Things have slowed down again on the blogging front, due mainly to the fact that things have speeded up in all areas not related to blogging.
As those who've been paying close attention to the "About the Author" section would have noticed, I have recently completed my law degree, although I'm a little unclear as to whether I'm currently entitled to use the postnominals "LLB", given that the actual graduation ceremony won't be until ~March 2009.
I'm also no longer working as a researcher at QUT. As of about a month ago, I've been gainfully employed in the Real World™ as a graduate lawyer with an Australian telecommunications carrier. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone, considering that I worked in the IT/ISP/telco sector in technical/management roles before I started the law degree. I'm really enjoying my new position, as it offers challenges, opportunities, respect and recognition which my research work at QUT just couldn't provide. This is not to say that I'm discontinuing my research. I'll still be conducting research and publishing, except that now it will be on topics I choose, with co-authors I choose. A Master of Laws by thesis is on the cards for 2010, but first I have to find somewhere to do it. I had my eye on the University of Melbourne but they've recently deprecated their LLM by research in favour of an M. Phil and I have reservations about the worth of the latter degree.
I think my new employers are grateful that they've got an almost-but-not-quite lawyer about who knows all the technical stuff. A typical law graduate would probably get lost in this job, or at least would face a very steep learning curve - a lot of questions like "what's [dark fibre|duct space|ethernet|telehousing]?" would be asked.
A couple of other short-medium term projects are being devised at the moment - watch this space for details.
I've thus far - thankfully - avoided the temptation to engage in off-topic rants on my blog. But I found out something this afternoon that has me so upset, and so incensed, that on this occasion I'll digress somewhat. My knowledge of the facts here is necessarily based on second-hand information, so I can't vouch for its veracity, but I believe it to be reliable.
This afternoon I was volunteering at an organisation where I spend many of my weekends volunteering. I was working with a woman who I've known for a while now - I'll call her Sally (not her real name). A few months ago, Sally suddenly became fatally ill and almost died. From the lay-terminology explanations I was given, it sounds like she suffered an aortic dissection. She survived, against the odds.
However, the treatment costs and ongoing expenses for various anti-hypertensive drugs put a severe strain on Sally's finances. They were stretched to the point where Sally could no longer afford to feed her two cats, Sandy and Zorro, and she made the heartbreaking decision to surrender them to the RSPCA for adoption. Sally took them to the RSPCA in the town where she lives, along with their food, their litter, and their favourite blankets. The RSPCA told her that because they had both been desexed, and were current with their vaccinations and so forth, they had an excellent chance of being rehomed. This morning, Sally was telling me about how much she missed them and how hard it would be to go home and not hear their bells as they ran to greet her.
Today, Sally's children became worried about Sandy and Zorro. Her ex-husband (who I assume had custody of the children today) rang the RSPCA to check on them.
The RSPCA had already killed Zorro - he was killed the same day that Sally surrendered him.
He was a beautiful mackerel tabby kitten, only 9 months old. Sally bought him earlier this year after one of her other cats was mauled to death in her back yard by her neighbor's dogs.
Yesterday brought news that a long list of copyright holders, under the banner of the 'Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft' (AFACT) have sued iiNet for copyright infringement - their argument seems to be that iiNet have failed to take reasonable steps to prevent their users from downloading movies online. In one sense, the claim against iiNet is that they have 'failed to do their utmost' (see also John Byng) to prevent piracy, which fits rather neatly given that the motivation of the copyright holders is undoubtedly pour encourager les autres.
But something about the situation smells. Not just that AFACT have chosen to take on iiNet instead of larger ISPs such as Telstra Bigpond, who would be better able to defend the action - although this choice has been characterized as 'gutless' by others.
In particular, what smells is this:
- October 29: Kevin Bermeister (sued for squillions by the global music industry in the Kazaa litigation) and Michael Speck (former head of Music Industry Piracy Investigations, who were heading the lawsuit against Kazaa) announce that they are flogging a magical new filtering technology allegedly capable of removing both porn and piracy from peer-to-peer networks;
- November 11: iiNet announce that they will participate in a trial of Internet filtering technology; and
- November 20: iiNet sued by the copyright holders.
This has certain parallels with what has occurred overseas, where at least some companies who are selling anti-piracy prophylactics have connections, financial or otherwise, with the copyright industry. I don't think its entirely kosher for the copyright holders to be threatening to sue ISPs, schools and colleges, etc, unless they introduce anti-piracy measures, and gee whiz, here's one that they're selling!
