Well this is it. I have most of my stuff packed and I'm getting ready to start marking before heading out to the Convention Centre and another full day of work, before grabbing a taxi to the airport and flying off to Sydney.
Thanks for all your messages and interest folks! And thankyou to someone who keeps making me grin in response to certain SMS messages :-)
Oh yeah. Thailand has been busy. Comfortable temperature wise (around 34°), but basically no time for shopping. Sorry folks! Thai silk next time, I promise!!!
Hi to you all. Since last year the Grande Sheraton at Sukhumvit in Bangkok has added high speed internet connectivity from my room at a cost of about 75cents per minute. Worth it I think.
Flight here was less entertaining than the Brisbane-Sydney leg as the British Airways flight was absolutely chock full and didn't have interactive games!!! Ah well. I finally got to the hotel around 10pm local time or 1am Brisbane time. Finally got to bed around what would have been 2am. Security everywhere has been fierce. Had to go through the most extraordinary scanning process including inspection of my luggage on the way out of Australia and when I arrived at the hotel, the limousine was searched before we were allowed near the hotel. The APEC forum is apparently making the local Thai population nervous.
I've just breakfasted and am about to head off to the convention centre for the day so will be flat out till late in the day. I will see if I can get back to people's emails tonight. Anyway, I'm here, I'm safe so far and my room at Grand Sheraton is, as usual, superb.
*hugs to everyone and a special hug to the person who SMSd me both before I departed and after I arrived in Bangkok!*
Free internet is okay. The fact that the connection is about 4kbps is a tad frustrating, however. So cudos to Samsung for the initiative, even if it is a bit slow. Would be nice if they actually opened up the wireless access to people outside Qantas Club too. But in-flight Tetris *rocks*. I heartily approve the new digital in-flight entertainment model. Choose your film, your TV, your news and flight path service and play interactive Tetris (among other games). I will get to the GSN447 exams. I promise. Just a few more games of Tetris on the flight to Bangkok, though.
If I don't get connectivity againI'll see everyone Monday.
*HUGS* to my friends and family. Miss you already!
Thanks to everyone for their kind words and congrats on the rather tiny step of getting my ears pierced yesterday. Extraordinarily, I can't feel them at all. And I thought there was going to be a few days at least of discomfort. Occasionally I'll prod it to check if I have any feeling at all in my lobes and sure enough I can feel them. I just can't feel the piercing. So I'm guessing this is good.
I'm heading off to Thailand in a matter of 12 hours for a recruitment mission for QUT. I'll be on the ground a grand total of 45 hours. So I'll be returning on Monday, whereupon I'm looking forward to staying with my brother for a few nights in Sydney. Thanks to everyone in Brisbane for looking after my place while I'm gone and for putting up with me in the past 3 months when I've had such an extraordinary workload. It's all winding up now at last!
And finally, thanks to Kevin for our impromptu lunch today, and to Stephen for understanding.
I am presently invigilating examinations for GSN402 Strategic Use of Information Technology. That's what I meant to blog last time and was distracted by work.
In terms of news, I am interested in the release of the three reports on competition in the telecommunications sector in Australia by the ACCC. I am afraid it will come as no surprise to most commentators of telecomunications policy that the predicted competitive environment has not evolved. What's going to be interesting is how the government responds to these damning reports. The ACCC has no power to amend policy - only advise the Minister. So if the Minister fails to respond, the value of the present regulatory environment for the telecommunication ssector will surely be questioned.
I'm highly amused by the mass attack of the SCO website in light of the licensing of Unix code affair. I'm sure this was expected, but when you incense a community of collaborative publishers, you can never expect anything else.
Thanks to Kevin for lunch today, too. My mother would thank you for making sure I eat a good meal, and I thank you for your company! :-)
I have no internet access at all from home. Hence the lack of blogging. It's driving me nuts, and I have come close to applying for broadband until I think that's just silly as by the time it gets connected I'll have moved. Telstra are coming by the place to fix it but I won't be there at the time as I'm off to Thailand on Friday. No, this is not a holiday. I spend 45 hours on the ground and work for 22 of those hours. The other 23 hours I'll be in taxis, waiting at the airport and sleeping. Not fun at all. Oh and I get the added bonus of spending 20 hours in the air, in a cramped space, probably marking essays on the way there and attempting "sleep" on the way back. I get in to Sydney at 6am. Fun. Not.
In other news, the BBC are supposedly going to make all their archives available online. As I noted on the Slashdot discussion on the topic, I think the costs of negotiation of retransmission rights for that intellectual property will be phenomenal. Stay tuned on that one.
