Securecon, Hamas, Those Cartoons, Memage
Feb. 11th, 2006 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipJust after getting back to Melbourne I find myself at another IT Conference; giving a paper at Securecon which went down quite nicely. Several people have requested copies of my slides and notes, so I'll get those sorted over the next few days. Also managed to catch up with an Sean, an old gamer friend whom I hadn't seen for several years. More dice-rolling to happen soon. As a whole the Conference was quite good; laid back and with a good combination of theory and practise papers with more than a few "live" examples. Highlight (or horror) of the Conference was one of the presenters who took a few minutes off for a urination and left his voice-mike switched on. Said presenter is also notorious for the 2006 Men of SAGE-AU calendar.
Two major events in world politics deserve commentary as I mentioned in passing in my last post. First is the election of Hamas. The concerns of the mainstream media of such an organisation being elected of course has side-tracked any discussion of the peace process and the attempt to turn the nascent Palestinian state into an enclave, like the Bantu homelands of apartheid. It really appropriate that they were allied.
The problem, as it has been for the last sixty years, is a corruption of Zionism. This once representated a movement for the establishment of a Jewish homeland within Palestine (and still does to a small number). However this genuine and worthwhile desire was tranformed into the establishment of a religious colonial state, which resulted in the forcible exclusion and deaths of people who were already living in that land. The election of Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation (i.e., it systematically targets non-combatants for a political end), is simply part of this tragedy (remoreless and inevitable). The situation will continue until there is one nation, which gives equal rights to all religions (including the right of return for refugees and their families).
The other great event has been the flash in the pan about those cartoons. The politics is quite simple; the publishers are boorish and offensive, and worse still, they are hypocrites (Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons). But at the end of the day, being a boorish, offensive hypocrite is not something that should be censored. Some Muslim moderates have appealed for a sane response - whilst making the very important point that the event has served as a convinient distraction from many despotic regimes from their own injustices.
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tiberius_n tagged me, on the very day I was thinking that not many people tag me for memes...
List 5 random/strange/weird things about you.
Most of the strange things about me or that have happened to me are readily available from my userinfo page. Nevertheless an attempt to pick some which aren't so obvious.
1) I consider myself an anarchist, a socialist and a capitalist. I do not consider this to be a contradiction.
2) I feel I've run out of things to learn about social and political theory; which concerns me greatly (I don't like the idea that I may have all the answers). I do not feel the same way about computer science.
3) I tend to overwork myself in an attempt to produce exceptional results. The fact is I can produce quite competent results with a minimum of effort. Worse still, I've known this since my undergraduate years.
4) I have no mp3s, oggs or similar on my hard disk.
5) Each year I plan in considerable detail what I intend to do in terms of projects, study etc. I rarely complete everything I set out to but I still consider the planning process useful.
And this meme is handballed toamphigori, bobquasit, cptjohnc, splodgenoodles, zey
Two major events in world politics deserve commentary as I mentioned in passing in my last post. First is the election of Hamas. The concerns of the mainstream media of such an organisation being elected of course has side-tracked any discussion of the peace process and the attempt to turn the nascent Palestinian state into an enclave, like the Bantu homelands of apartheid. It really appropriate that they were allied.
The problem, as it has been for the last sixty years, is a corruption of Zionism. This once representated a movement for the establishment of a Jewish homeland within Palestine (and still does to a small number). However this genuine and worthwhile desire was tranformed into the establishment of a religious colonial state, which resulted in the forcible exclusion and deaths of people who were already living in that land. The election of Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation (i.e., it systematically targets non-combatants for a political end), is simply part of this tragedy (remoreless and inevitable). The situation will continue until there is one nation, which gives equal rights to all religions (including the right of return for refugees and their families).
The other great event has been the flash in the pan about those cartoons. The politics is quite simple; the publishers are boorish and offensive, and worse still, they are hypocrites (Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons). But at the end of the day, being a boorish, offensive hypocrite is not something that should be censored. Some Muslim moderates have appealed for a sane response - whilst making the very important point that the event has served as a convinient distraction from many despotic regimes from their own injustices.
tiberius_n tagged me, on the very day I was thinking that not many people tag me for memes...List 5 random/strange/weird things about you.
Most of the strange things about me or that have happened to me are readily available from my userinfo page. Nevertheless an attempt to pick some which aren't so obvious.
1) I consider myself an anarchist, a socialist and a capitalist. I do not consider this to be a contradiction.
2) I feel I've run out of things to learn about social and political theory; which concerns me greatly (I don't like the idea that I may have all the answers). I do not feel the same way about computer science.
3) I tend to overwork myself in an attempt to produce exceptional results. The fact is I can produce quite competent results with a minimum of effort. Worse still, I've known this since my undergraduate years.
4) I have no mp3s, oggs or similar on my hard disk.
5) Each year I plan in considerable detail what I intend to do in terms of projects, study etc. I rarely complete everything I set out to but I still consider the planning process useful.
And this meme is handballed to
amphigori, bobquasit, cptjohnc, splodgenoodles, zey