Homer every day for 39 years, complete with the same music from the original. Hilarious (via Andrew Sayer)

This is simply one of the most amazing things I’ve even seen. Given it’s had 20 million+ views on YouTube and is appearing in Top 10 lists for 2007 it’s not new, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it.

I’ve long longed for a hobby outside of the internet and since the firewall using conference supremo Phil Sim got me across to one of his conferences last year I’ve found myself playing poker more and more online.

I’ve had the opportunity to play in a casino a couple of times, more recently in Perth + Brisbane, but I’ve always been a little bit shy: the $100 min stake doesn’t help + the game in person is a little different to online.

I’ve been looking at joining the Crown Poker Club when I move to Melbourne (link). Free to join and you get an invite to a freeroll beginners competition which comes with prize money. I’m not sure how she who must be obeyed will take me heading off to Crown for 6pm on a Friday but I’m looking forward to at least trying.

Anyone else a member or plays poker not online with any advice? Don’t think I’ll qualify for the Aussie Millions but it’s a nice dream, as long as I don’t go poor trying 🙂

She who must be obeyed told me today she’s starting in the new job January 7, and I haven’t even called a removalist yet, let alone called a real estate agent (husband of the boys God Mother is a real estate agent, and he’s one of the few honest ones).

Plan is for her to go across, possibly with the boy, and for me to follow later in the month once we’ve got the house sorted and presumably somewhere to live other than with my mother-in-law in Blackburn South. ETA of late January at the latest because the boy starts school early Feb and one of us (hint hint: the one who works for himself…from home 🙂 ) has to take responsibility there.

Hoping to get up to the December bloggers meetup in Perth, will be my last one so looking forward to it presuming I’m free to go.

The latest inflation reports for Australia are showing the seasonally adjusted underlying figure of 4% with headline inflation around 3%, but I’m starting to not believe it.

We’ve always been impartial to Bakers Delight White Flour Loaf bread (recommended for those in Australia…just great bread). Around this time last year it was around $2.20 or $2.30 a loaf. This morning I discovered that it had gone up yet again, this time from $3 to $3.20. That’s $1 in 12 months, and I can still remember paying $2-$2.10 a loaf for it in early 1996. There has alway been price rises, but this year a white flour loaf has gone up a whopping 45% and it seems there’s a 10-20c price rise every month or two. Sure, it’s only a dollar, but apply 45% to a range of other goods as well. Certainly our shopping bill has seriously risen this year, where as we might have spent $100-$130 at Coles a week (not including meat) we’re now spending $150-$180, and that’s with us buying most of our fruit and veg from the local farmers market (in bulk, cheap and wonderfully fresh). I’d hate to think what it must be like on struggle street at the moment, maybe this is part of the reason why voters chucked the Howard Government out?

A couple of days out from the election and neither party has announced a comprehensive ICT policy…because neither party has one. Kevin Rudd today talked about taking Australia up a gear and the need to fulfil our great potential, but apparently IT isn’t part of that future. The real banger: the reiteration of a policy originally announced by Kim Beazley in 2006 which I’m now officially calling “The Great Firewall of Australia” policy. Yep: no policies to encourage Internet startups in Australia or promote what Keating once referred to as the clever country, but they’re going to censor our Internet instead and I’m more than pissed. So pissed in fact that I may not preference the ALP in front of the Libs when I vote on Saturday, despite the fact that I cant stand the local Liberal candidate.

Here’s some highlights from Mao ZeRudd’s cyber-safety policy:

 a mandatory ?clean feed? internet service for all homes, schools and public computers that are used by Australian children.  Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will filter out content that is identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).  The ACMA ?blacklist? will be made more comprehensive to ensure that children are protected from harmful and inappropriate online material.

Note the word mandatory. But wait, there’s more

A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a ?clean feed? internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries.

What’s the alternative, a dirty feed, if indeed there is an alternative? And lets not forget the cost of providing this filtering, a cost that will no doubt be passed along by ISP’s who already (mostly thanks to Telstra) charge us at rates 2-3x higher (even more, given we don’t have uncapped plans) than rates the United States.

How do they determine if a computer is used by a child? My son uses 1 computer, but not my laptop + desktop, so is there going to be multiple feeds? Unlikely, because any of these computers are accessible by a child I’m going to get a mandatory censored internet…presuming that they’ll know that I have a child…which they’ll check up on via Medicare, so big brother will be imposing his will on me and I wont have a say on it as well.

This is a typical response from a traditionally socialist party that believes that the Government can interfere in everything.

Like all censorship the question is: once it starts when will it stop? Remember that Australia doesn’t have an electronic R rating (at least for computer games)…so there goes violent sites. Dissent on global warming is probably hate speech to the ALP, so that should get censored….once it starts it will never end. Do-gooder groups will petition the Government to block more and more sites, and the Government, always wanting to find support will block these sites.

