Conroy is pushing for it so dedicatedly because he barely understands the technology that is the basis of his portfolio, or because he cynically knows the government has to do something to butter up Stephen Fielding (sole senator from Family First). Or both, quite possibly.
He also announced his panel on Cyber-safety, which, while it mostly consisted of industry people and bureaucrats, included 3 child safety campaigners, but none of the anti-censorship lobby. So mostly a bunch of people who will tell him what he wants to hear.
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"I cast out the demon of philosophy"
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May. 15th, 2008 @ 05:35 pm
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A great piece of reporting on life inside the high weirdness that is Christian fundamentalism in the USA "In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, I cast out the demon of the intellect!" Fortenberry continued. "In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of anal fissures!"
The US have the problem particularly bad, though I'm sure it exists elsewhere, and the combination of the political empowerment of Christian fundamentalism combined with its continuing love of the profoundly weird stuff like this that is hostile to rationality continues to be a disturbing thing. But there is certainly a downright hilarious side to it. |
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Vile Pervert
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May. 9th, 2008 @ 03:29 am
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So, just suppose you were an eccentric entertainment personality with many pop hits to your name, who has been accused of sexually interfering with minors. You've maintained your innocence despite some losses in court, so what do you do?
If you are Jonathon King, the very odd British singer/songwriter/producer/promoter/TV presenter, you make a full length film about, starring yourself as yourself AND most of the other characters, wearing a variety of dodgy wigs etc, and tell your version of the story. It's called Vile Pervert: The Musical. Featuring 21 of your songs (most of them sung yourself, in your rather odd singing style, which often has a sort of ranting music hall style of delivery). Pad it out with a few songs you wrote or produced in the past. Then you distribute it for free on the web. He plays everyone, including women in a Monty Python 'pepperpot' voice, and God with a big false beard. He wrote and directed it, and fills a lot of the song video parts out with images scavenged from Google and YouTube, so it's all quite eccentric and low-budget. The music, though in his odd style, is very professionally produced, as you'd expect from someone who has been in the music industry since the 1960s.
It's sometimes very funny, and sometimes somewhat disturbing, often quite personal character assassination of the people involved. Its certainly unique. The song with the chorus about 'there's nothing wrong with buggering boys' is a bit more than half way through. There are a few other very funny songs, including his really cynical song about pop star charity, and a quite nice one about eccentric producer genius Joe Meek.
He was acquitted on some charges, but found guilty on some others. He was sentenced to 7 years for indecently dealing with 14-15 year old boys, of which he served half. He maintains his innocence, and his case is being reviewed by the European Court of Human Rights. He is openly bisexual and admits to sex with males aged between 16 and 21 in the 60s, which was illegal under consent laws at the time (which differed for hetero and homosexual sex) but would not be under current law (which does not discriminate), but claims he is not quilty of all the specific offences of which he has charged.
Among other things, he originally wrote the song used as the theme to Australian TV show Good News Week. Apparently he was the original producer of Genesis, and named the band. There is a lot more in his peculiar career, of which this film might be the most peculiar bit of all. |
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May. 8th, 2008 @ 08:12 pm
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That other story about male MPs bad behaviour
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May. 6th, 2008 @ 09:41 pm
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The other sexual harrassment story in West Australian politics at the moment, besides the one about Troy Buswell, is the one about the now Premier Alan Carpenter, and my friend Jaye Radisich, at a party in 2004. There were also allegations about his behaviour in relation to Louse Pratt at the same event, who I also know, and she has chosen to comment publicly somewhat in defence of Carpenter, in essence saying he may have just leered a little (and I agree with her that Buswells behavriour is worse).
Anyway, this is just a public post to say I have complete and utter support for anything Jaye might have to say on the subject publicly, and also her right not to make any public comment if she does not want to. UPDATE She has now said nothing happened to cause her offence, but refused to go further into the allegations -- fair enough, I don't think she should have to explain any further.
I have no knowledge of the incident beyond what is public.
Also, I think whoever it is at the West Australian who decided to juxtapose this rather sensational story about the incident with that particular choice of photo (one that appears specifically chosen so you can get an impression of her breasts) deserves a bit of a kicking.
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The story about computer malware networks and organised crime in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tacits journal that starts here and continues here and here is quite fascinating both technically (albeit mostly to a geek with an interest in computer security), and in the glimpse it gives us into modern organised computer crime networks
The big takeaway morals are: if you run WordPress, make sure it is security patched (several people on my flist have been caught by this), and also that virus peddlers are now targetting Macs, though you have to be quite dumb to get caught by it (yes, it automatically downloads a virus, but you need to voluntarily say yes to installing it, AND type your password).
But the more interesting stuff is the amazing diagrams of just what big complex networks dodgy computer crime guys are creating, what a big business is, and how they have all sorts of different ways they exploit it.
