What then irritates me even more is when Media Watch and Fairfax take what is obviously a political agenda and run with it.  Like vexatious litigants taking up our time, this complaint falls into this category.

I fail to see how a person that doesn’t interview politicians, has nothing to do with them or their reporting cannot express a political view.  Perhaps the language was not the best, but the sentiment was well agreed with by those with similar political views.

Yet for some reason the label of “Journalist” means that the person is no longer entitled to a political view no matter where within an organisation or even external to that organisation.

More so, if anyone who is any Journalist now makes any comment even when obviously not on the job (at 11pm) expresses any political view on Twitter a precedent has been established to rake them over the coals.

Gloating about telling tales is plain childish, certainly doesn’t further any arguments about the reasoning behind what was nothing more than a blatant biased political attack.  If Julia Gillard had been called bad names, would he have complained.  I doubt it. ( e.g saying  Paul Howl is talking shit )

Why also did Media Watch deem this newsworthy is also questionable.  700 followers and an account which clearly stated Freelance Tech Journalist making political statements is not that big a story is it?

The fallout from Media Watch will be for at least a while people will keep a little quieter.  Managers will look at the noise that was generated and tighten the noose a little more. And a few people will just go underground, well at least until they are found out again.

A vexatious complainant with an obvious political agenda gets to wield influence that could have cost someone a sizeable chunk of their income ( I presume). Yes the language was a bit harsh, and yes on reflection he shouldn’t have said what he did, but remove one or two harsh words and you are left with the tone.  The tone is now what is endangered not only from Journalists, but all those that work in any corporation that is worried about its public image.

The lines between public and private are blurring, but that does not mean that only your employer is how you are defined, nor should it.

Firstly, this is from last year in fact from the first weekend I had my Tokina 11-16mm lens. So being the first weekend with a new lens it was going to be the lens that would be on the camera.  Now the lens isn’t on the camera by default but is always in my bag.  Because it is great for getting these low angle shots especially in dull conditions.

One thing about this shot, is that it was on manual settings. And only luck meant I got the shot.  I do try and always put the camera back on Auto:No Flash after taking photos, so that I can just grab a shot.  Luckily for me, the previous settings for shots taken 10 min before hand worked. When ever I carry my camera I try to have in my hand so I can get the improve shot.  This is one of those.  I had turned to see the kids coming passed me on their bikes and fired off about 10 shots as they went passed.  The camera was at waist height and they would have been totally unaware of me taking the photos.  This helps when taking shots to get a natural look and feel especially from your subjects.  When using a wide angle lens try shooting from the hip as it were.

So this shot has a bit of a dutch angle, which works and autofocus grabbed part of the bike which was also very lucky.

The other big advantage of this shot is that all the subjects in the shot are completely anonymous which then gets rid of a lot of hassles about getting rights for publication or even entering the shot into a competition.

So here is the EXIF and I hope you like the shot.  Remember you can shoot from the hip and still get a great shot.

And you can buy this image on Redbubble here

Why am I rating this, well, due to the various levels of outrage over the live coverage of the hostage drama in Manila on Monday night Australian time. Like 9/11 this was uncensored TV that showed life and death in all its brutal reality. This was no Speed where Keanu would save the day, this was real people caught up in one man’s madness by being nothing more than in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Was it hard to watch, yes, did I watch it, yes I did. Was I watching as some sort of voyeur I would say no, but that may well be for others to judge.  Was it right for it to be shown on TV, that is the trickery moral question.  For me it is like “Bearing Witness”.  Albeit from the safety of my living room.

Certainly no one can argue that it was not news worthy. 25 innocent hostages on a bus with a deranged gun man wanting his job back is news worthy. Whether or not it is in Australia it was always going to be a major story. Cutting to live feed as it came through was most probably what most 24 hour news channels would do, both Sky and Abc News24 did. Sky I believe did switch to at least a 10th second delay giving them a “kill” switch if anything to horrific came through. The ABC did not.

But like 9/11 the drama unfolded live. Yet unlike the footage of the people jumping from the towers all we saw were slumped bodies and the eventually the dead body of the gun man hanging on the bus window.

