Cheap Therapy

That would be Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network, who as the Australian Federaction Against Copyright Theft have filed suit against iiNet, at the same time as distributing “Nothing beats the real thing” DVDs to high schools (I guess they’re suggesting reading books instead of watching tv :). Amusingly these “educational” packs include the claim:

The resource is not a propaganda exercise. It does make clear to students that there are harmful consequences from film piracy, but it does so through educationally valid processes. It is an educational approach that allows students to face a significant civics and citizenship issue: their role in a society where many of them and their peers are breaking the law.

Check out Tama’s blog or the Electronic Frontiers Australia response to the suit (and make sure you join the EFA, you may need their help someday. Maybe sooner than you think!)

Reposted from Slashdot:

If you are an Australian, please take action:

1) Call Senator Conroy’s office on 03 9650 1188. Do not be rude, do not swear, just in a very reasoned and rational voice, express your disapproval, and in a few short sentences, say why you disagree. It matters a lot.

2) Write a letter to Senator Conroy, make sure it’s between half a page to one page (no more than 400 words). Again, in a polite tone (that doesn’t have to be formal, and doesn’t have to have letterhead, etc., just your name and address) let him know why you disagree with him. His address is:
Senator Stephen Conroy
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne Vic 3002

3) Write a letter to your local MP. It doesn’t matter what party he/she is from, Liberals will use your letter to back up their claims in Question Time, which gives publicity to the whole issue and will bring it to mainstream media’s attention. Labor members will also express their criticism, privately, to him. This specially matters if your local MP is a Minister and serves in the Cabinet. To find out who your local MP is click here

4) Write a letter to Prime Minister Rudd. Let him know that when the Australian people voted him in office last year, they didn’t know “Education Revolution” means censorship. Rudd’s address is:
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

5) Donate or become a member of Electronic Frontiers Australia . Right now the EFA is the sole organisation fighting this. They need all the help they can get.

6) Write a letter to your ISP. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Evil Telstra; on this, we’re all together. They are fighting the battle for us right now, but it would help them to know that what they are doing is a good business practice, that you expect them to fight this to the end.

Don’t just sit around and do nothing and then complain about how evil governments are. We, the citizens are the ones who allow governments to become evil, by our political apathy. Move! Take Action! Now!

Perth permaculture architect Gary Dorn gave a bit of a SketchUp demo last night at WAMUG. I thought I’d give him a plug as I know there are people out there reading this who are interested in permaculture, straw bale houses, sustainability etc. If you’re interested in trying building with straw bales he also apparently runs workshops.

His site is http://www.dornworks.com/

I’m thinking of swapping to TPG as my ISP. Just wondering if anyone has any experience with them? It seems that the same ADSL 10/15G over 1500/256 with static IP as I get with Westnet (AU$71.19) I can get for $20/month cheaper from TPG (AU$49.95) (Even though I have a 5% Westnet discount!) which seems pretty compelling to me.

I’m looking at the NASA image archive picture of the day, and I realise that now I think of George Takei as Hiro’s Dad, Nichelle Nicholls as Mika’s grandmother, and Walter Koenig as Babylon 5’s Bester of the Psi Corps.

And my, how Leonard Nimoy looks like Sylar.

George W. Bush has signed the Pro-IP act into law, providing for harsher penalties for people who copy movies and music. How soon before Australia follows down that path? It’s hard to know, given that our government won’t publicly provide the text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

If you’ve read Neal Stephenson’s “Snowcrash” you may remember YT’s airbag collar which stops her from breaking her head/neck when she comes off her skateboard. Well, it seems a Japanese company has come up with an airbag vest which inflates as the wearer falls over, aimed at the elderly market. At around $1000 it’s cheaper than a stay in hospital…

Meanwhile the US moves closer to FedWorld…

Over the last week I’ve ploughed through Michael Pollan’s book about the rise of Nutritionism, and why, despite so much dietary research, people eating the “Western diet” are less healthy than ever.

The book is “In Defense of Food”, where ‘food’ is actual stuff that is grown, rather than produced in a factory.

Perhaps the major revelations for me were

• how lobbying allowed manufacturers to avoid having to put the word ‘imitation’ on their product labels. And how lobbying lead to Nutritionism. Because it’s not something produced by cattle ranchers (who vote) that’s bad, it’s saturated fat, or other non-industry-specific components
• that optimising a food for a long shelf life means removing nutrients from it, which means that people need to eat more of it to get the same nutritional effect
• roller milling of flour (as opposed to grinding between a traditional mill’s grindstones) results in the nice white flour that doesn’t go rancid. Of course the problem with this is that it also removes the nutrients! Thus there was a sudden outbreak of dietary deficiency related illnesses and they had to fortify the flour. But have have food scientists missed out anything that has long term effects. Who knows?
• you are what what you eat eats - intensive agricultural methods using synthetic fertilizers are reducing the micronutrients in the soil, and thus in the food

Pollan’s a journalist, and his style is very approachable. Definitely worth a read if you are the sort of person who eats!

I so want one of these combined bottle opener and usb drives. Via the most interesting brewing site Fermentarium.

Qantas have some A380 desktop pictures and Mac and Windows screen savers up on their site. I suspect the hand of Photoshop though, I don’t think one’s flown over Perth, all the shots are from the same angle and I’m still pretty sure it can’t land on the current runway.