Mr eel
General
Australia - The Nanny State
Australians do not have freedom of speech sadly. It’s not enshrined in the constitution. It’s what allows disgusting entities like the OFLC to exist. It also gives Our Great Leaders, lots of wiggle room when it comes to censorship.
The Government — poor idealistic fools that they are — have decided to follow through the the previous government’s plans for Mandatory ISP filtering. Basically they want ISPs to install filters to block all that nasty pornography. Magically. It’s to protect the children of course. Which it won’t. It can’t. These filters are all commercial and famously easy to subvert. Even when they work correctly, they still fail to block undesirable material.
The Government and family groups both — groups who claim to represent all Australian families, without any mandate to do so, stupid idiots that they are — are forgetting that the best protection a child has is their parents.
Anyhow, I got so annoyed, I decided to send of a letter to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. I’m getting good at the Complaint Letter. I’m gonna make and awesome cranky old man.
Anyhow, here it is. It also includes a link to an article detailing the proposal, if you want a little background.
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Dear Minister,
I’m writing to you to express my concerns over the proposed mandatory ISP filtering as reported here: http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22989956-15306,00.html
Firstly, let me preface my statements here by saying very clearly that I absolutely disagree with the measures put forth. I consider them an abrogation of my rights — censorship pure and simple. They are also likely to be expensive and ultimately ineffective.
As an adult citizen I consider it my right to access the internet — or any other media for that matter — freely, without interference from the government or any private body. Beyond illegal activities it is no concern of the government what I choose to access.
I am aware that I can opt out of these measures, but I see no reason why I should be burdened with this. I also have serious questions about how this will be implemented. If I choose to opt out, where is this information stored? How will it be used? Who has access to it? Essentially it is a threat to my privacy.
Ultimately, responsibility for monitoring a child’s internet access lies with their guardians. I do not accept any argument for adult citizens bearing the burden of these measures. Bluntly, parents have responsibility for their children. The idea that wider society should suffer because of nebulous claims about a need to ‘protect’ children is ridiculous. A sane society protects the vulnerable among us, but it doesn’t do that by threatening freedom and privacy.
In then end I think these measures will turn out to be quixotic. The government cannot magically create a technological solution to what is a social problem. The answer I think, lies in education. Both children and parents need to be aware of the potential dangers of using the internet. With the right information parents can be left to decide what is right for their children and adults can decide what is right for themselves.
The government does not need, nor have the right to be be involved in those choices.
Yours Sincerely,
Luke Matthew Sutton
Job Advertising is Broken
Recruiting companies should really put the names of the company they are assisting with hiring. Because of the unfortunate habit they have of writing a shopping list — with every possible qualification they wish they could get in a hire — and other wise vague job descriptions, it can get hard to tell the job ads apart. This is exacerbated by having the same job posted on multiple job sites.
At least by knowing the companies, applicants can tell the jobs apart. More over, it gives them a chance to evaluate the company — word of mouth, or a bit of googling goes a long way — and decide if they really want to apply.
Personally I’m dubious about applying for a job when I don’t even know who wants to hire me.
Funnily Enough… You Don’t End Up Where You Begin
Once my dearest wish was to become a graphic designer. It’s never really worked out for me. I don’t have any education in graphic design. I don’t know too many people in the field and I’ve never been able to find and undertake work I actually find interesting.
I’m capable enough, but most of the work I found myself doing was very boring, very conservative. That is inevitable. My flaw I think, was in romanticising graphic design, thinking that companies actually want something ‘interesting’ and ‘cutting-edge’. I’ve heard many people say this. They never actually mean it.
Perhaps in another time and place, I might have found receptive clients. Perhaps if I was a bit less naive I might have pursued interesting opportunities with more energy. But like I say, it just never really worked out.
So, gradually over time, I’ve devoted more energy to web development and from there to programming. There are strong elements of graphic design in web development certainly, but I find myself more interested in interfaces and how they work rather than just making things look nice. Or it might be more accurate to say I like to make things look and work well.
I don’t write any of this with a sense of regret. I’m perfectly happy with the path I’ve set myself on. It’s just interesting to consider how far away I am now from where I imagined I’d be all those years ago.
From the Roiling Sea…
Snippits of text, links, videos and all sorts of random nonsense. Yes, that’s right. I’ve finally got a Tumblelog. Late to the table, to only find scraps. But that’s OK because the more tumbling the better.
New Site, New Site I Even Love Saying the Word Site
So, I got a bit bored and stuff. For no particular reason, I thought I might have a go at redoing the design for this blog. I like what I’ve ended up with. It’s well serious.
It was an experiment with trying to get the markup as minimal as possible. I’ve only used three divs, the rest is all nice semantic stuff. The next step is to actually get it to validate as XHTML 1.1. This might be a bit tricky since every link needs to have a title attribute — eeek! — and the source needs to start with the XML prolog. The last is a tricky one. Many many browsers and servers just blow up when trying to serve an XML doc using the text/html mime-type — which is derived from the extension.
Validation seems positively quiotic sometimes. I shouldn’t say it less the standards-types beat me up, but I really don’t see the point of many of the requirements in the spec. So rather than fussing about it, I figure I’ll just work to keep things neat, tidy and consistent.
That will have to do.
