I’m inclined to think that I’ve worn out the “newly conservative” explanation for blogging under the “neo-con” tag, but I haven’t come upon a replacement yet, and I can’t resist commenting on this. The Senate Select Committee on the Free Trade Agreement has an interesting membership. It’s designed, depending on your level of cynicism, either […]
From the conclusions to the JSCT FTA report: 18.6 The evidence received by the Committee can be divided into three groups: There were those who supported the Agreement and proposed that Australia ratify the AUSFTA; There were those who opposed the Agreement and proposed that Australia not ratify and then there was a third group […]
At least the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties managed to spell my name right, unlike some. From their report on the Au/US FTA: 16.39 The arguments presented to the Committee centred around the balance between users and owners in the Copyright Act 1968, and the change in balance under the obligations in the AUSFTA. One […]
I haven’t been blogging much lately; and for some reason I feel obliged to note that for a change that this is neither a forthright demonstration of languid apathy, nor even an expected consequence of a surfeit of other things to do. Oh well, what we can’t manage in frequency or regularity, will presumably be […]
This post is in honour of the Infinite Cat Project. Its lineage is me reading a post by Martin, who read a post by Seth, who read a post by Matthew Skala. Matthew’s post basically attempts to provide a way of thinking about copyright violations, and more particularly about why computer scientists often don’t think […]
I made my first post to this blog a year ago yesterday. I think it’s pretty appropriate to have commemorated such a momentous anniversary by not blogging at all yesterday.
Pick the prominant third-way thinker who said this: America rejects the ethic of sink or swim. America rejects social Darwinism, because strength is not the same as worth. Our greatest failures as a nation have come when we lost sight of our compassionate ideals — in slavery, in segregation, and in every wrong that has […]
Martin points to an Economist review of a anti-corporate film that tries to make the case that corporations are “pyschopathic” by their very nature. It’s presented as “asking the question”, but I can’t see how you’d get a different film if you’d started off with the answer. I think this is a further trend of […]
I’ve been using the SeeMore plugin mostly for moving my travelblog pictures to separate pages, because even on broadband they’re a nuisance to download and scroll through all the time. But now that my blog’s “syndicated” I feel kind-of obliged not to fill up the planet with long essays, which means splitting longish techy essays […]
Heh. The Gnu Hunter scoffed at my attempt to draw a distinction between the price and cost of email delivery; so I’m pleased to find I’m in good company on that issue: here’s Thomas Sowell doing a similar job on the costs of medical care. Also of interest is Brookes News, which has some interesting […]
Lots of security experts like talking about the risks of software monocultures which basically says that if there are a whole lot of similar machines on the Internet — all running Windows XP Home, say — then it’s generally fairly easy (well, as these things go) to find a security hole that lets you gain […]
John Ray, who writes Dissecting Leftism, an interesting blog decrying various inane comments from left-wing types, recently noted: Statistical expert John Lott Jr. sets out why California’s virtual ban on electonic voting is just ignorant technophobia. Australia has paper voting only so I have no personal knowledge of alternatives but his claim that electronic voting […]
Hrm, the Planet aggregators don’t seem to like smartquotes in titles. So I’ve disabled them. Lame.
(For those playing along at home, this is about the proposed Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United States, which includes an IP chapter that requires Australia to change its copyright and patent law to line up more with the DMCA and the US Patent Office. I’ve commented on this previously.) Anyway, today’s post […]
Since the Professor’s decided to skip his Friday afternoon catblogging, here’s some Monday evening dogblogging for you. From left to right, meet Chips (m, silky terrier), Cheeky (m, chihuahua), and Skye (f, Siberian husky). If you’re not an RSS weenie, you can probably see Skye over on the right too, giving a practical demonstration of […]