This is the inevitable result of forcing ISPs to police the content that traverses their network - everybody with an agenda which involves or would be furthered by the blocking of content that they believe unlawful or find objectionable will want their agenda catered to.
A lot of work obviously went into this. Posted for the benefit of everybody who needs a good laugh after dealing with far too much clean feed-related stupidity:
It seems that Senator Conroy doesn't confine his cheap stunts and grandstanding in the Senate to the issue of Labor's proposed clean feed scheme. Last Wednesday, the Senate was debating during the second reading of the bill to establish Labor's pet 'fuelwatch' scheme. The coalition opposed fuelwatch, leaving Labor needing the vote of the five Greens senators, plus Fielding and Xenophon, else the bill would fail. As it turned out, Senator Xenophon voted against it and the bill was defeated. But not before Conroy engaged in some theatrics which I'm beginning to suspect are typical of the man. From the Hansard: [at p 9]
Senator Xenophon: Over the past few months the issue of Fuelwatch has been debated extensively in this parliament, in the media and in the broader community.
Senator Conroy: Why do you hate Australian motorists?
There you have it. The best that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, and the Minister representing the Treasurer in the Senate can come up with, is that if you vote against fuelwatch, you hate Australian motorists.
If this wasn't so weak, it'd be funny. Presumably if and when the legislation implementing clean feed comes up for consideration in the Senate, it'll be 'why do you hate Australian children?' or 'why do you support paedophiles?'
Surely Labor can find someone better to take over his portfolio? Give it to Senator Lundy - at least she understands the technology. It's becoming apparent that what Conroy knows about the Internet could be written in foot-high letters on the head of a pin.
Its pretty sad when the Minister for the Internets is taking debating tips from South Park.
Jack Marx has written a very good piece on news.com.au about the need for censorship of the Bible. As the article points out, the Bible contains many passages which promote or instruct in matters of crime, or would be regarded as offensive by reasonable adults - including advocating the murder of homosexuals:
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. - Leviticus 20:13
Putting aside for one moment the substantive content of the Bible, as a document it is highly likely to be censored by any dynamic filtering system that relies on the presence of 'naughty words' as a basis for filtering. The King James version of the Bible, for example, contains:
- 65 passeges containing the word 'whore' (or derivitaves);
- 37 passeges containing the word 'murder' (or derivatives); and
- 33 passeges containing the word 'adultery' (or derivatives).
Other versions have even naughtier words - the New International Version has seven passages dealing with 'rape'.
This demonstrates where the wheels will come off the 'filtering' system that Labor are proposing. Software is good at trivial tasks such as comparing the next of a web page against a list of 'naughty words', but it's bad at determining things such as context. A website dealing with breast cancer could get censored because it contains the word 'breast' too many times. A website which is against child pornography, or child sex tourism, might get censored because the filter can't tell the difference between a website which is against those things, or is promoting them. Websites talking about the novel Lolita or any of the film adaptations of the novel would probably get censored.
But if the Bible gets banned, that's a small price to pay. I'm sure that the Christians will think it's an acceptable level of collateral damage. This is about saving the children, people.
Besides, the Book of Revelation might give them nightmares.
Tonight, Triple M's 'The Spoonman' talk-radio show will be devoted to Labor's 'clean feed' Internet censorship proposal. The show will be broadcast from 10pm tonight in Brisbane (FM 104.5), Sydney (FM 104.9) and Melbourne (FM 105.1). You can also stream it online. Fellow Brisbanites, be advised that the show is done from Sydney so there's a one-hour delay before it's broadcast in Brisbane.
I'll be speaking to The Spoonman about it, and I understand that they're trying to get Conroy on the show as well, but Conroy's office is ducking them.
It should be a fantastic show. I encourage everybody to tune in and call in (phone 1 333 53) to express your views.
An Internet meme which seems to be growing in popularity lately is creative recaptioning of a certain scene of a German-language movie Der Untergang (known as 'Downfall' in its English release). The first example which came to my attention was a dummy-spit from Hitler about the availability (or lack thereof) of ADSL2 in Tasmania. It's still the best one I've encountered so far.
Obligatory warning for the easily offended: The captions contain profanity. I guess the audio track might also contain profanity in German, but I don't speak the lingo, so who knows?
Then another creative individual recaptioned the scene to depict a diatribe from Hitler against opposition to 'clean feed'. I think the implication is that Hitler is Senator Conroy (or vice versa). Enjoy:
