Posts in "News"
Clemency in Vietnam
Spreading this around, because it seems we only hear about it when things don't work out. ABC News reports that two Australians facing the death penalty in Vietnam have been granted clemency, and had their sentence reduced to life in prison. The Vietnamese President cited the "good relationship between Vietnam and Australia" as part of his reasoning. So, good on the Australian government for sticking at it and good on the Vietnamese government for taking the humane road.
If only all such stories could have a better ending...
Bizarre. According to the age, the border between Victoria and New South Wales was officially declared on 16th Feb 2006. That's right, yesterday.
It seems there was an age-old disagreement about precisely where the border should go. However, probably due to the fact that it's been clearly marked on every map of Australia that anyone has ever seen, we just plum forgot about it for the last 130 years.
Whoopsy-daisy.
Masculinity a health hazard
An eye-catching headline from The Age today: Masculinity a health hazard. Not that it's anything terribly new when you think about it: men die an average of 7 years earlier than women, young men have 4 times the accidental death rate of young women, and so on. The causes are also predictable: masculinity encourages us work too hard for too long, take too many risks, shun personal relationships and avoid the doctor at all costs.
The call to action should then sound reasonable enough, right? "What we need to confront is the outdated belief that men are impregnable, that risking life and limb is OK, that medical check-ups, diets and keep-fit regimes are to be avoided as unnecessary, that a man's job is never more than bringing home the bacon, and that their families do not need them as much as mothers. Instead, men should be as sure as women that they must live, and live healthy lives, for all their sakes."
Hear hear. Hopefully I've managed to do this in my own life (well, except the part about medical check-ups...but I'm working on it). Meaning I should live longer, right? I can alread hear people chuckling at that suggestion :-)
Unfortunately, masculinity also encourages us to ignore other people's advice, especially when it challenges our masculinity.
Good Tech in The Age
One of the long-time items in my RSS list is the technology news feed from The Age (http://feeds.theage.com.au/rssheadlines/technology.rss). I like to keep abreast of what 'normal people' might be learning about technology. Usually I cant bear to skim more than the first few lines of the articles, but lately they've been running some interesting (and, depending on your software politics, very promising!) articles.
Yesterday, there was a surprisingly long article about Apple's Tiger trouncing Microsoft's Longhorn by actually bringing promised technology to the market. Today, they're re-printing an opinion piece by Richard Stallman about the Linux/BitKeeper fiasco.
Does this indicate a shift in what are consided "mainstream" technology issues. Or have I just never noticed issues like these leaking out of sites such as Slashdot? Anyway, I for one am glad to see them turn up somewhere non-geek-affiliated and can only hope it's part of a growing trend.
Electronic Frontiers Australia have released their Annual Board Report for 2004. It provides a pretty decent summary of the important issues and events for online privacy and intellectual property in Australia this year.
As you might know, I'm a yearly member of the EFA. If these issues are important to you, please consider joining up to make sure all the arguments are heard.