Cool things on the web

Since I've got my Ipod, I've increased my listening of podcasts. I kind of listened to a few just on my computer, but generally while I'm at my computer I'm doing stuff, so I wouldn't really pay attention. But with the it is easy to listen while traveling, so I listened to stuff while commuting around. The range of stuff I listen too is pretty broad as well. There's commentaries both official and fan on Battlestar Galactica, local current affairs, military history, for a while Russian lessons (it petered out after a while), weekly speeches by both the governator and George W, and some general geek discussion.

I've now started getting some videocasts as well. This is mainly because I found one that is very cool and well worth the effort of downloading. Ask A Ninja. A wonderful concept, and done well.

I'm unemployed right now. The basic story goes like this. I was a temp, on a seemingly ever extending contract. Back in about September/October they told me my contract had been extended again until the middle of January. Then at the end of December, they put out the January roster and I had shifts up until the 29th, which is well past the middle of January, so I thought, OK, my contracts been extended again. Then on the 16th of January, an email comes out to most of the temps, myself included saying that your contracts end on the 26th, so on your last shift make sure you hand in all the security stuff we gave you, and a comment that it was unlikely that contracts would be extended. At this point, I assumed that since my roster went past that point in time, the unlikely had already happened. But then last Monday the online timesheet system wouldn't let me log on, so I called the person responsible, and she told me to just email it to her, and to do the same on Thursday when I'd finished. I replied, but I'm rostered on for shifts after that, and her response was a that it was a business thing, and I was finishing on Thursday. Then at the end of Monday an email came out saying that we might be able to extend a few of the temp contracts, and wanted to know who was interested. At that point I'd kind of already moved on, and was planning to enjoy my third full weekend without work in over eight months, and finding a better job and not having to put up with all the crap work forced on you (stupid customers, stupid merchants, stupid policies) so I told them no. So now I'm unemployed. Fortunately, they paid me about 50% more than I'd usually spend, so I've managed to save a fair bit, so I'm not going to starve immediately (I can probably last about 16 weeks without having to be too frugal).

So now the challenge is to find something new to do to fill my coffers and my hours.

One of the ways I'm filling time is I'm learning how to use a 3d modeling program. My first project is to make a stargate from Stargate Atlantis. So far I've got some of the fancy bits that sit on the stargate done. I'll add more pictures as it gets a bit more developed.



writing time: 50 minutes
time since last post: 18 days
current music: MC Hawking - Fuck the Creationists

The deeply unfortunate doings of an ill-fated life

Funerals suck. Everyone who is already sad, upset, or otherwise unhappy about the discontinued existence of the person being commemorated gather together and remind each other that a tragedy has happened and that it a terrible thing to have happened, and it all feeds on itself making everyone more upset.

It was the second time after Mal's death I'd cried. There was a bit just after finding out, but after that I'd managed to be able to keep it together. But the actual event itself got to me. It started just going through the memorial garden where they've got parts of lots of other cremated people buried. I don't like graveyards. It's too much concentrated death, which in this type of situation just brings you back to why your there.

I was one of the pall bearers (I think I spelt pall right), along with one of Mal's sons, his two brothers, his brother in law (sisters husband) and an old (long time) friend of his. I was actually surprised at the size of the coffin. It was a lot narrower and shallower than I would have thought he'd have fit in. I wasn't able to get their in time for the viewing the day before the funeral, so I don't know if death made a hug difference in size, or I just am bad at estimating that sort of thing.

I'm considering making an offer to buy his motorbike off Mum, but before I do so I need to work out if I can afford it, not just the buying but the running of it. Also, a friend of his had first option on it if Mal didn't want it anymore, so that will probably have to be considered as well. And of course I need to get a motorcycle license, which will add to the cost (there exist 3 day courses for people with regular car licenses to get a motorcycle license if they can learn quick enough that cost ~$500). If I do, I might take a week of, visit Mum for a few days and then ride back to Brisbane.

