Tertiary Education Policy, Internet and LUV, Aussie Activities

[tcpip]

This week's topic in Tertiary and Adult Education was Stratification, hoping that the reference to the new Minister and the "quality vs quantity" issue will generate some debate. Given that this is the third time of the ten that I've taken this up as the allocated person has either dropped out or otherwise gone AWOL (most recently last week's topic on Diversification). The active contributors to the class seems to have shrunk significantly over the semester; now probably down to a quarter or less of what it was at the start. One major assignment (on the provision of free and open source educational content) and an exam to go, and that will be degree number four completed, although I have put in the initial application to have that upgraded to a M.Ed. at the University of Otago.

Our home has been without a consistent DSL Internet connection for the past couple of days; spending quite a few hours on the 'phone with the service provider didn't result in anything beneficial. In a nutshell, the line is crap. Some particularly stormy weather may be to blame (which acts as yet another argument in favour of a FTTP NBN). On better Internet-related matters, absolutely superb meeting of Linux Users of Victoria last night, with Simon Elisha from Amazon talking on "AWS - Overview and Useful things for Linux Users" and Jan Whitaker on "Privacy in the age of Pervasive Surveillance".

Last Saturday attended a great Australian tradition of a grand final BBQ. As a nominal Fremantle supporter (I retain some of my West Australian roots), it was our first crack at the premiership and although it was not successful, it certainly surprised many that they had managed to get that far. Whilst I am not exactly a close follower of the game, I can appreciate it for what it is in comparison to other similar team sports - fast-moving, athletic, requiring both natural talent and skill. On the negative side, I dislike fanatical and thuggish supporters, and the opportunity costs involved.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

In regards to Internet, in Glenhuntly we had terrible internet speed. Usually when it rained it got worse (think dial-up speeds). Telstra & iinet blamed each other, but the problem lies with Telstra; the copper was damaged and getting wet. Telstra would come out if pressed and clear up the water but wouldn't fix the copper, so the problem would re-surface every few weeks. Basically I never got anywhere in terms of a permanent solution (in my experience Telstra always do the bare minimum).

I'm glad we moved to Dandenong :)

But yeah, FFTP would eliminate a lot of these problems and finally force Telstra to get rid of the aging/damaged copper. Too bad it will never happen thanks to Abbott :(

Damien

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

At the moment we can't get a connection at all. We're reduced to using 3G tethered to our 'phone!

Copper was a great early 19th century technology for telecommunications :)

[(Anonymous)]

Man, that is terrible. Hope they can fix it. The other option is satellite or cable, but from my experience they are pretty pricey.

Damien

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, they've apparently fixed a fault on their side of the DMZ (as I will call it), but there's still plenty of static from our side, which means an expense, hooray.

On better news however, I believe another session of CheeseQuest is due.