Author Archive for tigtog

SF Saturday: Recommended reading for a teen boy?

Published
by
tigtog
9 months, 2 weeks ago
in Books, Writers & Writing and Technology
. 97 Comments

FoxBase Alpha, originally uploaded by RobWMy son is currently absolutely fascinated by the idea of space propulsion systems and orbital habitats. He has just possibly been playing too much Halo.

He’s full of questions and schemes for writing his own stories/future world. He’s got to the point where he’s rapidly out-pacing the knowledge of two admitted SF-geek parents about these things, because we’re not totally immersed in that tech. We thought Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey might be a good start, just because the tech described is generally thought to be within realistic bounds for this century sometime.

What would readers recommend as some of the best novels out there that actually deal with the hard science of space travel, and that are still a rattling good read?

“Harmonisation”? Or callous restriction?

Published
by
tigtog
9 months, 3 weeks ago
in Activism, Health, Life and Sociology
. 30 Comments

My co-blogger at Hoyden About Town, lauredhel, has written a post about the proposed national disabled parking scheme (to have a uniform standard between the states):

CALL TO ACTIVISM – Many people with disabilities to be excluded from accessible parking under proposed scheme

For an examination of the details, see her post: the main point is that there is a significant population of legitimately disabled people who don’t fulfil the suggested major criterion of “walking without physical assistance from another person” (sticks/canes will no longer count, apparently).

Who does this exclude? Everyone who walks, with or without a cane, and who does not require the physical assistance of another person.

Every single independent person with an invisible disability.

What, it doesn’t matter how restricted their independent walking distance is by an invisible medical condition?. Even for the visible disabilities, most amputees (including military veterans) and most stroke victims won’t qualify under the new rules.

As for the invisible disabilities?
Tough luck for the chronic asthmatics and the emphysematous.
Tough luck for most people undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.
Tough luck for many people with Multiple Sclerosis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

These rules will disable me, and many thousands of Australians like me.

These rules will create physical dependence.
Continue reading ‘“Harmonisation”? Or callous restriction?’

Murdoch: the current days of the Internet will soon be over

Published
by
tigtog
10 months, 2 weeks ago
in Advertising, Media and The Web
. 84 Comments

Internet news, that is. From CNN:

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content.

Speaking on a conference call as News Corporation announced a 47 percent slide in quarterly profits to $755 million, Murdoch said the current free access business model favored by most content providers was flawed.

“We are now in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content and it is clear to many newspapers that the current model is malfunctioning,” the News Corp. Chairman and CEO said.

“We have been at the forefront of that debate and you can confidently presume that we are leading the way in finding a model that maximizes revenues in return for our shareholders… The current days of the Internet will soon be over.”

Now, all snark about the particular value of News Corp publications aside (as noted in the story, readers of the Wall Street Journal will very likely pay good money for that content), Murdoch does have a point about how the current model for online news distribution is not generating enough income to pay for traditional journalism. The newspaper industry in the US is in a tailspin of falling advertising revenues and drops in circulation that has already led to many titles going out of business. “Everybody knows” that the press is full of hacks, but that’s (a) true of any industry you like to point at; and (b) irrelevant to the public discourse benefits we all derive from traditional journalism, warts and all.
Continue reading ‘Murdoch: the current days of the Internet will soon be over’

Open Bush torture memos thread

Published
by
tigtog
11 months ago
in Crime, Ethics, Law, Politics, Terrorism and USA
. 46 Comments

As I’m sure most of you know, last week the Obama administration released some memos written by staff in the Justice Department during the Bush administration, memos written for the CIA to provide legal cover for the use of harsh interrogation techniques that many people regard as clear examples of torture. Here’s takes on the news story from The Australian, BBC News, The Guardian and The Washington Post. Here’s editorial opinion from the NYT, the Boston Globe, the Financial Times and the Toronto Star.

No time to write a full post, so I’ll leave you with these paragraphs from Glen Greenwald as a jump-off point:

The most criticism-worthy act that Obama engaged in yesterday was to affirm and perpetuate what is the single most-destructive premise in our political culture: namely, that when high government officials get caught committing serious crimes, the responsible and constructive thing to do is demand immunity for them, while only those who are vindictive and divisive want political leaders to be held accountable for their crimes.

…[Obama expresses exactly] the mindset that has destroyed the rule of law in the U.S. and spawned massive criminality in our elite class. Accountability for crimes committed by political leaders (as opposed to ordinary Americans) is scorned as “retribution” and “laying blame for the past.” Those who believe that the rule of law should be applied to the powerful as well as to ordinary citizens are demonized as the “forces that divide us.” The bottomless corruption of immunizing political elites for serious crimes is glorified in the most Orwellian terms as “a time for reflection,” “moving forward,” and “coming together on behalf of our common future.”

Others argue that Obama has walked a line where he makes both sides half-happy and half-unhappy by revealing the memos but barring prosecution of those involved operationally. Your thoughts?