A friend gave me a journal type book the other day. The title of this post is taken from the cover. Just looking at it, I've noticed that it's got a copyright notice on it. I guess they're really protective of their cover design, because I don't really think they can get away with copyrighting a bunch of blank pages with lines on them. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to put in there yet, but it will be something more profound than shopping lists and the like.

Have I mentioned that tax sucks. Not so much in and of itself, but in how it applies to work and motivation. At the moment, in a usual week I pay a certain amount of tax. If I do some overtime, or the rosters work out that a given pay week has more than the usual number of hours in it, I go over a certain point and get taxed at a higher rate. It's not as motivating when thinking about doing more when you realize that although you're being paid a certain amount per hour, for the extra hours you only see about half of that. I know it all balances out in the end, but still it frustrates at times.

End Post
writing time: 25 minutes

Death

On new year's eve Mum's fiancee, Mal, died. He was 48. He was fine the day before, then in the morning had some chest pains, and the kaput. It was all very abrupt. Mum's very upset, although I've only spoken to her twice since it happened. They were going to get married in April, and as my grandfather died while I was young, I was going to take the role of the father of the bride (without the whole paying for the whole thing bit).

It's not a good thing. I'm feeling rather mopey. Not all that surprising. Work on Saturday was pretty tough. On Sunday night I went to my uncles place as my sister and aunt had flown in to Brisbane then. That was a bit depressing, the gathering together of sad people, especially my sister. She has a tendency to take my not showing much emotion externally as me not giving a damn. So far that has happened this time.

My uncle and I are driving up to Rockhampton tomorrow, and will be coming back on Friday, maybe with my aunt as well.

Work for once has not been a bunch of prats. My request for Thursday off got approved within a few hours.

Anyway, in summary, a really good guy is gone, and it really sucks.

End Post
Writing time 1 hour 12 minutes

Christmas is here

So Christmas is 2/3s over. I was up until 1 this morning having a chat with a friend on the phone. I set a record for the length of a phone call, 1 hour and 9 minutes. My personal phonecalls are usual on the order of a few minutes, if that. Then I went to sleep and had a nice sleep in.

I woke up and had breakfast, and opened up a few presents with a housemate. I'm currently watching (listening) to one of the DVDs I got. Three family members gave me cash. I also got a watch with a waving chairman Mao, a shirt with the Turkish flag on it (my aunt went to Turkey a few months ago), and a chairman Mao satchel.

My uncle came over for lunch. It was ok, we talked about stuff. He brought some prawns with him, and I tried one. For a long time I've avoided prawns, in earlier years going to extremes to avoid them. It was nowhere near as bad as what I recalled, but not anything wonderful. They won't be added to my favorite food list, but I may not outright refuse things including them in the future.

Once again, Christmas was spent partly with housemates and my uncle came over. When I was young, most of my family would gather at either our house or my grandmother's house for Christmas. As time has gone by, less gathering has gone by. Last year was the first time when no more than two family members were in the one area. My sister is in Thailand, my aunt in Western Australia. Mum is near Townsville, and my grandmother lives south of Cairns. That leaves me and my uncle in Brisbane.

While I'm generally not keen on family gatherings, Christmas is the one time I do miss that type of gathering. I'm not sure why.

End Post
writing time: 34 minutes

Sydney goes to Hell

Sunday was the start of some of the most fucked up shit I've seen go down in Australia. A crowd of 5000 people got together and thought it was a good idea to go around bashing people whose family background is from the middle east. And then when the police and ambulance service tried to help out those unfortunate people, the crowd decided to start throwing bottles and stuff at them as well.

Things have continued in a similar fashion, with people shooting cars parked outside a church Christmas event, groups on both sides planning on big fights, drive by assaults, and it seems to be spreading.

This is not cool.

