The Australian Federal Police's (AFP) "High Tech Crime" division has only just now realised the risks of identity theft social networking sites pose. The slow speed with which they have realised these risks is a scary thought on it's own. These are the members of the AFP who are meant to understand computers, the internet and how crimes are committed with them. And yet it has taken how many years since the inception of Social networking for these apparent masters of technology to realise what to me has always been a rather obvious risk.

High Tech Crime Operation acting national manager Karl Kent said

"Children are providing personal details on these sites such as their full name, date of birth, their place of residence and even the school they attend. Online fraudsters can use this information to open credit card accounts and commit financial crimes in the child's name."

His warning of course doesn't apply only to children, adults are at just as much risk if these same details are displayed. Federal Police advised users to change the default privacy settings on their social network of choice to more secure settings. But lets think about this for a moment, what is the most popular social networking site on the internet? Answer: Facebook with it's 400+ Million users world wide. But as I have discussed previously in this blog Facebook MANDATE without option or choice by the user that your name, date of birth, likes/dislikes (in the form of fan pages), "Home Town", country of residence and profile picture are all a matter of public domain.

That is to say Facebook allows google and other search engines to collect that data from EVERY ONES profile without exception. Once google has hold of it that information is then accessible by ANYONE on the internet, even those who don't hold a Facebook account let alone be on your friends list. Doubt me? Read Facebooks privacy policy yourself, it's all in there. So 400+ MILLION people across the world have their details; the very same details an identity thieves need; publicly accessible anywhere on the internet, by anyone without any option to stop that from occurring.

If that wasn't scary enough, thanks to the demanding language Facebook use in their sign up form and the general nature of how social networking works, most Facebook users have input their real, true details instead of fudging them a little. In fact to fudge your details on Facebook is actually a major breech of the Facebook terms of service and will result in immediate termination of your account. Weird huh? It's almost like Facebook WANT you to have your identity stolen.

Links;

iTWire Article

War, human suffering, industralised land clearing, climate change, over population...the list goes on and on and on and one thing unites them all. They're caused by money. I'm sure when money was introduced it seemed like a good idea, a standardised unit of value to create a "universal" valuing system; and in that purist form it's a brilliant idea. The problem is it's a system which doesn't account for emotions like greed.

Humans have a huge tendency toward greed and it never ceases to amaze me how even a relatively small sum of money can absolutely change an otherwise kind, generous person into an arrogant, selfish monster. Oh yes, the statement money is the root of evil is entirely true. Think about it.

Ever war in recent history was fought over money, heck some of those wars were only fought so the arms dealers could stay in business. Think about how many 100s of MILLIONS of lives have been lost due to wars fought over money. Not freedom or defending territory or anything like it's made out to be, but pure cold hard cash. This Iraq war being fought at the moment for example, all over oil and keeping a few big name arms dealers in business. It makes me sick to think all those soldiers are dying or coming up with mental disorders, all their families worrying and suffering, so a few rich blokes can make some more money. That is disgraceful and disrespectful to the soldiers and their families.

And climate change, geez. Industralisation occurred to produce products in greater numbers so the business owners could make more money. From Industralisation green house gases were released setting in effect a chain reaction for which we are seeing the beginnings of the results now. Massive land clearing, logging, mining and so forth, all spurred on by money, all adding to the climate change effect. And when presented with the climate change data over the passed 40 years the excuse to not do anything about it? "It will to strongly negatively impact on our economy" or in other words, money.

Without money there would be no poor, homeless or starving people in the world. Not less! NONE! Think about it. If you got rid of money over night what that would mean for these people. Even over population has it's roots in money, for with money as an incentive larger and larger farms have been developed making an abundance of readily available food. As food becomes easier to obtain population booms. It's basic biology 101. Yep, there really aren't many problems humanity is having today that don't have their roots in money.

Now defenders of money might say "it's not a perfect system, but it's all we have". That is a complete cop out. Before money it was barter, if the advocates of the barter system had copped out like that money would never have been invented. What we need is to develop further on the system of money, to advance forward in our system of trade. I mean money, as a system was created thousands of years ago, isn't it about time we brought our trade system into 2010?

I've been thinking lately about getting some life insurance quotes, see what it would cost me to be insured. I think it will take some looking around though and a lot of reading of "fine print" before I decide on one. I often wonder if it's even really worth it, I mean lets take funeral insurance for example. I know that $5000 worth of cover costs $2.30 a week. If I assume, like the insurance company does that it's most likely I'll live on to at least 86 then I can produce the following equation.

$2.30 per week times 4.3 weeks in a month equals $9.89 paid per month.
$9.89 per month times 12 months in a year equals $118.68 paid per year.
$118.68 per year times the expected 60 years of life left equals $7120.80

That means if I simply put the same insurance fee away in a bank account every week (I could set it up to be automatic for example) for the rest of my life and I did live an extra 60 years then I'd have $2120.80 EXTRA then if I'd gotten funeral cover. I wonder if it's the same sort of savings with life insurance? Never know until I find out I guess. And I suppose there is the fact that I don't know how long I'll live, I could drop dead tomorrow. Hrmmm... lots to think about, best get those quotes.

Today I received an interesting request from one of my readers; they wanted to be able to subscribe to my blog by email. I thought about it for a while and realised it could be a valuable service. So I'm proud to announce that not only can you now subscribe to my the RSS/Atom feed, the twitter feed and the facebook feed but now I'm pleased to announce you can receive blog posts directly to your email!

The service is supported by the wonderful people over at FeedBurner (Now a google asset) who are transferring my RSS feed directly to email subscribers. Never miss an update again, subscribe by email today and get posts in your inbox at 9am (AEST) every day!

Of course if anyone else has suggestions or requests I am open to them and happy to receive them. If I think it's a good idea I'll implement it. Thanks again to all my readers, I hope you continue to enjoy reading this blog.

Ok so it's 3:16am and this aboriginal show called "message stick" is on the ABC. This Aboriginal woman was just on and tried to claim that aboriginals are *cough* invisible to Australia. Excuse me? How do they figure that one? Invisible people don't get their TV shows aired on the government run ABC. They don't have special warns put at the front of TV shows which have people who have died in them because that effects their culture. Invisible people don't have land rights like in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Invisible people aren't counted as citizens and aren't allowed to vote. Invisible people aren't given special payments from the government and invisible people aren't allowed government provided lawyers even when everyone else isn't allowed one.

Fact of the matter is Aboriginals get a LOT of liberties afforded to them, a LOT of them. There is a great inequality going on which is now in the favour of Aboriginals and they have the nerve to complain and say they're invisible? WTF? And they want a treaty allowing them to take some powers away from the state governments because they were here first? They're not even joking, they're being serious..

Seriously, how many of them where alive in 1788 when Australia was colonised by the British? Oh right that would be zero. Ok, so what about the generation immediately after that, how many of those are alive today? Oh right, that would be zero. So what they're saying is NO LIVING Aboriginal has EVER lived in an Australia which wasn't colonised by the British. But beyond that, NO LIVING Aboriginal has EVER lived in an Australia which didn't contain WHITE AUSTRALIANS, that is to say white people BORN in Australia. Excuse me but if you've never known a world other then the one you live in now outside of stories, then seriously what makes you think for a second you have a right to go back to it?

EVERY country on the planet has at some stage in its history had people who invaded and took over. Deal with it. Stop living in a past that you've never known, we're talking about something almost 300 years ago here!! Seriously! You don't deserve ANY special rights at all, NONE!

You're an Australia, no better than any other Australia. Stop making excuses to get special treatment, because nothing is going to make all the white people pick up and leave, nothing is going to turn the clock back 300 years and NOTHING is going to make Aboriginals in charge of Australia. Deal with it.

I'm getting fed up with all this nonsense, it's seriously time to move on with yourselves. Stop beating each other up and breaking the law. Stop getting drunk off your head all the time and chroming. Stop all the anti-social behaviours and blaming white people for them. Take some responsibility for your own damn actions. GET A JOB! And don't give me some crap about no one will give you a job because you're Aboriginal because that's just utter bullshit now days. Sure there was once a time that was true, but now days it's an utter lie. Not only will employers give Aboriginals a go if they have the right skills, but there are even employers and jobs that ONLY aboriginals are allowed to apply for, which in itself is absolute bullshit. Apparently the anti-discrimination laws don't apply if you're a healthy, normal, fully functional white person who is discriminated against.

I'm tired of the excuses from Aboriginals, and I think most Australians are getting fed up with them too. There were a lot of people 10 years ago who were behind the Aboriginals, who helped fight for their rights and junk who now can just see a lack of movement by the Aboriginals themselves to better themselves. People who once backed Aboriginals, can now just see Aboriginals are all about excuses and getting something for nothing. It's stupid and it needs to end.

And I'm sorry but none of this is racist. Racism means that I am prejudice against someone because of their race. I don't dislike Aboriginals, I'm not trying to harm them, I'm not saying they shouldn't have equal rights, I'm not trying to belittle them or anything else along those lines. What I am saying is that they are getting ridiculous in their claims and their demands. What I AM saying is that instead of talking about something from 300 years ago, instead of talking about how different they are and their delusional land rights, they need to accept themselves as AUSTRALIANS. They need to accept the COUNTRY THEY LIVE IN and they need to focus on how they are the same as other Australians, what they have in common with other Australians and just become productive, useful members of society.

That's a decision each individual person in the Aboriginal community will need to make for them self. That instead of sitting around fighting to have more power and junk, put all that energy into bettering the country for ALL Australians not just a select minority. If we want to stop racism to stop then those who feel persecuted against have to stop making themselves out to be so different. Stop going on that you're black, you're aboriginal, you need this special treatment or blah blah blah. Just get on with it and people will follow suit. Geez, common sense much.

So I've begun work on a new secret project for YouTube, I'm hoping it will actually make a difference to at least a few peoples lives. Unlike my other YouTube projects though this one isn't going to be scripted, fresh off the cuff. You won't have to wait long, I'm planing to upload the first video this coming Monday; and I'll explain more about it then. Unfortunately though I won't be embedding this project into my blog, so you'll have to check it out on YouTube if you want to see it.

If you have a website or blog you want people to find you online. Much to the dismay of many you can't just start a website or blog and instantly attract thousands if not millions of views. It's taken me 8 months to get to a point where most of my blog posts get a couple thousand views and it takes work to keep it that way, let alone expand the market.

Fortunately there are many tools available online to help you along the way. SEO stands for search engine optimisation and is probably one of the most important things you can possible do to get people to visit your website as most of you traffic will come from Google, Bing or Yahoo. You can of course pay for ads on these search engines or on other websites, but the click through rate could be low meaning you've wasted your money. Another method is to submit your blog or website to some of the hundreds of directories. The free ones are always a honey pot to find, so when you do, you should share it. If you look in the links below you'll find all the directories I've found so far, and I'll try to update this post as I find more. Good luck with your website or blog.

Links;

free directory submission
Blog Catalog
Blog Search Engine
Loaded Web

I read an article today in iTWire which suggested that Google were hypocrites by opposing the Australian governments planned mandatory internet filter. The article claims that because Google filter their YouTube videos (or more over what they actually do is selectively take down videos which violate their Terms Of Service) that they are no different from the proposed nation wide mandatory internet filter. What an absolute joke of so called reporting that was. They couldn't have gotten that piece anymore wrong and have just made their entire publication look ridiculous as a result.

Google are a single company, a company from which you have a choice to use or not to use. If you don't like the terms of service on YouTube there are literally thousands of other video hosting sites on the internet, all with their own spin on acceptable terms of service. So if in fact you want to post something that YouTube doesn't allow there is always a place somewhere else on the internet that does. And heck if you really can't find someone to host your video, you can always host it yourself. So my first point of order is CHOICE! You as the consumer have a CHOICE as to which websites you frequent with your views. If the Terms of Service for a particular website weren't acceptable then they wouldn't become very popular, but the CHOICE for those who DO want to engage that site remains.

The ISP based GOVERNMENT internet filter in Australia however is MANDATORY. ALL ISPs will have to engage it into their system and ALL Australians will have to suffer through it. Meaning that you have NO CHOICE. The government gets behind the wheel of the drivers seat telling you what is and isn't acceptable and whether we like it or not we are forced to accept their decisions. This is dangerous for a number of reasons, not just because of the censorship it hales but also because it dangerously gets people hooked on not having to make a decision anymore or take responsibility for the consequences. Under such a scheme it would no longer be the parents fault if little billy looked at a porn site because his parents failed to supervise him adequately whilst he used the internet, instead it would now be the governments fault for not blocking the site out in the first place. Dangerous territory folks.

The second thing that differentiates google from the internet filter is that YouTube is NOT googles only asset. They have literally hundreds of them now. Their biggest asset being their Search Engine which the iTWire article strangely lacks mentioning. Google Search and it's variant Google Image Search both have the option to turn off "safe search" filtering allowing FULL access to the internet. Type in any keyword from the internet filters "Restricted Content" list into Google Search and you'll get back thousands if not millions of results. Google don't make judgments about your character or effect how you use the internet. They don't squash your voice.

The mandatory internet filter on the other hand does squash your voice. The Australian Media & Communications Authority (AMCA) which is currently in charge of rating TV and radio content would be in charge of rating and blocking out INTERNET content as well in much the same way the rate TV. The government have failed to realise that the internet is a vastly different medium to TV and can not and should not be subject to the SAME rating policy. If Senator Conroy has his way the internet will be G rated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Websites engaging in legal adult services like legal pornography will be blocked if they don't verify your age first by asking for your credit card details. Gone will be the free porn sites from Australian views. In addition, any pornographic content, even those who do verify age which can be classified as X-rated (that is shows full frontal sex scenes instead of hiding away the action) will be blocked.

This same strategy applies to legal gambling websites, and any other content you wouldn't want a 9 year old child seeing. If someone in a forum somewhere discusses how valid for example the terrorist nature of the 9/11 attack that forum page can and probably will be blocked under the filter. In direct contrast Google would still serve that page up indiscriminately. Anything the government deems to be racist, prejudice or discriminate in nature ban and will be blocked under the filter. So for example if you don't like the immigration policy Australia is currently engaging and the flood of Indians it has brought into our country and you write about it in your blog, it can and WILL be blocked by the filter because someone could wrongly view that as racism.

