AUSTRALIA - THE NEW CHINA
Thursday, November 20th, 2008Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Fucking hell. I HATE that Australia’s becoming a whole new police state now - seriously, for non observers - don’t be surprised if in 10 years we end up looking like China - the poster child for big brother-like policing and communism. My gawd there’s been so much shitty laws happening in the past few months I’m surprised more people aren’t aware of it!!
One of the most significant one is the fact that Australia may well be getting a mandatory internet filter probably sometime soon:
AUSTRALIA’S mandatory internet filter is being primed to block 10,000 websites as part of a blacklist of unspecified “unwanted content”, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy revealed in Federal Parliament.The 10,000 blocked websites would include 1300 websites already blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Senator Conroy revealed details of the Rudd Government’s proposed web filter as he called for expressions of interest from internet service providers for a live trial of the technology.
As part of the trial, ISPs will test different methods of filtering the web with subscribers who volunteer. The trial is expected to last six weeks and will start before Christmas.
“The pilot will specifically test filtering against the ACMA blacklist of prohibited content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content,” Senator Conroy told Parliament.
Yes. This is happening in AUSTRALIA - a place which is fast turning into some kind of big brother nanny state. Okay so its targeted at porn - more specifically child porn (why people would willingly volunteer to be part of the study mentioned above which looks at how effective the filter is with child porn… is completely beyond me). And its targeted at ‘illegal content’ The problem is - what exactly is defined as ‘illegal’? Digital music? Movies? BOOKS!!??!?! They haven’t really made themselves clear. And that’s the no. 1 problem right there.
This filter is mandatory too, so there really isn’t much choice for aussies at all:
Australians may not be able to opt out of the government’s Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia’s Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block “illegal” content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there’s no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.
I am not in any way supporting porn - but seriously does this not sound alarm bells for anyone else that the government can now legislate entire control over what sites are filtered and what aren’t? Could it not set a precedent in the future for the government to just keep adding to the blacklist - in effect turning Australia into a country like China which filters just about every single goddamned internet site?
And just today, my ISP - iiNet got sued by for apparently allowing ‘illegal downloading’. WTF!?!??! So ISP’s are now supposed to filter content to its customers???? What a load of bull. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t go after Bigpond - a far larger ISP in Australia which serves a LOT more people. Is it because Bigpond sells music and movies legally? There is NO EFFIN WAY you can stamp out file sharing unless you get rid of the internet altogether. From the actions of these frickin useless corporations, I’ll bet taking down the entire internet is EXACTLY what they plan to do. Yeah. Let’s just all partay like its 1900 when there was no such thing as computers!!!!
Australia is also kinda lacking when it comes to the internet too. Americans? They have their uber 60mb connections of whatever the hell they have over there. Over here the max you can get is basically around ~1.5 MB(apparently you can get up to 20MB but thats if youve got money to burn) which is frickin nothing compared to other countries. The Rudd government made some sort of election promise last year to improve broadband in Australia. Has it happened?? Not that I know of. iiNet provides some of the fastest internet speeds in the country - which is maybe why they’ve been targeted by AFACT. I mean let’s face it now. Apple makes 120 GB ipods. It doesnt take a moron to figure out why anyone would need that much space - unless they were downloading shit off the internet. And ISP’s provide tens of gigabytes of bandwidth a month - why?? Is that considered ‘encouraging’ piracy? If making ipods 120GB in capacity isn’t encouraging file sharing I don’t know what is.
Back on topic though, iiNet HAS been outspoken against the mandatory internet filter I was talking about earlier - its no wonder they are the ones being targeted in all this!
Mr Malone said that the $44 million the Government is purporting to spend on ISP filtering would not be nearly enough to cover Australia’s more than 700 ISPs.
“I can tell you that if all the ISPs were to be involved it will cost a lot more than that.” he said.According to Mr Malone, the only way to effectively filter the Internet is in the home.
“What’s good for a six year old boy is not going to work for a 15 year old girl who needs to do research for high school assignments. A one-size fits all approach to filtering will never work,” Mr Malone said.
Mr Malone said that Senator Conroy should listen to SAGE-AU (the System Administrators Guild of Australia) which has stated that the proposed filtering system is not technicallly sound.
“Senator Conroy knows all this. His own figures show that the proposed system will slow the Internet down between 2% and 86%. Yet he won’t listen to anyone. He’s the worst Minister in the Rudd Government.”
