(mis)adventures in software development...
Politics, sexting, hypocrisy and a Fibre to the Node NBN.
The futility of using logic and reason to convince illogical and unreasonable politicians that a Fibre to the Premises broadband network is the best option.
As politicians around the world find entertaining ways to use technology to destroy their own careers, is there something those of us in the technology industry, unhappy with many of the decisions politicians are making on our behalf, could perhaps learn from all this?
It’s bad enough we’re being screwed, but it’s worse that those screwing us are such incompetent deviants.
Guns, geeks and secret trade treaties: Why gun owners are so much better at standing up to politicians trying to take away their freedoms than geeks.
The lack of serious gun control in the US is a testament to how effective the NRA and gun lobbyists are at stopping the government from encroaching on their gun rights. By contrast, things like a fundamentally broken patent system and legislation like the DMCA are a testament to how useless geeks are at stopping the government from encroaching on their digital rights.
Geeks vs economists: Why us geeks will lose.
Occasionally, I like to ponder the tough (and possibly nonsensical) questions in life, like why do politicians pay no attention when knowledgeable people within technology industries make logical and well thought arguments on issues that directly affect their industries, yet thoroughly discredited economists, who have been proven wrong many times before, still wield so much power that they can influence politicians to implement illogical policies that would have once been considered completely crazy?
With the Liberal Party winning the election as expected, they now get to make good on their election promise/threat to take everything that was good and holy in Labor’s FTTP National Broadband Network and replace it with a hellishly cheap and nasty FTTN abomination. Because here in Australia, we can’t have nice things, apparently. Like decent broadband. Or a technology industry. Or science. Or women cabinet ministers. At least not …
So that was weird.
Yesterday, without fanfare, the Coalition released it’s “Policy to Enhance Online Safety for Children”. Because the the Liberal Party really, really cares about children. I’m sure it keeps them up at night. So much so they’re willing dedicate $10 million to keeping children safe online. Because if the government won’t keep children safe online then who will? Their parents? Or course not! Parenting is far too important a task to be left …