Author: Grant

Internet Filtering is just plain STUPID!

For those of you who may not have heard just yet, the Australian Government wants to filter the Internet. This is bloody ridiculous and makes them look even more idiotic than normal. Once again our government is pandering to the moral minority in an attempt to “protect the children.”

Why is it that we educate children about talking to strangers and safely crossing roads but when it comes to the Internet, our government goes straight to legislation and a filtering system? What guarantee is there that, once established, such a system will not be used to block opposing religious, governmental or sexual freedom sites? (answer = NONE).

The proposed filter will not work for a variety of technical, legal and ethical reasons. That our government is pushing this lunacy after so recently telling China to not be afraid of the openness of the Internet is pure hypocrisy.

If you are concerned about the impacts of this Australian Internet Filter (and you should be!) then get off your arse and do something about it. Don’t sit there and think “I’m OK, my views are aligned with the government” ‘cos they won’t always be (and may not be in ways that might surprise you). Don’t leave it to someone else to do make it happen for you. If you care about your freedoms, get out there and make your voice heard.

I called Conroy’s office (comms minister) yesterday and voiced my concern. I also sent him an email (see below) and cc’d it to Albanese (infrastructure minister) and Rudd (prime minister). Through this blog and others I’m involved in, I am getting the word out to people about this latest piece of governmental crud. Will you do the same?

Dear Senator Conroy,

I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of Australia. I am deeply worried about your proposed Internet Filter that I see as dragging Australia down into the depths of censorship along with China, Iran and other repressive regimes.

The proposed filtering system is broken in many ways, including functional (it will slow down packets, may break some applications and be relatively easy to work around), legal (there is no legal foundation for this) and ethically (your definition of questionable content no doubt differs from mine).

Further more, reports of your office attempting to silence critics of your plan leads me to question whether this filtering system will not be used to block other content once it is in place. Who will ensure that your office does not start preventing us from accessing reports that are critical of your government?

My son is allowed to use the Internet but I have taken steps to educate him about safe sites and the “dangers” of the ‘net, much as I have already educated him about walking down dark alleys and talking to strangers. We also have his computer in the lounge so we are aware of what he is doing online.

Why is it that we have education programmes for children about crossing roads and not talking to strangers but we have to have a “protection” system for the Internet. Education is required here, not legislation.

I have used the Internet for personal and business needs since 1986 in the commercial and human rights spheres. Never in all my experience would I have imagined a supposedly progressive, intelligent government such as yours even considering implementing a filter like this. This proposal is making you and your entire government a laughing stock around the world. If you really want to stamp out child pornography, don’t implement a broken, unethical filtering system. Instead, put funding towards those who track these sick people down (even when it’s discovered that they’re policemen, pastors or MPs).

To help you get an understanding of how impossible attempting to filter the Internet is, please check out this web cartoon from User Friendly.

As I hope you are realising, attempting to push this plan will make you appear an idiot and further erode support for your government. There are better ways to help the Australian people have a safer online experience and I strongly recommend that you and your government invest in them.

I am happy to discuss this further with you and help provide you with a better understanding of how the Internet works, why filters just don’t work and what I believe are better ways of addressing your concerns.

Cheers,

Grant

Quality Control – Trust in the Media

As part of my work with apc.au I am going to be presenting at the Quality Control Symposium on Friday 17th Oct at the State Library of Victoria’s theatrette. I’ll be part of the group doing micro-statements at the start (1 minute blips of fury) and then taking part in discussions and workshops for the rest of the day. Check out the details as it promises to be a very interesting event.

Wetstock

Sheryl (Kitt’s mom) recently had her 60th birthday, Janet (Sheryl’s stepdaughter) was turning 40 and Tony (Janet’s husband) will be turning 50 soon. Given this, a plan was made to have a big outdoor bash called “Woodstock at Bell’s” with bands, food vendors and stacks of people in Janet & Tony’s back yard. A stage was hired, sound system setup, bands arranged and some foodies brought in. Tents and tarps were rigged, cars & vans parked around the place and a huge crowd was expected (oh, did I mention their back yard is about the size of a football field located in native bushland in the hills & valleys behind Tweed Heads?).

Sadly, instead of the bright blue skies and beach weather we’re told about, Tweed Heads decided to demonstrate why there are no water restrictions here and provided rain, more rain and still more rain. While most of us were lurking under tarps and shelters, Tony wound up having to put a huge tarp over the top of the stage. Seems the idiots who set it up put the roof on backwards – it slopes down from front to back to allow the rain to run off with the water flowing off the top panels onto the middle ones then the back ones and away. Sadly, instead of starting with the back panels, then the middle ones and then the front ones, they’d done it the other way around. As a result, the rain ran down the panels and fell straight onto the stage. Like, DUH!