The stupidest thing of all: Mao ZeRudd justifies the policy on the basis that computer level filtering is too easy to bypass. He’s obviously never heard of proxy sites, TOR or even OpenDNS to bypass server level firewalls…unless of course he’s planning on banning them as well!

If Rudd is elected on Saturday (and that’s a 95% chance) we need to start speaking up against this policy immediately. It is our duty as supporters of free speech in a democratic country to stand opposed to Government attempts to stifle free speech online. They may claim now it’s all about porn, but remember (with apologies to the original author),

first they blocked the porn sites, and no one said a thing,

next it was the dissenters, and still no one said a thing.

Next it was bloggers, and although I was one of them I said nothing.

Then they blocked me.

This time twelve months ago I was in Toronto, where it was cold, and not just the weather.

I’ve learnt a lot of things from this time.

1. Trust no one

2. People are selfish and usually look after themselves first. I lost out because I went into bat for their concerns, yet they never so much as said boo themselves.

3. I’ve had people come to me asking for references. Hardly anyone so much as said goodbye to me when I left (maybe a handful)…I learnt that this was because they were told I was persona non grata however sometimes you do the right thing, not what you’re told. To have the very same people come to me 6, 9 and 12 months later asking for more from me when they couldn’t even do a simple thing such as say goodbye. Farking unbelievable, with maybe only one of two exclusions (I wont name them, but they know who)

4. I have an internal conflict between apathy and caring. Most people look out for themselves, and it makes them a smaller target. One part of me says I should have done that, but the other side says that you should do what’s right, even when it puts you in harms way. I’m slowly teaching myself apathy, it’s probably better for my health and sanity in the long term.

5. I was unduly harsh on Toronto when I got back, and as I’ve since discovered that San Francisco has more beggars, but only just. At least it’s warmer in SF 🙂  Seriously though next time I’ll come back under better circumstances, and I might end up liking the place. It reminded me a little of Sydney, although with more French speakers.

6.  Venture Capital is not an end to a means. There’s a place for VC, but you shouldn’t sell your soul for it.

7. You can tell how well a company is going by assessing the terms from which ppl depart it.

8. Rick Segal is a hard ass but not a bad bloke, I wish we had met under better circumstances. One of the more interesting ppl I’ve met, and I’ve met a lot of people in the last 12 months.

9. NDA/ No-disparage contracts etc are shite when you’re expected to follow them and no one else is. Worse still when your protests fall on deaf ears but when you so much as say boo, you’re the worst bastard out there.

10. Control is everything. I’ll struggle to ever give up control of anything again, and I certainly will never put my heart, soul and full time work into something that I don’t control again…unless of course I’m being paid well for it, upfront 🙂

11. It was a hard time, but I still feel good in myself that although I lost out, I did what was right and I can sleep well at night. In fact, despite some of the anguish I’ve never had a bad nights sleep because of it.

12. Did I lose out? I walked away with some cash in the bank and my morals intact. Maybe I was the winner? only time will tell I guess.

13. Skip, unlucky

14. Bloggers aren’t paid enough full stop, not in any one particular company but most of them. I’d support minimum payrates for bloggers tomorrow. They’d still be a lot lower than in just about any other industry, but I think you need a min for work done. Some blogging jobs (again singling out no particularly company) are slave labor like, and if they were regulated jobs would be illegal in many countries.

15. considering 12, I think I have been lucky. A couple of projects on the way, hopefully the paperwork (business plan etc) done on the new startup before christmas, great writing job working with best in the business Michael Arrington, get to travel in Australia and to the US speaking and working. I’ve never really been more content. 2007 has been an awesome year. Now if only Qantas would hurry up the net access on the Sydney-SFO route 🙂

Remembrance Day 2007.

“MCMXIV” from Philip Larkin. It’s modern poetry, but it’s done well.

    Those long uneven lines
    Standing as patiently
    As if they were stretched outside
    The Oval or Villa Park,
    The crowns of hats, the sun
    On moustached archaic faces
    Grinning as if it were all
    An August Bank Holiday lark;

    And the shut shops, the bleached
    Established names on the sunblinds,
    The farthings and sovereigns,
    And dark-clothed children at play
    Called after kings and queens,
    The tin advertisements
    For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
    Wide open all day;

    And the countryside not caring
    The place-names all hazed over
    With flowering grasses, and fields
    Shadowing Domesday lines
    Under wheats’ restless silence;
    The differently-dressed servants
    With tiny rooms in huge houses,
    The dust behind limousines;

    Never such innocence,
    Never before or since,
    As changed itself to past
    Without a word–the men
    Leaving the gardens tidy,
    The thousands of marriages
    Lasting a little while longer:
    Never such innocence again.

I’ve finally finished reading Australian author John Birmingham’s Axis of Time trilogy. I discovered the series by accident, picking up World War 2.3 at Perth airport on the way to the Valley in July (I always buy a book for the long flight).

I didn’t realize then that the book was part of the trilogy, so I read the final part first. It was only on my next flight that I realized that there were two books before it. I read World War 2.1 in September, and bought and read World War 2.2 in October.