To date no major ISP other than iiNet has committed to participating in the trial.[Read More]
Fuck Conroy. Fuck the Rudd Government. Im actually regretting voting for them now - though I dont know if Howard wouldve been a better government. Australia really is stuck for choice here.
Far out. Reading these stories make me really mad >_> Its not just all tech though. There’s now calls to ban energy drinks to teenagers and kids because apparently they have too much caffeine and red bull in them. Just ask Tracey Robertson - a mum whos found out her son has been drinking up to 13 a day -_- Are people really this stupid or do they just have a death wish? OBVIOUSLY drinking that many energy drinks in a week is unhealthy - any sane person would realize this - even a 14 year old. How dumb do they think the general public is - to have to impose restrictions on an ENERGY DRINK when you could just educate kids and teenagers how unhealthy it is!?? Its like those people who are addicted to coke or mcdonalds - they blame EVERYONE but themselves.
But I digress. These articles just further proves how much Australia is becoming a police state - controlling every little thing we do. Yeah, the UK has their CCTV. America has their body scanners and fingerprint catalogue of every person in the country. Australia? Well we have LAWS.
Gotta love capitalism
Thursday, October 9th, 2008As DJ AM continues to recover from the tragic South Carolina plane crash which killed four others and seriously injured Travis Barker, his pals are preparing to welcome him home with a special benefit concert.
The 35-year-old DJ (whose real name is Adam Goldstein) has been “a close friend … for many years,” organizers said in a statement. “We owe him a debt of gratitude that we can never repay, but we hope this helps just a bit.”
The bash – to be held Oct. 14 at Avalon Hollywood – will include performances from celebrity DJs, including Mark Ronson, Steve Aoki, Danny Masterson and Mixmaster Mike.
Tickets (available at Wantickets.com) cost $20 – with proceeds going to the memorial funds established crash victims.
So we all know about that plane crash which involved Travis Barker and DJ AM(if you don’t…you don’t need to know. but google it anyway xD).And you know what happens when a major event occurs with celebrities….FUNDRAISING TIME.
But seriously, why the fuck do they need a ‘benefit’ concert!?!?! More importantly, would you actually pay 20 bucks to go to that concert!?! What a load of BS. As if they dont have enough money already to pay for the funeral and whatnot. As far as I’m seeing it, they’re just milking this cash cow for all its worth. No offence to the deceased intended. It’s just that money grabbing exercises like this really make me angry.
Oh and, there’s also been a MySpace set up. In case you have money to throw around, there’s also been “memorial funds” set up for the people that died on the plane crash:
Wow. How low can you go? I wonder all that money’s REALLY going..-_-
Annoying (and effective) alarm clocks
Monday, September 15th, 2008A top ten list of annoying alarm clocks!
I just love this one:
A laser beam aimed at the exact center of the target is the only way to turn off the alarm sound in the morning. When the laser hits the target the alarm is turned off for 24 hours and goes off at the same time the next day. The alarm will always do this until manually de-activated or the alarm time changes. When you wake up to an alarm and you have to concentrate to carefully aim the laser beam at the target, you’ll be suitably awake so as not to easily fall back asleep.
A baby mutant ninja turtle!
Monday, September 15th, 2008
Find out if someone’s lying
Monday, September 15th, 2008This is a pretty interesting article on how to tell if someone’s lying - based on eye movements. I tried it and it 90% worked for me xD Plus I think I follow all the rules too….so I guess i believe it!
Weird music thing
Sunday, September 14th, 2008Make your own music!! Fun…but kinda useless.
Lawl mine srsly sucks XD
The Turing Test?
Friday, September 12th, 2008“By 2029 no computer - or “machine intelligence” - will have passed the Turing Test.”
The essence of the Turing Test revolves around whether a computer can successfully impersonate a human. The test is to be put into practice under a set of detailed conditions which rely on human judges being connected with test subjects (a computer and a person) solely via an instant messaging system or its equivalent. That is, the only information which will pass between the parties is text.
..
The Turing Test Interviews will consist of online text messages sent back and forth as in a online “instant messaging” chat, as that concept is understood in the year 2001.
The Human Foils are instructed to try to respond in as human a way as possible during the Turing Test Interviews.
The Computer is also intended to respond in as human a way as possible during the Turing Test Interviews.
Neither the Turing Test Human Foils nor the Computer are required to tell the truth about their histories or other matters. All of the candidates are allowed to respond with fictional histories.