On my latest Livejournal entry, I've had a bit of fun. I've used Clive James as a basis for discussing the confessional nature of blogging.
Blogdex alerted me to a useful site analysing the supposed 'copyright violation' of SCO code in the Linux kernal. Extraordinary situation this: it absolutely challenges the basis of open source.
In other news, I am without the internet at home at present while Telstra deals with an immense amount of static on my dialup line. I couldn't even sustain a 4KBps link for more than 20 seconds last night. Yes, I know I could have broadband and resolve all this very quickly, but given (a) I'm likely to be moving soon, and (b) I spend fewer hours at home than at work - and that includes the period I'm asleep - it just didn't seem worth it. Importantly, dialup has not been a problem until this sudden rise in static. Can't even conduct a normal voice conversation easily. Oh well. Hopefull it will be solved relatively quickly.
*big, goofy smile*
Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs site is reporting that a Birmingham flashmob have used an event for charitable purposes. YAY!
One of my students (thanks Amy!) has alerted me to an article referring to the slightly amusing story of the New Zealand man who has had to shut his spamming business down because his details were posted on the web. Further details are also at Slashdot. I can hear violins can't you?
What an eclectic collection of items in today's blog title!
I'd like to thank Stephen Lister for his suggestion of the article at Genii Software on Turtle Collaboration. This is an interesting perspective on the collective yet independent thought-sharing architecture of blog discussions and the nature of agenda setting online. I tend to agree with the commentators on the idea of blogs as social software; bringing together those of like mind for the purpose of mapping an opinion sharing paradigm. But given my own predilection for rocking the boat, I know I don't quite fit friendster mapping tools now pervading the blogging milieu.
But more broadly the rise of blogs as a collaborative learning and debate forum has brought about what WIRED describes as a possible solution to information overload and spam. Aggregators providing an RSS feed (such as the one produced by this blog) provide the basis for mass subscription to published ideas, as well as the opportunity for netizens to select information they receive rather than be forced to receive. Of course, the selective pull theory of managing information overload has been promoted through white list ideas for some time. The trouble with white lists is that they do not allow the possibility of unanticipated and perhaps fortuitous contact. Thus one of the great boons of email - the opportunity to receive information and feedback from virtually anyone in the world relatively inexpensively - is impaired. I'm not sure I agree that aggregators are a 'solution' to information overload; rather a facilitator of information consumption.
Finally, and on an entirely frivolous note, let me introduce you all to the productivity virus of DHTML Lemmings :-)
For several months now, political parties from the Democrats to the ALP, have thrown their support behind open source software diffusion. Today in On Line Opinion, a software engineer and policy researcher has questioned the logic of support for this initiative. Speaking as an academic associated with information economics, I understand the philosophy behind the article but overall I have to say that I disagree with some of the findings. Specifically, the concern over protections for the best software developers is phrased primarily in terms of financial benefits. While economists rarely understand the IT sector, they have acknowledged that the productivity paradox is a feature of information industry economics: that is, a situation can arise where expenditure in IT systems can actually outweigh the productivity gains from implemenation of a software solution. The causes and reasons for this are several, but in the end, the fact that a technology may cost a lot to implement and maintain won't matter if the actual benefits of the technology implementation are intangible, or if there are other means of offsetting the cost of implementation. What's more, the productivity paradox has ostensibly been resolved (as Cotteleer, 2002 has noted), so we are now in a period where the need to have Microsoft products and Microsoft operating systems is to some extent, behind us.
My mate, Troffie, also notes that the article could be misleading in several other areas, as illustrated in a post to the Aus Innovate list.
The trouble with the debate on open source is that so many mainstream players have no interest in supporting open source; indeed, it is entirely against their interest to change the production system to accommodate it. The high investment costs of organisations adopting industry standards such as Microsoft products have provided a de facto imperative to run systems and create applications with low variable costs - ie: reusing the standard. I'm glad the political parties have seen fit to advocate open source because it's going to take the sort of interventionist approach of governments to convince the private sector that they need to change. Industry is happy to widen the gap between technology expenditure and profit margins, often at the expense of innovation. Government advocacy of, and perhaps even policy for, open source will be what it takes for industries to take this movement seriously.
And who knows? Business might just create efficiencies that are also effective.
Microsoft has laid the blame for half of all Windows crashes on third-party code (thanks Slashdot).
So not.
On this morning's Gold Coast Radio program, I spoke on the issue of prostitution on the internet. The low profile cousin of internet pornography, internet prostitution is a subject often disregarded by authorities, or treated at best as low priority on the scale of cybercrime issues. Read on for the result of my research on the issue...