And while I don't in anyway agree with or endorse their politics or views, even sites which hate certain groups in society have their place on the internet. I don't agree with what they have to say, so I would never visit such a website, nor would the majority of our community. In fact the only people who WOULD visit such a website would be those who ALREADY feel that way. But just because I don't agree with their point of view doesn't mean they don't have a right to it. Who is Senator Conroy to say what people CAN and CAN'T talk about?

This is a filter which contrary to what the iTWire article claims will NOT be transparent. The blacklist used in the filter will NOT be publicly available. Think about it, why would you not make the list publicly available if you are innocently blocking out ONLY content which the community could understand why you blocked it. Not only is there the clear historical danger of this turning into a filter which blocks out everyone who speaks against the government, it's political, social or economic views or anything else they don't like; but it also has the fowl whiff of such an event in the making. China ringing any bells to anyone?

And while I will admit I do NOT agree with everything Google do (some of their privacy policy models for example spring to mind) in general they genuinely seem committed to a better working, more accessible and easier to use internet which sponsors freedom of speech and expression for all. It is because of this reason, and the millions of dollars Google has to put into lobbying the government for changes to the filtering legislation that I am glad to have Google onside. So thank-you Google for joining the fight to keep the internet free for everyone.

Links;

iTWire Article

The data coming out of the United States is showing the economy is beginning to improve, but what does this mean for the average joe? The unemployment rate is showing it's first real signs of beginning to fall, which I can only assume means it's becoming easier to find a job in America. I have no doubts however that there are still a lot of people hurting financially having lost everything.

I find it appalling under those circumstances that the board members of banks and financial institutions who caused this whole mess, the same group of companies that the US government had to bail out in the the order of trillions, received bonuses at the end of 2009. Bonuses for what exactly; crippling the global economy and causing financial distress to billions and causing millions to become homeless? It's moments like these that make government regulation of financial services sound like a good idea.

None the less there are signs of hope on the horizon. Things are improving, and regardless of the distress and pain being caused now, and the loss of the past, the future looks bright. Now is when things can really start to be rebuilt for the individual. With work comes hope and the promise of a better tomorrow. We can only hope.

It seems in todays world just to get your foot in the do for a job interview you must have a university degree; in fact as your career progresses you're expected to constantly be upgrading your skills. The problem is how do you keep your full time job and yet manage to go to university so that you have the desired skills for that big promotion you're hoping for?

Enter the age of the online university, were you can continue your studies online regardless where in the world you are. And these aren't some fly by night institutions either, in fact some of the biggest universities on the planet have realised the power of the internet and offer their courses online. In Australia the most well respected universities have joined forces even to offer a university program called "Open University".

Not only is this of benefit to those already in the work force looking to up skill, but also to those who live in rural regions and thus would otherwise not have access to universities. People like farmers are now able to access higher learning courses which benefit both the farming business they run and the environment they utilise (through better farming methods) to carry out their farming business. Even I am considering doing another degree through online university, this time in journalism.

Of course there are however certain courses which due to practical reasons can not be done by online university, like for example "med school". But there is certainly no denying the fact that online universities are certainly a very positive part of the community.

Links;

Online Degree
Open University

I've embedded using YouTube this week to see how well it's received. I want to see if more people will watch and share the video if I embed with YouTube instead of vimeo. If you like this video, please be sure to rate it 5 stars and pass it on to as many other people as you can. Thanks

I recently seen a guy by the name of Jonathan Safran-Foer (No, not John Safran the mega awesome comedian, another guy), on The Colbert Report and again at 1am on Big Ideas on the ABC. He's written a book, which I must say I have not read, and he has started on a bunch of keynote addresses as part of a book tour. It's from these keynote addresses that I want to talk about today. See Jonathan has decided eating meat is really bad, but instead of taking a confrontational stance like PETA would, he's trying the buddy buddy, logic path to try and turn people vegetarian.

A vegetarian human race would be a terrible thing, and I hope I don't live to see a day when the majority of people are sustained on a vegetarian diet. I've actually downloaded one of his keynote addresses, and I'll prove you with a link to download it yourself and watch it. Does Jonathan seem like a nice guy? Sure, he seems like a great, normal guy. Does he present a halfway logical argument, sure I'll concede that too. But that doesn't mean some of the things he says aren't lies? No, it certainly doesn't. Does that mean that his way of thinking is the only way of thinking, the most logical or the best way of thinking? No. And I also MUST point out that MOST of his arguments are for things happening either solely in the USA or only in small scale in other parts of the world.

So the major thing Jonathan talks about is how bad Factory farming is. How it's bad for your body, bad for the environment, bad for the animals involved. I'm not arguing that point, in fact I agree totally with him, factory farming is bullshit and should be banned. But that doesn't then mean the only option in vegetarianism, nor does it mean that vegetarianism is better or healthier or that the same sorts of problems don't exist in the fruit and vegetable farming world. I don't know how much research Jonathan has put into fruit and veg, but he certainly isn't talking about all the bullshit happening there.

He makes great repetition of the fact that turkeys can't reproduce naturally anymore because their bodies are so distorted; but fails completely to mention that MOST of the fruit or vegetables you buy in the supermarket now days (and this IS a global issue) are genetically altered so they can't reproduce anymore. Their seeds are sterile, due to what is known as a terminator gene which has been introduced to all the grains and most fruit and veg so that farms have to continue to buy seed each year.

He talks about how animals in factory farming require antibiotic shots to survive their conditions, but fails to mention the genetically altered crops which now produce and excrete their own insecticides and herbicides. For a man who claims to want a balanced discussion on the issue, he doesn't seem to be talking much of a balance argument. Indeed there are countless genetic modification to the fruit, veg and grains you eat every day and in much larger quantities than you do meat. It is a LIE to say that fruit, veg and grain is healthy for you when there is evidence starting to come through connecting these wide spread genetic modifications with numerous health issues.

And while there MAY be a couple of factory farms in Australia I know very confidently they are very uncommon. I know extremely confidently that when I go to woolies, coles, IGA or even my local butcher that the meat I buy will come from an animal which has been able to graze, which was fed grain and grass/hay. I've seen the process, I know how it works over here.

Which leads me to my first main point; Just because factory farming is a bad idea, doesn't make eating meat a bad thing. In fact as I've talked about in previous posts meat, particularly red meat is an important part of your diet. Your human body has evolved in an omnivorous way, and without meat in your diet there are loads of things that can go wrong. Your iron levels plummet (unless you eat huge amounts of veg; eg 14.1Kg of broccoli has the same iron content as 500g of steak), you won't have any animal protein in your diet (which actually your body has evolved to use best), amongst a number of other things which I've already talked about in previous posts.

To me a FAR more logical stance to take to factory farming, far from deciding to not eat meat anymore (which lets face it would be nothing more than some sort of deluded protest) is to fight to have those commercialised and industrialised farming practices BANNED. THAT is the logical conclusion, to fight for farming returned to sustainable ways. Jonathan touches on that for only 20 seconds in response to someones question and remains impartial to it.

It is a LIE to state that humanity needs to become vegetarian in order for our continued existence. We don't. What we DO need to do is control our population and our wastage better. Explain to me how ANYONE thinks it's reasonable that 1/3 of the global human population lives in the tiny country of India. Clearly over populated countries like India and China need to look at how to stop their population problems (and no immigrating to other countries is not a solution, we need LESS births). Explain to me also why ANYONE thinks it's reasonable that the USA uses 1/4 of the GLOBAL resources, and WASTES in the quantities it does.

Drop the population to sustainable levels and the amount of wastage to almost zero; if not zero itself; and you immediately need to produce far far less food to feed them. And the thing is that over population of humans plus wastage are major problems not just for food production but in every part of the environment. If we don't fix those 2 fundamental things then the earth will die taking us and every other creature along with it. So it is a MASSIVE lie to say if we all turn vego everything will be ok, because that simply isn't the case.

I also reject entirely the comment made by Jonathan that humanity is the stewards of the earth. That is perhaps the BIGGEST lie propetuated by humanity, particularly animal rights groups. It is a LIE to say that humanity is special, different (in a way that makes us superior) or separate from other animals. And is certainly a lie to say that humans are the only animals capable of choosing what their diet will contain. My best example of why that particular point is a lie is that my dog is currently experiencing a moment in time where he is choosing NOT to eat the dog food I provide him and instead trying to get hold (by whatever means necessary) foods like crisps and pizza.

That is a conscious choice HE has made. In fact I have no doubt that any animal when presented with a seemingly endless choice and variety of food would be capable of making dietary choices on their own accord (and yes sometimes good choices and sometimes bad choices, just like humans). The biggest lie ever invented is that you're somehow special. You're NOT! If for example human only disease wiped humanity off the planet tomorrow, no other creature would blink an eyelid, except perhaps in relief. The fact of the matter is humanity is as far from special as it gets, humanity is also as far from good for the planet as it gets too.

Humans have NO extra rights, no special responsibilities, none of that. It's all LIES! We do not have the right nor responsibility to "cull" (which is a polite way of saying massacre) the populations of other animals; especially when ours is so over populated. If we want to cull animals, lets start with ourselves. If everyone who thinks culling other animals simply picked up a gun, stuck it to their head and pulled the trigger, then we'd at least be on the way to getting our population in check . That isn't to say I think we should cull humanity, but we certainly shouldn't be culling another species. The day that humanity realises just how far from special they are, how intelligent other animals actually are and honestly how stupid and insane humanity actually is will be the day the earth moves forth.

I also reject Jonathans idea that the only reason humans hunt is for thrill. That's absolute bullshit. THAT IS A LIE! What's to say a hunter doesn't grow his own fruit and veg? In fact hunting is natural, it's how humanity was built. It's fairer on other animals, much fairer than penning animals in and then killing them. It also means you can get close to nature, close to your roots. You can most certainly kill to eat. Think of it this way, a vegetarian or vegan makes a conscious decision to only eat plants, even when that means going out of their way, even when there is plenty of other food down at the local supermarket. A hunter can be the same, in that they may sure have a supermarket within shopping distance, but they can make a conscious decision to hunt their meat instead of buying it from the supermarket.

In fact Jonathan Safran-Foer introduces NO new arguments to the table. He is the same old vegetarian coming with his arguments why everyone else should be the same way as he is. He pretends to not try and get other people to be like him, but if this was truly the case there would be no book, there would be no keynote addresses and this post wouldn't exist because I would never have heard of him. Fact of the matter is, yes the people who operate factory farms lie and yes the state of the food system (like basically EVERY OTHER SYSTEM) in the United States of America is broken. But it's also fact that Jonathan Safran-Foer is trying to convert you, it's also fact that he (like all vegoes) tells as many (if not more) lies than the people who run the factory farms.

Links;

Jonathan Safron-foer's keynote @ Sixth & 1

Have you ever noticed that everything in our increasingly overly capitalist society can be assigned a monetary value? If a fall over in the street and break my ankle I can sue the council for money. If at work I lose a finger I can sue for money. In fact there is actually a list which the courts go by stating how much you can get for different injuries.

We buy and sell other animals, assigning them a dollar value; when lets face it they're actually another intelligent (much more so then most of us give credit for) sentential being. Heck we even assign our own lives a dollar value through life insurance and funeral insurance. It seems nothing is without a dollar value these days, think about it.

But how can you assign dollar values to some of this stuff. I watched an ad on TV for funeral insurance that said if your "loved one" dies in an accident you'll get $45,000 extra to "ease your pain and suffering". Yep, even your pain and suffering has a dollar value now days. But lets be honest, if you just lost you partner, the mother or father of your kids, they're dead, gone forever. Is any amount of money, let alone $45,000 going to ease your "pain and suffering"? It certainly wouldn't mine.

If Sarah died I can tell you no amount of money is going to make that good with me, nor should it be able to. Sure with Life Insurance the money helps you survive, but lets be honest here...if you have kids and a mortgage even half a million dollars isn't going to last you to long. No matter what, if you lose the bread winner in your family, your lifestyle is going to change. You will eventually need to go out and work, the amount of life insurance you receive only dictates how long you can delay it. It certainly doesn't ease the pain of losing your "loved one"!

So why do we do it? Why as rational but emotional beings do we attempt to assign a dollar value to everything in our world? And more importantly how do we expect that our children will grow to have good morals and values, as well as being emotionally well adjusted if they live in a world were everything is defined by how much money it's worth? What do we think happens to our attachments to each other, our attachments to the environment, our self value and emotional state if we have money attached to everyone? Together, we as a community design our own society, so we need to start asking these questions of ourselves before it's to late. Remember, extremism, regardless of it's reference is always a bad thing.

It was "revealed" in todays Sunday mail (and I assume at least all other APP publications) that murdered multimillionaire businessman Herman Rockefeller met his killers through an internet sex site. The article continued he had "at least five (5) secret pre-paid mobile phones" and had "at least one mystery girlfriend".

The article also noted that Mr Rockefeller is a married man with 2 children before it continued to drag his name through the proverbial mud. I find it utterly appalling, that a journalist would stoop so low as to write such an article. A man has been killed, and I honestly don't see how his past transgressions are any of our business. Indeed, by making such public statements about the man when he has only recently been murdered must be causing untolled heart-ache and distress to his family.

And the worst part of the whole thing morally is that Herman Rockefeller isn't here to defend himself. At any rate I fail to see how the interworkings of anyones personal life, including their transgressions, where they don't directly effect public life, should become public knowledge. I'm sick of hearing about this or that persons sexual transgressions, it's none of my business nor is it any of yours. It only adds mountain to an already painful situation. It also cheapens the publication, reducing it to little more than a trashy tabloid magazine. I feel journalists should be legislated in such a way as to prevent them reporting on such things.

If it doesn't effect more people than a persons private family, then it honestly shouldn't be reported on.

The much anticipated apple iPad was announced yesterday as expected; and as I imagined isn't really what one would call a show stopper.

The iPad measures 9.5 x 7 inchs with basically all of that space constituting the touch screen. And while I praise apple for their continued green approach to new devices, I fear the aluminium frame may feel bulky, and the glass components make it easily broken. The first thing one notices when they look at the device is that it literally resembles a super-sized iPhone or iPod Touch, and you honestly aren't to far off.