Its one of those things that is so absolutely about the present day that it feels like science fiction.
May. 6th, 2008 @ 09:36 pm
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Best thing I learnt today: The longest official place name in Australia is a Pitjantjatjara word, Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya Hill in South Australia, which literally means "where the Devil urinates".
May. 5th, 2008 @ 03:26 am
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I know that there are quite a few people on the flist who are MMO players, and quite a few obsessive Stargate fans. I suspect the intersection of these two groups is still pretty small, but if you are into both, then you would probably be interested to hear that the StargateWords MMO is now accepting beta applications, though I think the game tends more towards small unit tactics in scenic alien locations than exploring McKays emotional landscape.
May. 4th, 2008 @ 03:32 pm
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If you do some web-design, and think you know how to do clever things with CSS, you need to see Homer and stand in awe.(via Daring Fireball. Original here
May. 2nd, 2008 @ 08:02 pm
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| » More reasons to be fearful |
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More things we learnt from the top end about things to be afraid of:
Cyclones. We went to the Darwin museum, and saw the display about Cyclone Tracy. It was quite astonishing, all the visuals really looked a lot like nuclear weapon footage, whole neighbourhoods flattened. But I often find I respond to audio rather than visuals at a deeper level, and the darkened listening room with audio recorded at the time was terrifying, just a crazy mass of roaring howling noises. Particularly evocative was the description of the sound of the second stage of the cyclone -- which added to the roaring the sound of literally thousands of pieces of corrugated iron being dragged along the ground at up to 200 km/hour.
Also, beaches. We went to the quite awesome Mindil Beach Markets, and it was interesting to see a beautiful beach, at the end of a day of beautiful weather, with hundreds of people on it -- and virtually no one in the water. It's still box jellyish season until May.
Also in the museum was a taxidermied 4m, 780kg, croc that was killed (accidentally in the process of capture) when it took to attacking boats. Yikes!
I also went to the aviation museum (doctor_k_ wasn't so interested), among other things they have a B-52, which was enormous. The museum was a giant hanger with more than a dozen different aircraft, some quite interesting (a Sabre, a Mirage and a half, a Huey, lots of little light planes, etc), but the B-52 completely filled it, the other planes sort of nestled under its wings. They had set a little mini-theater where about a dozen people could watch film about the B-52 inside/under its bomb bay. I was surprised to learn that in military use, to avoid radar b-52s often fly under 500 ft (astonishing consider its 185ft across).
Back home in Alice Springs now.
May. 2nd, 2008 @ 04:12 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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I just wanted to say that the absence of paragraph break in that last post, making it a nigh unreadable giant wall of text, and making me appear to be a crazy person with only a vague familiarity with grammar, was a result of tool failure not actually the way I wrote it. I've fixed it now.
May. 2nd, 2008 @ 03:18 pm
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| » Cons and boobs. |
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The latest mighty teacup hurricane to have hit filled our little online worlds is the Open Source Boob Project thing. Rather than recap the many arguments (the Hoyden round-up post is a fine collection). I'm finding myself a lot less condemnatory of the idea itself than a lot of others (though still somewhat condemnatory). I'm also rather late to the party, largely due to poor internet access while travelling around Kakadu (who would have thought that visiting magnificent wilderness would mean poor internet access?).
( cons, boobs, male privilege. culture clash, and safe spaces -- at ridiculous length, I am afraid )
May. 1st, 2008 @ 10:05 am
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| » Risk Assessment |
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We have been holidaying in 'The Top End' for the last few days, today in Kakadu. We have been learning that there are different things you need to be afraid of up here.
For example, you need to learn to be afraid of saltwater crocodiles. OK, technically, estuarine crocodiles, which don't confine themselves to salt water at all, colloquially 'salties', as 'freshies' differ in level of danger dramatically, and are relative kittens. Pretty much every body of water is assessed for the relative presence of salties and is off-limits is there is the faintest chance of there being one (i.e. if it hasn't been specifically checked and found NOT to contain a crocodile, you should fear), and there are dire warnings to beware them everywhere. We certainly take them seriously -- we went on a wonderful dawn boat tour of the Yellow Water area, and we saw FIVE salties in their native habitat in two hours, two of which were of a size that is best described as 'absolutely fucking terrifying'. We also saw lots of birds, but no matter how they try, birds just aren't up there in the terrifying stakes -- even a siting of Australias second largest bird of prey, the White Bellied Sea Eagle (?), despite its mobility advantage over the crocodile, was not scary Photos forthcoming. So, we are being very ware for salties, Apparently, a few years ago the town of Katharine flooded, and when the floods receded they found a 4 meter saltie in the shopping centre. Nowhere is safe.
