Seasons Greetings 2008

Dear Readers,

It's been an interesting journey this year with many notable events colouring this lap around our Sun. While I usually only brush upon a subject once or twice in my blog it would seem that it has inspired at least two of my readers to look further into some of the topics I've shared my view on and create blogs of their own.

• In January the world said farewell to Heath Ledger, one of Australia's most famous and talented actors. The Internet turned 25 years old, Apple was making headlines with record breaking sales, we were still excited about Wii and LG finally fixed our air conditioner after six months of waiting for them to honour their warranty.
• February saw the purchase of a new Epson printer - the worst I've ever owned, we got a huge storm and the Writers Guild of America ended their 100 day strike.
• March was a big month. We launched the Cilla's Garden channel on YouTube, I watched a Queen tribute band called Killer Queen for the second time at the Gladstone Harbour Festival - they rock, and the guy that co-created Dungeons & Dragons - Gary Gygax passed away. Sadly, this was also the when our loyal and faithful Great Dane, Merlin, passed away.
• I didn't have much to say in April. I was missing my dog.
• May started with a bang when some construction guys came around to measure vibrations in the ground from explosions they were setting off nearby and we finished paving around our house!
• June was mostly tech news stuff. FireFox 3 and iPhone 3G were released. Bill Gates goes on something of a farewell tour preceding his retirement from Microsoft and I discovered the Potholer54 Made Easy series of science videos on YouTube.
• July was a big month with my sister Kathy walking down the aisle with Adrian in a larger-than-life fashion with an incredible church wedding. My very good friends Greg and Nat tying the knot in a special ceremony on the beach.
• August and September saw more tech news. Google launch street view in Google Maps and the Chrome browser. Apple introduce a feature into iTunes called 'Genius'. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was turned on and worked.... sort of... then they turned it off to... sort of... fix it.
• New tech releases continue into October with the release of OpenOffice.org 3 and Google add maps of The Great Barrier Reef to Google Maps. We also saw the loss of another canine friend - Steve's staffie, Beavis.
• November brought a new President-elect to the United States of America in Barack Hussein Obama. Mick and Anna had a baby daughter - Zoe. I did two recap posts....oops...
• In December I decided to speak out against the Government's proposed mandatory web filter which attracted some comments from new readers.

So lives both wound onto and fell off the mortal coil. Governments changed - but somehow managed to stay almost exactly the same. Technology surged ahead in leaps and bounds with Google, Apple and the open-source community leading the charge.

Of course there was plenty of other interesting stuff that I didn't write about. NASA did some fantastic stuff throughout the year. I learnt about these cool dynamic architecture buildings being built in Dubai, amongst other wonders of engineering. Leaps in hydrogen fuel-cell technology have allowed us to build cars that run on hydrogen, with water as it's only emission.

Like every year though, not all news in good news. Further effects of global warming are becoming much more apparent. Wars still plague our race. It's not just the wars you hear about either. There are wars in Africa being fought by children with AK-47 rifles, fighting over land, food and water. PNAC have reinstated their crazy neo-con website. The Zeitgeist continues...

But this is the season to be jolly. It's the time of year to be with family and friends, to celebrate the good times and to remember those that are no longer with us. Eat, drink and be merry.

I would like to thank all my regular readers for taking the time to visit D'gar HQ. A special thanks to those that have taken the time to leave comments, especially those observers that have been bold enough to voice an opposing view. There is no better way to celebrate free speech than to listen to someone who sees things differently.

Have a very safe and happy holiday.

Best wishes,

Jon.

D'gar HQ.

Load of bullamakanki

Bullamakanki.  It took me a while to work out the pronunciation, but what a cool word.  Say it aloud.  I like it.  It sounds Australian.  No-one should apologize for using it.  Google can't find the word anywhere, but this post should fix that.  Although there is an Australian country music group called Bullamakanka...

This post is a response to 'Observer' who commented on my last post with the suggestion that I over-stated the reaction of the general public to the Governments plan to censor the Internet by describing it as a 'massive uproar' and saying that I was making 'misleading, incorrect and exaggerated claims'.

Well, I have to say, I stand corrected.  The fact is that the general public are not even aware of this scheme.  The general public won't know about it until they're paying more for an Internet service which runs slower and prevents you from accessing sites deemed unfit by the Australian Government.  And even then most will only notice when they can't reach their favourite porn site anymore.

'Observer' goes on to explain that there has been an Australian censorship authority which has been censoring all other media for one hundred years and that there has been no uproar about that at all.  To quote: "Nothing, nada, nichts, zero...".

Well, if I'm to understand the gist of the word correctly, that right there is a load of bullamakanki.  Censorship has created an uproar in Australia many times.  A lot more than zero times, I can assure you.  The Office of Film and Literature Classification formed in 1970 is the "censorship authority" which is responsible for deciding what you can and can't see on television, DVD's or videos, what video games you can and can't play, which books you can and can't read and what music and audio you can and can't listen to.

There have been many calls from people who play video games for an (R) classification for video games.  Currently in Australia, any video game that exceeds (MA 15+) cannot be sold in Australia.  As someone who has worked as a software salesman in a retail store, I witnessed an uproar among the gaming community whenever a new game comes out and Australians had to wait for a 'dumbed down' version to be especially made to comply with our (MA 15+) rating.  This damages commerce and increases piracy as gamers seek other means of acquiring an un-cut version of the game.