The iPad is yet another apple device to lack a physical keyboard, with apple choosing to embed their proprietary virtual keyboard which has featured in their other touch devices instead. This indeed limits what can be done on the device as the user must type with the underwhelming virtual keyboard, causing most people to churn out numerous typos. With that said however, I suppose it's down to apples good thinking that they haven't marketed this product as a desktop replacement or office tool.

The iPad features a 1Ghz processor which, for a device of it's size leaves me entirely under-whelmed. Even my netbook which is 10.1 inch contains a 1.6Ghz atom processor. The large screen is somewhat obviously touch, allowing for the familiar navigation of the iPod Touch & iPhone. It's capable of playing ACC and mp3 music files as well as mp4 and mov video files. The iPad also contains the full safari web browser and email client, so it comes as no surprise I guess that apple are marketing it as best used for surfing the web.

While I have to credit apple with including an inbuilt microphone, I can't shake the feeling that they missed the boat completely by failing to include a web cam. With the virtual keyboard ruling out using the device for emails of great length or substance, and with the growing market for video calls I would have thought it a logical conclusion to add in a web cam.

So what CAN the iPad do? Well apart from surfing the internet, sending and receiving email, listening to music and watching videos the device is able to...wait for it...view photos! Beyond that you're able to download and use apps from the app store, and use the iPad as an ebook reader by downloading iBook and purchasing apple proprietary format ebooks. And that brings us to the extent of what the iPad can do.

To be honest I can't see a reason ANYONE would want one. With desktop and laptop computers taking care of your work/office needs and much of your home computing needs; with netbooks and laptops enabling mobile computing and smart phones taking care of the rest of your internet (including email) needs, where does the iPad fit in? That is to say, when you get down to it the iPad literally is just a giant iPod Touch. In fact, the iPod Touch is able to do some things that the iPad can't!

Can you really see yourself carrying something around the size of an A4 piece of paper in order to listen to music, watch movies and look at your photos when the smart phone in your pocket can do all that and more? And can you really honestly see yourself wondering around with an aggravating touch device trying to write emails on the go and surf the web when again, the phone in your pocket at a fraction of the size can do all that too? And lets face facts here; at $259 including free unlimited GSM data transfer to purchase and download ebooks, the amazon kindle is far better designed and priced if you're after an ebook reader.

The iPad has 3 storage choices; 16GB, 32GB and 64GB and comes in both a wifi stand alone and a 3G + wifi versions for surfing the web. And lets be real here, no one is going to want to be tied to a wifi network, so the 3G + wifi version is the only realistic option here. With the 16GB 3G+wifi model costing $629US and the 64GB model at $829 the iPad has priced itself out of the market. But I'm sure that apple will come up with some ingenious marketing ploy to suck people into buying this underdeveloped offering. Essentially however it comes to this, if you want to waste money, get no real benefit and look like a dork by all means rush out and by an iPad. However if your sensible, value your money and your self respect then give the iPad a wide berth and leave it to shrink into obscurity as another apple iFail device.

Links;

Technical Specifications
Pricing
Amazon Kindle

Once again the media has attempted to state a debate about changing the Australian flag. There was once a time, when I was a teenager that I supported the idea of changing the flag. The argument that we aren't apart of England any more, so we shouldn't have the union jack on our flag, somehow used to make sense to my teenage brain. Thankfully however, age has set me straight, I no longer feel it's a good idea at all. Indeed now days I can't think of a worse idea and there is a great deal of logic to me thinking this way.

Most often the argument for keeping the flag realise entirely on our history, but while that argument is a very good one; I mean most of our grandfathers fought for the rights and freedoms that flag represented; it isn't the only argument for it not to change. I think the best reason for us not to remove the union jack is simply that contrary to what proponents of changing the flag might say, we are actually still technically part of England and the commonwealth. Now if we want to have a serious conversation about becoming a republic that is something completely different, and does not require us to change the flag at any rate. But certainly while we are still officially and technically a part of England and the Commonwealth then the union jack should remain in place without question.

Another quite major point is that Australia is only recently starting to make a name for itself and gain some respect on the international stage. Where previously we were thought of as some tiny backward country in the middle of the pacific, suddenly world powers are starting to sit up and take notice of us. We suddenly have the weight to have our say actually count for something and be included in some pretty important global discussions which we previously would have been excluded from. By changing our flag we seriously risk losing the respect of the international community.

Flags are the symbol of a nation, by changing it you risk sending a message of instability and/or the loss of national identity. If the international community were to think of us in such a way, we would lose serious political respectability and clout. It is extremely important for our nation and our region that Australia continue to have a voice on the international stage. If we lost it, then it would spell doom for our nation in a number of ways.

We would no longer have a say in the direction our country moves, instead going back to the days were we simply followed. Australia is a country of innovation and leaders, I don't think any one wants to go back to being sheep. But more than that our economy would crumble. If was became somewhat of a joke to the international community then we risk losing private, corporate investment in this country. Both from foreign companies already here and from those whom might otherwise have come in the future. Say what you will about foreign investors; but when it comes to the crunch they provide hundreds of thousands, if not millions of AUSTRALIAN jobs. Chances are that if you work for a large company then foreign investment has played a part somewhere in there. Changing the flag could threaten your job!

Another point of order is simply that there are no viable replacement designs. I find the suggestion we place the aboriginal "flag" where the union jack currently is offensive. Aboriginals had no concept of flags prior to European settlement, after which time they became incorporated under the Australian flag. The idea that aboriginals have their own flag is ludicrous and goes well to show their unwillingness to become a true part of this nation. There is no alternative to the current flag design that is viable! Without a viable alternative why is anyone even bringing up this debate in the first place? Seriously...

But mostly, the flag as we know it inspires pride by all Australians. It's a flag that celebrates our history; good and bad. It's a flag that our fathers and grandfathers have fought for; and some of them died for. It's a flag that helps define our national identity both locally and in the international community. You only need look around tomorrow (Australia day) to see the absolute pride that it helps to develop. Our flag is perfect the way it is and should NOT change. What should change however is this debate periodically being brought about by the media. I understand that they want news that will make you watch their show or read their paper, but honestly if this is the best they can come up with then it's no wonder their entire industry is in danger to bloggers, podcasters, vodcasters and amateur news distribution.

So, you're a smoker and you've realised it's a bad idea. "Therapeutic" nicotine manufacturers such as nicobate would have you believe their products will help you achieve your goal of quitting. Thing is however, their products will do nothing to aid the quitting process and indeed in most people will actually hinder it.

These are products which claim they can help you "step down" by slowly lowering the dose of nicotine. The problem with this idea is smoking is an addiction, no different to being addicted to alcohol, heroin or any other drug. As a result you need to look at quitting smoking from this realistic point of view. Would you seriously suggest to an alcoholic that they should start the process if giving up by drinking a little less each month? Of course not, nor would you suggest a heroin addict should shoot up a little less each month, or a gamblaholic should enter casinos a little less each month... you get the idea.

In the same way this wouldn't work with those addictions because it continues the addiction and chemical dependency, drastically greatening the chances of "falling off the wagon". But above and beyond the chemical dependency, it continues the mental imagining which is most important to chance in order to shed an addiction. That is to say, while you continue to see yourself as a smoker, then you will continue to have cravings and thus will never be free.

Nicabate have recently brought out a new product called "pre-quit", the therapeutic nicotine to take while you're still smoking. Products like these clearly have an interest in keeping you addicted to smoking. There is of course a finite amount of smokers in the world and with levels of new smokers dropping, if companies like nicobate actually helped you stop smoking then they'd collapse as a company. They'd eventually simply run out of customers and no company, especially publicly floated companies are interested in such things.

Quitting smoking is surely a must, but products like nicobate aren't going to aid you in any way. Instead, the only true way to get over your addiction is to go cold turkey. Yes, it will suck, but no where near as much as if you continue smoking. Cold turkey will work, especially if you do it in such a way as to develop a view of yourself as a non-smoker. That is key! Without changing your view of yourself you'll never be free of the smoking bug and will eventually start again, even if you manage to stop for a period of time.

As 2010 rolls in you may be feeling let down that the sci-fi future we were promised isn't here yet. I read an article today in the Big Issue which consisted of some guy bitching about just that very thing. But what you may have failed to realise is while we haven't gotten everything the jetsons promised, we're certainly on our way.

Ok so our skies aren't littered with hovercars flying around, but other than the fact that's clearly a good thing... you can actually purchase one. That's right they do actually exist and have done for over a decade! So why haven't they taken off (excuse the pun) you might ask? Well, other then the price tag; which is somewhere around 1.4 Million USD each due to the small amount made; you have to factor in that there is no infrastructure in place. I mean even if the price came down over night and everyone ran out and brought one, there'd be nowhere to land it (think about it the average yard gets smaller every year), nowhere to refill it's tank, nowhere to service it... There aren't any rules or legislation in place so it would currently stand as a plane and you'd need the appropriate licensing and have to submit courses and junk. You can get them, but honestly why would you want one?

Ok so we're not zooming around in the stars visiting other planets for holidays. But that actually might be closer than you think. Richard Bransons company Virgin have invested heavily into creating commercially viable rockets and space craft in which the average joe can afford to make it into space. He's getting VERY close! He craft can already make it into inner orbit! In the last decade we've also seen the Russian space program begin to take paid space tourists on some of their less intense missions. Ok so 20 Million dollars a pop is out of 95% of our budgets but space tourism certainly does exist and is a growing market.

Think about all the cool stuff that we have now days that didn't exist even 5 years ago let alone in the 70s, 80s and 90s! I mean we have mobile phones capable of video conversations, indeed the average mobile phone is capable not only of making a video call, but taking a large number of high quality photo's & video, listening to music, plugging into the GPS network, surfing the internet, checking email, play games and so so so very much more. With the aide of services like facebook, myspace and twitter we're able to keep everyone we know up to date with every last insignificant event that happens in our lives, regardless of where they or we are in the world.

With the aide of services like paypal, we're able to instantly and securely pay for products and services from the comfort of our own home. Indeed the market for internet shopping is growing exponentially. And computers have not only become more a part of our lives than sci-fi ever predicted, but they're capable of far more as well. Think about it, there is a computer in ever single aspect of your life now. Your car has one, your mobile phone is one, you probably own a netbook or a laptop, you probably have a desktop at home, your games console is one, you most likely use one at work in some facade. Computers are EVERYWHERE! They're in our factories, they're in our offices, they're in our schools, hospitals and basically anywhere else you can think of. And each one, connected to a world wide network.

And ok granted we don't drive around in cars that drive themselves yet. But again, they exist. In fact EVERY major car manufacture on the planet has had at least one vehicle capable of driving ITSELF in the testing phase for well over a decade. And yes our cars might still use petrol, but again that isn't because the technology isn't there. It's because of money that we're still stuck on the petrol powered combustion engine. Australia at least (I'm sure other countries are doing the same but I'm not well researched on the subject) is making a switch from petrol to hydrogen powered cars over the next 10 to 15 years. The switch will first move consumers to diesel and then to hydrogen. But hydrogen isn't the only alternative fuel source we have technology for. There are far to many to name them all! But examples are things like bio diesel or solar.

Solar power itself has made some amazing leaps in the last decade, and I'm excited about the commercial launch of the daisy solar panel which increases solar energy conversion by up to 90% while taking up less than 1/4 of the space of a traditional solar system.

Just think about all the literally millions of new inventions and technologist which have been developed over the last 30 years. The microwave oven for example. A device which automates the cooking process and reduces cooking time into a fraction of what it is in a conventional oven. Kevlar vests stop speeding bullets in their tracks. plasma, LCD and LED TVs which have made the TV thin enough to be hung from a wall like a picture. The exciting new world of 3D Television. Yes, that's right I said 3D television, and they're available right now! Sure with a price tag of $13,990AUD there isn't going to be a mass herd to the store to buy them, but just remember it was only 5 years ago that LCD TVs cost that much and look at them now.

In every aspect of life technology has advanced. So sure we aren't quite where sci-fi promised we would be, but we also have things that sci-fi writers never even thought of. So as we enter 2010 I reckon we should all just take a moment to reflect on all the advancements we've made in the last few decades and how much they've changed our lives. Lets just take that moment to give thanks to all the 10s of thousands of people whom put their blood, sweat and tears into creating these inventions and technologies. And then take a moment to dream about where we might be in another 10 years time!

The following letter is from a network engineer named Mark Newton whom has brought up multiple concerns about the internet filter with the AMCA. But instead of addressing these concerns, in true fascist nature Senator Conroy and his office have attempted to bully Mr Newton into a campaign of silence on the issue. I am reposting this letter as I feel it captures a great deal of the concerns at the heart of this issue. I have pulled this letter from homepagedaily.com

Senator Stephen Conroy

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Mark Newton's letter:

20 October 2008
The Hon Kate Ellis MP
Minister for Youth and Sport
161a Main North Road
Nailsworth SA 5083

Dear Ms Ellis,

I am writing to you to express my concerns about moves by Senator Stephen Conroy to implement the "clean feed" proposal described on page 5 of Labor's Plan for Cyber Safety by Senator Conroy prior to the 2007 election.

My objections to this policy are detailed below. In your reply to this letter, I would appreciate a direct, detailed response to each of these issues. I am making the assumption that collating such responses will be a simple matter, because a proposal as important as this one obviously wouldn't have proceeded as far as it has if these basic concerns had not been considered and alleviated. If that assumption is unfounded, then that fact should justify revisiting (or, alternatively, abandoning) the "clean feed" proposal.

While I approve of the general thrust of the Cyber Safety proposal, I have serious objections to the "clean feed" section, which will erect an online Government censorship regime in Australia for the first time.

I also have significant objections about the professional conduct of Senator Conroy as he has pursued this issue. The Senator has attacked critics by comparing them to child abusers; refused to provide details of his policy then maligned opponents for their "speculative" remarks; lied to the Australian voting public about the availability of an "opt-out" in December 2007; and failed to consult with the 21 million Australian stakeholders who will be most affected by this plan, in contravention of the Prime Minster's oft-repeated aim to implement a "Government for all Australians" [1, 2, 3]. Rather than addressing the serious policy objections which I outline below, Senator Conroy has preferred to respond with aggressive, offensive, extremist bluster.

The Government has not demonstrated a need for an online censorship regime.

While I accept that the presence of illegal material on the Internet is a cause for some concern, I'm appraised of two important points which the Government appears to have missed.