Eventually the tarp was up and the water was swept off the stage so things could begin. More people began to arrive and the rain backed off a tad. There was some hope that perhaps it was clearing but no, it just kept coming through in waves. Absolutely bucketing down. We spent most of the afternoon getting water off sagging tarps, hanging out at our tent and walking around occasionally with umbrellas to catch up with others. Towards the evening it backed off further and actually stopped – more people started arriving and some were out dancing around in front of the stage.

We wound up leaving around 8pm as Kitt wasn’t feeling well and Andrea was still jetlagged (and had a flu building). We begged a ride off a friend who dropped us home with Nykolai who had decided that spending the night in a tent in the rain wasn’t going to be all that great. During the drive we noticed that the clouds were very low and we were frequently driving through patches of them. It seemed that while the rain was holding off for now, it might not be for long. Sure enough around 2am we woke to the sound of another major downpour – at least we were in warm beds and not trying to spend the night in tents.

I’m not sure how the night wound up with rain, wet ground, mud and music. I imagine that those who stayed will have had a blast but I’m very happy we left when we did. I’m just not cut out for camping at the best of times so a night at “Wetstock” would not have been a wonderful time for me.

Tweed Heads – Rain, Insects and no Net

Once again we’re here in Tweed Heads visiting Kitt’s family and taking a bit of a rest. While I’ve had a few days of clear blue skies during my past visits, I’ve got to say that the bulk of the time here has been overcast, humid and full of biting, itching bug things (and frequently raining). I’m told this is not uncommon around Christmas (when we’re usually here) but so far this trip in October is living up to the norm – although fortunately it’s not too humid.

Sadly, I’m finding it very hard to get a ‘net fix. Kitt’s mom has dial up but the phone is in frequent use, plus I can’t really plug in my laptop. There’s no neighbours around with wireless and the cybercafes are far away so I’ve got to borrow the car to get to them. We were at Tweed Mall the other day and found a public wireless at a cafe although the staff didn’t know anything about it. We grabbed some drinks and powered up to get our fix. Half way through downloading my email though the hotspot shut down – very annoying.

There’s a wireless cafe I know further down the road past Tweed Mall in Coolangatta. Tweed Heads is in New South Wales while Coolangatta is in Queensland – one little step along a footpath and suddenly you’re an hour behind (Queensland don’t do that Daylight Savings thing). We were going to head there yesterday morning so I could do some emails, upload this post and generally get a small fix of ‘net time. That got scrapped though as time was running out and it was decided that we’d all leave early to go further up the valleys to Janet & Tony’s place for a party (see the “Wetstock” blog post). Fortunately they had ADSL at their place with wireless so I was able to jump on briefly. Sadly, their net connection was flakey as heck and it took all my effort to get some emails out, pay a couple of bills and check a few items before I lost patience with it. Janet was saying that the connection had been bad lately – the joys of Telstra’s BigPond network plus being a fair way out from the city.

Finally today I’ve managed to drop by the cybercafe in Coolangatta while Kitt goes to the local craft market with her sister & father. I’ve printed off our boarding pass, checked emails and am now getting a chance to blog and confirm the ‘net still exists.

Hellboy 2: Golden Army

Kitt and I went to see Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and it wasn’t too bad. At least of the same level as the first one and with enough pace that you didn’t feel like it was a long move (it runs for about 2 hours). There’s humour, great special effects and a gritty, bizare feel to the alternative world of the non-humans. In fact, scenes in the alternative world were sort of like Harry Potter meets Star Wars (Mos Eisley) with a bit of Total Recall (the scenes in the Martian ghettos).

All up its a fun movie that’s worth seeing. What I wouldn’t recommend, however, is going to Hoyts at Chadstone – the cinema was old and ratty, the sound was hollow (and not very surround-sound) and the toilets were a complete mess. We’ve not had a lot of luck with Hoyts cinemas and generally tend to avoid them these days. Sadly, they were the only ones showing the movie. Oh well.

Walk down RoboTech lane

Kitt really enjoyed watching the Robotech series when she was a kid so when we found them on sale for about AUS$16 per box set (3 DVDs per box) we wound up buying all 7 boxes. Yup, that’s a lot of Robotech.

We’re about half way through the first series (Macros Saga) then it goes into the Robotech Masters before winding up with the New Generation. They certainly spun the first series out as it’s full of flashbacks and repeats of various bits to ensure you’re up to speed on what’s been happening. Between that and the Minmei character singing the same damned songs over and over again, it’s getting a little bit draining. But, we’re sticking it through and it’s certainly fun to see how the story is developing.

Another series Kitt loved as a kid was Battle of the Planets so we may wind up cruising through all them too. Personally, I prefer the original Japanese version, Gatchaman, where everything occurs on earth (ever wondered why where-ever G-Force went, it always looked like earth?), there were no robots (7-Zark-7 was bad enough but 1-Rover-1???) and Jinpei (aka Keyop) talked normally.

