Monday, December 8, 2008

A Child-p0rn Problem

The Australia Federal Government has in it's wisdom decided to implement an internet filtering system to "protect our children" and stop the transfer of child p0rn. Being both a parent and a teacher I think that measurers to combat the sexual exploitation of children and teenagers is a good thing. However I feel that the way that the government is implementing it is crazy. Child p0rn on the internet is not a problem in schools, child p0rn on mobiles is.

Imagine this situation (it is unfortunately based on real facts)
1. Young girl (13-14) is going out with an older boy (16-17).
2. The girl wants her boyfriend to declare his undying love for her, as she has done for him.
3. The boy suggests that he will do so if she poses in explicit pictures for him.
4. The girl reluctantly agrees and takes some explicit photos with her camera phone (which mommy and daddy brought to help keep her safe).
5. The girl transfers the images to her boyfriend via mms or bluetooth.
6. The relationship goes sour.
7. The boy who has explicit photos of his ex girlfriend bluetooths the images to his mates at school, who send it to their mates.
8. Soon the girl learns of this situation, leading to a nervous breakdown and to more work for the schools overworked councillors.

Now Senator Conroy please explain how your internet filter will help this problem. To my understanding all it will do is slow our access to useful teaching resources about cyber bullies, relationship safety, self worth and other important educational concepts.

Lord Folland

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Distributed Computing

There are many problems in the world that universities and non profit organisations are tying to solve. Solutions to some of these problems can be worked towards by the use of massive server farms to calculate complex relationships such as the folding of proteins. Most universities do not have access to this sort of system, so a system has been set up to do these calculations with the unused computers in homes and offices. This is known as distributed computing. I have joined my home computer to the World Community Grid as part of team Userfriendly (See my previous post for more info on Userfriendly). If you want to join up you can follow the link on my blog page. David

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Feeds for Fun

There are three main Fun Feeds that I read/view.

1. Unshelved a comic strip about a public library. Some of the jokes are best enjoyed by librarians, others can be enjoyed by anyone who has ever worked with the public.

2. 365 Tomorrows a sci fi schort story for every day of the year, most are onlt a few hundred words, so only take about a minute to read.

3. Userfriendly an online comic about technology, from Canada. Set in an ISP stars Dust Puppy, a sentient ball of dust.

What do you like to read for fun, post your suggestions here.