Perhaps with so much life and death violence on TV we have all become desensitised to this level of violence. I think not however.  Perhaps I have more faith in humanity, but even the outrage that I saw on Twitter last night about the coverage in a strange way gave me hope.

At the end of the day though, it is still YOUR responsibility to change channels or turn off.  That power will always lie with you, not with the broadcaster.  Everyone watching it unfold knew it could be bad, if you kept watching that was your choice.

From ABC News ( 7:30pm)

“The shooting happened in Lygon Street, Carlton, and police received a call about 5:00pm (AEST) that shots had been fired.
One witness said shots were fired at or outside the Players on Lygon bar.
Police have confirmed two people are dead.
The victims are believed to be in their 60s or 70s.
One man, reported to be in his 50s, has been taken into custody.
“Details are very, very sketchy,” a police spokeswoman said.”

Yet despite this… the @DocklandsMelb think it is o.k to capitalise on this for their own gain. Now I have seen a few jokes around already, mostly referring to Underworld XXV or Richard Wilkins and Jeff Goldblum.  These jokes while yes in bad taste are quite removed from the situation and what for at least three families will be a day that they will never forget.

“Come to Docklands for dinner tonight. We promise this wont happen #LygonShooting about 1 hour ago via TweetDeck”

There are jokes and there is just stupidity.  Twitter lets you just blurt shit out.  People do ( even I do ), but if you are reflecting a company…  pause, take a breath and think about everything you say.  Even when the tweet is deleted and the apology is sent, the damage has been done. To say this is in bad taste does it no justice, it is wrong on some many levels and reflects badly on the company.  Remember in the real time world, you can’t afford to be stupid.

( Update: Don’t send a tweet and then not look at your account over the weekend as well….   Monday morning and Docklands sent 1 tweet over the weekend and nothing in the form of an apology for shear tastelessness )

Why, because the NBN is not the car, it is the road. Your connection and how much you pay to drive on the NBN is up to you. That is the end user cost, and that is the car. The Autobahn is the NBN, and you will find people driving trucks, old bombs, Ferrari’s and even some lucky people a Bugatti Veyron down that stretch of road. Why, because that is what their budget ( or expense account ) lets them drive.

Unlike the Autobahn however you can drive as quickly or as slowly as you like. So you can drive at 1.5mbps or 1gbps if you want and you wont piss off any other drivers on the road.

Myself, I want a Ferrari or a Veyron for driving down this road, why because I can think of a lot of user cases for it.

The difference between 100mbps and 1gpbs for example means that I can access blue ray or higher quality video 1 min before I walk out the door onto my portable device to consume as I need. Where ADSL gave us always on, 1gpbs gives us always there content. No planning required, just obtain the content on a as needed basis. This will be as big a shift in how we communicate and consume media as the always on model has been if not bigger.

Lots of people say, but I won’t consume that amount of data. No, chances are you won’t. Chances are most of us won’t (well not for the next 5 years anyway). But if you have more than 2 people in your house they will. As we become increasingly connected, the number of devices in our homes increases. Each of these devices sucks in media, the more people the more media that is being consumed. 1gbps will mean that as the kids can watch the latest BBC doco in 4k brilliance (and YouTube already offer this quality of video), you telecommute with large 3d cad files. Each of these on their own isn’t much, simultaneous connections is where the NBN will excel.

5 years ago there was no YouTube outputting 24 hours a day of content every minute. In 5 years time, there will be something new. Data growth is exponential. That is a fact, anyone who thinks that we don’t need more data needs to look at their own data use over the last 5 years.

Now, the NBN goes to your house. Not to the node. That last mile connection is what gives you the real speed. Wireless isn’t going to give it to you, wireless will just give you a traffic jam in peak hour. ( Worse when it is raining )

However unlike the Autobahn, the NBN is effectively unlimited in lanes.  Upgrading the interchanges will upgrade the speed.  Once the cable is in the ground, your end point and the local node are upgraded to increase speed.  The cable doesn’t need to be changed.

And like any major road that is built the NBN will be available as parts are completed.  Yes it will take 8 years, but that is for the whole project.  Major urban areas will come on stream much quicker.  So the ” it is 8 years away” argument is nonsensical.  More so that the test sites are coming on stream already. The Hume as dual carriage did not need the whole road to be completed before it could be used.

