Brendanites of the Brendanverse

Of all Brendanites, the worst off are the criminals and other malcontents. Water-boarding is par-for-course as is other cruel and unusual punishments, like electric-clamps-on-nipples and listening to boy bands non-stop. By the O'Neill doctrine, if it worked before then whatever it is is OK now and forever. Amen.

While criminals have it bad in Brendanverse, the entrepreneurs have it easy. Starting business in Brendanverse is simple: find a market and setup shop. No need to worry about established competition, they won't do things like undercut your prices or bad mouth you in front of their customers. No siree, that's not how Brendanverse works. 

You see, in Brendanverse a company that owns, say 70% of the market, will do nothing like leverage their market share and resources to drive out, hinder or crush their competitors. In fact, calling them competitors is a misnomer: it implies competition and we can't have that. Companies are more like friends, happily coexisting and sharing their toys, aka customers.

Even more blessed than the entrepreneurs are the Chosen - the Journalists (not the Jews). They have all the right the Government has, including and not limited to reading people's emails and tapping their phones. These are rights that, by the O'Neil Doctrine, the Government owes to journalist, because unlike the Government, a Journalist is the epitome of integrity and honesty. They rise above the law and accountability and other trifling matters like FOI requests.

Whoever they are though, every Brendanite is a completely rational human being unswayed by emotional rhetorics, who gives every opinion their due weight before making a decision.

What a brave new world, with such people in it.

--

Having had a glimpse of the mind of Brendan O'Neil, I can't help but think he is someone who when confronted with an uncomfortable question latches on to the nearest superficial answer and runs with it.

Some people call him a "passionate defender of free speech" which brings to mind the following quote by Jascha Heifetz:

“No matter what side of an argument you're on, you always find some people on your side that wish you were on the other side.”

I wonder if he supports the right of people to yell fire in theatres...

Cheers,
Steve

Thoughts on HTML, computer programs, and programming languages

I would like to start this post off by saying that emotionally I agree with the sentiment that HTML is not a programming language. Intellectually, however, my position is that HTML is a programming language.

My argument for HTML as a programming language is very abstract, and to put it simply: programming languages are used to express instructions to the computer on what to do. HTML instructs the computer on how to display content, therefore HTML is a programming language. Against this argument are the following, which can be encountered on any number of programming websites.

The most common argument against HTML being a programming language is that it describes itself as a markup language, as evident by the M in HTML. I find this argument wanting on 2 fronts: a) it implicitly assumes that a markup language can not be a programming language. TEX is a good example of a language which 99% of the time is used for markup, and the other 1% for programming; b) this argument is superficial. It implies if I was to simply rename HTML to HTPL, hypertext programming language, then *poof* now it is a programming language without having changed any of its characteristics. A rose by any other name...

A better argument is that HTML doesn't have control structures, whereas programming languages do. Suppose we accept this argument, which implicitly requires programming languages to support control structures. Consider a strict subset of LOGO, called miniLOGO that contains only the turtle graphics part of LOGO and nothing else - no loops, no conditionals, no control structures. By the definition we have assumed here, miniLOGO isn't a programming language. Now suppose you write a program in miniLOGO to draw "hello world"  on the screen, what have you written? I (and most people) say it is a program. This then presents a problem: you should not be able to write a program with a not-programming-language. At least it is a problem for me.

Suppose now you say no, the miniLOGO hello world isn't a program, and you give one of two reasons - that it doesn't contain control structures or that it wasn't written in a programming language. The first reason implicitly defines all programs as those containing control structures. I can not accept this reason because you can make a non-program a program by injecting a control structure with no side effect, and it is no less absurd and no more useful than the accepting HTML as a programming language. Not to mention the millions of introductory programming texts that will need to be rewritten so "hello world" contains an unecessary control structure. (There are those who will then say: there ARE control structures, they are just a few levels of abstractions down. Well there are similar control structures in a browser. We do not worry about the rest of the abstraction stack, only the top of it).

For the second reason, consider what happens if I write the same program in full is-a-programming-language LOGO. Now it is a program by the virtue of having been written in a programming language, which brings us to an uncomfortable place: now we two things which are absolutely identical, but one is a program and one isn't by virtue of their parentage. Accepting this position is no more absurd than accepting that HTML is a programming language.

The final argument I will discuss is that my definition is such a generic definition just about anything is a programming language, therefore that definition is next to useless. This I agree with. However as I have (hopefully) demonstrated, it isn't easy to come up with a definition of what is a programming language (or in fact what is a program) that isn't contradictory or would invalidate millions of simple programs around the world.

I am still giving this issue thought, but until I am a more learned person in CS and possibly philosophy, my choice is between a definition of programming languages with low discriminatory powers, or ones which are fickle and contradictory.

HTML-is-a-programming-language, I choose you!

Cheers,
Steve

Why Even Techies aren't Immune from the Filter

Of late I have seen statements from technologically inclined individuals along the lines of:

I am not worried about the filter. Even if they put it in it will just slow things down a bit but we all know how to get around it.

At first glance this seems reasonable, after all it is true. It however ignores the fact the filter is not just a mechanism for stopping "naughty" content. The government can easily abused the filter and use it monitor attempts to access blocked content. In other words the government will be able to construct a list of "naughty" people.

You might ask

What's the problem with that? Surely having a list of people who attempted to access child porn can only be a good thing

If you are asking this question, then you have been victim to Conroy's propaganda. The filter doesn't block just child pornography, it blocks all refused classification (RC) content. At least it is suppose to. The list of websites to be blocked will not be available for scrutiny. In other words, if the filter were to block content on such controversial topics such as abortion or euthanasia you won't know until you have attempted to access such content. By then it would be too late - the government now knows you tried.

The number of ways such a list of "naughty" people can be abused is beyond counting. Suppose the police needs a few child pornography arrests to look good. They just need to go through the list looking for a few poor souls who stumbled on their internet travels. Bang! A list of people whose privacy will be thoroughly violated as the police fishes through their background looking for dirt. God help them if they have actually broke some trivial law in our complex legal system.

But wait, you say,

Isn't attempting to access refused classification material wrong?

The answer is no, unless it is child pornography. The national classification code allows adult to read, hear, and see what they want:

Classification decisions are to give effect, as far as possible, to the following principles:

(a) adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want;

RC material can not be shown, sold, and possession for the purpose of sale or display is illegal. But to consume it with in the privacy of your own home is no crime [1]. As an adult what you chose to read, hear and see is your own private business.

I am well aware this is a slippery slope argument, however I don't think it is outrageous or preposterous. Governments love to monitor what their citizens do [2], censor what they see, and control what they do. That is almost by definition. To imagine the government to pass up on abusing the filter mechanism is difficult to imagine. It would require integrity on their part, something that has been conspicuously absent thus far.

Hang on, I hear you say,

How does this affect me, who always uses an encrypted connection?

Because my dear Watson, the lack of clear text communication is in itself damning evidence to the government. It shows you are to hiding something. In next to no time they will bring out the old fallacy:

If you have done nothing wrong, what have you to hide?

Remember that Conroy is so incompetent he doesn't even know online banking is encrypted.

The bottom line is this: don't allow this invasion of our privacy the chance to snowball just because it doesn't inconvenience you (yet). Nib it in the bud.

At the next election, vote below the line and vote for the parties against the filter: the Greens [3], the Nationals [4], and if they make it in time, the Pirate Party Australia [5].

Cheers,
Steve

[1] They did try to make it a crime, but sanity prevailed. http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA19970515003

[2] Just see how much the UK loves their surveillance, despite no evidence it actually lowers crime. 

[3] Greens might trade a rainforest or two for the filter though

[4] Nationals recently passed a motion to block any mandatory Internet filtering

[5] PPAU by definition has to block the filter.

Open Letter to Silicon Chip Australia

Dear Silicon Chip,

I recently cancelled my print subscription. You are no longer a magazine I wish to support.

Political commentary on topics like the insulation scheme and global warming has no place in an electronics magazine. The editor(s) are using the mailbag section to push their own agendas and opinions on the rest of us. I can no longer tolerate such non-sense, and have no interest in financially supporting a magazine that is so set on disinformation and irrational discourse.

Let me be clear: I am not cancelling my subscription because of the beliefs of the people at SC. I am cancelling because SC is being used as a platform to spread those beliefs. Whether or not SC believes in global warming, or that the government is at fault for the deaths from the insulation scheme, commentary of these issues are best left to newspapers. They have no place in a publication about electronics.

On other thing, the filler article reviewing consumer electronics (e.g. MacBook) is most annoying. It lowers the standard of the magazine. If you really have nothing to write about, go find some interesting arduino variants, like the jeeNode, and review one of those.

You have lost your way SC, and it is a sad thing to have to let you go. Maybe we can get back together again.

Steve

Don't Worry About the Pirates.

So you are an indie musician, and you are worried about pirates – those naughty people who are allegedly stealing food off your table and from the mouth of your children.

Well I am here to tell you there is no need to worry – pirates may just be the best thing to ever happen to you.

First, let me tell you something that you probably don't want to hear – you are nobody. You are nobody in the sense that 99.9999% of the people on this planet has never heard of you. The only way to change this is to get your music into the ears of as many people as possible

Big artists do this – they have TV spots, radio spots, newspaper reviews. These are all ways to reach listeners without them paying anything.

This is also what you need to do, and pirates do this very well. If a single pirate distributed your music to two other pirates, and they in turn distribute to two more pirates and so forth, in a very short time you would have reached all of western civilisation.

Now I can see you getting puffed up, about to yell at me how this doesn't make you a dime. Just give me a second, will you?

The second thing I am going to tell you is that to a first approximation, you make money only from your fans. Remember that the word "fan" comes from fanatic – they are people who bought the Fellowship of the Ring when it first came out on DVD, then bought the Director's Cut, then bought the Special Limited Collector's Tin Box Edition , and then the Super Mega Ultra Edition that came with a Gandalf bust, then they did it again for the Two Towers, Return of the King, then for the whole damn series. These are people who have 12 versions of each Lord of The Rings trilogy, and will purchase the anniversary edition when it comes out in 2012 anyway.

The point is: your fans love you, they will buy your music, your merchandise, and go to your concerts even if they can get it for free – that is just how fans are.

Now the only way to get fans is to have people listen to your music, and as long as you have a non-zero conversion rate of joe-listener-to-fan, you come out on top. The more people you reach, the more fans you get, and the more money you make.

Just in case you don't get it yet, here it is in point form:

• no one has heard of you
• if no one has heard of you, you have no fans
• you make money from fans
• people become fans from listening to your music
• pirates distribute your music to millions, even billions of people
• this increases your fanbase
• a larger fanbase means more money
• a large enough fanbase means you have Made It Big

Got it?

Cheers,
Steve

Homeopathic logic

On Dr Karl on Triple J Podcast recently, and a lady called in (lets call her B) to say homeopathy works for her. She said her children were never vaccinated, and only receives homeopathy treatments, just like all her friend’s children, and that they are all healthy. B thus concluded that homeopathy works, and to show she isn’t the only one who thinks so, she presents the Royal family, who practices homeopathy, as a supporting fact.

It would appear at first she is right: homeopathy works and the facts are compelling - but a little critical thinking goes a long way.

Firstly, the only logical conclusion one can draw from the facts presented isn’t homeopathy works, but homeopathy isn’t fatal.

To arrive at B’s conclusion one would need to:

• give one of her children placebo


• give one of her children prescribed medicine


• give one of her children nothing


• give one of her children homeopathy

Further, one would need to observe the child given homeopathy doing better than the other children to show homeopathy:

• isn’t a (costly) placebo


• works better than prescribed medicine


• isn’t harmful

These kind of things are done in clinical trials, and no clinical trial to date has shown that homeopath has anything more than a placebo effect.

So what about the Royal Family? Surely, you think to yourself, this lends homeopathy the weight of authority. However this is a logical fallacy known as “argument from authority” or “appeal to authority”. Simply put, just because some one in authority says it is true, doesn’t mean it is. After all, we were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...

It would appear most adults do not engage critical thinking: to look at what facts are presented, evaluate how reliable they are, and judge claims based on those facts. Even a cursory examination of the principles of homeopathy shows it runs contrary to, and has no basis in, reality. Yet this makes no difference to some people, who latch on to any fanciful tale as the truth as long as it makes them feel better, or it aligns with their world view.

In a world populated by scientologists, perhaps it is unsurprising we find fervent supporters of homeopathy. I can only hope that natural selection does its job.

Cheers,

Steve

microbric viper review

The microbric viper is neat. Good quality parts and unique idea. Makes a decent robotics platform if you get the wheel add-on. However, you gotta have small fingers to get some of the parts in place. Despite this, the hardware is solid, I like it. The one thing I would ask for however is more short-nuts and a printed manual, not a CDROM with a PDF. Take a leaf from LEGO and their construction manuals.

While the hardware is decent, the microbric viper is sadly let down by the software.

The microbric viper uses the basicAtom (by basicmicro), a PIC 16F87{6,7} with a custom bootloader. Now there is nothing wrong with this - arduino uses a custom bootloader too. However the custom bootloader uses a proprietary programming protocol. This is pretty fail, but what really fails is the programming software only runs under windows (or wine under ubuntu, but only for now).

IMHO the basic-esque language used by basicAtom is no better than what picaxe offers. I am completely at a lost as to why companies would use the basicmicro's products and lock themselves to a single supplier. Think about it: if basicmicro goes bust, your products using the basicAtom will not longer have a supported development environment.

Robotics companies need to seriously consider how their selection of controller will affect their customers - specifically those customers who aren't going to be running windows and staying with in the limits of whatever custom language designed by the controller vendors.

Arduino would be the best choice IMHO. Open hardware, open software. You don't have to pay premiums for the bootloader, and the number of people who will consider your product increases to include people like me.

I bought the microbric viper because it was on sale: reduced to $29 from $199. If I had known I could only program it under windows or that it used such a closed platform, I won't have bought it, even for that price.

Cheers,

Steve

The libertarian argument against vaccination

Goes like this:

I have a right to decide what happens to my children!

To that I say, we have the right to not be a victim of your stupidity. Further, laws represent social contracts that all members of society enter into for everyone's benefit. Getting vaccinated is one such contract which serves to prevent epidemics of infectious diseases.

If you really don't want to vaccinate your child, then please ensure your child never comes into physical contact with the rest of society for our sake. I would not welcome them without vaccinations.

Cheers,

Steve

RIP DSE, Greetings Futurlec

Dicksmith Electronics is dead to me now. Dead as a door nail, dead just like Tandy.

When I was growing up, Tandy and DSE were the two places I went to get my electronic parts and information. The Engineer's Mini Notebook series and Getting Started in Electronics sold at Tandy were treasure troves of tips, tricks, and insights. The best thing was of course I could buy nearly any component mention in the book at either DSE or Tandy.

Those days are no longer. Tandy degenerated into a specialised consumer electronics retailer long ago, and now DSE has suffered the same fate. Take for example my wasted journey to Burwood DSE: I had searched on DSE's website for some pin headers, and was inform Burwood store had them in stock. 30 minutes later I was there, and lo and behold: they no longer have an electronics section. Only a few years ago I would frequent Burwood DSE because they were the only component retailer I could reach with relative easy by public transport. Now there is nothing but the shiny and vacuous desert of electronic bling.

How the mighty have fallen.

Currently Futurlec is my supplier of choice. Not only do they have reasonable prices, they also have a fantastic range of components, boards and hardware, a better range than Jaycar with a easier to use website too.

I am torn to use Futurlec - Jaycar has been an excellent business in encouraging the next generation to get into electronics, and I really want to support them. But their website leaves much to be desired, and their range in recent years has been slowly been invaded by consumer electronic bling. Will Jaycar fall like Tandy and DSE before it? Maybe if they stayed out of the hands of the Woolworths...

Cheers,

Steve

Dear Steve Conroy,

You can’t be serious.

You wants to filter all Internet connections now, without the option of opting out?! You want every Australian to be on a list so you can see who is “naughty” and who isn’t?!

You can’t be serious.

You wants to filter all illegal material on the Internet?!

You can’t be serious.

How on earth do you propose to classify the contents of more than 181,000,000 websites (Sept. 2008, Netcraft)!? Assuming a government worker can classify a site as illegal or legal in 1 minute, that person will have to work non-stop every day for 344 years to classify 181,000,000 websites.

You can’t be serious.

How on earth do you propose to even filter that many sites without rendering the Internet useless?!  

You can’t be serious.

How can we be sure the site blocked really is illegal, when we can’t access it!? How do you stop the system from abused? How do you correct the system’s mistakes? Why isn’t any of these described in detail?!

You can’t be serious.

How on earth are you planning on preventing people from circumventing your flitters using encryption?!

You can’t be serious.

Get a fucking clue Steve Conroy. The Internet doesn’t work like that. You have a background in the broadcast industry, and the Internet is nothing like it. You should leave technical decisions to people who know what they are talking about and stop pissing off every Internet literate Australian.

DIAF,

Steve

For shame Dr Hearnden

"...Why should small business take a hit for a public health measure?" -- Dr Hearnden

I am amazed a doctor of all people would utter such capitalistic remark.How can a doctor question whether or not it is in the business' interest to improve public health?

Businesses derive their income from the public, and a healthy public is more capable of providing income to businesses. The only businesses which benefit from an ailing public are medical clinics. This leads to me to think Dr Hearnden belongs to a special class of doctors who prefers to make money from treatments rather than from cures. In other words, putting profit before his patients.

Cheers,

Steve

R18+, do want

Perhaps I am naive, but I expect those people in Government to have some resemblance of intelligence and be able to apply this very useful thing called logic. Michael Atkinson obviously isn't one such person. His recent reply to the demand for R18+ classification for Electronic Games [1] demonstrates a lack of intellect and foresight.

Firstly, Michael Atkinson can not see how have R18+ classification would a) stop parents from making bad choices and b) stop children getting hold of a game for their friend of sibling. Lets address these one at a time. Point a): MA15+ doesn't send a strong enough message to parents. If you are allowing children to purchase these games in the company of a parent or adult guardian, you are not sending a clear strong message that such games are not for children, at all. R18+ classification is a very strong message: these are prohibited to children, and it is illegal to make it available to them. Even the minimally functional or responsible parent will not purchase pornography for their children, and even the most apathetic cashier will not sell R18+ material to a minor. R18+ classification, if it existed, would an unmistakable message: DO NOT SELL OR EXPOSE TO MINORS.

Point b) can’t be any simpler. No cashier who wants to get paid, and no business which wants to stay in business, will sell to a child. If a child can not get hold of a R18+ game, it makes it impossible for said minor to get hold of it for their friends of siblings.

