What can I say about this wonderful short film? It’s hauntingly beautiful, well photographed with excellent colour grading — and just a little bit creepy.
Hat tip to tiny gigantic.
Used knickers, revisited
Due to popular demand, here’s a new photo of the abandoned women’s knickers I wrote about last week.
As you can see, they’ve been swept to the side of the laneway by passing traffic and, perhaps, the wind. And they’ve started to intermingle with dried leaves and other detritus.
I took the photo this afternoon. I’ve declined Cassie ST’s suggestion that I wear them on my head.
Internet censorship dumbness
The Rudd government’s plan to force ISP’s to provide a “clean feed” of the Internet free of pornography and “inappropriate material” (whatever that might be) has already generated plenty of informed criticism. However what worries me more is Senator Stephen Conroy’s disgustingly disingenuous framing of the debate.
Labor makes no apologies to those who argue that any regulation of the Internet is like going down the Chinese road. If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree.
As usual, Democrat Senator Andrew Bartlett hits the nail on the head, and makes my point for me.
No free speech advocate that I know of advocates such absolute freedom as to defend the provision of child pornography… But the fact it is already illegal shows just how dishonest Conroy’s statement is.
The government’s proposal is not about child pornography at all, which is already seriously illegal online and offline. It is about legal pornography and other ‘inappropriate’ material.
The arguments against this clean-feed idea are simple: it won’t work, and it opens up an unacceptable risk of further government intrusion into our freedom to communicate.
The civil liberties we lost in 2007
In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, Richard Ackland has published his “top 10” list of intrusions on our civil liberties for 2007.
“A year ago we published a list showing how our liberties had been whittled, starting with the sedition laws and ending with David Hicks. Now there is a fresh outcrop of abrasions to our rights, although, sadly, there is an eerie consistency about some of the players.”
His list includes an entire entry just for one man’s efforts:
4. Philip Ruddock. Once again the former attorney-general deserves his own special entry in the human rights hall of infamy. This time for his unique conception that an accused person can have a “fair trial” based on hearsay evidence and evidence extracted by coercion.
As number 1, Ackland mentions just a name: Dr Mohamed Haneef. I’m hoping the forthcoming judicial inquiry gets to the bottom of that debacle!
Technology review of 2008 (sort of)
The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones has a technology review of 2008, including:
September
Apple’s second generation 3g iPhone goes on sale. This time, as well as signing up to Apple’s network partner, customers have to bring a DNA sample to enter on the company database before the phone can be activated. “We’re just trying to make sure iPhone users all feel part of the Apple family,†a spokesman explains.
October
Nokia brings out its latest smartphone, the N99. As well as featuring music, live television, a manicure set and a device for getting stones out of horse’s shoes, it offers an ice-cream cornet with a chocolate flake. “And, unlike, the new 3g iPhone,†a spokesman explains, “it is 4g, making the mobile internet work properly for the first time.â€
Hat tip to Memex 1.1.
Predictions for 2008
OK, I’m meant to be clever, so here are my predictions for 2008. The Snarky Platypus didn’t help me with these, as we decided we had better things to do on New Year’s Eve (gin and tonic, for example). So blame me alone.
- The Joy of Chairman Rudd’s Iced VoVo Revolution will be dulled by the end of January when they take some stupid actions which demonstrate that they are, after all, politicians like all others. Actually, this has already happened with the announcement of mandatory Internet filtering by ISPs. I’ll write more about that soon.
- At least one member of the (former) Howard cabinet will be charged with a criminal offence over something they did in office. I’d like it to be Brendan Nelson, because that deal to buy $6 billion worth of Super Hornet fighter aircraft stinks — mostly because the air force doesn’t want them and the process was, erm, rushed to say the least. However I suspect it might be something to do with the AWB scandal.
- Channel 7 will continue to win the Australian TV ratings. Channel 9 will fail to reinvent itself now that its owned by an investment vehicle and not a media proprietor.
- Telstra will be forced to separate its wholesale and retail businesses. Meanwhile the Sol Trujillo-led management team will continue to play nasty with the government, causing them to be increasingly sidelined — especially over the Rudd government’s new broadband rollout.
- Barack Obama will win the US Presidential election. I know Hillary Clinton is currently the favourite, but I have the gut feeling that the Oprah factor will be important, and that Hillary’s dirty washing will be aired.
- When former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra returns from self-imposed exile on 14 February the new government, which is a coalition led by a Thaksin-supporting party, will somehow drop the corruption charges against him. Another military coup will follow.
- At least one Australian company will suffer a major leak of its customers’ private data, prompting new laws on dealing with such things (like they already have in California).
- We’ll finally figure out what the Storm Botnet, the world’s largest network of hacked computers, is for. My guess: whatever the hell the designer’s paying clients want it to be for.
You might also like to read the interesting predictions from The Australian (not really predictions, but obvious events following on from their news calendar), advertising agency JWT, Peter Black and Rachel Polanskis, and predictions about toy names for 2008.
What are your predictions for 2008? And how do you think mine rate?