In fact, until it happened, I'd have thought this sort of large scale stupidity wouldn't have happened in Australia. I sure as hell am not going to have anything to do with continuing it. I just hope this settles down quicker than Paris did.

End Post
writing time: 36 minutes
time since last post: 11 days

Musings on Wikipedia

I got a story posted on slashdot yesterday. A former aide to Robert Kennedy kicked up a bit of a fuss about his entry on wikipedia being likely false and possibly libelous. Despite the fact that as soon as he pointed it out wikipedia fixed it up, he decided to go on a rant about how vandals and idiots these days can spread their nuisance around more, and that internet providers and websites should be made responsible for preventing this sort of thing happening. In a bit of irony, he is associated with the center for the first ammendment. His entry is now a lot more than two sentences and a lot more researched.

I noticed the story when I checked out wikipedia the other day, and it was the first time I submitted a story to slashdot, so I was pretty happy when I saw it up on the main page.

I've spent a fair amount of time reading wikipedia, having killed a lot of time going through the kings and queens of England, presidents of the US, Australian and British prime ministers, and Popes, along with more random browsing. I have also made some contributions, mainly in a few specific areas I'm interested in, as well as some general fix up work as well. The list of articles I've contributed to include comic books, movies, a pope or two, novels, and cds. I've created most of the content on wikipedia relating to Velvet Chain, a very good band I enjoy, as well as adding info to topics I know a bit about.

Wikipedia matches my ideal of how infomation should be available. Anyone can get access to it, and everyone can contribute back. The system has a few problems where errors in obscure areas doesn't get fixed quickly, but I have found it to be a very good reference for expanding my general knowledge.

End post
writing time: 25 minutes

What to write about this time

Work still sucks. The roster for December was given out on Monday. I get two days off during weekends this time round, Christmas and new years day. The two days that the place won't be open for business. But I have volunteered to work on Boxing Day, as they are offering 13.5 hours worth of pay for 5.5 hours worth of work.

I'm currently painting up a fancy tank for one of my warhammer armies. If I had thought ahead, I wouldn't have put the whole thing together before painting it, as some of the parts are very tricky to reach now that the tank is fully assembled. Anyway, progress is being made, slowly but surely.

My housemate has broken her leg, and is getting around on crutches.

I bought season one of Farscape last week, and have got through to the last episode at the moment. I enjoyed it when I first watched it and it's still good this time round. If they're still at half price I may pick up some further seasons in the coming weeks.

I saw a movie today in Gold class. I had a voucher for a free upgrade, and while the chairs were nice, as was having my drink brought in for me as the movie started, and there was little noise from others (there were only 30 seats), I don't think the full price is something I'd pay.

Well, that's a bit of prattle about nothing too significant, and I've kept it to less than two weeks between posts.

End post
writing time: 2 hours 20 minutes

Learning opportunity for France

It looks as though the riots in Paris are continuing, but are beginning to settle down. I'm still amazed at just how messed up things have gotten, and how wide spread (7 other countries have had related incidents) it has become. But the thing that really surprises me is just how little attention it seems to be getting in the rest of the world. It barely rates a mention on the two main Australian new websites (news.com.au and the Australian). CNN doesnt seem to think it should be on the front page of their site, nor do reuters.

This is something big. It is more important than the trial of some model foolish enough to have drugs in a foreign country with harsher drug laws than our own. It's more significant than some guy going through Princess Mary's trash for photos. This is 12 days of rioting in one of the worlds major cities, that has spread throughout the country and the continent.

The fact that this much violence has erupted shows that there were problems that needed addressing that weren't. And while that may explain the violence, it doesn't condone it. I would advocate as rapid a resolution as possible to the actual violence, followed by a serious look at the causes and fixing them.

I hope that the French people and the French government are sensible in the aftermath. This should not be used to make a more authoritarian government. The American goverment used the aftermath of September 11 to strengthen the goverments powers at the expense of the rights of the people. France I hope will be wiser, and will learn from this.