Secondly, Michael Atkinson believes introducing R18+ classification will increase the amount of inappropriate material for sale, and this will mean increased exposure of children to such material, since more of such material is for sale. What Michael Atkinson fails to realise is that introducing R18+ classification increases the volume of inappropriate material only very very slightly, while allowing the current volume of slightly less inappropriate material, namely games with MA15+ classification, to be reclassified as R18+ and thus have their exposure to children significantly reduced. Further, MA15+ restrictions only apply at the point of sale - it places no restrictions on whether the game must be played in the presence of an adult. R18+ classification will make it illegal to for a child to buy and play games considered inappropriate. In not having a R18+ classification for games, the Australian public is being done a disservice whereby the most restrictive classification is trivially circumvented.

Michael Atkinson then touts statistics like 79% of Australian house holds have a gaming device, and 62% of these Australians say classification of games has no influence on their buying decision. Seemingly solid statistics against introducing R18+ classification, except it is never mentioned which of these households have children under 15 - a household where all members are over 15 would care little for the classification of games they purchase. Further, given the current classification scheme’s weak delineation of games, it is not surprising that people ignore them.

The “violent games make violent children” card is of coursed played too. This is of course true - to say children is not affected by violent media would be a blatantly lie. However, the effect of violent video games compared to violence in television and magazines is not provably more or less. Michael Atkinson’s concerns are valid, but they are no more or less than concerns of any parent when it comes to violence in the media. If it is the basis on which Michael Atkinson voting against installing a R18+ classification, then I trust he is equally hard at work at removing R18+ classification for all other media as well.

Michael Atkinson then gives several examples of games that would supposedly be available under R18+ classification featuring strong themes of drug use and abuse. Ignoring the fact that thus far he has been arguing video games are bad because they lead to violence, there are two problems with this assertion. One is how Michael Atkinson knows these games will be classified under R18+ classification, when no such classification yet exists; and two, why we can’t demand the games be modified to fit R18+ or alternatively refuse classification of such games. Michael Atkinson suffers from the common fallacy that R18+ classification equates “anything goes” This is demonstrably false, as films have X18+ classification, and some films are still refused classification. Having R18+ classification does not rob us of the power to refuse classification for inappropriate games - in fact it only gives us more power to restrict exposure of such games to a greater degree than current classification scheme allows. This is especially true when Michael Atkinson says “What the present law does is to keep the most extreme material off the shelves” - R18+ classification will still allow the law to keep the most extreme material off the shelves.

There are several more flawed arguments in Michael Atkinson’s letter. One is the argument that if games can be made into MA15+, then obviously there is no need for R18+ classification. This is akin to saying that just because any film, television show, or magazine can be modified to be rated G, there is no need for anything over G. Another is the argument that film classification is different to video game classification because the age of moviegoers can be regulated. This is a blatant lie. The age of moviegoers is as well regulated as the age of video game purchasers, and just as ineffective. The only time when age of moviegoers is “well regulated” is when the film carries a R18+ classification. Michael Atkinson further differentiates film and games because “Access to electronic games, once in the home, cannot be policed and therefore games are easily accessible to children”. At this point I don’t know whether or not he is being serious - film classification extends to films on DVDs and on TV, where access in the home also cannot be policed.

Michael Atkinson expresses dissatisfaction with the current scheme - “I do not consider that allowing a child to play an MA15+ game is reasonable given the content set out in the National Classification Code...in South Australia effectively that does not prevent such a classification being purchased for the child or with the parent’s (or guardian’s) permission. It also does not stop a child from borrowing a game from another person or family member” What is stunning about this admission is that this is a problem which is helped by introducing a R18+ classification and reclassifying the more extreme MA15+ games as R18+ games. It would prevent such games from being purchased for a child, and it would make it illegal to lend or expose such a game to a child, say by allowing them to watch while you play. Even more amazingly, Michael Atkinson says he will “consider the merit in preventing MA15+ games to under 15 year olds, even with guardian or parental permission or assistance”. If he added another 3 years, he would effectively be considering R18+ classification to games.

Michael Atkinson in short presents no coherent or solid argument against R18+ classification for games. Despite his claim his decision was not conservatism for the sake of conservatism, it is precisely that - there is no more conservative argument than censorship “protecting the children”, and in this case, the children and vulnerable adults, whoever they are..

Cheers,

Steve

Cost of leadership

There is a lot of complaining over the Federal Government’s various schemes to reduce our carbon emission. Some of these are valid concerns, yet others are nothing more than short-sighted yapping of the unwashed. Here is a typical example of such a thing:

“if Australia cuts or carbon emissions by 50% it will not make any difference either as we contribute 1% and China and India are growing at a rate of 10% per year. They produce more Carbon in a day then we produce in a year. So why are we going to destroy our economy exactly again?”

This typified the majority opinion in my encounters with the Australian public online and off. It shows a marked lack of foresight and more than a little scare mongering. Firstly, our economy is hardly going to be destroyed because of emission trading. The European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) was implemented in 1st of January 2005 with the then 15 countries of EU as participants. Today 23 EU [1] members are participating in EU ETS. Do you really think the number of participants of EU-ETS would increase if emission trading destroyed economies?