A case study in Public Relations online

Published
by
tigtog
11 months, 1 week ago
in Disasters, Ethics, Media and The Web
. 20 Comments

Just a little somethingsnark I put together following some events of the last few weeks:

  1. Large professional organisation covers its operating costs via membership fees and sponsor funding. Many members have pointed out for many years that sponsor funding from certain manufacturers creates an ethical problem: a potential conflict of interest with the public service goals of the organisation as an independent information authority on particular issues.
  2. One member posts a document in an online discussion group devoted to an issue in which the organisation is seen as an information authority on April Fools Day, clearly dated April 1st in large friendly letters at the top, purporting to be an official press release from the organisation. This document “announces” that the organisation will no longer be accepting funding from the sponsors creating the perceived conflict of interest.
  3. Other members join in the spirit of the satirical document and contact the headquarters of the organisation asking whether it is true that the organisation has decided to no longer accept the funding from these particular sponsors. Thus the organisation becomes aware of the spurious press release.

What should the organisation’s response be?

  • A. ZOMG! People on the Internet are talking about us behaving ethically and it’s not true! Now that the cat’s out of the bag we’d better start behaving ethically right away and claim it was all our idea in the first place!
  • B. ZOMG! People on the Internet are talking about us behaving ethically and it’s not true! It’s a big fat lie! We should get the lawyers in and send letters about how it’s all a big fat lie and that unless they issue a retraction letting everybody know that we’re still behaving just as unethically as we always have, then they’ll be in BIG TROUBLE!!!!1!!1!
  • C. Ignore it, it’s an obscure online community and the larger public will probably never know about it. If it does get broader publicity, we need a plan of action for persuading people that sponsor funding from these manufacturers is not only ethical in terms of our normal issues but also has some sort of benefit for cute fluffy animals somewhere in a green field with a carpet of flower petals (don’t forget the children’s carefree laughter soundtrack).

Consequences of choosing wrongly

If you have already guessed that in the real scenario the organisation ended up with a PR clusterf*ck, give yourself a cookie. Continue reading ‘A case study in Public Relations online’

Sub-editing FAIL

Published
by
tigtog
12 months ago
in Crime, Media and NSW Government
. 8 Comments

AKA How the addition of a single word results in a headline that doesn’t provoke the Laura Norder crowd to clutch their pearls.

Sub-editing-fail

Assuming, of course, that one doesn’t want to confect a controversy via a plausibly deniable misrepresentation.

Saluzinsky’s article is actually fairly well balanced regarding the proposed privatisation of some NSW gaols, and the objections from both the left and the right to some of the proposals on different grounds. Pity about that headline.

Whichever way the decision comes down on staying public or going private, the idea of allowing prisoners in low and medium security prisons to have duplicate keys to their cells, so that they can have privacy from other inmates as desired, seems to be simply humane; if the experience overseas is that such measures reduce violence as well then all the better.

Unsurprisingly, breakfast TV took the reactionary approach on Sunrise, with Kochy talking about how we are mollycoddling prisoners and why not just give them the keys to the front gate as well? The goal of reducing violence was shrugged aside, as if violence in prisons is only inmate-on-inmate and can therefore be disregarded. Prison personnel deserve to have the safest work environment possible, you know, even if that means that prisoners aren’t sufficiently brutalised to give the Laura Norder mob their vengeful jollies.

Gang laws dependent on mode of transport? Really?

Published
by
tigtog
12 months ago
in Crime and Politics
. 111 Comments

There’s a lot about it in the news today following the fatal gang attack at the QANTAS terminal at Sydney airport, and who could object to generally tightening up laws against gang activity when not only the lawlessness but violence that puts the general public at risk is the gangs’ motif?

I can see why being able to outlaw a particular association as a criminal gang could be a useful tool in disrupting gang activity so that they are more likely to be apprehended, but unless the media is being spectacularly wrongfooted in their reporting, it really does appear that laws are being mooted with respect to criminal activity that are going to be different from other laws depending upon the suspects’ vehicle(s) of choice. What does it matter whether a gangster is wearing a leather jacket and riding a Hog or wearing a hipster outfit and riding a Segway?

Segway Gang - obviously up to no good
Segway Gang (originally uploaded by pad-u-like) – obviously up to no good

Continue reading ‘Gang laws dependent on mode of transport? Really?’

Disgusting

Published
by
tigtog
1 year ago
in Authoritarianism, Disasters, Ethics, Health, Imperialism, Religion and Sexuality
. 395 Comments

Disgusting

Demotivator made by moi. Feel free to download and share from the Flickr page (click on the pic).

Backstory in The Guardian.