Firstly: Australians have been using uncensored Internet access for at least 30 years, and there's no evidence of a burgeoning problem concerning access to illegal material. I have been using the Internet almost every day since 1989 and have never seen any content that I'd expect to require Government intervention. Without demonstrating a need for this system, how can the Government credibly claim that it should be mandated?

Secondly: There is little evidence that Australian parents require Government assistance. Indeed, those who claim that parents require such assistance have a remarkable track record of being wrong.

In 1989 / 1990, the Senate Select Committee into Online Services carried out an enquiry into the nature of content available online, and made a rash of recommendations in favour of some kind of censorship scheme based on the expectation that unfettered access would harm the fabric of Australian society.

The passing of time has shown that 1990 Senate's concerns were completely wrong: Almost 20 years have passed since that enquiry, and Australians have enjoyed uncensored Internet access for the entire period. Society has not fallen apart, there is no emergency, children are not being raised in moral vacuums and turning into rapists and axe-murderers, parents are diligently and capably excelling in their efforts to raise their children into fine, upstanding citizens. Today's parents are comfortable with ubiquitous access to unfiltered Internet, having grown up using Google to assist with homework assignments, publishing blogs and websites, using email to stay in touch with friends and family, and treating the Internet in its current unfiltered form as a valuable resource for the education and social engagement of their children.

This fact is reinforced by the public's unresponsiveness to the previous Government's offer of free filtering software for family PCs. When only 140,000 users downloaded the free software over 12 months, and less than 29,000 of them were still using it three weeks later, Senator Conroy concluded that the $84M filtering software distribution plan failed because it wasn't mandatory, rather than the more rational conclusion that the failure of the initiative could be traced to lack of public desire.

The image of technologically-disconnected parents floundering helplessly in a sea of pornography as they fail to adequately raise their children is a reflection of the appalling lack of Internet-savviness of our politicians, not society at large. Politicians assume that parents are ignorant about the Internet because politicians are ignorant. Yet parents came to grips with it years ago; the last remaining social group in our country who expresses difficulty with the Internet appears to be baby-boomer Federal politicians, whose child-rearing days are mostly well behind them.

It is thoroughly insulting to Australian parents to undermine their efforts by asserting that the way to prevent societal decay is for the Government to step in and make decisions about the appropriateness of online content. That is a parent's role, not Senator Stephen Conroy's role.

The government has not demonstrated that mandatory online censorship is technologically feasibly.

Senator Richard Alston, in his tenure as Minister for Communications and the Arts, passed amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act in 1999. As accompaniment to that legislation, the Minister directed the ACMA (then ABA) to establish NetAlert, and for NetAlert to carry out periodic assessments of the "state of the art" of filtering technology.

Since that time, NetAlert and the Department have commissioned separate studies by the CSIRO, Ovum, and most recently RMIT and Enex Testlab. All of the studies have uniformly demonstrated that online censorship technology:

* slows down Internet access;
* inaccurately blocks content which should not be blocked;
* inaccurately fails to block content which should be blocked;
* is ineffective at inspecting or blocking "Peer to Peer" traffic that comprises over 60% of Australia's Internet traffic; and
* fails to accurately distinguish between legal and illegal content even when specifically configured with lists of illegal content under laboratory conditions.

The most recent trials, conducted in Tasmania by Enex Testlab earlier this year, found that the most accurate product tested incorrectly blocked 3% of innocent material, and incurred a "slowdown" performance penalty in excess of 70%, and failed to reliably block the ACMA's prohibited content list. It stuns disbelief that the Minister for Broadband would be interested in pursuing these systems whilst at the very same time advocating for a $20B National Broadband Network (NBN) intended to increase Internet speeds.

There is no evidence on the public record to demonstrate that mandatory online censorship is technologically feasible. Every time experts have been asked, they have uniformly concluded that it is not possible. Furthermore, advances in technology cause Internet speeds to increase faster then censorship systems' speeds, meaning that as time passes the performance penalty caused by these systems becomes worse.

It is very poor public policy to proceed with mandatory implementation of provably failed technology.

The government has not demonstrated that online censorship is effective.

Any Australian can obtain encrypted Virtual Private Network (VPN) access from the United States for less than $5 per month [1, 2]. This is the same technology that human rights activists use in China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to hide their activities from the Government, and provides an effective, guaranteed bypass of any effort by any National Government to filter Internet content.

There is no requirement for complicated software to use these services, VPN clients are installed by default on all common Operating System platforms. Australians who wish to hide themselves from Government Internet censorship efforts are only a few clicks away from total anonymity.

The government has failed to consider unintended consequences arising from the policy.

In order to implement a censorship scheme, the ACMA will need to make its blacklists available to ISPs.

There are approximately 400 ISPs in Australia. Even if each ISP only has a handful of staff in a position to access routers and scrutinise network configurations, that still leaves several thousand ISP technical staff with full knowledge of the contents of the blacklist.

A moment of consideration of that state of affairs yields the unavoidable conclusion that the blacklist will be "leaked". Many sites on the Internet specialise in providing repositories of "sensitive" Government data for the purpose of providing public access to documents against Governments' wishes, and a Government blacklist is exactly the kind of content those sites exist to publish.

When the Government makes a mistake, it will be public [1, 2, 3]. It is simply not believable that putting the same people who called for the destruction of the Bill Henson photographic exhibit in charge of a blacklist of pornographic imagery can end well. It also strains credibility to assert that there is value in putting the people who decided that Mohammad Haneef should be pursued on terrorism charges, or that David Hicks should rot in Guantanamo, in charge of a list of illegal terrorist material. Governments of both sides have a long and distinguished track record of embarrassing failure in these areas, and the public is wise to be sceptical of moves to place further faith in the demonstrably flawed judgement of our public officials and political representatives.

Leaks have other hazards: It will only be a matter of time before someone, somewhere in the world, testifies in open court that they knew where to find child pornography due to the assistance and enablement of a leaked copy of Senator Conroy's Internet blacklist. The Government will no doubt launch a flurry of PR spin to demonise the leaker and portray itself as an innocent victim of circumstance when it happens, but one fact which will not be in dispute when it happens is that the Government was warned and carried on regardless. How much child exploitation is the Government willing to accept as "collateral damage" associated with this policy? More than zero? How much more?

Encouraging people who wish to bypass censorship to use encrypted VPNs carries a further unintended consequence, namely that the Australian Federal Police are unable to effectively execute Interception Warrants on encrypted traffic. Implementing censorship will drive criminals towards encryption by blocking non-encrypted methods of accessing the content they desire. I invite you to ponder the likely political effect of the revelation that Australian law enforcement was unable to gather evidence to convict a child abuser or a terrorist because the ALP's censorship system had inspired the offender to encrypt their Internet traffic.

Senator Conroy has invalidated the government's claim for a mandate by lying to the Australian public about the scope of the policy.

In December 2007, Senator Conroy was widely reported in the press as stating that "...anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service."

In October 2008, Darren Pauli from IDG/Computerworld obtained confirmation from the Minister's media spokesman that no opt-out will be available, "... the filters will be mandatory for all Australians."

As far as politicians' lies go, this one is breathtaking in its audacity. The Minister took the false impression that Australians will be able to (in his own words) "opt out of the service" to the last election, and allowed it to persist for almost an entire year even as the policy progressed to "live trials" with no opt-out provision. Then when the truth was exposed he launched personal attacks to denigrate critics as "extremist" "speculators".

Summary and Conclusion

Nearly a year has passed since Senator Conroy announced his plan, and none of the concerns described above have been addressed. The 21 million people comprising this policy's largest stakeholder group have not been consulted. We have not even been provided with the details we'd need to assess whether Senator Conroy's efforts to implement the policy are consistent with the Australian values, societal fabric, and child-rearing aims that the policy is purportedly designed to protect.

It disturbs me that Senator Conroy's response to these criticisms has been to label those who disagree with him as "speculators" and "extremists" and to compare them to child abusers. My criticisms are not "extreme", and I am not a child abuser. I am a voter, and I expect Senator Conroy to show some respect by answering my concerns without resorting to hysterical personal attacks. Senator Conroy's job is to convince the Australian public that his idea is worthy, but his habit of resorting to bluster, offensiveness and secrecy has severely undermined that role. Without Senator Conroy's detailed responses to these issues, the responsibility for any undesired "uninformed speculation" lies directly upon his shoulders.

I call upon you to:

1. respond to the policy concerns that I have outlined above; and
2. represent my interests in the Party Room to persuade Senator Conroy and the Prime Minister Mr Kevin Rudd to change track by abandoning the "clean feed" proposal.

The general aims of the ALP's cyber-safety initiative are worth defending. In particular, budget allocations for education programs and investigative law enforcement are commendable. But the "clean feed" proposal is impossible to defend on technical, moral, financial and public policy grounds, and should be reviewed for suitability for inclusion in the Government's policy agenda before being allowed to proceed any further.

Sincerely yours,

Mark Newton

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On the 15th of December it was announced that a Mandatory Internet Filtering system would indeed be installed in ISPs around Australia and should be switched on within 12 months time. Supporters of the filtering cite that it will stop child pornography so it's a good thing. How wrong can you be?

"Fact, online child pornography is most often distributed by private email attachments to avoid detection. The internet filter will ONLY block out websites"

Child pornography which is distributed online, is most often by private email between pedophiles as apposed to putting it on a website which would open the creator of the website, and it's members up to all sorts of criminal prosecutions. Simply put, if the main distribution network for child pornography was websites, then there would be a lot more pedophiles in jail. If your sole reason for supporting the filter is stopping child porn, then you need to rethink your position.

So what are the facts about the list? Well, the filter has it's roots all the way back in 1999 when the then liberal government introduced laws which gave the Australian Communications and Media Authority; authority over internet content displayed in Australia. Under that law Content hosted in Australia and classified Classification restricted, or 18+ without an age verification system would be issued a take down notice. Such content hosted internationally would be added to a black list for use in voluntarily installed software on home PCs.

In August 2007 the Australian government through it's NetAlert department offered free, voluntary downloads of internet filtering software to be installed on home PCs. Late 2008 the scheme was shut down, with ACMA Senator Stephen Conroy citing it had not been successful with very few Australian's downloading the software. Clearly that should have woken him up to how Australians feel about filtering the internet, but instead it only inspired him into ISP level filtering instead.

"This very much seems to be a situation where Stephen Conroy feels he knows what's better for Australian's then they do for themselves. If you look up fascism in the dictionary, it will define it very much in that way."

During the elections which seen Labor form the federal government, they claimed the ISP level filtering would be an opt-out scheme. Of course an opt-in scheme would have been more desirable but at least in an opt-out scheme you of course have a way to not be filtered online and gain unrestricted access to information on the internet. But since forming government the policy has changed to one of mandatory filtering at the ISP level. This means every household, school, business, organisation or other entity connected to the internet will be under the power of the internet filter without any way to remove it. If you have an internet connection, the internet filter affects you.

So what is the big deal right? I mean surely they're only going to block out websites that are illegal... right? Wrong! All Restricted Classification content, X18+ content and R18+ content will be blocked. Speficially the AMCA criteria states;

• * Any online content that is classified RC or X 18+ by the Classification Board. This includes real depictions of actual sexual activity, child pornography, depictions of bestiality, material containing excessive violence or sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use, and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.
• * Content which is classified R 18+* and not subject to a restricted access system that prevents access by children. This includes depictions of simulated sexual activity, material containing strong, realistic violence and other material dealing with intense adult themes.

In other words, ALL pornography will be subject to the filter not just child pornography. As well anything which is of an adult nature, that being something you wouldn't want someone under the age of 16 to see. All added to the filter and blocked from view for EVERY Australian, regardless of their age. But this isn't subject just to porn, there is so much more on the list than porn but before I get into that, consider this.

On the 18th of March 2009, wikileaks leaked a copy of the black list onto the internet. A user of the popular internet consumer forum whirlpool posted a link to the black list on the site. The AMCA then issued a notice to Whirlpools hosting company Bulletproof Media that fines of 11,000AUD would apply per day, for every day the link remained on the site. The AMCA furthermore when to extraordinary lengths to forcibly have the black list removed from the wikileaks website. So, consider this, the black list comprises simply the URLs (or domains names) of websites which can not be viewed through the filter. If the filter is such a great thing, then why is it that they are so guarded against the general public viewing the list?

The answer? Because of what the list actually blocks out. From the leaked list it was found that a Brisbane dentist's website was blocked, as was a tuckshop vendors website and the website of a dog kennel. These websites clearly have nothing to do with anything even remotely illegal or 18+ in nature, but yet somehow they're on the list?

But it goes further. In may of 2009 the Australian press, citing wikileaks as it's source broke the news that Dr Philip Nitschke's online Peaceful Pill Handbook, which is a website dealing with euthanasia has been added to the list, as have a range of other websites dealing with the same topic. Apparently the right to a peaceful death for the terminally ill remains out of the scope of reasoning for the federal government even though it isn't illegal in several Australian states.

But still, EVEN MORE FILTERING! In June 2009 the AMCA and the Australian government confirmed that the internet filter will block downloadable games, flash-based web games and websites which sell physical copies of games (like ebay and amazon) that do not meet the MA15+ standard. If the AMCA don't think someone under 16 should see it, then neither should anyone over 18 apparently.

"This isn't about stopping cyber crime; it's about controlling information the public see"

Already many anti-censorship websites campaigning for the filter to not go through have been forcibly taken down by the government. Other sites containing content which is anti-government, or does not support the government has been either forcibly taken down, or added to the black list.

In short the filter classification system stops anyone from not only committing an illegal act online, but from discussing anything that is illegal online, be they for or against the action. It further stops any member of the Australian public, regardless of age viewing any content not suitable for children. It blocks out anything that is deemed to be racist, or that submits a view other than that shared by the censor. Under this classification system, websites like wikipedia (which is a free, user contributed online encyclopedia)have already been announced to be added to the black list; and social networking websites like facebook (due to their user groups, fan pages and applications) have only a limited amount of time before they too are added.

It seem the ONLY way this filter is going to be revoked is if the majority of the Australian public, publicly announce this distaste for the filter and their desire to axe the scheme. If even that didn't work, well then it would be clear that we indeed no longer live in a democracy society. As it stands the labor party are moving very steeply toward a fascist dictatorship not only on filtering but on many issues. It time Australia, that we cut the government back down to size, before we end up in a situation where we suffer from tunnel vision due to lack of information and millions of Australian jobs are lost.