Anyway, heres hoping it finishes soon and France comes out a better country for it afterwards. While this is not a good thing, if nothing comes of it, it will just be a waste, and probably only a prequal.

End Post
writing time: 3 hours 4 minutes (including heading down to the shops, having dinner and watching some tv)

Six

Someone brought all the other bins in last night. I'm not sure who, but someone did it at about midnight last night. So I guess I won't get to feel the self righteousness of having brought them all in.

Damn

End post
writing time: 1 hour 26 minutes (I got distracted)

Two

I brought the second bin in this evening.

Works shitting me. Last week I asked for the weekend of the 19th and 20th of November off as my family is planning a surprise birthday party for my grandmother, who turned 70 earlier this year. Now work is telling me that even though they haven't done rosters for that week, or indeed for anything past next Thursday, because that's going to be the busiest weekend in November, their having a really hard time being able to give me the weekend off. It's not like I've only had one weekend since May where I haven't worked both Saturday and Sunday. It's not like I'm one of only two or three out of 10 people in my team who had their average call time at less than the expected 250 seconds. It's not like I've turned up to every single shift I've been rostered on for and have never taken any sick leave (not that I'd get paid if I did). It's not like I let them change shifts that were organised almost a month ago with two or three days notice. It's not like I've applied for a permanent position three times, and been told, you can do the job, but your attitude towards the job isn't what we'd like it to be. Is one weekend that much to ask? I'll tell you what, my attitude towards the job won't be all that crash hot if the expect me to work that weekend.

I wonder if now is a good time to ask my team leader if I can use her as a reference?

End Post (Rant)
writing time: 27 minutes

One

Last night I put out all the bins for our place for weekly collection.
Tonight I brought the first of them in.
We'll see how many I have to bring in.

End post
writing time: 1 minute

Too soon to come up with something

Well, a mere one day after the last time I put something here, I'm typing again. Unfortunately I can't really think of anything to write about.

Let's see. Iraq ratified it's new constitution, paving the way for elections at the end of the year. Quite frankly, the sooner things get set up and Iraq can be run by Iraq the better. I don't believe the reason Iraq was invaded were legitimate, and since then things have not been handled well, and I think overall things would have been better if it had never happened. But given that it has, I feel we have to make sure that things won't go to crap once we leave. We fucked things up, so we have to make sure things are put back, hopefully we make it a bit better than it was before, but we should get the hell out as soon as is responisble. Pity the people in charge won't do that.

Apparently there is rioting happening in Paris. I'll admit I don't pay much attention to the news, but rioting in one of the most well known cities in the world should surely get some airtime.

There was an article on slashdot about how copy protected cds from Sony makes several changes to your computer, which make it more vulnerable to others trying to do the same, and that unless you really know what your doing, can mess up your computer if you try and get rid of it. The DRM prevents you from seeing any files with a certain name, and also installs drivers that sit between your cd drive and the operating system, so that any time you use a cd, it goes through their program. And if you get rid of it without being careful, it'll mess up your computer so you can't use your cd drives. When they start messing up your computer that much, and putting in jeopardy your ability to use your own computer, that's going to far.

End post
Writing time: 1 hour

iTunes not so impressive

So, Apple started iTunes store in Australia this week, and since I've already got an ipod and use iTunes to play my music, so I shelled out for a pre paid card and had a play. In terms of convenience it's on a par with other means of downloading music, and I'll probably check in once a week to see what the free song is. But I wont be spending any more money on it. Where it's less useful than other sources I use is in finding new stuff. When I don't have to pay, I'm much more likely to experiment and try something just because it's there and I can, but at $1.69 a song, it's not all that practical or affordable.

I've also tried using it to find new podcasts, but again other methods are more fruitful. Word of mouth is the main one I use, seeing what other podcasters recommend. What iTunes lacks is a sorting mechanism. One big long list with only a few broad categories doesn't help out a lot in deciding if I want to listen to something or not.