(crossposted)

I defy you to not at least contemplate trying #15

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 1 month ago
in Levity, Media, Relationships, Sociology and The Web
. 34 Comments

25 Things I Didn’t Want to Know About You
By Claire Suddath Thursday, Feb. 05, 2009 (TIME)

Honestly, the way some journos react to Facebook memes is a dead giveaway that they’ve only just joined the digital social revolution. Memes like this have been doing the rounds on LJ and blogs for years (and before that on newsgroups and mailing lists) – it’s not a new thing just because it’s new to Facebook. Silly mugginses.

h/t to Jill from Feministe on my Facebook Friends Feed (and crossposted from Hoyden)

Go on, you know you want to

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 2 months ago
in Howardia and USA
. 56 Comments

Howard receives medal from GW BushOpen “Man of Steel” thread: the medal, the hype, the other recipients, the legacy etc.

The former British prime minister, Tony Blair, and the Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, were also honoured at the ceremony.

So, whaddaya reckon?

*back to holiday lurking mode*


Due process?

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 3 months ago
in Authoritarianism, Consumerism, Ethics, Film, TV, Video etc, Law, Media and The Web
. 82 Comments

Film studios to become ‘police, judge, executioner’: Australia’s third largest ISP is being sued by several film studios and the Seven Network for enabling copyright infringement by failing to prevent its users from downloading pirated movies and TV shows.

iiNet, and the industry body, the Internet Industry Association, say ISPs should not be required to take action against any customers until they have been found guilty of an offence by the courts.

ISPs argue that, like Australia Post with letters, they are just providing a service and should not be forced to become copyright police.

Conversely, the TV and movie industry want ISPs to disconnect people it has identified as repeat infringers. There would be no involvement from police or the courts and the industry would simply provide the IP addresses of users they believe to be illegal downloaders.

“To shift the burden of proof and require that ISPs terminate access to users upon mere allegations of infringement would be incredibly harmful to individual internet users in Australia,” the online users lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia said.

“Every citizen has a right of due process under the law and, when faced with having their internet service terminated, every citizen has the right to ask that the case against them be proven first.”

Continue reading ‘Due process?’

A new low

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 3 months ago
in Ethics, Language, Law, Media and Sociology
. 47 Comments

The Herald Sun decides to mock a bereaved son for paraphrasing song lyrics in a tribute to his dead mother, just because that son happens to be a convicted murderer. Would any other person who used a line from a song or poem in a death notice be accused of “ripping off” the artist? Isn’t using such lines from songs and poems in death notices in fact so commonplace that it shouldn’t be worth mentioning, unless it is to score a cheap point about how gauche it is to use lines from a pop song instead of from the literary canon (as if they wouldn’t have mocked him for presumption if he’d quoted Keats or Shakespeare)?

The “rips off Celine Dion” headline may be down to a sub-editor, but article author Paul Anderson felt compelled to make the point that Barbara Williams, mother of Carl Williams, used “cheap” champagne to wash down the medication that caused her death. Again, if she’d been drinking Dom Perignon he’d almost certainly be making an issue out of that as well. No wonder this paper is nicknamed “the Hun”.

The various emotional arguments that Carl Williams doesn’t “deserve” to go to his mother’s funeral because of his own murderous acts fail on logical grounds. Sure, the man is an incredibly unsympathetic figure due to his ruthless killings. However, if criminals generally are given leave to attend the funerals of family members, as I believe they are, then Williams too should be allowed to attend his mother’s funeral.

Capricious exceptions to general rules based on emotional outcries are not the hallmark of a society that respects the rule of law. People owe it to themselves to be better than this.

crossposted at Hoyden About Town

What should your local council do with Rudd’s money?

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 4 months ago
in Economics, Government and Sociology
. 52 Comments

And what will they actually do?

Govt to unveil $300m infrastructure plan (part of the overall economic stimulus package)

Mr Albanese said it was important that the money be spent this financial year.

“This has to be stamped into this current financial year,” he said.

“The government’s made an assessment that this is a realistic figure which can be spent and achieve very positive outcomes as well.”

Unsurprised schadenfreude

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 4 months ago
in Afghanistan, Ethics, Imperialism, Law, Nationalism, Terrorism and USA
. 112 Comments

Remember all that McCain campaign rhetoric about how Obama’s August 2007 statement on the need for sporadic pursuits of Al Qaeda into Pakistan without prior diplomatic notice showed that he was an irresponsible loon who should never be commander-in-chief? (and a few Democrats sounded off as well before Obama won the primaries)

Well just look at what’s been happening on the Bush-Rumsfeld watch for the last four years, Continue reading ‘Unsurprised schadenfreude’

Pubs for election wonks

Published
by
tigtog
1 year, 4 months ago
in Elections and Life
. 108 Comments

So, I need to know a good pub in Sydney where I can hang around next week with some likeminded souls and watch the US election results roll in. Who’s got some suggestions? What would be the best time to rock up?

I seem to recall noting that some of you have the misfortune to live elsewhere. What pubs would you recommend in your own vicinity?