Links;

Wikipedia Article
Electronic Frontiers Australia
No Clean Feed
Labors plan for cyber safety (pdf)
USA Today article
Sydney Morning Herald article (March 19)
Sydney Morning Herald Article (December 15)
ABC News Article

It has been a long time waiting, BUT the wait has definitely been worth it. TJandSarah.com is proud to announce we have finally opened out store in partnership with Zazzle. You can now buy TJandSarah.com themed gear, along with loads of other neat designs. We're offering you apparel, mugs, mouse pads, shoes, skateboards, stickers and loads more.

Make sure you check out our store today! It's as simple as looking through the ticker below, or at any time clicking the store like to the right of this page.

Ok so this is more a pet peeve of mine that has boiled over into a blog post rather than actual news. But seriously what is up with Woolworths and not training their check-out chicks how to pack their plastic bags correctly?

If you're not going to train them how to pack a bag right, then please for heavens sake don't get them to pack it at all. The amount of times I've had to re-pack my grocery bags after these morons pack the bags incorrectly is enough to drive me insane.

I'm not saying all woolworths check-out people are morons, or indeed that they all pack bags wrong, but the over whelming majority of them; at the THREE (3) stores local to me at least; couldn't pack groceries if their lives depended on it. Heavy things put in with things that go squish, meat packed with vegetables, and my all suffering over packed bags.

The most common way they over pack bags is by placing far to many soft drink bottles in a single bag. Woolworths please, please, PLEASE, tell your workers that plastic grocery bags are only rated to hold 3KG of weight. A bottle of soft drink weighs a little over (like a few grams) 1Kg per litre. So for example a standard 1.25L bottle of softdrink weighs around the same in Kg. 2L of drink is slightly over 2Kg.

So if you stick 2, 2L bottles in a single grocery bag that is only rated to carry 3Kg guess what happens? THE BAG BREAKS YOU INCOMPETENT OAF! Which means my groceries fall on the ground!

And for christ sake, WOOLWORTHS TEACH THEM HYGIENE! If you pack meat with vegetables then there is a pretty good chance you're going to give people gastro. THINK!

Please bring on RFID already because then I don't have to deal with this annoyance. In the mean time I think I might write a letter of complaint to Woolworths, because I'm tired of their incompetence.

Imagine for a moment if you will, a world where your every action, your every personal whim is public domain. Imagine for a moment, the erosion of privacy in such a way as to allow corporations to know more about you than you know about yourself so they can advertise products directly to you. Image becoming even more of a consumer slave than you already are.

Imagine no longer, for this is the future that awaits. Advertising companies like Google and Facebook thrive on this information, without it they would be pennyless. So it comes as no surprise they are ever changing their privacy policies to allow just that little bit more of your information to be collected and collated.

Lets take Facebook as an example. Their recent privacy policy change makes way for new services to be introduced such as the new partnership with Microsoft. By linking you Xbox 360 to facebook you allow them to gather an incredible amount of data about your life. Not only what games, movies and music you play, watch and listen to. But also what times of day and in what manner you interact with them. What source they come from (great for weeding out pirate or download copies of movies, games and music), how long you interact with them.

They learn about your habits, just that little bit more. On it's own perhaps it's not so bad. But put that together with all the other information they have on you, your photos', your countless comments and status updates, your messages... it's all there for them to collate in order to produce a reliable picture of who you are. Take it in that context and it's just one more piece of the puzzle.

But lets escape the internet world for a moment and move to bricks and morter retail. What loyalty cards have been doing for years, soon RFID will do automatically. That is to say, track your purchases. We are fast moving into a world where each and every product you buy will be marked with an RFID chip. This means when you go to the store there will be no waiting in a queue, you simple exit the store with the things you want to buy.

A RFID frequency scanner will pick up all the items you have and charge them directly to your bank account or credit card. Sure that sounds super quick and easy. But it also means they'll know what days you shop, at what time, and what items you buy on what days. Your patterns will be analysed and targeted advertising can be delivered to you.

This of course is simple the tip of the ice-burg. There is plenty more to come, the implementation of free flowing tolls and smart card public transport ticketing are examples. Privacy folks is a thing of the past; we've given it up every time we sign up to a service like facebook. The big question is, will our children, or our grandchildren even have a proper concept of what privacy even is?

It seems The Twilight Saga is the new harry potter, in that the whole world seems to be mad for it. New Moon is officially the highest grossing box office release for it's first opening day, taking in 72 MILLION dollars in the US alone. Think about that for a moment, and consider the extra tens of millions made from other countries around the world. This is a film that in it's first day recouped it's production budget. Everything from that point on is profit!

But the thing I'm not understanding is simply why it's so popular. I just don't see what is so interesting about the story line which for me alienates the very vampire legend itself. You see vampires aren't loving caring people, they can't fall in love, they have no sole. They won't rescue you. The folklore of the vampire is simple, they're soulless beasts whom apparently made a pact with the devil in order to rise from their grave. They are the undead. In the context any romantic notions of them are sorta creepy.

I mean seriously, who falls in love with what is essentially a corpse that sucks blood to stay alive? That's more than sorta gross don't you think? I mean what's next? Zombies that fall in love? Or will it be werewolves? Or the creature from the black lagoon? I've seen a LOT of drivel come out of hollywood, and these Twilight movies are right up there with the worst of them.

But in the theme of things, lets explore the vampire legend a little better. As most people know folklore, myths and legends usually have some truth to them, somewhere, no matter how abstract. This is indeed the case for the vampire legend. There are 2 schools of thought on this one, depending on where you come from. The first of which comes from what is now Slovakia and is where we get the Dracula legend.

In 1611 there was a countess by the name of Elizabeth Bathory; she was one of the highest aristocrats of the time and thus had extraordinary power. She not only had people from the local village abducted, but she killed them and drank their blood. No one knows exactly why she did this, but the best respected theory is for it's iron content. Elizabeth Bathory was obsessed with beauty and more over youth. Having a high iron diet will slow the viable aging process, smoothing skin and removing wrinkles.

The second origin for the forklore has to do with what is actually a normal occurrence of death. When a body dies, it starts to lose moisture as a result the skin shrinks back making it seem as though finger nails and hair continue to grow. The gums recede making the canines more prominent as if the person has grown fangs. The hair also starts to lose its colour. Now try to view this from the point of view of a superstitious, highly religious and christian society. One for whom the burial ceremony is quite quick, where a corpse is in the ground within a day or so.

Not enough time to view these traits on a regular basis. But should there be a hold up with the burial for some reason these quite normal characteristics of a corpse can be seen. For such a community it is easy to see how they would mistake the corpse for being alive. Now couple this occurrence with another unrelated one. That of vampire bats. Vampire bats, will feed on humans while they sleep. The experience is painless as the bat's saliva contains a natural anesthetic.

For an already paranoid, superstitious and devoutly religious community linking these to events together must have seemed natural. And so the legend of the vampire was born. A being which made a pact with the devil to cheat death. A being which is dead, but must feed on blood to survive, and must do so by night. And a being capable of turning into a bat. And there you have it, over time the legend of course changed and morphed into something else... new bits where added and eventually we got to a point where we have silly movies and books like those in the twilight series.

The Australian Labor party announced the terms of their new proposed CPRS, which looks set to be implemented as early as this week. Labor of course are all hearts and smiles about the package, selling it as if it's the best thing since sliced bread. The greens however aren't so pleased. Senator bob brown has emailed me twice in as many days about the scheme and has revealed the scheme will see another $5.8 BILLION of tax payer money going to privately owned companies.

That basically means we're paying these companies money just to run their business in accordance with laws being set in place. To me, this doesn't seem very fair, or in accordance with the ideas of the capitalist society we live in. An economy built on debt and on robbing other vital projects of funding, is an economy destine for collapse. As I've said before, the only real reason we had any consernable dip in our economy during the "global financial crisis" is because of the scare tactics the government deployed. It's highlighted by just how quickly the economy has bounced back.

Now after placing us in such significant debt, the government is asking us now to take our tax dollars and give them to privately run companies. This is money that should have gone towards other government funded programs OR to paying off their ridiculous debt. Meanwhile, while these massive polluters in industry with their millions and even billions of dollars in profits get a tax payer hand out, what about the Average Australian?

Well the Labor website has said:

Voluntary Action: The Government will ensure the CPRS takes into account voluntary action by households. Voluntary action by households will now allow Australia to go beyond our 2020 emissions reduction target. In addition, the CPRS will be amended to ensure that all existing and future purchases of GreenPower will be counted, and allow Australia to go beyond our 2020 national targets.

So the current subsidy scheme will now let you buy solar panels and junk like that beyond what is needed to meet your 2020 targets. Great, so the average aussie who is cashed up and wants to go beyond their legal requirements will have some subsidy to their purchases. Meanwhile private companies like those in the coal industry, get everything paid for by tax payer money. Nice.

And why is it the coal industry is even in there? Surely the government realise here that the coal industry, has to die in order for us to actually affect climate change.

But the big kicker? We're paying 1.1 BILLION dollars of tax payer money towards ELECTRICITY bills for these private companies. Seriously, not only do we pay for their shiny new stuff that they'll over charge us to use, but we're paying their electricity bills as well. Remind me, how are these private companies still if everything is publicly funded?

If they're going to introduce funding for these companies, then it should be solely on a LOAN basis! I as a tax payer expect that my money will be used wisely in the best interests of the nation. If I'm going to have to prop up an old world company trying to change for the new, then I expect a return on my investment as should all Australians.

Links

Labors webpage on the CPRS
Detailed changes to the CPRS (PDF)

The Rudd government is one step closer to realising their dream of having an CPRS in place before going to Copenhagen next year. The government announced changes to their proposed CPRS today after talks with the Coalition. While some Liberal front benchers still don't back the CPRS, the wider Coalition now seems too which means it is likely to be voted through when it is next introduced to parliament.

The government promises the new changes should mean individual Australian's who volunteer to cut their carbon use will "be rewarded". It furthermore goes on to promise Industry will be compensated. Hold on a moment, what? More tax payer money promised to be forward to privately owned companies? I get they're trying to protect jobs here, but seriously you're either going to do something about climate change (which means massive lay offs in certain industries, or you're not going to do anything which is basically what this CPRS does).

The big thing I can't get my head around is what the labor parties rush to have an CPRS through is. What is so important about having one in place before Copenhagen? Seriously, does Kevin Rudd think the rest of the world leaders will see it and go, oh yeah Ruddy you're awesome?

Passing an CPRS through before Copenhagen is an idiotic move. No other developed country is doing this, so why is Australia rushing? Climate change can not be fixed by one (1) nations actions. Australia having even the most stringent of CPRS policies in place won't really have very much of a lot of an effect on climate change, unless all the other nations follow suite. That is the whole point of the Copenhagen conference, to discuss what we as a planet will do to stop climate change. And here Kevin Rudd goes rushing his CPRS through before Copenhagen. This could be very easily seen as arrogance on Australia's behalf viewed from the world stage.

We need to discuss the issues as a planet and come up with a global decision. Anything less than that is simply wasting time and money. I mean lCPRS think about this, we get the CPRS in place, industry start spending money, tax payer money starts following into these privately owned companies. Then Copenhagen comes and goes and we find the rest of the world is doing something else. Oh great one there Kevin Rudd, now industry will have to pay even more money to change over yet again, even MORE tax payer money will pour into these companies and you'll get even more job losses.

Yeah, this sounds like a seriously terrible idea to me

Google released the source for their new Operating system now dubbed Chromium OS (previously ChromeOS) yesterday. So, is Google trying to make a real play for Microsoft's Operating Systems market? Lets take a look and see.

Chromium OS is essentially just a reworked Linux kernel that boots Google's Chrome browser. That is to say, you turn your netbook on and it loads Google's Chrome Browser and that's all it does. It's incapable of running any applications directly from your computer, instead focusing solely on applications based online (Web apps). This obviously leads the browser to natively take you to Google web apps, and really for the most part there aren't really many contenders to appose the Google web app market.

Chromium also can not be downloaded or purchased separately from a store. Instead Google are working with their partner hardware vendors to bring to market specific netbooks preloaded with Google Chromium OS. This will be the sole way you'll be able to get a copy of Google Chromium as the code itself is actually specific to the system hardware it's installed on. Think of it as a made to fit kind of Operating system, as apposed to a one size fits all Windows business model.

So, will it be a seriously contender for market share? My gut feeling at this point is probably not. There will be some initial interest at first sure, but after curiosity has warn off I can't see this being a huge seller. Why? Well for starters it's a hugely anti-competitor product. I mean Windows might be bad for bundling Explorer by default, but hey at least Microsoft let you then download another browser and use that if you prefer.

Google on the other hand have made their browser the actual operating system. So really if you wanted to use another browser, you'd have to change the actual code itself; and that's actually what the VP of productions at Google has said himself. There also isn't really a huge variety of web apps around, and the bulk that do exist are google apps. Again, more anti-competitor stuff.

But I think the big reason it won't sell hugely is because it's specific to certain hardware. The notion of buying a whole new netbook just to own an operating system which Google clouted as free really won't sit well with people whom are already happy with their windows netbooks that do everything they want them to in a way they already know. The consumer gets no advantage buy purchasing this OS. It's just really...stupid. And to make it worse, it uses the same chrome browser I can download for free online. And if you take a look at my previous post about the browser you'll find it has quite a few short comings.

I'd say honestly, keep away from this one. It's really not worth your time or money. You get no real benefits, it's just there, probably to distract you from Microsoft's move on the Search Engine market with Bing.

Today facebook released the following statement in relation to their new privacy policy which I highlighted in a previous post.

On Nov. 5, we wrapped up a week-long notice and comment period for a proposed revision to our privacy policy. This was a continuation of our ongoing effort to run Facebook in an open and transparent way. The goals of the revised policy were to make it more accessible and easier to understand.

We've spent the last week reviewing each and every one of your comments. While a lot of people participated, the total number of people commenting did not reach the threshold of 7,000 that makes a vote necessary according to our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Because of this — and the fact that many of the comments were positive — we've decided to adopt the revised policy. We'll be posting it in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish soon.

In the coming weeks and months, we plan to build on the progress we've already made in making the document more accessible by also adding definitions of key terms, screen shots of important pages and informational "learn more" videos. We think these visual resources will make it even easier to understand how privacy works on Facebook.