So, I'll stick with iTunes to manage my iPod, and play music, but once the credit I've already bought is used up, I'll let it be.

End Post
Writing time: 10 minutes

Drats

Once again I've left it a few weeks since I last put anything up here. So what's been going on in my world.

A few days ago I had a monthly review meeting with my team leader at work. One of the things discussed was if I wanted to apply for the latest round of permanent recruitment. It's very frustrating because she was saying things like my performance speaks for itself, when the facts of the matter clearly show that while my performance may speak for itself, that's not the thing their listening to.

Next weekend I won't be working. Since I went back to work after my overseas trip, I have worked every Saturday and Sunday since the middle of May. The only downside is I left it too late to enter the event I was planning on going to on that weekend. A few of my friends who were also going to go are in the same boat, so we're going to have our own mini event somewhere else, so I'll still have something to do.

Now for a bit of a rant. A while ago on a current affairs show there was a story about people protesting a meeting of white supremists. The thing I found worst about the whole thing was how the people protesting were saying that the people at the meeting had no right to say the things they were saying. This is not right. Freedom of speech is not conditional. It's not just for those who agree with what you think. Anyone who has an opinion can state their opinion. What they can't do is force that opinion on others. So while I don't agree with the white supremists, I'm not going to stop them speaking about what they want to speak about. I don't know who said it, but the phrase "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it with my life" is close to the right attitude. Add in something about listening and judging what people say on the merits of what they say and not who they is probably another good thing. For example Nathan Bedford Forrest was a pretty good military leader, and has likely said some useful things in the area of military tactics, and should not be dismissed just because he's the founder of the KKK. His ideas on racial harmony, though I probably wouldn't give as much credence. Anyway, in conclusion, it pisses me off when people who are for mulitculturalism and the freedom to be who you want to be say that people who disagree with them have no right to say what they want to say. If your free to be a diverse, accepting person, they're free to be narrowminded. You don't have to agree with them or like them for it, and surely don't take any bullshit from them, but they're allowed to have their say.

Before this year, I never really managed to save any money. Now admittedly during my undergrad years I didn't really get that much in the first place ($350 a fortnight isn't all that much, especially when you $250 a fortnight board), but a few bonus bits of cash that came through got put aside and then gradually drawn from over time. Over the past few months, I've managed to put a lot more aside. When I got back from Thailand, I had about $700 or so cash to my name. Since then I've been able to save about a third of what I actually earn, with no real cut backs in other expenditure. I've been able to do this because compared to last year where I didn't save anything, I'm paying less rent and I'm earning about 50% more, while still having a similar lifestyle. Putting it like that it doesn't seem so remarkable, but I now have a lot of money that is just sitting there. This is a new thing for me. A few months ago I upgraded my computer, and bought a new chair (an arm rest on the old one came of, and as it was reasonably important in terms of structural integrity, that chair was laid to rest), but that's about it. I'm now considering buying a new bookcase, as my current one is so full that each shelf has two rows of books on it and then books on top of the books filling the gaps between shelves. I'm also giving a bit of thought to acquiring a motorbike, but there is the little matter of getting a motorbike license before that can go ahead.

No news yet on the Iraqi referendum on the new constitution. Saddam is on trial for the first of several cases, this one seems rather minor, but is pretty clear cut, so is probably a good starting point from a procedural sense.

I'm going to try and go to a play during the next week, Interesting Times. It's an adaption of a Terry Pratchett novel put on by the Brisbane Arts Theatre, who do a Terry Pratchett play each year. I've enjoyed the previous shows they've done, so it's just a matter of making sure I get a ticket.

That's all for now, I'll try and do a new post by the 30th of October, 2005 (being overly precise means I can't do any wriggling out of things).

End post
writing time: 1 hour, 1 minute

Another long pause

Again I've let it go a few weeks without writing anything, so I'll put in a few things that have been on my mind.