Well, About Time
So, I finally got off my bum and did it; I’ve now got a portfolio site online. It doesn’t yet have everything in it, and it’s guaranteed to break in Internets Exploder — not that I care about that too much.
If you feel like it, go and have a look.
So Grumpy
I’ve noticed that lately I only seem to blogging when I’m grumpy. Oooops! Oh well at least I’m not out driving angry.
So ignore this blog right now, have listen to some music instead.
LG Chocolate - A Mobile Phone Review
I bought one of these phones on impulse recently. Here is my very short review.
Lovely bit of industrial design. It’s extremely attractive, the touch sensitive buttons below the screen work better than you’d expect and the slide action is really cool. It slips open with a firm movement and the touch controls light up. Ooooooh.
The keypad is also surprisingly good. Surprising because most mobile keypads seem to be an exercise in sadism.
The operating system is TOTAL SHIT. Four years ago it would have been still crap, but passable. Nope, I hate it. I hate it like most phone OSs. Horrible aliased type, a menu system that makes you poke through a deep deep hierarchy and just loads of strange choices.
Screen? Mmmmmm, screen. Also shit. You can barely see it in sunlight. Ooops.
Bluetooth? It’s there, but useless. No profiles for iSync on my Mac. Not LG’s fault, but annoying. Looking at the specs, it doesn’t let you do nice stuff like send SMSs or even initiate a call from a computer. Pfffft. To really put the nail in the coffin, it won’t let you turn off the Bluetooth when you’ve got a device paired to it. You have to unpair, then turn it off. BLAAHHHHH. JUST TURN OFF YOU DAMN MOTHERBITCH.
So in a nutshell, a brilliant bit of industrial design marred by a crappy screen and an Operating System scraped off someone’s boot. Do not buy this phone.
I’m pining! What am I pining for? Guess! I had one in my hands last last weekend.
The Grim Tale of a Hideous, Ancient and Terrifying IT Contract! Aiieeeee!
I’ve had an interesting experience lately. It’s led me to reflect on a few things and if anything has made my views on a few issues a little bit firmer.
Firstly, let me preface this by saying I am bloody-minded at times and I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Principles are pointless if you’re willing to easily set them aside. You might be convinced that they’re wrong, but that’s a very different thing to letting yourself be compromised.
Gosh, that sounds very dramatic doesn’t it? Well the truth is it’s all a bit mundane. I got offered a job which I was very interested in. I didn’t like the contract the company presented to me. I wouldn’t sign it, they wouldn’t change it. So I didn’t end up taking the job.
The particular conditions I objected to required me to gain written permission to undertake any external work. As if I would give any company that power over my life! What I choose to do in my time is my concern only and I’m not about to ask anyone’s bloody permission.
I’m told this is a common clause in IT contracts, so I should just sign it. Upholding the status quo isn’t much of an argument. The only reason it’s common is because not enough people refuse to sign it. They just suck it up.
It may be that in reality this requirement isn’t particularly onerous. After all a company might be casual enough that it’s rarely enforced. But that’s beside the point. It could be. At any point. For any reason. The clause is sufficiently broad that they could deny the right to take on work for any reason and under the contract you’d just have to turn down the work. Unless you feel like being naive, you shouldn’t assume anything that’s not written down and signed off. It’ll bite you on the bum one day.
Ostensibly this requirement is intended to deal with any potential conflicts of interest; an employer is given the opportunity vet potential external work an employee might wish to undertake and thereby has the opportunity to identify any conflict. This is based on a couple of assumptions.
One is that clauses requiring an employee to report any existing and avoid any future conflicts are insufficient.
The other is that your employees are ignorant of what would constitute a conflict and so couldn’t identify any.
That’s all pretty easy to deal with. Clearly outline what your business considers a conflict of interest and put it in the contract!
But oh and well, it doesn’t seem like this will change. I’ve been led to believe that since this type of agreement is so common I’ll have a hard time finding any other job in IT which doesn’t entail agreeing to it. Which is perfectly fine with me. I’m quite comfortable being an obstinate bastard and also quite comfortable avoiding an ‘IT Career’. I’ll just keep poking along doing things I find interesting. It’s worked out well enough for me so far 
Pffffft, I.T. Revolution in Australia eh?
I’m quite seriously considering leaving programming and web development. Or at least getting out of the field for a little while. Perhaps go over-seas.
The I.T. industry in Australia sucks.
As someone commented to me recently, so much of it is just selling stuff made elsewhere and as far as software engineering goes that usually just means deployment. There is very little original thought or innovation here. Perhaps in pockets, but by and large it’s all crap.
Being an employee in the industry is arse. Your passion for technology and good craft will get exploited, but too few employers feed that passion. You will be expected to understand complex systems, be able to work autonomously — yet put up with management interference at arbitrary points, at the drop of a hat learn skills outside your original job description and do all this to stupid artificial deadlines.
You will not get paid properly to do this.
Yes, I’m feeling a wee bit bitter. Yes, it’ll probably pass. I’m not usually given to having a public whinge about things like this, but I’m feeling particularly grumpy at the moment.
I guess after a fairly good, long run in the industry I’ve just about hit ‘completely dis-illusioned’.
Bugger :/
EDIT: Alright, I’ve kinda gotten over it. But my criticisms are still valid I believe.