Also the NBN as it currently stands is an Autobahn to 93% of the population. Look at the maps to see just how many small regional towns are going to get access to this technology.  This will remove the digital divide between city and country faster and better than has ever been achieved at any time in the past. The business case will be for the end user to decide their own car, not to shareholders to decide what car you can drive.

I don’t count 12mbps per second as anything future proof in any way shape or form.  There are so many businesses already crying out for faster speeds, spending 6billion on a few new signposts and a few new highways between capital cities isn’t going to make the road any faster. It will however create more of a divide for those not living only where it is profitable for the big end of telco town to spend money.

When the Snowy scheme was built it opened up new areas to farming. The NBN is the 21st century opening of the whole country to this high speed road.  A road you can drive whatever car you like on.

But this one bugs me…  bugs me a lot.  (oh and I have a photo of it, so it is easier to do blog post on it)

The Labor’s 100 Million Dollars a Day.  Why is this a problem, quite simply because the Liberals have said they will pay of the deficit at more or less the same time.  So this means that the Liberals if they get power will have exactly the same level of debt repayments that Labour currently has.  So the issue is that if the Libs get power, they will do exactly what Labor are already doing?  A large number of (possibly overpaid) financial experts all agree that Australia weathered the GFC (or whatever technical term you wish to apply) incredibly well and that no matter who was in power, the government of the day would have entered into some level of debt.

As has been pointed out, the debt levels that Australia has are 2^nd to none in the world.  ( and not just because of the last 10 years, but 20 years of economic reform ), yet the Liberals run a policy of fear.

Even on the 7.30 Report Tony Abbott says “ Hundreds of Millions ” in a shrill voice.  Trying to relate that amount of money to normal people.  Sorry, but this amount of money cannot be treated as we treat money.  The scales are just too different. Drive along a new bit of freeway and try and see why it cost $1.5billion.  Without an understanding of the scales and trying to use your own pay packet as a bench mark will always result in a lack of understanding.

And like all political adverts, this one contains a disclaimer.  What is says, I am sure that only the persons that printed it and hung it would be able to tell you.  5 stories above street level there is no way to read what it says.  This needs to change.  I am only presuming that this is a Liberal advert.  Both Labor and Liberal do this.  And it has to stop.

So the numbers are bullshit, the argument is flawed and the subjective nature is exploitative.  Why, because it works.  The politics of fear has always been the way of politics.  Even the Greens use these tactics.  As they say, doesn’t matter who you vote for… a politician gets in.  With ads like this and people believing them, this will never change.

Of course I try very hard to avoid anything he says on the grounds that I might need to have my gall bladder removed, I am still well aware of him and his views.

The @andrewbolt account was started on February 11, 2009 or 538 days ago  and he is only just writing about it now!

@jason_a_w managed to find and write a very detailed interview with the person behind the account in August last year! (faking-on-twitter-fake-andrew-bolt/)

And yet 12 months after this post was written he has only just found out, or at least has only just started complaining. Of course like most right wing commentariat he is demanding justice and claiming this is the worst crime in history.

From his own blog:

“This is only a small instance, but as I’ve so often noted among Leftist activists from the French Revolution to the Internet revolution , many have a curious belief that their moral cause entitles them to act as barbarians. It’s this loss of conscience in the collective that makes them such a menace.”

“For at least a year, it’s been guilty of identity theft and defamation. And I would expect that the employer of this person might have something to say about that,” he said.” Source : Source: News Ltd

From his own blog

“I’ve been given names, and at some stage may use them. Parody is perfectly fine, but identity theft is low.”

Seriously WTF.  Either he knows who it is or he doesn’t.  I suspect he doesn’t, that is why he is using these bully boy techniques which work very well in old media, not so well in these new and rapidly changing social platforms. And of course the readers of his blog coming running to his defence with 183 comments, most of which seem to blame the ABC for reasons that totally escape me.