First, one of my friends recently broke up with his long time girlfriend. He then proceeded to get quite drunk and then come to my place. It was a bit awkward as I really don't know what to do or how to help out in that kind of situation other than trying to make sure he didn't do anything to foolhardy. We did talk a lot, more so as he started to sober up. Romance is still a mostly closed book to me, and I think if I had more experience in the area I would have been able to help him more.

Daylight savings has started, so even though Queensland doesn't have it, because the place I work takes calls from all over Australia I've started getting shifts that start at 7:30 in the morning. This means I have to wake up between 5:30 and 6:00 which isn't really fun.

I recently noticed a comment that wasn't spam. I initially thought it was as it said something I thought was stupid, but I checked the facts and it turns out that I had assumed two different individuals were the one person. Anyway I learnt something, and it shows someone is reading this so that's two good things.

I've recently finished playing Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines (I know the double colon doesn't look the best, but that's what the game is called). It's a pretty good game, the story is intriguing. There are a number of different styles of play, depending on what aspects of the character you focus on. The first time I played, I was a sneaky fighter type, and most things weren't too difficult. This time I'm playing as a magic user and trying to concentrate on ranged combat, but it's not working too well. There are too many places where the way forward is to just lay the smack down, and if I invest experience in the areas to make that ok, it won't leave enough to specialize as much as I would want to.

Anyway, I thought I had more to say, but it would appear I don't, so this will be it for now.

End Post
writing time: 26 minutes

Many Thoughts

I got really pissed off with the place I work at the other day. I'm currently working as a temp and recently there was some recruitment for permanent positions. I put in an application, and got an interview. That part I kind of expected as this is the third time I've gone through the process. And again I went through the interview and again they said no. The bit that really got me peeved though is why they wouldn't give me a permanent job. Basically they said I sucked in the interview. There's no problem with the way I do the job, no doubts if I can do it or not, just I didn't answer their silly human resource type questions well, and that was so more important than actually being able to do the job.

On a different note I was talking with a few people I know and somehow the topic of abortion came up, and was rather abruptly stopped when one of the girls there came out with the idea that men had absolutely no say in the matter. She also put forth the proposition that if you eat meat, you can't be against abortion. I think each of these positions is wrong. The first because preventing a great number of people having a say just because the procedure won't be done on them is silly. I don't think anyone would try and claim no woman should have a say on issues relating to vasectomies. Any issue needs to be discussed by people, and even people not directly involved are able to contribute. And this doesn't just apply to general principles. If I were to be in the unlikely situation where my actions had put a woman in the position considering an abortion, I would like to be consulted, and would be offended if she went ahead and did it without discussing it with me.

The thing about eating meat and opposing abortion being morally inconsistent, well that's just taking two completely separate matters and trying to force them together in a way that does not gel. Abortion and the way animals raised for food are treated are both serious issues, but the killing of an animal for meat is a very different thing to an abortion. The claim that killing a cow is worse than terminating a fetus is not going to hold water with everyone, indeed I think most people would disagree with the idea.

At this point I'd like to mention that I'm not against abortion, but I'm not for it. It's a complicated issue. The main thing to try and work out is when does the fetus become a human. Find a way to get everyone to agree on that, and they'd probably agree on a position on abortion. But people don't. People who oppose abortion tend to be those who say once sperm meets egg you've got a human, whose life should be protected. On the other end there are people who consider that you don't get a human until you reach a certain point in the development process, and until that point is reached, it's just a thing inside a woman, and see no problem in preventing it's continued existence. I lean towards the latter position, but have yet to make a decision on the transition from thing to human. It's not conception, it's not birth. It's after cells start differentiating. Also, I don't really know enough about the process to make a fully informed call.

The main problem I had with both of my friends claims is that they were quite extreme, and she wasn't open to any discussion on the matter, let alone the underlying ideas that led her to those positions. And as I've mentioned before, it's that type of extremism and inconsideration of other people's perspectives that lead to problems.