We received excellent feedback from many of you over the course of the week, and the number of fans for the Facebook Site Governance Page more than doubled. Overall, you supported the proposed changes. For example:

* Most of you liked that we removed more complicated technical and legal terms and replaced them with simpler language that everyone can understand.

* You preferred the structure of the new document, which provides key points at the beginning and easy links to jump to the different sections.

* A few of you asked for a redline version so you could compare the proposed revision to our current policy and see exactly what's changed. We weren't able to provide one this time because the policy was completely rewritten, but we think it's a great idea and are committed to doing it for future proposed changes to our governing documents.

As always, thanks for taking part in this important process. We're glad to have so many interested and engaged people using Facebook. Stay tuned for future updates by becoming a fan of the Facebook Site Governance Page.

Now it seems to me that given the majority of facebook users have NO CLUE the facebook site governance page exists; Let alone that they have to fan it in order to see announcements about how facebook will deal with their private information in the future, that this is NOT an open and transparent company. It is instead a company whom is trying to give a half arsed impression of being open and transparent, without actually needing to be open and transparent.

I tell you what, the majority of comments to their proposals where "give us a redline version". They weren't positive, they weren't negative they were impartial comments because they wanted a redline version to highlight the changes. Rewriting the document is no reason as to why a redline version can't be provided, that's a poor excuse if any. And 7000 people needed to vote? What? When are they EVER going to get 7000 people commenting on an announcement? Especially when only like 5%, that's right 5% of facebook users actually know there was an announcement in the first place. What happens to the voice of the other 95% of users? Where does their chance to vote come into play?

Fact of the matter is, regardless of how many people commented or what they had to say; facebook would have brought about the changes. They need those changes or all their new features they have lined up and have spent money on developing will go down the tube. They need those changes to further support business partnerships and link ups like the new Xbox Live & Facebook thing they have going. It's certainly no coincidence that Facebook was launched on Xbox Live the same day as the new privacy policy officially came into effect.

And seriously lets think about this Xbox Live/Facebook partnership. What does the user actually get from it? You can't navigate your facebook page like you can on your computer, you can't play your apps and game or visit peoples profiles. All you can do is look at friends photo's and change your status automatically depending on what you do on your Xbox. Lets think about it for a moment, do you really want your friends knowing what movie you're watching and when? Or how long you've been playing a game for, or what Achievement you just won in a game or whatever music you're listening to? Do you really want that automatically streamed to your facebook account?

And more over, do you really want that information falling into Facebook's hands with their privacy policy? A privacy policy which leaks your information to 3rd parties without consequence to facebook. A privacy policy which collates your data with you as a person and not annonymously and then uses that information to give to 3rd Party partner companies and advertisers? Do you seriously want them to know your every move?

What's next? The TV? Downloading information about what we watch on TV, for how long and when? Or the Fridge? What it's stocked with and how often we restock it? OR will facebook simply get inside the RFID network and log everything we own and how often we use it? Will that information become a matter of public record too? Facebook represents an advertisers dream world, where by WE the users ARE the PRODUCTS that facebook sell. They collate non-anonymous data on us in an ever growing way and I for one find it scary as hell.

Recently facebook have decided to make their second change to their privacy statement in 4 months. Each successive change seems to be loosening the statement to remove privacy rights and allow them to share more of your personal information with a greater number of people. What is worse is that unless you’re a fan of the “facebook site governance” page than you won’t know about the changes, which you automatically agree to, by being a part of the site.

For a company that continually claim to be fully transparent, it’s a bit of a contradiction to hide these changes from the bulk of users, requiring users to fan a page they most likely have no idea exists. To make matters worse, while they claim to be letting their users whom actually are fans of the page give their input to the changes, it seems very much to be falling on deaf ears. Of the 1720 people who had commented by 2pm AEST on the 30th of October, all of them had issues with the new privacy statement. Yet none of their concerns have to date been met with any response from facebook and the changes are still going ahead.

The major points in the Facebook privacy statement to be wary of include the following quotes from the statement itself as displayed on facebook 30 October 2009.

"Access Device and Browser Information. When you access Facebook from a computer, mobile phone or other device, we may collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit."

Which gives them the right to build a database of devices, browsers, locations and IPs you use to access your information. This information paints a accurate picture of not only how, when and were you access facebook and the greater internet at large, but also places you go often, who your ISP is and an assortment of other information about you.

"We may receive information about whether or not you’ve seen or interacted with certain ads on other sites in order to measure the effectiveness of those ads....If in any of these cases we receive data that we do not already have, we will “anonymize” it within 180 days, meaning we will stop associating the information with any particular user"

This essentially gives facebook the right to place cookies on the device you used to access facebook and track which pages you use, how you interact with those pages and capture the data you input into those pages. It also grants them the right to find out directly from partner companies information they have gathered about you. All of said information gathered is then linked to YOU personally for the first 6 months before it, quite illogically is then made "anonymous". That is to say, your surfing habits, websites you visit, purchases you make, your credit card information, passwords and other personal information you input in other websites is collected by facebook, stored and linked to you. THAT is scary stuff.

"Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available, and therefore do not have privacy settings."

To bad if you only wanted your friends to be able to see your profile picture. Want to fan some pages? Be prepared for everyone you know to know about it. I'm sorry, but there are some things about my friends I just don't want to know.

"Information set to “everyone” is publicly available information, may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Facebook (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without privacy limitations. The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.”"

This means everything in the previous quote is accessible ANYWHERE on the internet, by ANYONE, will be searchable in google plus most other search engines and may be used by anyone who stumbles across this information for whatever purposes they see fit. It also means any information whose privacy settings you haven't actively changed from "everyone" is just as searchable in the same places. That includes phone numbers, email addresses, IM addresses, other personal information which you have entered into facebook, photos, videos and more.

"when you visit Facebook-enhanced applications and websites you are making your Facebook information available to someone other than Facebook. To help those applications and sites operate, they receive publicly available information automatically when you visit them, and additional information when you formally authorize or connect your Facebook account with them."

If it's set to "everyone" and is therefore "publicly available" then facebook don't need your permission to give this information to applications. They only require your authorization for information which is not "publicly available".

"Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users."

AND

"You understand that information might be re-shared or copied by other users."

Together add up to facebook giving people a green light to steal photo's, videos, information and other content from other users, without permission. The green light for them to store it and do with it what they see fit. Facebook will take no responsibility for such actions and will NOT publish any user for such actions. They are furthermore stating that just because you delete your account doesn't mean that the information you have given won't be searchable on google or other search engines. Essentially your information can never be deleted once it's on facebook.

"Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you share your information. We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information. We cannot ensure that information you share on Facebook will not become publicly available. We are not responsible for third party circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures on Facebook. You can reduce these risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong password, using different passwords for different services, and using up to date antivirus software."

So basically if something goes wrong, it isn't there fault. Awesome.

Facebook boast 2 million pieces of content shared daily on their website, 20 billion pieces of content shared on facebook since its inception. Each one of those pieces of content is bound by the statements in the privacy statement. Each one of those pieces of content is now out in the great expanse of the internet for anyone, anywhere to do with as they see fit. Think about it, everything you share on facebook is collected, stored, shared and accessible. Every status message you put up, everyone photo, every website you visit, ad you click and don't click, everything.

How many of you have set your status to "is watching blah blah movie" or "is listening to blah blah song" or "is going here". Facebook get to store that information. Think of how well they know you, how accurate a picture they can make of who you are. Now think of this, their privacy statement lets them share that information with "partner companies". This is no longer a case of advertisers going well 51% of the population like this sort of advertising. It's a case of Joe Blogs likes x, y and z and it's best to advertise it in this way, on this day because this is when he will be doing whatever. Jane Doe on the other hand likes a, b and z and it's best to advertise to her in this way, in the afternoon because thats when she is the least busy.

The scariest thing is that there is no way for you to delete this information. No way to get it back. It's out there, forever, for everyone to see. Best we can do is either stop putting anything else personal on facebook or simply delete your facebook account. Sure you won't get your information back or delete it, but you'll at least stop anything else from becoming "publicly available" and isn't THAT at least some sort of solace?

Links;

Facebook Privacy Statement

In an effort to compete with free office software such as OpenOffice.org and GoogleDocs, Microsoft have announced a free, ad-funded version of Microsoft Office 2010 which will come pre-loaded on new Windows 7 PCs. Microsoft have announced that the full version software will be loaded on the PC and a product key will be all that is required to unlock it passed the "Starter Edition".

The idea here I expect is the same concept that seen Internet Explorer become the most popular browser on the planet. If you place it on the users hard drive from the start, they are more likely to use it rather then go to the trouble of finding another service. It will probably work too, I mean how many people honestly are going to be bothered to go and download openoffice.org and download the suite when they already have a perfectly usable and more importantly STANDARDISED office suit installed on their system.

Very few of the main stream, that's who! But I can however see a few flaws in Microsoft's plan to regain global office suite domination. The first of which should be clear from the outset, it will after all be staring you in the face while you use Microsoft Office Starter Edition 2010. Ads! This isn't a choice you have, it's something that is pre-installed on the production line. Basically, as soon as you take your computer out of the box, without even connecting it to the internet, you'll be hit with spammy ads! No choices, it'll just be that way.

Given the current trend in ads, I'd say they're be context sensitive as well, which raises another question, which is privacy. Microsoft are well known for having very few morals, especially when morals stand in the way of making a buck. So the question begs, if the ads do indeed end up context sensitive, how much of your data are they collecting? Indeed how much free raine over your system are you signing away? And who gets the data, and what can they do with it? Those are pretty big questions.

I wonder if starter edition will be as difficult to uninstall as Windows Messenger is on Windows XP. Even by clicking "uninstall" it doesn't uninstall, all that achieves is making it invisible to you. So I do have to wonder, will it be the same with starter edition 2010?

The second major problem I see; and this is more a problem for Microsoft rather than the consumer, is that plain and simple if the full software is already installed, and all the end user need do is enter a product key then a crack &/or keygen will be produced and you will get large amounts of people getting the professional version of Office 2010 for nothing.

I mean it's not like that have to go find a working pirate copy now is it? All you need is a pirate key and you're in. So perhaps the same force that may get people to use MS Office 2010 over other free alternatives, may also be it's downfall. For all the genuine product checks Microsoft develops, the pirate computer finds a work around. At some point Microsoft is just going to have to understand that their old business model is over, done, kaput. The days of selling software are coming to an end as we enter the age of open-source, free and ad supported software.

I recently tried using Google's browser Chrome for 1 fortnight and here are the results. The browser is based on Apple's browser Safari which limits what it can do to a certain degree.

For example, paypal hates Chrome, it won't let you do a single transaction whilst using it. But lack of support isn't isolated simply to Paypal, there are many other payment gateways which won't work whilst you use chrome. But don't think the limits stop with paypal gateways..

Chrome is unable to render a number of websites I visited during the fortnight. I ended up with a lot of messages telling me the site only supported Internet Explorer and Mozilla. This was a shame, because it meant closing down chrome and opening firefox to get the job done.

While flash and shockwave will run inside chrome (with the pluggins installed) I found them to be slow, which was a change from the regular speedy pace at which chrome does things. I also found that whilst google was always in a rush, and this was usually a good thing, it sometimes was to my detriment. If a website took a little longer to respond, I would get time outs that I simply wouldn't get with Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Chrome was also meant to split each tab into a new process so if 1 stopped responding I could simply end that process and continue browsing. This I found was not the case. While Chrome did have multiple processes running, and new ones for each tab, there are problems. For example, they're all named Chrome.exe, meaning it is near impossible to know simply by looking which process refers to which tab.

Also I found that regardless of which process I closed Chrome would have problems. It would either shut down completely or it would start to become highly unstable, spawn a memory leak and/or stop responding. I also found the lack of certain controls like a stop button rather cumbersome. Indeed advanced controls are certainly sparse.

But it isn't all bad news with Chrome, when it works it works fast. It has a sleek uncluttered feel to it as well. Tabs can be turned into new windows easily by drag and drop. And Chrome supports themes from which you can customise it's look and feel. But I didn't find these features unique enough to be worth the browsers problems. As a web based company Google are brilliant, but their ability to code well functioning desktop software seems to be lacking.

All in all, google should stick to what they do best, Internet products, and leave desktop software to those for whom it is their chosen field.

The 48 Hour Rapid Detox by HiLife is promising you can drop weight in just a weekend and be magically fit and healthy.

The diet consists of drinking nothing but their Acai & Goji Juice drink for 48 hours. The drink which comes in concentrate form; and thus removing large amounts of any nutritional value they had to begin with; is claimed to detox your body from "toxins" and make you lose weight.

Their website goes as far as claiming;

"With 48hr RAPID DETOX, time is not an issue any more. In just one weekend, you can flush away all the toxins that build up in our systems. These are toxins that make us lethargic, that take all the life out of our skin and hair, that make us bloated and unhealthy, toxins that make us gain weight."

These claims aren't just false, they're dangerous and here is why. With any detox diet all you do is drink only their "magic" drink for a set time period, but these drinks can cause kidney damage and failure. They can also cause liver damage and failure. As with everything in life too much is definitely a bad thing.

These isn't to say that by doing a detox you're guaranteed to go into liver or kidney failure and die, but the risk is there and it is VERY real. At the very least, whether you notice it or not, you will have caused yourself slight kidney &/or liver damage. This occurs because of large amounts of specific enzymes entering your body which your liver attempts to remove. Your kidneys also become over worked during this process, coupled with the excess fluid.

The "toxins" they claim to "flush" from your system simply don't exist. There is no scientific or medical evidence to suggest that any of these detox diets have any beneficial results on the body in any way. Detox diets are a scam, plain and simple. And they can cause you to DIE! They can also cause you to be on dialysis for the rest of your life.

The 48 Hour Rapid detox diet shares these same high risks as other detox diets. It to is a scam! So what about the weight loss? Is that real? Sure, you will lose some weight by drinking nothing but acai and goji berry juice; but this has nothing to do with any special properties of the berries.

The problem with this diet from a weight loss stand point is clear, you lose weight because your body is starving. The juice being a concentrate has little to no nutritional value, you might as well be just drinking water for 48 hours, it would probably be healthier. You lose weight because your body starts to run on your fat reserves as you aren't eating anything.