On with the show…

What, MacBeth was a Comedy???

Last Friday night we took Nykolai to see “Just MacBeth”, Andy Griffiths’ version of The Scottish Play performed by members of the Bell Shakespeare Theatre Company. A bunch of kids and adults at the Arts Center to witness the impossible. Seems that MacBeth isn’t all about tragedy but is actually a comedy – who knew?

Andy Griffiths is an Australian author who’s a number kids books that Nykolai enjoys, so when we found out that he was working with Bell Shakespeare on a MacBeth variant, we just had to go. What a great way to introduce Nykolai to Shakespeare.

Mapping Andy’s main characters of Andy, Lisa and Duncan into MacBeth, Lady MacBeth and Banquo, the story takes us from current day 12 year olds back to the Scottish hills. With school level effects (mostly via rear projection and an overhead projector), lots of fart sounds, audience participation, a fair bit of original dialogue and some adlibbing, the play brings comedy and fast paced fun while still putting across the message of tragic loss.

If you ever wondered how marshmellows, whiz fizz, skateboards, karaoke, no undies, drag shows, garden gnomes and a food processor could be applied successfully to MacBeth, this is the show for you. With plenty of humour for the adults as well as the kids it is well worth going to. Hopefully they’ll do it again to another classic play.

Still Mo Movies

Yet another movie experience today and yet again at the Astor Theatre near home. They were showing The Dark Knight and we’ve been hanging to go and see it. Nykolai had seen it before but was very happy to go again, so we wound up with one of his friends and family as well as us.

All up, a great movie and well worth seeing. Some have said that there was too much packed into it and yes, it did feel almost like two movies rolled into one. Perhaps that had to do with having both The Joker and Two Face in it. I didn’t find it too over the top and felt that the pace, action and story were great. Heath Ledger as The Joker was amazing, mixing some aspects of Jack Nicholson’s portrayal from Tim Burton’s Batman movie with his own version of a complete psycho. It’s worth it just for him alone.

Definitely a keeper and soon to be appearing in our collection, I’d say.

Festival of the Boot

Yesterday was the “Kelly-Woodford Festival of the Boot” at Nykolai’s school. Basically, it’s a Parents & Teachers vs the kids game of Aussie Rules Football that happens every year around the time of the finals. This was the third time it’s been run and the past two events were won by the kids, so could the adults finally win one this year?

Those of you who know me probably know that these days I’m not much into sport and especially not AFL. I think I’ve seen 5 or 6 professional games in my life, and a few of those were when I was a kid. Going to a football match takes me into an alien environment which I normally stay well clear of. I do wind up in the middle of it every few years or so having scored a corporate seat for an AFL game some 6 or 8 years ago and going to the Argentina vs Australia soccer game a year ago. Given this, walking around the school grounds yesterday with all the team songs playing and watching adults & kids running around the place in their gear (players and supporters) was a rather surreal experience.

I have a rough idea of how the game is played but otherwise have no idea what to do out there. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s played on a large oval shaped field with players roaming all over the place, no concept of offside and no time-outs for injury (play goes on around the medics on the field – amazing). Between the running around like mad buggers and leaping in the air to get the ball (often by leveraging off the back of others) the real game is amazingly energetic with players typically being lean and bloody fit.

Having grown up in New Zealand playing Soccer or Rugby Union then spending a bit of time mucking about with American Football, my instinctive reaction when getting a non-round football lobbed at me is to throw it like a torpedo or flick pass it so handballing and bouncing it while running are not immediate reactions for me.

If this is the case, what the heck was I doing in the middle of a game of AFL? Was it because Nykolai was playing? Nope – he was more interested in catching up with friends and mucking around – I don’t think he even watched the game despite being near the field. Was it because I really really wanted to play? Heck no! Did I want to relive my childhood? Get real!

No, I was there because one of the fathers had hassled me to attend, telling me it was all a good time and a bit of a laugh. After having my arm twisted a bit, I said I’d join in and wound up standing with a bunch of adults in sports team jumpers wondering what the hell I was doing there. Once the captain was aware that I’d never played before and had less knowledge of the game than the ball itself, he managed to arrange things so I never had much more to do than try to keep an eye on some of the opposition and generally block. Yeah, that sorta worked.

A few of the organisers had a go at commentary that was somewhat like Roy & HG complete with fashion advice and references to some adults being wiped out in the warm up let alone in the game. The kids enjoyed themselves and the adults had a good go at it, getting to within 5 points of the kids in the end. Some of the kids did amazingly well with a some of the grade 5’s & 6’s showing they’ve been playing for a few years already.

All up it was a fun day despite having to spend more time looking down at the kids than up at the ball. Nykolai had fun with a few friends, I did my duty and I’ve (hopefully) done my sporting bit for the year.