In recent news New Zealand had an election last weekend, and the reasonable sounding labor party looks to have continued is position as a dominant player in a coalition government. In reading up on the events surrounding the election, I find I agree with most of what they aim to do (the nuclear free policy is the main one I disagree with), so I think that it's a good result, especially as they need to work with a few of the minor parties to get a majority. All in all, the kind of result I'd like to see over here.

End Post
Writing Time: 2 hours

A pleasant meeting

The other day I saw Kylie on the bus. We had a little bit of a chat, and then went our separate ways. The unusual thing was I didn't go away afterwards feeling unhappy, bitter or in anyway messed up about the experience. Perhaps its a sign I'm actually moved on.

Speaking of moving on, Danielle doesn't seem to be able to do so. Since I turned her down, she's had two bad relationships, stopped going to uni, moved out of home, had a job, quit a job, moved in with some junkies, moved back into home, got another job, quit another job and so on and so forth. And often when we discuss her current situation the phrase "It's all because you turned me down" comes up. The first bad relationship was a rebound, and the second was a rebound because of the 1st, and so on and so forth.

Now I know the way I handled things back then wasn't the best way to do so, and have since apologized for it. But it annoys me to be blamed for the everything that goes wrong for her. A lot of the stuff since then has been due to either herself or others, and I hardly think it's fair to keep blaming me for it.

End post
Writing time: 48 minutes

I got spammed

The other day I was having a look at this blog, and I noticed that one of the posts had a comment on it. Previous comments had been made by my sister, but after a few of those I decided I didn't want people I knew reading the stuff I put up here. And so I changed the url, and didn't let anyone know (an earlier post discusses this further).

So I was initialy pleasantly surprised by the comment. It suggested that someone had read what I'd written, and thought it worthwhile to respond. And then I read the comment, which had nothing to do with what I'd written but plenty to do with the wonderful features of some obscure make of car. It was spam.

I've deleted the said comment, as it doesn't contribute anything, and keeping it would just encourage that sort of pissantness to continue.

Spams an annoying thing that has developed on the internet. First on BBSs, then email, and later websites, forums and blogs. Soon there will probably be podcast spam. And the vast volume of it continues simply because people make money from it. Sending emails is cheap, and if only one in ten thousand end up buying something, the spammer is still getting back a lot more than they pay in sending the spam.

Given human nature and the lucrative nature of spamming, technical measures to prevent spam will never completely succeed. Now admitedly mail filters now seem to work pretty well, and my gmail inbox hasn't had a spam in quite some time, but the spam folder is pretty full. The way to stop spam is to take away their money, which is what their in it for. All spam is selling stuff, and they accept payment by credit card.

So who are the people able to shut down spam once and for all. Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club, American Express. The credit card companies. Stop letting spammers get payments by credit card, and they will shrivel up and die. If they can't make money, they'll find something else to do with their time. I've seen one propsal where credit card companies set up a few spam detecting card numbers, and let people use those to make purchases from spam they recieve. Then when the spammers try and claim the money for the sale, they know exactly who's spamming the masses and can tell them to get lost. Unfortunately, I suspect that credit card companies enjoy their share of credit card purchases from spam too much to take such drastic measures.

End post
Writing time: 17 minutes

The title goes here

A few weeks ago I had dinner with my uncle and grandmother. And while I was there we were watching the news and there was a bit about how Italy was bringing in laws making it illegal to cover your face in public. I was a bit outraged and was all sort of, 'that's very uncool, we shouldn't be restricting peoples rights for non-existent gains in security'. And then my grandmother said that people shouldn't cover their faces in this climate of terror, and generally coming down on the side of paranoia.

This is the first time I've ever really taken a greatly different political position with another family member. Admittedly I haven't really spoken all that much politics with the generations before me, but they've always given the impression of moderation and reasonableness. Now I'm left to wonder what else do we disagree on.