This on it's own is quite dangerous as it can cause a number of different life threatening conditions, including a heart attack. Beyond that the most disheartening part of it all, if you are lucky and don't end up with a serious health issue as a result of these diet scams, you will put the weight straight back on, and then some

Why? Well it goes back to the fact that your body went into starvation mode. While your body is starving it does what it can to survive, and makes the assumption that food is no longer plentiful. You lose weight for the period that you starve yourself. Once you commence eating again, you body then tries to store as much energy as fat as it can in order to prepare itself for the next time food isn't plentiful that you just told it would happen. This is why people yoyo with their weight.

It isn't your body doing anything wrong, bad genes or anything of the sort making your weight yoyo. Fad diets like this 48 hour Rapid detox diet are the cause. This is why when you yoyo, you end up fatter than you where before! And the sad thing is, the more times you starve yourself the worse it gets! The feeling of being more alert and energetic is actually a symptom of starvation.

If you have been considering getting this detox diet, of have even purchased it, I urge you to reconsider. The risks are to high for something that will give you know benefits.

Links;

48 Hour Rapid Detox
Acai Berry Scams (Google Search)
Acai Berry information
Evolutionary Minds (The smart way to lose weight)

Many years ago we were promised 100mbps wireless internet in the form of the 802.16e (WiMax) standard. Unfortunately only select countries ever had this promise fulfilled, for the rest of us, wireless internet has been confined mostly, to the 3G networks of cellphone providers.

With 3G HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) and 3G EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) we seen speeds of up to 3.5mbps and 7.2mbps respectively. This was great for most web applications, but no good for streaming high speed, High Definition video on the go, or for multiapping across the web and uploading/downloading large files.

Now there is a new kid coming to the block and he's about to kick 3Gs ass. I predict 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) will be the talk of late 2010 and into 2011. With promised theoretical download speeds of up to 160mbps it'll easily out do your home fibre optic connection. It's important to note also, this speed is considered stable traveling at up to 120km/h

Expect 4G to be released on mobile handsets and USB dongle modems to start with. But as this technology takes hold and blankets an evermore larger area expect other 4G enabled devices to be released. With a stable, super fast internet connection, while traveling at high speeds, there is no reason why internet radios, or car radios with internet radio capabilities can't be released. Nor is there a reason why the same can't be said for IPTV.

With faster mediums like 4G coming into play I can see no reason why eventually handset manufactures won't start to favour VOIP over traditional telephony signal mediums. But that again is only on the assumption we have a united developed world uptake of 4G.

With that said, such data through-put rates, in a mobile setting has to be enticing to ISPs and Mobile Carriers alike, and assuming they are able to get hold of the technology through a suitable reseller deal with a Mobile Carrier, I'm sure we'll see more ISPs entering the mobile internet and mobile phone markets. Yep LTE are the 3 little letters you need to remember, they're the next mobile future and could, if implemented right, spell good things for us all.

Links;

Wikipedia
iTWire Article
Nortel LTE site
Gigaom post

In a move that mimics the notorious Nigerian spam emails which claim you have won a large sum of money, scammers have now turned to SMS. The ACCC has issued a warning to all Australians about the scam SMS's which claim you have won 3rd prize in a lucky door prize at a press conference at Melbourne's Rialto Tower. Recipients of the scam SMS's are given what seems to be a Melbourne based phone number, but is actually routed overseas.

For those whom go as far as calling the number to 'claim' their 'prize', the ACCC has advised that the scammers have been asking for personal information such as full name, address, date of birth, drivers license number and bank details. These details can then be used as part of a larger identity theft scam later.

According to the ACCC the scammers are requesting people pay $2000 to the scammers which they claim is 20% of the "winnings tax" in Macao. Reportedly once the scammers have your details they become quite insistent that you pay them the $2000, allegedly calling often demanding the money be paid.

Two examples of the Scam emails have been provided by the ACCC which state;

Last notice: Your mobile phone No. has won the 3rd prize in our activity, the cert No.:L6501, please contact our company asap, and your right will be cancel if it overdue or without cert No.,GSCI hotline:03-9001593

Last Notice: Your mobile No. has won 3rd prize in our activities with cert No.J4192,pls contact us ASAP, or else your award will be cancel. GSCI company:03-90105706

Given the closeness in tact of the scam to the Nigerian email scams I am truly surprised anyone has been caught up in this scam. It really throws me that someone can get a text message like the ones above, which have obvious short hand and grammatical errors in them and yet still reply to it? But the thing that really gets me is how anyone can think they won 3rd prize in the lucky door prize at a fictional press conference they never attended.

Indeed unless they actually work for the press, and thus attend press conferences, why would you think for a moment you'd won anything? It's really easy to see these are a scam, one the ACCC says originates in China. Perhaps we should all use a little more common sense when it comes to things of this nature. For those of us whom refuse to use common sense and involve themselves in obvious scams, it is perhaps their own fault.

Links;

ACCC's warning

With the government uncoupling the Renewable Energy Targets bill(RET) from the Emissions Trading Scheme bill (ETS) the RET is expected to be passed through into law quite soon. The bill will legislate that energy providers supply 20% of their energy from renewable energy sources by 2020. But the big question for most people is, while it's all great that the environment is being helped, what does the RET mean for the average Australian? And you won't like the answer.

The coalition have joined the government in support of the energy sectors plan to rise energy prices in order to pay for the installation of renewable energy sources. It seems the major parties have taken on the interests of a minority, let rich business sector; above those of their wider constituents. The energy sector stands to gain dramatically from the drastically cheaper cost production associated with renewable energy sources.

Greens deputy leader Senator Christine Milne commented on the greens party website yesterday;

"While this is a disappointing move, the critical point is that we bring on the renewable energy target legislation as swiftly as possible, to unleash the tremendous potential of renewable energy to re-energise Australia and create tens of thousands of jobs.

"Modeling has shown clearly that the renewable energy target will reduce the pool price of electricity because it will smooth the most expensive peaks. Under this deal between the big old parties, the polluters will get windfall gains from cheaper electricity without having to pay to install the renewable energy in the first place. How is that fair or reasonable?

"Both the big old parties have been using Australia's clever and clean renewable energy industry as a political football. Both old parties bend over backwards to sandbag the old polluters, but neither is willing to give priority to the renewable energy powerhouse that the Australian community wants."

I agree with Senator Milne in that the energy sector are somewhat double dipping so to speak. They will on one hand gotten infrastructure for free, by forcing we the consumer to pay for it. On the other hand, their bottom line will increase as a result of the cheaper priced electricity, and the increased cost to consumers. Not only is this not fair, but it's completely un-australian.

Links;

Greens website

In a move which shows they were only ever playing politics the federal government has folded on pressure to decouple the Renewable Energy Targets bill from their Carbon Trading Scheme. The Carbon Trading Scheme which will cost the nation billions without having a dramatic effect on climate change is doomed to fail in it's current form, yet the government has promised to bring it back to the senate in November.

The greens and the liberals who have been calling for the government to unlink the two sets of legislation will no doubt be happy. The Renewable energy targets means a better cleaner environment, and new jobs for Australian's. With this legislation in place we will see the beginnings of a future industry in Australia that will employ far more people then the energy sector (including coal mining and transport) does currently.

Australia is uniquely positioned to be world leaders in renewable energy, an opportunity we have constantly faulted at. With the renewable energy targets in place, we are a step in the right direction. I look forward to a day when the energy targets increase from 20% of energy production to 100%.

Links;

ABC News

The consumption of goods and services, even when they are unneeded and sometimes even completely useless to us has steadily increased since the 1940s. As media has encroached ever more into our daily lives, so forth has advertising. The first major revolution in advertising came with the introduction of Television.

Suddenly with a television or a "TV", advertisers found a direct route into our living rooms. By linking their ads to popular TV shows or personalities, advertisers caught us while we had those warm fuzzy feelings associated with something we like. In doing so, we then associated their products and brands with those same warm fuzzy feelings. And so was born the age of the consumer, and we were set on a path which would have implications for social structure, mental health and even the environment.

With this new found power to creep into our homes, advertisers managed to con us into some pretty dodgy deals over the years. But as the years have moved on from the introduction of television, so has legislation and indeed the consumer. When advertising first appeared on TV, merely being associated with a program or personality was enough to send thousands running for the nearest stockist. As immunity to this approach grew, advertisers changed tactics, instead listing on the neat things the product can do or how great it will taste. We were shown fake images and told things which boarder on fraud. Again, the consumer changed, and so did the advertisers tactic.

Today, we find ads which instead of insisting a product is brilliant, we're simply told it will make us "cool", more popular or happier. These claims again are of course untrue and it is again only a matter of time before the consumer becomes impartial to such advertising campaigns and things have to change once more. But no matter how these ads are delivered, the core message is always there, and has been since the word go. It is the core message which ultimately drives consumerism; that being one needs all this "stuff" to be happy. That your life will somehow go unfulfilled without these products, and you will struggle to ever find happiness. Indeed we know this to be a complete and utter lie, and yet still the mass population fall for it.

In sheep like behavior, the mass population simply follow directions and purchase what they're told to. But indeed this is having the opposite effect than had been intended. There is much evidence to show consumerism actually decreases fulfillment and happiness, for it is simply an incarnation of materialism. Through consumerism we are fostering an "I" society; that is to say, a society focused inwardless in selfish need to make their own pile of "stuff" larger. We have a society which has over complicated itself in the aid of gathering said "stuff". Think about it, we go to work daily, to earn enough money to buy the never ending conveyor belt of "new stuff". We do this without thought or wonder, indeed like a trained monkey we feel happy about doing it.

The costs of which are our sanity and the environment we live in. For the many of us incapable of buying the "coolest" new toy, we feel less of a person, incomplete, after all that is the message the advertisers would have us believe. These feelings can lead to depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, even obsessive compulsive behavior. We are bombarded to buy ever more "stuff", to the point that obesity has hit epidemic proportions. It is strange to think, but the very thing that keeps capitalist economies running could, through over indulgence, break the economy all together.

But perhaps before that even occurs, our environment is at the brink of collapse through pollution caused by consumerism. Our waste has caused the environment to wither and die. The only solution for which is to cease our consumer behavior, and removed the products from which, from our society. But, human behavior what it is, I can hardly see that happening. Greed runs rampant in this modern capitalist world. If you are what you buy, then truly, what are you?

--edit--
Part 2 in this series will appear on Friday the 21st of August 2009. I apologise for any confusion

A few days ago I told you of Facebooks acquisition of like minded service FriendFeed. At that time I speculated that, as the four founders of FriendFeed where not only "ex" google employee's but played crucial roles in some of Googles core brand products, that perhaps they were using FriendFeed as a way to get inside Facebook. That perhaps, just maybe, Google plans to take on Facebook and Myspace in the Social Networking stakes.

This wasn't mere rederic, but instead a pattern that Google seem to follow. First they decide on an existing service &/or product they wish to go after, that they think they can improve on. Development starts secretly, then at some point along development they get inside at least one competitor's company, stealing their secrets and improving upon them. Then sometime, soon after we have a google rival product. The rival product continues to develop and mutate until they achieve something which people want to use. By which time, google holds the majority share of the market.

True to form, google have now beefed up "iGoogle" to give it a social networking feel. We will also no doubt see iGoogle morph into a full social networking medium in no time, packed full of improved Facebook technologies just to give Google the slight edge needed to cast it into controlling market share. As google unviel more products such as wave, android and voice, along with acquisitions such as YouTube, it is clear Google has a discernible objective. That being to hold the dominant market share across all media and communications technologies on the planet. We may well find ourselves shortly in a future where Google decide what news we do and don't hear.

But for now, they mask themselves as a company who are interested in making our lives better. In genuinely improving things so we can use them easier. This is brilliant spin, indeed it's at the heart of every companies marketing campaign, but google do it best. They have made it a core part of their company identity and thus people will follow google where ever it may go. Meanwhile, google remains a public company, responsible for it's shareholders and thus it's bottom line. You simply don't get as powerful as a company like google without slitting some throats along the way.

Digital TV; the government and the networks are plastering it as this wondrous thing. But realistically it isn't all that great. Sure I have a few more channels, and if you're lucky enough to own an LCD TV capable of 1080p then it looks a bit better, but at the end of the day, digital isn't that great. None the less, ABC Business News reported last night that by 2013 the government will have spent 63 MILLION dollars of tax payer money on advertising the digital switch over to you.

That is to say, some of the money the government collects from the pay YOU EARNED is then used to advertise a system which is being forced upon you; which in turn means you now have to spend some more of your hard earned cash to buy new television equipment. All for a system which lets face it isn't really going to benefit you much of a lot, but is certainly going to make a few rich men, even richer. Yep, great use of tax money there.

But this is only one example of gross amounts of tax payer money being used to advertise government programs, or what otherwise should be referred to as government public service announcements. What ever happened to the original idea that when it came to such announcements, the government would have free air time? Back in the days when swearing on TV could cost you your broadcast license, and the evening news actually reported the facts instead of meaningless gossip.

Spending such copious amounts of tax payer money on trying to get us on their side is just ludicrous. Sure free-to-air television stations are businesses too, and of course they rely on advertising revenue to make a profit. But responsible and reasonable legislation which would allow the government free advertising space on any network, say 3 times per hour, per network as a condition of holding a broadcast license would free up so much tax payer funds. Heck, there may even be enough for a tax break in there.

And going back to my original example, why are the government even advertising it in the first place? This is a situation where the television networks lobbied the government in the late 90s to allow for not only digital transmission, but the ability to cease analog transmission. This was granted. This is not a government fueled program, it is a free-to-air network collaborative program to improve their bottom lines, simple as that. So why should tax payers be fitting the bill, when they should be advertising their own damn program.

Consumerism. Marketing teams and companies alike would have us believe it will make us happier; that it will somehow improve and fulfill our lives. But deep down I think we all know that is an outright lie. Yet for some oddity, some of us, nay most of us, get sucked into the game. We consume at ever greater rates, products and services which fill us with empty promises of better, more exciting lives. Of more friends, a better job, more sex appeal, the list goes on..

Why do we do it to ourselves? What tricks are used on us? And is this limited to just adults? How much of a consumer whore have you truly become? These are just some of the questions I hope to explore in this multi-part series on consumerism. Expect the first addition to be released 6pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (GMT+10).