So why should we implement emission trading when China, India, and the rest of South-East Asia (SE Asia) account for so much of the world’s carbon emission? The answer is two fold. First is the fact we are a First World country, an Enlightened Society, a World Leader. If we don’t do what we can do cut back on carbon emission, then how can we expect developing countries like China and India to do so? Secondly, countries like China and India have such large manufacturing bases because of us. First World citizens demand and consume products which are produced in factories based on South-East Asia. It is our demands which creates industries in in SE Asia, our demand that China and India account for such large percentage of global carbon emissions. United States of America emits more carbon dioxide per capita than any other nation, followed by Saudi Arabia and you guessed it, Australia [2]. In other words, Australians are the world 3rd largest carbon dioxide emitters. So when you combined add two and two together, it becomes absurd to suggest we simultaneously demand cheap products from countries like China and India and that they cut back on carbon emissions, while we do nothing ourselves.

The Kyoto protocol is often branded as a toothless tiger because of lack of political will. Yet when political will is exercised, the masses complain about the cost. Wake up people of Australia - only First World countries like ours can afford to exercise political will on such a scale and on this subject. As consumers we are the ultimate cause of carbon emissions, and as a world leader we need to be the ones who take the first step. Emission trading will cost us - see it as the cost of leadership, the cost of doing something proactive to ensure our future on this planet. If we balk at the cost, then we are in no position to ask China or India to cut back on their carbon emissions and absorb the resulting losses.

Cheers,

Steve

Sports isn’t the only thing we are good at

From the website:

“StarStuff is ABC NewsRadio's flagship Astronomy, Cosmology, Space and Science program. “

It is hosted by Stuart Gary and it is the only public program on TV or radio which is dedicated to science.

And it is about to be axed to make way for a 30 minute program about sport.

Now as Australians we are justifiably proud of our sporting prowess, but with more than 700 hours of programming on radio and TV already dedicated to sports, do we really need to replace a 30 minute show about science so we can find out more about sports?!

This country is bemoaning the lack of skilled workers and slumping enrolment in engineering and science , wringing its hands about the “brain drain” where our best and brightest go overseas to work - and here we are replacing the only dedicated science program available freely to the public with a sports program.

Australians are not just great sportsmen, we are great doctors, engineers, and scientists too. But if you were to read the news, watch TV or listen to the radio, you would be hard pressed to find evidence of this.

As a nation we need engineers and scientists working in this country to progress into the future. To do this we need to inspire children to be interested in science. We need to get the public interested in science and make it OK to be interested in science. The most effective way to do this is to make make science accessible. StarStuff does this all by its lonesome in the sporting crazed landscape of public programming.

So please please please the Powers That Be, at the very least save StarStuff. Expanding it wouldn’t hurt either.

Cheers,

Steve

Dark ages all over again

Take the article linked to in the topic, and replace "paedophiles" with "witches":

Victorians rally for more public info on witches

Posted 5 hours 28 minutes ago

More transparency: hundreds rallied in Melbourne today. (AAP Image: Simon Mossman)

Hundreds of people rallied in Melbourne today, calling for the Victorian government to give the public more details about witches who have been released from jail.

The Crime Victims Support Association wants the government to set up a public register, that will show how many convicted witches live in a particular suburb or town.

Spokesman Noel McNamara says similar systems work well overseas.

And he says under the current Victorian system, children may be in danger.

"This way, just let them go out, they can be living next door to kindergartens they can be living next door to you," he said.

"We just think it's wrong the way it's doing."

He says he wants the Government to come up with a map that shows where witches live.

"We don't want to know their names, we just want to know where they are, what areas, to give the people a fighting chance to look after their children down around the swings and schools and mainly to protect the children," he said.

Its the god damn dark ages all over again. Please people, think of the consequences! It is very easy to be convicted of "kiddy fiddling", very hard to prove yourself innocent - it should not be a death sentence. While they are not asking for names, it would be very easy to deduce who is in fact the person being mapped. Such a map will also sow distrust into communities everywhere. Do we really want witch hunts and vigilante justice group active in our society?

If you believe pedophiles can not redeem themselves and can never be trusted, then push for life sentence for the crime. Otherwise allow them the chance to better themselves and become a useful member of society.

Cheers,

Steve

Tim Blair is a moron

Why would Keating (who has accomplished one or two things despite his educational handicap, such as becoming the prime minister of Australia) envy academics, massive faculties of whom by and large accomplish nothing and who these days aren't even allowed to feel up first year students?

Says a man in the 21st century. Grow the fuck up.

Think of it this way. At school, the slow kids were made to attend additional remedial classes. The super-slow repeated entire years.