My politics aren't very rigorously defined, but ultimately they come down to the side of personal liberty and social responsibility. Let people be free to do as they will, but ensure they don't get screwed over by others. I think corporations have too much power, or more accurately are too unconstrained, and that essential services such as health and education are at the moment not sufficiently funded. I also have a strong dislike of extremism. By that I mean taking things too far. Everything becomes dangerous if taken to an extreme. There's a book I've read called Jennifer Government, where corpratism is taken to an extreme, and society as whole has become much more dysfunctional. Perhaps the problem with extreme solutions is that they only work when things are very black and white, whereas the world is a large spectrum of grays.

When it comes to politicians, I think the first principle to apply is one that doctors live by, first, do no harm. The world today is a complicated place, and lots of stuff happens all the time, some good, some bad. Not adding more to the bad pile is a good place to start. That's why I think the state premier isn't too bad, because he hasn't gone around doing stuff making things worse for people. The prime minister however, has brought in a whole load of bad things. The messed up treatment of refugees, the complete and utter willingness to go along with anything America proposes (I'm not saying everything America proposes is good or bad (but recent stuff hasn't really been to our advantage), it's the going along without any real consideration or consultation that isn't good), the changes to higher education, the war on terror bullshit, and other messed up stuff.

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A lot of talking

I recently had a very long talk with a friend about past romances, hers and mine. Overall neither of us have had much success. It was an interesting experience talking about such things, as I don't really open up all that much. It confirmed some conclusions I'd already come to, namely that next time some sort of romantic interest develops a middle path should be followed. The first time I messed something up, it was by going to far to one extreme, and the next time I went too far the other way. Next time I will attempt a more balanced approach.

Another thing that came up was that my friend thinks I'm paranoid. A combination of bitterness and cynicism which I'll happily admit to may work together to produce some mild paranoia, but I'd never thought of myself as such. But then a few days later I did an online quiz about what do you think the right thing to do in various circumstances and I got a fair few wrong because I chose answers that were too uncompromising, so perhaps there is some claim to the statement.

Work is ok at the moment, but I got a bit depressed the other day when it turned out I got the best results for call quality in my team. It wouldn't have been quite so bad except for that month a bit of a competition was going with the winner getting some dodgy cap celebrating the introduction of call recording, so an email went around boldly proclaiming the fact. Now don't get me wrong, I don't intend to do a half assed job, but I really wasn't planning on becoming exceptionally good at the job. The other worrying aspect of things is that all the things I got bonus marks for was me going through short cuts to save some hassles with the person on the other end of the phone. At least it should mean they'll be a bit lenient about the fact I didn't meet the required average call length for the month, although I think that because I got put on the newbie kpis, this month I might actually be a bit under the official number, but I've been trying to meet the standard one, which is 20 seconds less than the one I think I'm on, but I ended up being about 10 seconds over.

Today is also the end of an era. This evening I will be upgrading my computer, which will effectively be a replacement of my current one. Although it will still be in the same case, the only component that came with it from the store when I bought it is a cd burner. Today I'm changing the motherboard, ram, cpu, graphics card, one hard drive and a dvd burner for a cd burner. The new cd burner is going because its stopped opening and closing properly, and seems intent on ruining cds that are put inside it, so it's going. The original hard drive died a few years back, and the current sound card and network card are being replaced by onboard versions.

This will be the fourth computer I've had. The first was an apple IIc that Mum bought a year or two before I began school, on which I learnt to program. Many years later that was replaced with a brand spanking new pentium 100, which was good for it's time. I'm still actually using the harddrive from the pentium 100, just as a temp directory because it's a whopping 1.6GB in size. That came with me down to uni, but was replaced in the middle of second year for my current computer, which is a pentium III 800. And tonight I will gut that machine, and like a phoenix it will be reborn, bigger and better than before (all going well of course).

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