It's not only members of IT related industries that are complaining about censorship in Australia.  Art exhibits, for example, are often under fire with some exhibits being put in sectioned off rooms with warnings and others being banned entirely.

I could go on further about how censorship in Australia has caused 'uproars' - from Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's days as Premier of Queensland having police beat and arrest student demonstrators to books being pulled out of our school libraries by people who have never even read them, but I think I've made my point.  Anyone who thinks there has never been an uproar over censorship in Australia should perhaps do some research of their own.

Don't get me wrong.  Censorship isn't always bad.  I have very little issue with the way censorship works on the television for example, with adult themed content restricted to late night viewing and proper warnings for content that is particularly gruesome or disturbing.

The reasons that Senator Stephen Conroy give for implementing the Internet censorship scheme are honourable.  He tells us he wants to implement his Great Barrier Firewall to protect our children and teenagers from child pornography and other "unwanted" content.

The reasons that George W. Bush gave for invading Iraq seemed pretty honourable at the time too.

Senator Stephen Conroy tells us that other western countries like the UK and Sweden already have an Internet blacklist and IP blocking scheme just like the one he's proposing.  This is a lie.  This story reveals the truth about how Internet service providers in Europe handle their blacklists and it's a far cry from the plan that Mr. Conroy is proposing.

An Australian Senator lying to the public to win support for a scheme that restricts what websites we visit should be cause for alarm.  An Australian Senator lying to the public should be cause for alarm for every Australian citizen.

But don't just take my word for it that this Internet censorship scheme is a bad idea.  Here are some of the things that the leaders of three of Australia's biggest Internet service providers have to say about Senator Conroy's plan.

"...the idea that ISPs could filter the Internet is technically impossible... and is a bad idea anyway." 

-Telstra Media's Justin Milne

"...the Internet is full of anonymous proxies - none of this stuff actually works."

-Internode's Simon Hackett

"...I do worry that this is the thin end of the wedge, that the government will come in with a small list of sites for the ISP to block and that just includes the real stuff that everyone agrees on like child pornography and bestiality.   And so we say 'We're willing to comply with that', but it becomes an area which can then be used for so much more.  So you might see the next step as an attempt to block out XXX sites or hate speech sites, and you think 'maybe, we can live with that', but then after that, it could be to block out competing political positions, or to block out sites about religion or sexual orientation that the Government says is no longer suitable for children in Australia"

-iiNet's Michael Malone

You can see these people saying these things on a video interview that you can watch on ZDnet.com.au.

So I thank you, Mr Observer, for pointing out the inaccuracy in my previous post.  Australian citizens are not in a massive uproar.

But they should be.  

This scheme will needlessly cost Australians money by raising the cost of our online access.  It will damage the performance of our Internet connection resulting in slower network speeds for everyone.  It is not possible for it to do the job it is intended to do because of the open nature of the Internet.  Anonymous proxies, encryption techniques and tunneling networks make it impossible for ISPs to monitor the content of data being transferred .

So I ask all my readers to join with me in creating a massive uproar against this ill-fated, costly and useless attempt to censor our Internet.  Let your friends, family and work colleagues know what our Government is trying to do and educate them about pitfalls of such a plan.  Sign the petition at GetUp.org.au with your e-mail address.  This is important to us all.  We must be heard.

Internet Censorship

I'm very concerned with the new government proposal to censor our Internet by creating a private blacklist of sites that contain "unwanted content".  

The Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, is ignoring the massive uproar of Australian citizens and, not only is he going ahead with his oppressive censorship scheme but he is expanding the list of censored material to block pretty much anything that the he or anyone else in the Government deems unfit.  It seems that no matter how many people cry out, no matter how many angry phone calls and e-mails are sent, he is of the opinion that he has the power and he shall do whatever he wants!

Please take the time to read the following items.

• ISP-level content filtering won't work - Brett Winterford and Julian Hill, ZDNet.com.au
  
• Doing as we're told - Mart Vernon, Townsville Bulletin
• The internet filter we still have to have - Jennifer Dudley, Courier Mail
• Children's welfare groups slam net filters - Asher Moses, Sydney Morning Herald
• If You Hate The Idea Of A Filtered Internet, You Should Probably Sign This... - Nick Broughall, Gizmodo
• Internet filter to block 10,000-plus "unwanted" sites - Jennifer Dudley, Courier Mail
• Net porn: Whose rights matter most? - Clive Hamilton, ABC News

Despite the debate and despite the politicians wanting to implement this censorship scheme, Telstra - the company that pretty much owns the copper that most people use for their broadband and also owns the most extensive 3G network in Australia - say that the scheme is impossible to implement.  Telstra, iiNet, Internode and just about every IT professional in the country is telling us that this trying to implement this scheme will cost enourmous amounts of money - only a small fraction of which will actually be paid by the Government, the rest of the cost will be passed onto the consumer - and in the end, it won't work.

Technically the scheme is impossible to implement.

It will cost many millions of dollars trying to implement it, most of which will be paid for with higher Internet access costs to the consumer.

If it is implemented, the Government will decide what is suitable for you to look at, read, watch or listen to online.

I signed the petition at GetUp! Action for Australia.  GetUp! sucessfully rallied to help  get David Hicks out of Guantanamo and sucessfully fought for Work Rights in Australia and are now on the case for Internet Freedom.

Save our Internet... again!