Thanks to those of you who have donated, it’s much appreciated! For those that haven’t it’s not too late!
The ol’ soup strainer is getting pretty serious now:
Surely looking so ridiculous deserves a donation? 
It’s gone past the itchy phase thankfully but still looks weird when I see myself in the mirror.
Melissa can’t stand it and is looking forward to December…
Supporting our Car Industry
It’s been recently announced that the government intends to invest a few billion dollars into our struggling local car industry.
Why?!
I don’t think this is a good investment.
Sure there are many jobs on the line. But those jobs are in jeopardy anyway; GM and Ford have been making huge losses for some time and there’s no obvious change on the horizon. It seems like we’re just delaying the inevitable…
[It's also interesting to note that GM's market capital is less than we're investing; if it were allowed - unlikely - Australia could buy GM. Of course we'd also be buying the losses that they're posting...]
What if the government instead invested the money into creating an Australian car company. What if they set up an initiative for local people to design vehicles that are efficient, innovative, economical and, most importantly, could be exported. We would build them overseas – there’s no way we can compete against the likes of China for labour costs – but our design and engineering here is of exceptional quality. It seems to me that this kind of approach – creating products that we can sell outside of our own market – would be a better bet.
Better yet, get into negotiations with other car companies like Tesla Motors.
The Tesla Roadster
Tesla have developed an appealing electrically powered car and the technology could well kick-start a local effort if we could work out some licensing agreements. I’ve been waiting for a Tesla Roadster to be available in Australia since it was first announced and a locally designed variant would be fantastic.
Or perhaps we could build on the Tango that my colleague JT loves.
The Tango
Not exactly the epitome of cool, this is one car that is hella-economical and radical enough that it might just work. Especially if a suitably motivated government encouraged it’s use by supporting free half-width car parks or subsidized purchases. After all, it wouldn’t just be helping out the new local market it would be helping the environment.
We should be looking at ways to make transport more economical and environmentally friendly. Bailing out car companies that predominately produce large petrol-driven cars doesn’t seem to be smart long-term thinking…
I’m not particularly politically involved but recently there have been a few issues that have appeared on my radar that I’d like to share with you.
The (not so) Great Firewall of Australia
I’ve already written about this topic at the start of this year. Unfortunately the story continues to get worse. Stephen Conroy, our Communications minister, is insisting on pursuing the idiotic idea of placing a firewall between every Australian and the Internet, despite his own governments research indicating that it would a) affect performance and b) be ineffective. Let me state this clearly:
The Australian government are trying to censor the Internet.
They don’t know what they’re doing.
The implementation they’ve chosen to pursue is an two-tiered ISP-enforced blacklist. In English this means is that your Internet provider will be forced to run software to prevent you from visiting certain web sites. The “two-tier” part refers to the fact that there are two levels of filtering. The first tier will affect everyone – it’ll be a list of the worst of the scum of the Internet and the intent is that no Australian will be able to view these sites. The second tier will be optional and will be a much larger list of nasty’s – it’s supposedly designed to make the Internet “safe” for children.
This is different from when they first proposed filtering. As Duncan Riley has documented, in 2006 an opt-in (off by default but you could request for it to be enabled) system was proposed that blocked only illegal content. A year later “illegal” content became “illegal and offensive” content. In late 2007 it became opt-out (on by default, request for it to be disabled). Now it’s mandatory with a second level blocking content “inappropriate for children”.
There are a number of issues with the whole proposal. I’ve already discussed some of them but I’ll reiterate the most fundamental: Who decides which sites are in the blacklists? I do not trust our government to make sane decisions in this area. Further, it’s a slippery slope; it’s reasonably easy to justify that child pornography ought to be in the blacklist but what else should be banned? They’re already talking about filtering “other unwanted content”. What does that mean? ‘Regular’ pornography? Terrorist sites? Foreign news sources? People who speak against the government?
Technically, there are large holes in the implementation. It’s trivially easy to circumvent. I’ll explain how to do so if it becomes implemented. Also, a significant proportion of offensive content is transferred over peer-to-peer systems, particularly bittorrent, which is completely immune to blacklists.
I want no filtering of our Internet.
If you also feel that this system is wrong then do something about it. Electronic Frontiers No Clean Feed has some great suggestions (let your local MP know!) and much more information. At the very least I implore you to start some informed discussions with your friends and colleagues simply to spread awareness.