Anecdotally, internet prostitution represents about 3% of cybercrime complaints (referenced from Web Police data), but there is the strong possibility that the nature of the crime is so muddy that its incidence is substantially higher than research would indicate. Chat rooms are perhaps the most obvious channels for prostitution, where sex workers can sell themselves to the highest bidder. Some of these chat rooms have titles that are clearly representative of the activities taking place therein - Sex for $, Guys for Sale, etc - but others are more classical 'meet-and-greet' rooms where an offline meeting can be arranged before a participant is fully aware that they have been solicited.
The problem with pursuing internet prostitution as a criminal activity is in terms of the definition of solicitation. Where people offer "time" with clients, in virtually all jurisdictions, no illegal activity has taken place. Furthermore, if chat rooms or websites are hosted in off-shore or overseas servers, the act of solicitation (if there has been a clear discussion of sexual activity) has actually occurred in another jurisdiction and the legal framework operating on the transaction is unclear.
Where internet prostitution does get some profile is in terms of child abuse and child prostitution. And unfortunately, some of the chat rooms offering "barely legal" and "pre-pubescent" action are a haven for paedophiles. While not directly increasing the incidence of child prostitution over time, the technology of the internet does act to link up those facilitating and participating in paedophile activities.
For sex workers themselves, there is a risk in utilising the internet for solicitaion, as there is also a growing trend in vigilante assaults at offline liaisons, negotiated online. And for runaway children and young, economically challenged adults, there is the risk that joining a web ring of prostitution will result in their being forced to work as sex slaves (unpaid) for powerful, organised crime syndicates.
All in all, the subject requires further investigation to properly ascertain the incidence of internet prostitution, and debate needs to occur at least at local levels on "acceptable behaviour" policies for online transactions. In order to protect minors from child prostitution and abuse, to protect sex workers from abuse, and to protect unsuspecting internet surfers from being solicited against their will, as a community we need to wake up and consider the implications of this issue.
For all users looking for links on the RPC security loop virus, I hope the following may assist.
F-Secure's Information on the Lovsan virus: symptoms, the RPC error message and how to clean this from your system.
General information about the RPC security problem from Microsoft: this details and provides links to the patches to update your Windows system to close this loophole, and prevent execution of a file.
Story from The Australian newspaper about the spread of the worm in businesses.
Yes I know I'm spamming my own blog. I've had a bit of a hiatus of posts and now I'm finally catching up on news.
I'm interested in the reports coming from the US on the subject of webcams and privacy. A mate of mine recently called me a webcam ... well let's just say "enthusiast" shall we? ... because I have webcams at home and in the office and when I take myself to a place on campus that is not my office, there's a webcam there too. I even got caught hiding out in the other spot by a colleague checking the webcam in the tech area.
USA Today is reporting on the use of webcams in schools that:
"Hundreds of Internet-wired video cameras will keep rolling all year long, in the hope that they'll deter crime and general misbehavior among the district's 6,300 students -- and teachers."
(Slight interest here: I find it a tad amusing that the structure of just that paragraph seems to express some concern over watching the teachers as much as the students. )
I suppose the question comes down to choice. I make a decision to run webcams wherever I am so that my family and friends spread all across Australia can see me and feel they are closer to me. I also do it as a means of showing students who are situated all across the globe subtle differences in their assessment and so on. Finally I run webcams because I feel that in order to have some credibility as a technology advocate, I need to take the bad with the good; to deal with the fact that my life is on some kind of permanent show. I don't promote the show; it's just there if anyone is bored enough to watch. For the kids in these US schools the choice is limited. Privacy is being compromised because they have no control over the cams. My concern though, is more the use of webcams as a deterrent for criminal or otherwise unacceptable behaviour. This is more evocative of the kind of regime Orwell imagined in 1984. Fear of discovery shouldn't be a deterrent for misbehaviour. The behaviour itself should be the deterrent.
And to be honest, if my own behaviour is any example, you do actually forget the cams are there after a while - and "misbehave" anyway. If enough students start to challenge the presence of the webcams by performing up deliberately before the cameras, then the rules themselves will eventually be called in to question.
In an event, I wonder whether webcams and privacy are related in the digital age where choice to be viewed is taken into consideration.
