My poor neglected livejournal!

[tcpip]

Been over a week since I posted an entry...

I have almost, almost, almost finished section 3-4 (Data Security) for my thesis. It should be on the web in draft form by this time tomorrow. I'm pretty happy with it as a summary of the history of Internet fraud, anonymity and encryption, intellectual property and computer hacking. I'm also thinking of combining the following two subchapters ('The Public Sphere' and 'Technical Standards') into one - this chapter is already close to 50,000 words and I don't think it needs to be much longer!

Aside from writing myself into the ground, I've tinkered a bit with the Australia Pacific Journalism Centre website (no, that work is not mine), something that I should also have finished by tomorrow as well. Regrettably my amusing attempt to have a new employer per week hasn't come to fruition as January 21st came and went without offers :/

Next Sunday I'm speaking at the Melbourne Unitarian Church on (quelle suprise) "A Man of Great Spirit: The Life and Philosophy of Dr. Jim Cairns", so if anyone's in town it starts at 11am. Speaking of that half-way house to infidelity, I spent my birthday (Jan 20) on a road trip with said people to Daylesford, spending some time among natural springs and parklands, a very fine second-hand books, records and video store and dropping into a art gallery built out of a former convent. Hahaha. We love our irony. Had a great theological conversation with one of the members aptly helped by a three volume Systematic Theology written by a lecturer in such material from Princeton University in the 1880s.

I've also started rereading Roger Peyrefitte's 'The Keys of St.Peter', a little something I picked up which I though severina_242 would be interested in being a fellow apostate and all. However, she's currently engrossed in the land of hobbits and elves, so such realistic reading may be an uncomfortable diversion. Personally, I think Peyrefitte is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, and certainly one of the best French authors. To be sure, I think Alain Robbe-Grillet is a clear winner on matters of style (the new french novel), but Peyrefitte wins on his scandalous realism and impeccable research.

Spent most of Invasion Day at the Melbourne Museum in Calton gardens which, in the decade I'd lived in Melbourne, had never been through even though I'd walk through the Carlton gardens on almost a daily basis. A pleasant experience, quite enjoyed the exhibits, especially the mind/body section.

Oh, and for Jan 26.. Happy birthday Slammer Worm!. Speaking of which, heads up for a new little virus,

In the "Democracy, but only if it gets the results that we want" department, some expected news. The AFA acts on the
gay marriage poll.

The world's most dangerous
geek has new plans. Heh.

I recently had a debate with angel80 on the proposed banning of religous symbols in state institutions by the French government. Whilst that was over the hajib it seems that Sikh's are now also are target:
Paris Sikhs alarmed at proposed turban ban.

How to keep an eye on the Queensland election. My good friend Billy Bowe, always with a very sharp sense of political nous, has created this beauty. Speaking of which, bloody Mark Latham has a livejournal.

Finally, just to keep us all happy and to sleep well at night, can anyone please find fault in the following article which suggests we'll have to pack up from the planet by 2050?

Comments

[claudine-c.livejournal.com]

Speaking of which, bloody Mark Latham has a livejournal.


Marginally more funny than john_howard's journal. Why isn't he in fakejournals though?

[rustythoughts.livejournal.com]

Fellow apostate: I refer to myself as apostate, (with occasional gratuitous references to the Byzantine emperor, Julian the Apostate), it upsets some of my Christian workmates, seems to slip away through inattention is more bearable to them than the idea of a conscious considered rejection of once professed faith. The Keys Of St. Peter goes onto the reading list.

As to the article, those kinds of numbers have been pushed for a while, new data consistantly seems to reinforce.

I've come across a few countrary arguments, mostly coming down to it's a problem but it's not my problem, including:

• New technology and untapped resources will compensate, (faith in technology and the cult of the white coat).
  
• When the problem becomes more confronting change will happen, (as if it's okay to allow abrupt disruptive change because of a reluctance to apply a little foresight).
  
• That will be their problem then, I wouldn't suffer for a stranger now so why should suffer for strangers in the future?
  
• Sure some resources degrade, but they often become useful in different ways, lost forests becoming agricultural land, and that leaves open the opportunity for sustainable aggriculture. There may be no wild land, but managed land may still be rich and fertile.
  
• Demonstrate that biological diversity is important and make all wilderness a human managed resource, stopping treating wilderness as valueless resource and liquidation will stop being an economically sensible option.
  
• Coping with one resource collapse may drive practices that simply prevent collapse in other resourcs. If the use of one resource drives the use of another, then the collapse of one may serve to prevent the collapse the others.
  
• Resource collapse problems are not likely to hit in a coordinated single event. Societies are likely to have opportunity to apply the lessons of coping with changes in resource usage learned from one resource to the next, perhaps learning from earlier experiences ways to minimise the impact of further change.
  

Interestingly, the article is more bold than some older ones I've read in that it highlights that living resources don't just streadily run out, they collapse abruptly, they require a critical complexity and volume to maintain their integrity. Add exponential curves to the costs of extracting non-living finite resources.

It ain't easy being green.

oops...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

A missing line...