What, then, are we to make of people who require four extra years of education beyond high school before they're ready to face the world?

These people require four extra years of education beyond high school before facing the world because their profession demands it. Unlike Tim Blair who does a piss poor job of forming an opinion, and whose job has no real world consequence other than exposing him for the idiot that he is, these people have real world responsibilities like how to build a bridge that doesn't fail. It may come as a surprise to Tim that there are harder jobs in the world then being a 3rd rate opinion columnist.

Take it a step further. What of those who remain at our institutes of remedial learning for their whole adult lives?

Those people who remain academics are laying the foundations for the next generation and for our future, unlike Tim Blair who is destined to balther his feculent rhetoric forever and ever.

I am not going to bother with the rest of the article - it is full of drivel and and Time Blair's usual self-righteous arrogance of how much better he is. Get an education you moron.

DIAF,

Steve

{} I <3 thee

Firstly, I am the kind of guy who likes tabs over spaces, because I don't like forcing my particular preferences on to other people. To wax poetic, I like to give other people the freedom of choosing how they want their code indented. This of course brings me into the firing line of python programmers, for whom the 4-spaces-per-indentation-level is equivalent to the Ten Commandments handed down from Mount Sinai. Officially, python doesn't care, but thats like saying officially the Church accepts evolution.

I was editing a working python file written by some one else today, and wanted to convert it to tabs (yes yes, I know all about leaving files as I found them etc. Silence). So I ran unexpand -t 4 on the file. This simply replaces 4 spaces with one tab. This should have given me a working and correct python file though now indented with tabs. Naturally (Moore's law and all) this is not happened. The newly tab-indented file was riddled with errors because the original file was not indented properly so the simple conversion did not work. And as I go about fixing the errors python threw at me, I realised to my horror that information about the structure of the code was corrupted. Because python interprets code structure based on indentation, if your indentation is incorrect, your code is incorrect.

In comparison, a brace using language like C would have made the corrections trivial, because the braces explicitly specify the code structure. Python's argument that everyone indents anyway and thus braces are redundant is flawed - braces are not redundant because braces represent the separation of content from presentation, something that has been hammered into developers. In ignoring this, python has allowed a new class of errors - changing the appearance of code will now change the function of the code. I really can't see how this is a good thing.

If nothing else, python's integration of presentation and content, and thus presentation and program correctness makes it a far less robust language than brace using languages. Less robust in that a mangled python file is unrecoverable unless you actually read the code to figure out its structure, and that incorrectly transcribed python will likely run anyway with no syntactic or runtime errors.

Consider for example, the following code:

for n in names:
    foo(n)
    bar(n)

If you were transcribing the code and accidentally did not indent bar(n), the code now does something complete different yet no syntax or runtime error will be thrown. Now if the above code used braces, then it would have no effect. And if you forgot the brace, a syntax error will be thrown.

To be fair, python is a lovely language, and I do love it and use it extensively. Whitespace-as-syntax stance appeared at first to be a great idea, and one which now appears to be short sighted and naive. If nothing else, at least an interpreter which disallows incorrect space-indent files, that way tab->space and space->tab conversions would work correctly all the time.

Let me now put on my flame retardant undies, and you can flame away

Cheers,

Steve

Earth Hour haters strikes back

Earth Hour was today at 8pm. I turned the lights off, and happily gamed away in the dark. Not many people appreciate the point of Earth Hour, one of them is Tim Blair. I came across his "opinion" page in the paper today. I have to say it is one the more short sighted, idiotic, and crass piece of "journalism" I have ever read.

Tim thinks that lights makes "makes dangerous places safe." That is true, to a point. Flooding an area with light just creates deeper and more numerous shadows for criminals to hide in, and also make their evil doing easier when no one is looking. Earth Hour isn't against lighting, its against the overuse of lighting. Tim Doesn't Get It.

Tim complained that USYD was closing streets so they can turn off the lighting for those streets. He argues that if you can't use those streets safely in the dark, then the lights are essential and shouldn't be turned off, and somehow USYD is sacrificing safety for Earth Hour. The problem with this argument, is that there are a hundred different ways to get from A to B inside USYD. Tim doesn't seem to knows this and we must forgive him - he probably never been to USYD. Now if you have a hundred ways to get from A to B, do you (a) light every single one of them or (b) light the main thoroughfares which most efficiently utilises light? Tim would have us choose (a), while USYD and Earth Hour chose and advocated (b). Tim Doesn't Get It, and we need to forgive him - he is probably scared of the dark still.

Tim asserts that Earth Hour is against progress and freedom. He thinks that Earth Hour is against the technology that lets us have electric lighting, and thus against technological progress. And since Earth Hour is apparently somehow forcing everyone to do its bidding, its freedom. Tim must be a card carrying, foil underwear wearing, paranoid conspiracy theorist to be able to draw conclusions like this. I will just repeat again that Earth Hour isn't against lighting, but against overuse of lighting. Tim Doesn't Get It.