Social Networking company Facebook announced today they have officially acquired like minded company FriendFeed. As part of the terms of the acquisition all 12 employees of FriendFeed will now work for Facebook, with the four company founders to take senior engineering roles at Facebook.

FriendFeed offers a method of sharing content with a select group of people online, in real time. And being able to receive real time feedback and discussion on that content. To this end FriendFeed.com and it's Facebook application are set to stay as is for the time being while the newly acquired team discuss how best to utilise the product from within Facebook.

What makes me flinch about this story the most is that all 4 founders of FriendFeed not only "used" to work for Google, but are purported to have been instrumental in some of Googles biggest releases such as Gmail and Google Maps. These are some of Googles core brandings, and last I looked it isn't smart to let go a valued employee whom was instrumental in producing and releasing your core brandings.

It seems now days Google employees are everywhere, from Apple (Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt stepped down from the apple board of directors only last week) to now it looks like Facebook? Which makes you wonder, do google really play fair? In the case of Apple, google have released a product in Android which is set to go head on in competition with Apple's iphone. So it does beg the questions, do the 4 founders of FriendFeed still have affiliation with google? And if so, is Facebook googles next target?

Links;

Facebook press release
FriendFeed press release/blog
FriendFeed.com
Facebook

Chinese authority the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets claims Rio Tinto; a company the Chinese government recently attempted to buy majority control of; has been spying on Chinese steel companies. The National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets alledges that Rio Tinto was able to over charge a total of $122 BILLION dollars as a result of spying on steel companies by four detained Rio Tinto staff, including Australian Stern Hu.

Rio Tinto maintains no spying ever took place on it's behalf by any of it's staff; and furthermore that all if their detained staff are innocent of the charges. While I certainly would not put industrial espionage passed a company as large as Rio Tinto, this sounds much more like sour grapes. The fact remains that the Chinese government are still rather pissed off at their failed bid to purchase majority ownership of Rio Tinto earlier this year. This sounds far more like the sort of thing China is likely to do as a result thereof.

The legal system being what it is in China means it likely that these poor soles will be charged and either imprisoned or killed, regardless of their guilt. Just another hard learned lesson about doing business with a country like China. And truly, while they may have the largest economy in the world today we certainly shouldn't base our economy on theirs as we currently do. Indeed if the Chinese economy went bust overnight Australia would be in a real pickle, and that is certainly not how we should be. Certainly now with a culture and politic manner that China holds.

As google CEO Dr Eric Schmidt steps down as a board member of Apple, the iphone is about to be blown out of the water. As I've said in previous posts, the iphone is unworthy of it's place at the top of the mobile sales market. But all that is about to change with the first serious android contender. Previously the HTC Magic and the HTC Dream where the only Google android phones available, and they aren't all that hip. Enter T-Mobile's new myTouch.

The phone also made by HTC addresses all the issues of the previous android based phones, delivering a sleek, fully customisable phone. And when I say customisable, you haven't seen anything like this before! Through use of google android you can fully customise your home screen, widgets and applications, and being android there are thousands of apps to chose from, many of which are free. Place your music player next to your calendar and your email short cut so everything is within a single touch. This is truly a phone you can make your own. But the customisation doesn't stop there!

The outside of the phone can be uniquely designed! That's right, you can chose from preset colors and designs OR design your own! No two myTouch phones will ever be the same! And at only $199 on a 24 month contract you can afford to match them to your favourite outfits ladies. So for customisation the myTouch beats every other phone on the market, and backed by Google Android the phone is secure and stable.

Spec wise, the phone doesn't do to badly, but it certainly could do better. Similar to the iphone the myTouch comes with an inbuilt 3.2 mega-pixel camera, capable of both still photography and video. There is a full HTML browser so surfing the internet on the go is easy, and with 25 days of stand-by time (6 hours of talk time) the phone won't let you down in the battery compartment. Also similar to the iphone the myTouch has a 3.2 inch touch screen. As the myTouch has only been released for 2 days I have found it difficult to find a full list of specs for the myTouch and will update you with a full list when details become available.

What is for certain however is I would have liked to have seen some additions to this phone, that simply aren't there. Firstly I would have liked to have seen at least a 5 megapixel camera attached to the phone. The myTouch also relies on a virtual keyboard by way of the touch screen, much like the iphone, I certainly would have liked to of seen a full physical qwerty keyboard, which could be slid out from under the phone. While I do like the addition of a proper mouse toggle, there is as yet no mention of how much storage space is on the phone, if indeed any.

In essence the myTouch is a neat phone, but it alone will not break the hold the iphone has over the wider community. What the myTouch does however signify is that HTC are making some serious attempts, and that as with everything else google becomes involved in, they thoroughly intend to rule the mobile phone market through way of andriod. The myTouch will be great for the style conscious or anyone who wants a solid android phone. But whether you do buy a myTouch or not, be on the look out for the next generation Andriod powered phones, they're set to send Apple packing once and for all.

Links;
Offical myTouch website
ZDnet Review

I've had a number of run ins with Australia Post, missing mail, mail not delivered on time, etc. But today has to take the cake entirely.

When Sarah and I came home this morning we found someone from Australia post had been and gone to drop off a package, and had left one of those pick up form things. The mail man hadn't been yet, and we decided we'd pick it up this afternoon after picking up Bro from school and taking Hades to the doctor.

I got to Australia post at 4:20pm there where to people behind the counter and although there was a line stretching out the door we managed to pick up the package, no problems no hassles (except for having to line up with bro), all was smooth at this point. It was the shirts for the new uniform I've designed for my cleaning business. When we got home, I checked the mail and the letter box was chockers, amongst it was another pick up slip for a parcel.This one being Bro's mobile phone which has come all the way from England.

So we went back down to the post office, it was 5:14pm when we got there, and although they're officially meant to close at 5pm, they where still open serving customers. We lined up for a good ten minutes, anyone who has kids knows 10 minutes in a queue sucks. We got to the service desk and I handed her the pick up slip and was told she couldn't serve me. She said "we don't do parcels after 5 o'clock".

Puzzled as to what was going on, seeing that the package room was a mere 2 meters away from this woman I asked "My packages is actually in there right?" and she in a narky voice she told it she didn't know but it probably was. I asked her why she couldn't get my package then being that it's her job and she informed me it's because there is a large line and only two counter staff.

That is to say, the line was now much shorter then it had been an hour earlier when I picked up my first package of the day, and there had still only been 2 counter staff on at the time, and magically they were able to get my package then without hassle. Took them a whole 30 seconds to go out back pick it up, drop it in my hand and ask me to sign to say I'd collected it. How absolutely ridiculous that she couldn't have just gotten my package. If they're going to have rules like that they need to put up signs saying so, so people don't queue needlessly.

And of course needless to say, Bro was very upset. I mean they made the kid cry, because he goes to Chelsea's for the weekend tomorrow, so we're unable to pick up the phone until Monday. The boy is 8, he seen his phone had come and got excited. This bitch behind the counter couldn't do her job and so she made my son cry. And of course their website, nor their call center have any way to make a formal complaint either.

I appreciate that it was passed closing time, and that she probably wanted to get home. But I fail to see how walking 2 meters to get the package, then walking 2 meters back to the desk would have changed anything for her. The store was open, regardless of what time it was and thus should have provided it's full services or signed otherwise. It is completely unacceptable.

Links;

Australia Post website

I went into a 3 shop on Saturday to buy a phone charger and walked out knowing Australia as we've known it is in great danger. I was served by an appropriately dressed lady, in her early 20's and of Asian decent, no problems at first glance, but then we tried to communicate and it was a disaster. While I must credit her she tried her best to speak English (something many Asian immigrants don't bother with), her use of the language could be at best termed as novice.

As a result it took me not less than 15 minutes to get through to her that I was after a car charger that would fit both mine and sarah's mobiles. After all that effort I got the thing home, opened it up and found it was the wrong one. In the some almost 20 minutes I was in the shop, of the 10 or so customers who came and went, 95% of them were Indian, barely able to speak a word of English either.

Like wise, my local 7/11; once inhabited by a man with a 24/7 smile that made him look like he'd had one to many red bulls; is now over-run by Indians. Again, they are barely able to speak English and in some cases are completely incapable of it. In the week prior to my new mobile arriving I attempted to by a phonecard to use in payphones so I could call Sarah in hospital, but the Indian woman behind the counter couldn't understand what I was talking about; continually trying to sell me a telstra mobile recharge instead.

Increasingly I run into retail assistants who are incapable of communicating in English. Last I checked we hadn't changed the national language, so what is the deal with this immigration policy which is flooding our country with persons unable to communicate with Australians? If the current trend is to continue, the number of people speaking languages other than English will out number those whom speak English. So my question is, what is the government doing to combat this problem? To me, what needs to happen is immigrants from countries where their nation language is one other than English, should be mandatorily enrolled in English & Australian Culture classes. What do you think?

As we head ever closer to the Digital TV switch, consumer demand for lower cost LCD televisions has born a reduction in prices and I predict it's only going to get better. This week Big-W announced a price drop of $200AUD on their Sanyo 40" LCD 1080p televisions, now retailing for $996AUD it's capable of receiving and viewing True HD Digital TV all for under a grand.

Previously to get a TV of that size, for that price you had to buy Plasma, but as we all know Plasma is a poor investment as the gas runs out within 6 years and you're just left with a rather expensive paper weight. We are finally seeing the beginnings of a reduction in LCD prices such that the average Joe Blow can enjoy the technology previously only available to the wealthy or debt inclined.

In an economy which is springing back to life again after a government induced downturn, the timing for LCD prices to drop couldn't be better. And I predict it's only going to get better as we draw closer to the deadline. Over the next 12 or so months, as Digital TV take up increases and the Movie studio's push Blu-Ray expect the price of LCD TVs to drop in general another 2-3 hundred dollars if not more.

This will put the average 40" LCD TV at around $800AUD, which is a very reasonable price and inside the budgets of the average Australian (even if they do have to lay-by it). As the pushers of these new technologies get evermore desperate to upgrade everyone, expect some good things to come.

So you're hooked on them. These shows like Biggest Loser, Master Chef and So you think you can dance, where you get to see real people go through life, uncensored and unscripted right? A fly on the wall of someones journey right? Wrong!

A distorted, planned version of events is what we are given. What we don't see between the cut scenes are the things which would dash all illusions of any reality taking place on film. The true reality is what we are denied. But the fact of the matter is reality wouldn't sell. Would you honestly chose to watch someone standing around doing nothing? Would you tune your TV into that nightly?

Reality TV shows have to be rigged, it's what gives them their energy, their spark, their interest factor. If it was left to be a random winner there would be great risks that the characters people identify with would be voted out; and that spells poor ratings. You have to understand that a TV show is all about ratings, the more people who watch it the more a TV station can charge advertisers to place ads during the show, which ultimately means the Station makes more money.

TV Stations aren't their for your entertainment so much as they are a business. The business model for a Free to air TV station is much the same as a modern day Social Networking site, in that their product is you. They give you something for free (in this case, entertainment through TV programs) and sell your viewing to advertisers. The cheaper the TV show, the more profit they then make.

Enter reality tv shows, where you don't have to fork out for a cast, or an overly large production crew. In fact, it all gets done pretty budget indeed. Channel 10 is living off the profits from Reality TV, that's why they pump them out, one after another. And to keep you interested, they have no choice but to rig it, to design the outcome and partially script it. It keeps the characters you love in the game, so you'll watch it for longer, hopefully to the very end.

It's a formula which seems to work for Channel 10 as well, with some 5 million people tuning in to see the Master Chef final, a record for a non-sporting program shown on Australian television. So sure, watch these shows, but please don't be under any delusions they are really real, they are just the same as any other show on TV. They are their for your entertainment, so your attention span can be sold off to the highest bidder.

Queenslanders for several years have apparently bathed in the humble glory that was the petrol excise. The Queensland government would pay 8c per litre of petrol you brought in aide of keeping petrol prices down. But now the Bligh government have drowned the state in debt the excise has been hopelessly abandoned.

As of July 1 petrol was meant to be 8c per litre more expensive right? But 17 days after the excise has been dropped that isn't what we're seeing. Indeed it's very much prices as usual as if nothing changed at all. Petrol is still hovering between $1.16/L and $1.29/L on June 29 Petrol was $1.30/L so it's actually managed to drop since the excise was removed.

This leads to one hopefully obvious question. If petrol stations are delivering petrol to us for the same price per litre at the pump now, as when the petrol excise was around, did we ever actually benefit from the governments generosity? Or did the petrol stations pocket the money as an extra money stream on top of their already outrageous prices? As Queenslanders I think we have a right to know what happened to the some 500 Million taxpayer Dollars which went into the petrol excise scheme. I for one am not up for petrol stations double dipping into my pocket, taking from me at full price then taking from tax money. How about you?

As a parent we try our best to provide all the things our children need, mixed with a good proportion of what they want. But at some people Toymakers have lost their way. Toy companies where originally set up to bring joy to children, but in 2009 they are 100% about profit which more often then not results in parents being ripped off hardcore.

I remember when I was a child, a 12cm action figure from the latest fad craze TV show was $8.99. Back in my day I thought that was expensive. I remember when lego sets cost as little as $2 and Matchbox cars where $1! Fast forward to 2009 and prices have risen far beyond inflation. A 12cm action figure from the latest fad craze TV show (which happens to be Starwars; go figure and ben 10) retail for $16.99 for starwars figurines and a whopping $24.99 for a ben 10 figurine. Lego is now a minimum of $14 and Matchbox cars are $2.49 on special down from $3.95.

What the hell happened? It's the same plastic and paint they've always used. There are no major technological advancements in how they produce these toys. It's the same ole, same ole for a MUCH higher price. And it makes me wonder, who is buying these toys in bulk such that the prices remain so high. That is to say, if the masses weren't rushing out and buying the toys because of the price, then the price would ultimately reduce. If this happened regularly across different lines of toys then toy manufactures such as matel (whom have a hell of a lot to answer for) would quickly realise people aren't willing to pay their artificially high prices and would drop them across their toy lines in general.

One thing is for sure though, children need toys. And for now at least Toy Manufacturers have parents the world over prisoners to high prices and low quality. Toys which have low standards and break after a few days but cost you $20 to buy. It's ridiculous.

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