The ABC are reporting that the Opposition are criticising plans by the ACCC to endorse organisations with sophisticated Codes of Practice, because the act would threaten the independence of the ACCC. This is difficult territory. If the ACCC is to promote appropriate business practices and industry Codes, then it may seem logical to issue a notice of support, but the act of endorsement may be regarded as partiality. So what are the alternatives? Rather than issue notices of endorsement, it may be more effective to more widely publish the details of these industry Codes. So far the public education campaigns on business practice have been woeful, and very few people actually understand the rationale for industry Codes. Regardless of the morality, ethics or sustainability of appropriate business practices it has in fact been the principles of corporate governance, and the (impending) legal obligation for all listed businesses to report on the activities of business that has spawned this development of Codes in the first place. Rather than endorsing organisations, perhaps it would be more rational and useful to endorse the actual tenets of Code that are useful; indexed by business activity and by organisation size, business practice (B2B/B2C; manufacturing, sales, distribution, education, etc) and value system. That may sound complex, but to properly address the quality of industry Codes, it may be more useful to create a model for adoption rather than a Moody's-style ratings system.
On an entirely different and much lighter subject, is anyone else as concerned as I am about the recent trend in plastic surgery to enhance a derriere to the proportions of JLo? Here in Australia - the fattest nation on earth - more than half the nation is overweight or obese to begin with. And yet I am still seeing stories in The Courier Mail and the Australian about the dangers of anorexia and other dieting eating disorders which get higher media profile than discussions of the problems of obesity in our population. I am not implying there are no problems with undereating and dieting disorders, but I am concerned that it is stories of underweight children that achieve a higher profile than those of overweight and obese children. And then on top of that, the idea of actually increasing the size of one's behind through cosmetic surgery just seems absurd.
I am in two minds about cosmetic surgery. I feel it certainly does have a place in reconstructing bodies and bone structures affected by injury or disfigurement, and I'm even open to the idea of having a little enhancement where there may be some obvious and visible difference. Hey why not if you have the spare cash? But I am loathe to consider how a butt implant could possibly be regarded as noticeable, or if it is noticeable, how it can be regarded as acceptable. What are we doing? Trying to encourage a culture of unnecessary curves now?
Frankly, I feel that if you have a small behind, you should think yourself fortunate. When you hit middle age, you will be envied by all. Karma has a way of coming around.
This article from Saturday's Herald Sun is the basis of my subject line, reports on what seems to be the last of the Bush Administration's attempts to explain the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - of course! They are with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan! The fact that the Bush Administration can't find any WMD at all is clearly just a minor glitch.
Similarly the furore over the latest Shane Warne scandal seems another attempt at passing the buck of responsibility. Either Warne is serially stupid or the women at the centre of allegations of sexual harrassment is an extortionist. Either way, the public statements being made by both Ms Alon, and by Warne's manager (also his brother), are transparent in their attempts to shift blame where clearly there was wrong-doing on both sides, regardless of what ensued.
Better news from the US in terms of the revealing of the names of students alleged to have downloaded and distributed pirated MP3 files. Good to see that under US law at least, it is unacceptable to invade privacy in the name of revenge.
Oh and on a personal note, my wrist has flared up again. In spite of the reaction from one mate, I didn't get it stuck anywhere. *THWACK, BTW* It's a recurring injury and it hurts like hell. So I'm having a bad hair day, and it's all caused by lack of sleep due to a sore wrist.
Okay so taking a 3/4 day off does feel great on the day you do it, but boy does it make the rest of the week difficult. I presented yesterday to the Australian Society of Archivists at the national records management conference - which from what I saw looked a fabulous forum. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to see much due to technological problems in the morning at work (losing 2 hours of work) and because when I arrived at the hotel the staff had absolutely no clue about the conference being held there. 20 minutes of frantic phone calls and stress later, I simply refused to believe the hotel staff and found the conference which was, sure enough, at the hotel. So instead of seeing the entire morning's proceedings, I arrived less than 3 minutes before I had to speak and could only hang around for the next 15 minutes before I had to get back to meetings and 6 hours of teaching yesterday. The problems pursued me into today where I had to finish exams, conduct meetings and deal with some fairly stressful aspects of work before tumbling home at the end of the day. And this weekend I have the marvellously social lifestyle of marking to look forward to.
But hey, at least I don't live in California right now. With Schwazenegger running for Governor, as well as Gary Coleman and a few porn stars, comedians and the Osmond family, it's not politics, it's just frightening.
Phaser based wireless mouse. All my geek fantasies come together in one piece of hardware. I have no life. (Thanks Gizmodo!)
Using blood to run batteries. Cool. Clean energy.
The latest from the Makers of Movable Type: Typepad. Enough said really (this blog is powered by MT).
And because I can, A Tale of Two Cities: the Project Gutenberg edition.
Ah it's nice to be able to spend some time just not working. Rare, but very, very nice. Thanks to Tonya and Kerry for taking me away from it all today down at the Gold Coast for a strategic planning meeting over brunch. Was wonderful - thanks guys. Thanks also to other special friends for their time and forbearance today. Now back to work. *sigh*