Tim reckons the symbolism of Earth Hour is empty and meaningless. For an apathetic like him, I would say everything is empty and meaningless. The kids who ran past my house yelling at my neighbours to turn their lights off though, well Earth Hour means plenty to them. The point is to raise awareness of the fact that 1. we don't need so many lights to get by 2. night and darkness isn't something to be afraid of. Evolution has taught us the night is dangerous, and light is good. But we are no longer living in the wild amongst tigers and leopards and other fear some creatures. How about we embrace our environment and the beauty of heavens? Over come your fear of the dark Tim, and I checked under your bed: no Swedish nurses, werewolves, Milton Orkopoulos or a prowling moonlight delegation from the Wollongong ALP. Really.

At this point I confess, I am tired of Tim's feculent words. He likens Cate Blanchett's theatre to the Scary Countries (read China and Cuba, apparently Tim is stuck in 80s where these countries are still boggy ean), and then accuses wax companies of setting up Earth Hour so they can sell more wax. You can read his tirade yourself, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Cheers,

Steve

eeepc, likes and dislikes

Likes:

• nice and small


• all the hardware works, including sleep/suspend


• runs debian based OS by default


• can run an external monitor at decent resolution

Dislikes:

• uses fastinit which only boots into single user mode, so user "user" is always logged in. Endless frustration playing with X11 startup in vain to get a multiuser login screen
  
• when kmixer shows a speaker with a cross on top, it means built in speakers will be used. When it is a speaker with no cross on top, it means headphone jack will be used. Talk about counter-intuitive.


• keyboard truly sucks

Cheers,

Steve

YAITM - Yet Another Incompetent Telecommunications Minister

It seems a competent telecommunications minister is hard to come by in Australia. Our new telecommunications minister, Senator Conroy,recently demonstrated that he does not understand a) the Internet; b) freedom of speech; c) the concept of the slippery slope.

Firstly, Senator Conroy’s lack of understanding of the Internet:

Senator Conroy says it will be mandatory for all internet service providers to provide clean feeds, or ISP filtering, to houses and schools that are free of pornography and inappropriate material. - ABC news, 31/12/2007

I would like Senator Conroy to explain how exactly ISPs are going do the above for sites which feature mixed content, such as many forums and discussion boards, youtube, and many other sites where content is primarily generated by users. If a discussion board is white-listed, what happens when inappropriate content is posted by a rouge party? There is no technically feasible way to block content on a per-page basis because of encryption and the difficulty automatically classifying content. For example, how can software tell the difference human anatomy and pornography? Further, the Internet is not just websites. There are non-http traffic such as IRC, bittorrent, newsnet, p2p, MSN, jabber, etc. How are ISPs expected to policy those?

Secondly, freedom of speech, a concept which the Senator does not appear to comprehend:

"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree." - Senator Conroy

Here Senator Conroy equates freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then declares that since child pornography is evil, freedom of speech must also evil. This technique is called a Strawman Argument. It is at best a misleading way of arguing a point. Freedom of speech in no way justifies nor sanctions the creation or distribution of child pornography. Freedom of speech is not a free ticket to anarchy. I would have imagined a Senator would know this. In addition, Internet filtering you can opt-out of can not combat child pornography. Those who are going to look at child pornography are either going to a) subvert the system; or b) opt-out of it. Despite the fact Senator Conroy is using child pornography as a justification for censoring the Internet, it will do nothing whatsoever to curtail child pornography.

Finally we come to the slippery slope which Senator Conroy is happy to slide down:

"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the internet is like going down the Chinese road," - Senator Conroy

If Labor is making no apologies for going down the Chinese road with regards to Internet filtering, what else is Labor not going to make apologies for? Will Labor also make no apologies to those who argue that governments which do not listen to their civil liberty groups’ concerns is heading down the despot road?

The Senator is, despite his failings, a politician. He is not without his tricks. He seeks to placate those of us concerned with our civil liberties both now and in the future by allowing us to opt-out. Except opting-out means our names end up on a list somewhere, a list some people will interpret as a list of naughty-people who look at naughty-things. Further, it creates a state of affairs where the average citizen only has access to parts of the Internet allowed by the Government. In North Korea a similar state of affairs exists, bought on by decades of suppressing free press and communication. It has led to the citizen of North Korea to regard their oppressed and dreary lives in a third world country the height of human civilisation, a paradise on Earth. Are citizens of Australia so trusting of the government that we will accepted censorship without seeing what is being censored first?

All in all, Senator Conroy is Yet Another Incompetent Telecommunications Minister. I wish that just for once the Telecommunications Minister has a degree in engineering. Then perhaps he or she will understand the futility of attempting to censor the Internet.

Cheers,

Steve