On the other hand, back home in W.A. bushfires are a relatively terrifying thing. There are huge signs warning of fire danger anywhere, and lighting a fire outdoors is pretty much forbidden anywhere outside the inner suburbs for about two thirds of the year. This is pretty much the case in most of the country. And I'm not the only person I know who has had bushfires get within a block of their house, which is a mildly alarming experience. But over here, lighting bushfires at the start of the dry is apparently a local Aboriginal custom, and regarded as just good management (and the local rangers now have the same attitude). We have seen probably close to a dozen road side scrub fires in just a few days, most with no one even bothering to watch them. Apparently, the local Indigenous communities traditionally regard a bush fire as something that is great for 'cleaning out' the land. Which is fair enough. If you think of the countryside as pristine romantic wilderness that is mostly there for looking at, then seeing it turned into black smoking and charred is a bit disappointing. But if it is your lounge room, your workplace, and your supermarket, as it is for many of the traditional Indigenous inhabitants, cleaning it out so it is no longer filled with scratchy waist to head high dry speargrass must seem like a great idea. And scrub fires this time of year seem to burn in a nice controlled way, seldom fast or high (apparently they can be a bit scarier at the end of the dry, and the idea of there being a fire in the Wet is almost laughable).
Anyway, we are now so unconcerned about bush fires here that when we were doing a bit of a bush walk (a couple of hours walk) to see some fantastic Aboriginal rock art and we realised that there was a bush fire actually burning directly on one side of the path (having already burnt out the other), we decided to just keep on walking past, even though this meant walking within a metre of some of the flames. The only real worry was that it might have grown a lot bigger by the time we had to walk back, but it turned out we made a good call and it was pretty much burnt out by the time we walked back an hour later.
Apr. 30th, 2008 @ 05:04 pm
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| » Cultural differences |
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I've mentioned before that the gaming scene is different in Finland.
A Finnish gamer I met said she got into gaming as a way to meet good-looking guys.
(apart from that out of context tidbit, hopefully a longer post to follow on my reactions to one of my gaming heroes, Jonathon Tweet, being an evolutionary psych believing sexist asshat)
Apr. 20th, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
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| » country life |
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On way in which I have become more 'country' since living in Alice is that I now almost always wear a broad brimmed hat when outside in daylight hours. I have a kangaroo leather one.
On way in which I have not become more 'country' is that my lifestyle is still utterly dependent on a decent internet connection and GSM coverage.
Apr. 20th, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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Dear Yahoo.
I remember, back on the halcyon 90s, when the web seemed to new and full of possibilities, and you really seemed to be one of those things that made the emerging web a bit more useful and a bit more exciting.
What happened?
Because now you really are a pestilent blight on the landscape, and an embarrassment, mostly just an acquisitions and branding machine with some attached crappy media, bad intellectual property policy, and bad customer service. You buy companies I like or use, and assimilate them into into your weird broken way of doing things, and they are all worse for it (even when I didn't like them much in the first place, like egroups, you seem to manage to make them worse). Or you make crappy, me-too versions of things done better by others. I'm kind of glad that you seem to have entered some sort of weird death spiral, engaging in self-harm to avoid having to finally succumb to Microsoft, -- but I know the few cool services you have managed to buy (yay Flickr!) will probably suffer for it. Anyway, please die, and take your entire authentication system with you.
(mostly prompted because I've discovered that Yahoo seems to think my birthday is something different to what it is, uses it as required authentication info, and won't tell me what they have on file or let me change it *as policy*, and actually said that if there was a problem I should get a new account (for all email list subs and for flickr too, of course). Problem has been resolved, but not without making me want to hurt them physically in some way)
Apr. 13th, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
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| » The sound of buzzing |
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The Plasmatics, in 1987, talking about 2012. From the start of their Maggots album, a thrash-rock opera.
It is 25 years in the future. Environmental abuse and the burning of fossil fuels have effectively doubled atmospheric CO2 levels creating a greenhouse effect of strength unknown in historical time. Global temperature rises have caused accelerated melting of the Earth's glaciers and polar icecaps. Preventative measures against massive flooding have been unrealistic and poorly constructed. New York City is typical of cities all over the world. That part which is not completely submerged is a network of festering, stagnant pools, percolating in the blistering heat and humid air. Day by day the sound of buzzing has become more and more pronounced.
Lets hope they are wrong about us all being eaten by giant maggots, because they seem a little too prescient on the rest.
The Plasmatics are one of those bands I always wish I had got to see because of sheer stage show excess. Sadly, I never will as it was the 10th anniversary of lead singer Wendy O. Williams suicide this week. She'll never appreciate how their grim predictions of the future would become so much closer to the mainstream.
Apr. 12th, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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Now the hand-wringing over Swancon has died down a little, I have a point to make.
( cut for non-fans )
Apr. 12th, 2008 @ 12:22 pm
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