At the end of the interviews, each of the three Turing Test Judges will indicate his or her verdict with regard to each of the four Turing Test Candidates indicating whether or not said candidate is human or machine. The Computer will be deemed to have passed the “Turing Test Human Determination Test” if the Computer has fooled two or more of the three Human Judges into thinking that it is a human.
Long story short, there’s two guys who are betting each other that in 2029, computers may/may not pass this ‘test’ to impersonate humans. It’s on the longbets.org - a site where you can bet each other on things that will happen wayyy in the future. It’s an interesting concept, and so far looks like most people are backing the challenger, who is saying computers WILL be able to impersonate humans by 2029.
Well personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if this actually happened. I dunno, what does everyone else think?
Since Hurricane Katrina…
Sunday, August 31st, 2008…just what has been done to aid redevelopment? Well apparently, not much:
Three years after Hurricane Katrina, a more glamorous image of black America is presenting itself to the world in the person of Barack Obama. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, America’s story of black urban poverty is still unfolding, largely beneath the radar of the global media.
In August and September 2005, areas like the largely black Lower Ninth ward, almost entirely invisible to the hordes of tourists who flock to New Orleans every year, attracted worldwide sympathy as the levees broke. Now they have been all but forgotten. While tourists long ago repopulated the French Quarter, 57% of New Orleans’ black population – against 36% of whites – have yet to return to the city. Many never will. This is because since Katrina, developers have clubbed together with the authorities to complete New Orleans’ makeover into a playground for wealthy tourists.
As house prices soar and homelessness rises, the authorities are quietly doing away with the city’s remaining stocks of affordable housing in moves that the UN has recently claimed constitute human rights violations. The fact that these demolitions will overwhelmingly affect black people has led some to call this ethnic cleansing.
Inneresting. I have to say I haven’t heard a whole lot about the developments over there so I don’t have much to base my opinion on. But if this article is indeed telling factual information…why do not as many people not know about this? Do people just not care anymore? And America bashes countries like China for denying people human rights…seriously can they not get off their high horse and look in their own backyard for one second?!
I cant believe racism still exists so strongly over there still..and I guess everywhere else in the world for that matter. Its 2008 people, not 1850. Governments…disillusioned leaders…the stupidity of the masses. Its all the same all over again, year after year.
Random Literary Thesis of the Day
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008Read this and tell me what you think it means:
In this paper I want to argue that if we think through the consequences of the postmodern idea of the heteronomous origin of subjectivity in a consistent way, this can lead us to an understanding of subjectivity that should not beforehand be set aside as unfruitful for pedagogical theory and practice.
Maybe Im just brain dead but seriously…what!?!!!!?! And yes, I am quoting this essay in my webliography….lmao. Its called selective quoting >_>
BTW, my Self.Net unit has started a weblog. Click here to view it!! And maybe follow us throughout the semester…we’ll be talking about some pretty interesting subjects such as ethics on the internet and feminism and all that jazz so if you’re into social culture on the internet then feel free to join in on the discussion!!!
Bolt is officially awesome.
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
After breezing to a new world record and Olympic gold in the men’s 100m, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt took a victory lap and conducted a television interview before his closest competitor finished the race.Realizing his lead was insurmountable with 20 meters remaining, Bolt stretched his arms out in celebration, then slowed to a trot before walking across the finish line. An exuberant Bolt savored the victory, blowing kisses to the crowd and pausing for photo ops as he gallivanted past his competition a second time.
Moments later during a trackside interview, Bolt admitted to feeling some pressure from the rest of the pack. “I thought [Trinidadian sprinter Richard] Thompson might make up some ground when I stopped to tie my shoe,” said Bolt, pausing to glance as the rest of the field reached the midway point of the race. “I’m hoping [fellow Jamaican] Asafa [Powell] will take silver, but right now it’s not looking good.”
Bolt, who ran the 100m as a way to “keep limber” for the 200m, was already looking forward to the longer race. “The 200 is definitely my favorite,” said Bolt. “If I stay focused and don’t get hurt, I should be able to sit down and catch the rest of it after I finish.”
[Source]
Seriously, I cannot comprehend how someone can run 10 metres in ONE SECOND. What insanity. His dance at the end during his victory lap was absolutely hilarious though!!!! And that poor Spearman from the USA….thinking he got a medal and doing the rounds of victory lap with Bolt then getting told he got disqualified fro stepping over the line once. I would be so angry at myself!!
Anyway, classic quote right here: “”I’ve been dreaming of this since I was yea high,” Bolt said. “So it means a lot more to me actually than the 100 means.”"
Seriously - beats Phelp’s record I’m sorry to say 