Speaking of which, heads up for a new little virus,

http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.novarg.a@mm.html

Has popped up. Thanks to greylock for pointing it out. Thanks to William Bowe for sending it to me ;-)

Agree

[erudito.livejournal.com]

You are on the side of the angels in your argument with angel80.

But you knew I'd say that :)

As I say, I live in Footscray. The French are mad. The Sikh example just shows how mad.

More to the point, I have taught in an Islamic school. The French are really mad. Young Muslim women raised in the West are scary, but not in a submissive way ...

And let's maximise Muslim alienation from their host country, shall we ...

(If the next jihadi attack on the West is now directed against those evil infidel hajib banners, there will be a certain tragic irony.)

Complete non sequitur: Have you been following the argument over armed sky marshals? The Euros seem to having cultural qualms over guns (now, let's get this straight, Europeans are squeamish about guns ... ? I can think of lots of people who might manage hollow laughs over that). The Americans have cultural qualms about people flying planes into their buildings. I guess the ultimate answer will be 'landing rights'.

A comforting thought

[erudito.livejournal.com]

Resource prices. Follow resources prices. Are they continuing to trend down? Then we're not running out of those resources.

I have sympathy for ecological pressure arguments because the ecology ain't getting any bigger and the pressure on it is clearly increasing [on the other hand, extra CO2 emissions do encourage plant growth :)]. Though, short of movement of population or industry, not sure how other planets can help there.

I have no sympathy for the 'running out of resources' arguments, because clearly we're not, nor is there any evidence that stacks up that we are. Technologically stagnant non-trading economies can (and have) run out of resources (Easter Island is the usually cited example, possibly also the classical Maya civilisation). We're not and we don't.

A little thought experiement. Consider the energy use pattern of 1900. Consider the energy use pattern of 1950. Consider the energy use pattern of 2000. Would anyone in 1900 had any chance of predicting the 1950 pattern, let alone the 2000 pattern?

Consider the materials use pattern of 1900. Of 1950. Of 2000. Would anyone in 1900 have been able to predict that of 1950 or of 2000?

The running-out-of-resources argument requires predicting the future of technology (amongst other things).

A little tale. One of the reasons why BHP has had a bumpy time of it is that it decided to become the world's largest private sector copper producer. Because, after all, this is the electronic age and we need copper wiring for all that electronic stuff.

Does terrible things to your share price when you have all this copper and suddenly you're competing with sand. Optical fibres anyone?

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

I've also started rereading Roger Peyrefitte's 'The Keys of St.Peter'

Is that the one you said I should read???

[angel80.livejournal.com]

Mark Latham: quite witty, but I would tire of reading the word knucklehead. P. Keating had a wider vocabulary!

On the Sikhs, what a load of nonsense. If the turban is not religious, then they can wear a pony tail or a bun! Or go to a Sikh school. How about protecting my rights to be free of claptrap!

I wish you guys would learn how to spell hijab, which, by the way is pre-Islamic and related to the tradition in many uncivilised societies that makes women the property of men. According to an Islamic scholar I heard on the Beeb the other night, the Koran makes two just mentions of clothing for women - one gives them the option of wearing hijab as a sign of Muslim identity and in the other it only says women should cover their breasts for modesty. According to said scholar, hijab has been taken up as a fairly recent thing by young women who want to challenge anti-Muslim prejudice in the West. However, she also went on to say that a lot of young women are still forced to wear it by family and community pressure.

Since compulsion remains a strong element, even in the so-called 'free' societies, I still favour the school ban. After all, they are only asking girls to take it off within the school gates.

Otherwise, the Koran is full of anti-women shit (such as encouraging men to beat wives who fail to obey them and twaddle about men being served by houris in heaven). If young women want to be identified as Muslims, they are identifying themselves with all that crap as well. You cannot take the hijab out of context, as if it is some sort of choice like a bikini versus a one-piece swimsuit.

Women in the west have had to fight for decades for their right of self-expression. Just give us the right to be free of the symbols of men's guardianship over us when we're in school at least!

Journal Alone-Time

[ex-nulloneha471.livejournal.com]

Neglectful journals. No. It seems perverse, when one is truly busy, to set aside the tasks at hand so as to spend time talking about the tasks at hand. So. It happens.

Incidentally, I apologize for being so unfaithful in leaving notes.

Incidentally, I was very much flattered and honored at your late note. I don't know what else to say.

So. Ah. That sounds like quite an interesting thesis, indeed. What degree are you writing it for again?

Oh. And. As per the article, I don't trust much that the World Wildlife Federation says, for the reason that they have somewhat of a repute for poor experimental designs. Also. I fail to see how decreases in elephant and songbird populations represent a reduced capacity in the Earth for sustaining humans. That is not to say that these are not bad things or do not represent irresponsible behaviors by humans. Just that. Well. Ecology is a very inexact science. And many people say things with great authority but little support.

And nowhere in the article did I see a description of the methodology used to arrive at these bold conclusions.

Not that I am one of those slash-and-burn conservative types who brush off every warning about the environment with "well, who really knows." Just. You asked me to find fault.

Okay. That's all.