A few other links:
The Spoonman on TripleM recently dedicated a fair chunk of his show to discussing the issues. He had some well-informed guests and someone was kind enough to transcribe some of the show.
My mate Richard Giles has written eloquently on the topic.
There’s a very active (thousands of posts!) Whirlpool forum on the issue.
Ars Technica has a series of articles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
The Australian Web Industry Association’s Keep Your Filter Off Our Internet site also contains information and advice on what you can do.
The Age has a number of articles on the topic (1, 2, 3).
OK, that was more than I expected to write…my other two political topics will have to wait for another post!
Last Sunday I went for – and passed – my motorbike licence.
However, frankly, the thought of riding on the roads with my limited skills is terrifying!
On the plus side, bikes are efficient, good for the environment, cheap to run and thrilling to ride. The main negative is that it’s waaaay easier to die. I’m still not sure I want to regularly ride a bike.
I do think it’s normal to be nervous though. Before Sunday I hadn’t been on a bike before. It was like I was back in a manual car for the first time and all the controls are foreign and operating them required full-on conscious effort. I was fighting the machine for at least two-thirds of the day which was frustrating and tiring. Slowly – a lot slower than I expected! – I started to get a feel for it and it became more enjoyable.
If I do get a bike I’ll be spending a lot of time in car parks and back-roads to reduce the mental barriers to get the bike to do what I want.
For those interested in getting their licence I went with ***DECA in Altona. The format is that they teach you how to ride for most of the day and then, in the afternoon, you undertake a written and practical test. The written test is a doddle; a quick browse of the Vic motorbike handbook and you’re good to go.
The practical is harder.
It’s all low speed; you never get above 25 kph or higher than second gear. There are three tests and during the tests you cannot stall or drop the bike, put your feet down or touch any of the marked lines painted on the ground.
The first test you ride around in a circle, navigate a narrow left turn (remembering to use your indicators) then come to a stop with your front tyre inside a small (70cm square?) box painted on the ground. Pretty straightforward, even for a newbie like myself.
I found the second test the hardest. An eighteen-metre long box, not quite a metre wide, is painted on the ground and you’ve got to ride through it without touching the sides. The hard part is that you have to take at least 10 seconds, about walking pace, to ride from end to end. It requires striking a delicate balance between managing your throttle and clutch (keep the revs high enough to stop stalling but with enough bite to keep you moving) and some reasonably strong rear-wheel brake to slow you down. I stalled in this part of the test the first time through. Fail! Passed the second time but in only 10.09 sec – a little close for comfort.
The last part of the practical is the most fun – an emergency stop. Again you ride in a circle, this time navigating a tight right turn before accelerating to between 20-25 kph. At some point the instructor gives you a signal and you’ve got to come to a stop within seven metres. Not too hard on a bike; 2-3 metres is possible. This is the only part of the practical where you’re allowed to stall the bike as you come to a stop. Dramatic way to end the test!
You get two attempts at the practical. I failed it the first time, stumbling on the second test. I wasn’t alone – of the 13 people who went for the test 7 failed the first time.
Craig, my colleague at work and – now – in riding, organised the day and also passed (in similar fashion; a stall in attempt one also caught him out). Thanks for giving me the extra motivation to do it mate!
Mum has always hated bikes; Dad used to ride – until he got married. Due to a ‘clerical error’ Mum (and Dad) didn’t know I was going for my licence but when I called her afterward she took it well. She wasn’t happy about it of course but that’s fair enough.
Now I’ve got to start to get all the gear and a bike. Jase is convinced – once I get off my Learners – I should be astride a Triumph Street Triple 675:
What do you think? Can you see me riding one?
Congrats to Barak Obama for winning the Presidential campaign. It’ll be nice to have an intelligent, inspirational leader at the helm of such an important country.
[Check out some cool cartograms of the election results.]
It’s time to break my blog silence. I’ve been procrastinating about what to write since it’s been soooo long since the last post but now I’m motivated.
I’m doing Movember!
That’s right, for the whole of this month I’m going to be growing out a kick-ass ‘stache to raise awareness about Men’s health issues. [That's health issues relating to Men, not problems with the magazine.] Donations go toward The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Beyond Blue, two worthy beneficiaries.
If you could throw some dollars toward a good cause I’d really appreciate it. Just hit up my Movember Donation Page and enter your details. Anything over $2 is tax deductible.
For my part I’ll post photos here as the mo’ improves. Here’s a teaser (but bear in mind I’m only four days in!)
Matt on Twitter
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