So when twitter discovers that Andrew Bolt has finally discovered that there is a fake twitter account, he encounters the Streisand effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

Now we have @LordAndrewBolt @AndrewBolt_PR @AndrewBlotMP @andrew__bolt @andrew_bolt_irl @mrsandrewbolt @lordandrewbolt @IamAndrewBolt @andrewbolt @AndrewBoltMP @MrAndrewBolt @anandrewbolt @andrew_bolt @anbrewdolt @fakeandrewbolt @TheAndrewBolt

And I am sure I have missed some, and all the while the account that started it all has gained over 800 followers in one day.

The more he complains the more he adds fuel to the Streisand Effect.  Sit back and enjoy the ride people… this will only get funnier I promise.

As long as you can spell well enough for google… what else do you need.

“i cun spall wull enug for goggle”… and google does give you… Did you mean: i can spell well enough for google

( and yes the results count is correct for when I made the t-shirt)

Click on the image to buy your own copy of this t-shirt and support my camera addiction.

First point, and really it is so small as to be trivial, The article reads “But worse has followed. On ABC TV’s Q&A political panel The Worm was replaced by a series of idiot remarks from the Twitterverse and began less than a minute are the panel was introduced.” Pity really that Monday 26 April was the first episode of Q and A to have live tweets,  so I wouldn’t infer that this is brand new.  So I am going to draw the conclusion that Lawrence Money is not a regular Q and A watcher.

“Great panel” was the pointless first tweet from emilybweeb.”

Sure, it may have been pointless, but why is her opinion any less valuable than anyone else’s.  She may have genuinely thought it was a great panel, why is she not allowed to have and yet more importantly share this view.

On the Q and A Website they state..  “Q&A is about encouraging people to engage with politics and society.” But Lawrence seems to be of the opinion that if it is not funny or relevant to him, it should be derided.

…  “ A minute later came wolfcat: “Based on last night’s debate has anyone woken up yet?” Hilarious, huh?”

The Panel was taking about the debate and how boring it was… so yes it was funny.  Why was it funny, because it was in context and timely.  But I guess when you are writing a static column a week after the event you’re going to miss the joke.  (Don’t worry I am laughing at you now if it is any consolation)

Well see this is the thing, like the worm, the tweets are a sentiment tracker, but unlike the worm tweets add context and meaning as well.

“and this from unsongsongs:” Obviously the cut backs in The Age mean that they can no longer afford proof readers, the username is @unsungsongs.  (Hint for your style guide as well. You should refer to users including the @ symbol)

By the end of the evening that episode of #QandA 14,492 Tweets from 2,941 contributors.  (Source: @tweeveetv), so it is an active community trying to participate in democracy.

Also it is not the first time the ABC has had tweets on live TV, that honour goes to News Breakfast, which has been doing them (off and on) for the last two years.  But hey, never let the facts get in the way of a rant. Nor should we look at places like Current TV who ran live moderated tweets during the Obama campaign debates.

Now of course, social media isn’t for everyone. Nor is it the solution to all the world’s problems, but it is a tool, (yes even sometimes tools use it), but it is a tool never the less.

Times have changed and Twitter and other Social Media platforms give people a chance to interact across the country and often the world in real time when talking about serious issues or even trivial ones.  Both issues are what makes us, us.  Not everyone is highbrow all the time, nor are we serious all the time.  Even when it comes to serious issues a joke can be a way of breaking through the static of disinformation and disinterest.  Perhaps if more people interacted this campaign wouldn’t be so dull after all.

Firstly, anyone that votes only on one policy is nuts… there are a lot of things that makes Australia what it is… voting on one tiny aspect of a whole of government approach is just weird IMHO.

Now I am on the record as saying that I think the whole Net Filter is a big joke… (a bad one), but a joke. It won’t do one thing to stop what the government claims it is for. How often do you see when places are raided, collections of DVD burners. These DVD’s are distributed by hand or by post, not by the internet. But I digress…

From IT News

Ludlam, who has long opposed mandatory filtering, said the Liberals were likely to support Labor’s filtering proposal under Tony Abbott’s leadership.

“I think the Liberals are ducking and weaving; I think internally, they’re split … but the fact is, the party is led by Tony Abbott who is deeply conservative,” he said.

Never have truer words been said.  If you don’t think that a government lead by someone on the record by such a Conservative as Tony Abbott would not leap at an opportunity such as this (even if only partially technically feasible) you are in the words from The Castle ‘Dreaming Mate’.