I’m a picky reader, and I don’t read a lot, and what I read I’m fairly hard on. I loved these books.

Here’s the plot summary from Wikipedia: it gives some of it away, but it doesn’t give all three away

In 2021, a US-led Multinational Taskforce, commanded by Admiral Phillip Kolhammer is preparing to wage the latest campaign in the War on Terror: intervention in an Indonesia wracked by civil war between secularist and caliphate forces. The flagship is the aircraft carrier USS Hillary Clinton, named after “the most uncompromising wartime president in the history of the United States.” Attached to the task force is a mysterious research vessel whose scientists attempt an experiment with space and time. The experiment goes horribly wrong: the research ship is destroyed by the resulting wormhole while the task force is sent back in time to 1942 (It is also theorized that the task force fell sideways into an alternate universe 1942). The majority of the task force winds up being deposited in the Pacific on the eve of the Battle of Midway.

Accidentally, the time travelers collide with the US force that would have won the battle. The 21st century personnel are rendered unconscious and control reverts to AIs, a Japanese ship in the task force is spotted and the contemporary US Fleet opens fire. By the time both sides realise their mistake, most of the 1942 US Pacific Fleet has been destroyed.

At the same time, the northern Japanese fleet, en route to attack the Aleutian Islands, stumbles across an Indonesian frigate (Sutanto) and divines both what has happened near Midway and what the future holds for Japan. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is swiftly informed and orders the Japanese Fleet to sail home immediately.

The Allies head for Pearl Harbor, where tensions between the WASP male sailors of 1942 and the mixed-gender/ethnic/sexual personnel of 2021 result in riots, brawls and a murder. However, Allied leaders are already beginning to take note of future mistakes, advances and other windfalls of the Transition. The technology alone is astonishing enough, but the historical ramifications are even more momentous.

The Axis powers are not idle either. With the aid of both contemporary Axis officers and Indonesian sailors Yamamoto prepares a new plan designed to reverse the outcome of the war and stave off America?s rise to power. The Sutanto is stripped down while certain crew members make their peace with Allah and prepare for their final mission. Hitler is soon apprised of the Transition and dispatches his own envoys to Japan.

It’s reality futurism meets what if fiction, a rare mix in a book. Kolhammer meets Einstein who explains that the notion of a grandfather paradox is false due to parallel universe theory: basically by traveling back in time they’ve created a new parallel universe.

All three novels are great reading. It reminds me of Clancy a bit, but with a definite Australian interpretation. The concept of 2021 morals clashing with the ideals of 1942 make it an interesting consideration of the appalling standards of the past.

World War 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 are a recommended read.

Side note: I’m loving these point by point posts: it’s liberating. Verbal feedback has been all positive. If you think they suck…well, it’s this or not post at all ,which I’ve done a lot of this year as my external activities (TechCrunch, Gooruze etc) have increased 🙂

1. I’m sick of the election, and so in the Australian public. I smile when I read Crikey suggesting that the Australian print media is remiss in not giving greater coverage to the election: they are merely reflecting the wants of their readership

2. ALP is advertising on TV in Forrest, complete with a local message. They smell blood. They have never advertised in the SW as long as I’ve lived here, and why would they, it’s a safe Liberal seat. Nola “agrarian socialist” Marino the Lib candidate is doing sweat fuck all. Outside of the standard post vote letter all I’ve seen from her is a flyer in my PO Box, that fails to mention she’s a Liberal aside from a small logo right at the back. Very little in the local papers and NOTHING in my letter box. Either she’s not sold the high priced European car to fund the campaign, or head office is saying there’s nothing to worry about…which is the exact same message they gave when she who must be obeyed was the campaign chair for the Libs locally at the last state election…we lost by 10% 🙁

3. Mad Monk Abbott is losing it. You can’t pretend to be friend to the nutter religious types then swear on TV: bullshit might be correct but it’s not in his case

4. Ruddy still isn’t impressive. The Me-tooism is sickening, and yet that’s all he has to do…copy Liberal policy and add a couple of million in for good measure in what one journo on the ABC said today was Me-tooism-plus. Great description

5. My imposed apathy is having evil consequences: I’m seriously thinking about voting green. Not because I like them, god no: they are evil incarnate, but imagine if the Greens ruled Australia: the socialism/ Communism (they are pretty much commies) would drive growth down in Australia, and as a consequence interest rates would follow. Declining interest rates would drive the AUD lower which means I’d make more…which is a good thing! 🙂 An employment poor economy would also drive the price of labour down, so I could hire locally instead of China or India in the future…and that’s a good thing, right? 😉

6. Again: I’m not running for the LDP in Forrest, they asked nicely but I declined. I’ll be voting for them in the senate though. As Reagan said “Government is never the solution, Government is the problem”

7. Still no ITC policy from either party: I should contact them about that.

8. They should run the Reps as an unconference…that would be cool 🙂