Internet

My grandma will never own a computer.

She has a mobile phone, one with a flip screen that her kids and grandkids have programmed contacts into. Lately she has become a big texter, messaging grandkids to see how they went at footy or whether they want her to pick them up from school.

But the family probably won’t get her a computer. Logic is she doesn’t need or, really, want one. Besides, she’s got plenty of people who are happy to look things up for her. It’d be a challenge to teach her computers - the learning process would be long, the jargon difficult. And there’d be big questions about her security online.

Continue reading "I’m sorry Nanna, you haven’t won a million $$$ on the net" »

This is regular monthly series on what’s happening in China from a political, social, environmental, music and arts perspective. Email lucy@thepunch.com.au if you’d like to contribute or suggest a topic for discussion.

Life as an expat in China throws up several essential experiences: climbing the Great Wall, eating an unfamiliar animal, and having your internet censored by the local authorities. That being said, you really need to go out of your way to do the first two. The third is organised for you.

Basically every foreigner who leaves for China comes armed with some sort of firewall-bypassing gadget, and it seems that the Chinese Censorship Brigade are concerning themselves with the destruction of these services instead of blocking individual articles, videos or links.

A free service that several Australians were using to get around the Wall, for instance, mysteriously stopped working for all of us on the same afternoon several weeks ago, and has been offline here ever since.

Continue reading "ChinaWatch: Life behind the firewall of fear" »

“I don’t want to alarm you”. That’s what people say whenever they’re about to unload some panic attack-inducing horror on you. It follows, then, that what I’m about to tell you is very alarming indeed. There is something strange and terrifyingly confusing happening in our world.

Two weeks ago, 104-year-old British woman Peggy McAlpine hurled herself off a Cypriot cliff in a bid to reclaim the record she lost to then 101-year-old Mary Hardison some five years ago. She is, once again, the world’s oldest paraglider.

Meanwhile, Chinese grandmother Sun Fengqin, 60, has become became famous for regularly attending pole-dancing classes.

Continue reading "OK, old people, enough of this physical prowess caper" »

Google fears for the internet’s future.

The co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin, says there’s a lot to be lost in the “walling off” of the internet by companies like Apple and Facebook. Governments in China and Iran have also succeeded in putting the internet “genie back into the bottle”.

“Very powerful forces… have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world,” he told The Guardian. “I am more worried than I have been in the past. It’s scary.”

What do you reckon? And what’s on your mind today?

Queensland has been a notorious capital of gerrymander and pork-barrelling, but never anything quite like the NBN.

For two elections it has delivered bacon for Labor. In 2007, it was universally lauded. By 2010 Malcolm Turnbull had excoriated the economic case, but people privately hoped their home would be next in the queue and done for free.
 
At some point in 2012, with Labor in its worst political shape since polling began, the NBN has shifted from nation-building to furniture saving.  NBN Co’s roll-out plan for Brisbane has been effectively traced off the AEC maps of Labor seats and the correlation is jaw-dropping. In fact you are eight times more likely to get the NBN before 2015 if you live in a Labor seat.

Continue reading "Making the connections with Labor’s NBN pork barrel" »

You can bet Liam Stacey or @liamstacey9, now wishes he’d laid off the shandies last weekend. The 21 year old British student has been sentenced to 56 days in jail for incitement to racial hatred. After firing off a series of racist and offensive tweets about footballer, Fabrice Muamba, when he collapsed during the FA Cup tie at Tottenham, last Saturday.

British police across the UK were notified about Mr Stacey’s offensive tweets at the time of posting on Saturday afternoon. Much of Mr Stacey’s thread has since been taken down, so here’s just a taste of what he had to say: “LOL. F*** Muamba. He’s dead!!! #haha.”

Swansea District Judge John Charles described Stacey’s comments as “vile and abhorrent” and said he had no alternative but to jail the 21 year old man. “It was not the football world who was praying for [Muamba].... everybody was praying for his life,” he told the court. 

If only the long arm of the law was always so swift and righteous. And harsh.

Continue reading "Sentenced to jail for 56 days after vile Tweet" »

Disability is the untold story of the NBN. I don’t care about faster movie download speeds, or better virtual gaming. The NBN is technology which creates accessibility for Australians with disability. That’s why, while there are many critics, I’ve agreed to become an NBN champion.

I want to spread the word about how people with disability can capitalise on the accessibility benefits the National Broadband Network (NBN) has to offer.

High-speed broadband, delivered by the NBN, will take many Australians currently locked out of our community, and connect them - sometimes for the first time in their lives.

Continue reading "Don’t dis the NBN’s abilities" »

Social media has relieved us of many humdrum and antiquated things. Address books, actually meeting up with friends, speaking on the telephone and handwriting invitations.

Yet the more we use it, the more it feels right to blame sites like Facebook for increased feelings of social ill will. It’s started to make us feel bad.

As Forbes columnist Anussay Hossain puts it, we’ve turned into a bunch of “public glory addicts”. And the results are far from attractive.

Continue reading "OMG. A social media site that’s not about your ego!" »

The sun rises in the east. The sky is blue. And some people are mean on the internet. So when I was faced with a relatively simple task – find some people who identify as trolls to interview for a story – the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

I put calls out on Twitter and Facebook. And in looking for trolls, I got trolled. I was given more suggestions for ways to screw myself than I could find in an edition of Cosmo magazine.

It’s perhaps a reflection on some of the lack of sophistication in the thinking of some trolls that you could be the subject of such hostility for trying to write a story that appeals to them, that speaks for their world view.

Continue reading "Troll patrol: I cajoled the trolls and paid the toll" »

“Illegal music downloading is like casual racism; widespread and inevitable. That doesn’t make it acceptable!” That was a frustrated exclamation from Sydney singer-song writer Josh Pyke during our recent interview.

It’s a notion that’s drummed into children from a young age by parents and teachers: “just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t make it right”.

Apparently millions of adult Australians have forgotten that advice, and as a result we’re not only breaking the law en masse, we’re cheating hard-working musicians out of deserved pay. As Pyke says, music piracy is similar to race-based bigotry; inherently wrong yet widely accepted.

Continue reading "Punch: Piracy on the High Cs is music’s greatest enemy" »

We live in a world where everyone knows everything all the time, where the limited old ways of accessing information are no more, where people who are quaintly still described as newspaper “photographers” now shoot video footage for 24-hour news websites which you can watch on your telephone, your tablet or television.

We also live in a more democratic media world than ever before. Once upon a time, traditional media companies and the people who wrote for them could posture as unchallenged oracles. That is no longer the case. The barriers for entry into publishing in the digital age are zero. If you don’t like what a columnist has written, jump on their website and say so, or start your own blog putting a different view.

We can also be more readily and instantly entertained than ever before. Thirty years ago there was no Foxtel, and the fact that you could set the timer on your VCR was cause for excitement. Now, you can program your IQ box online from your work PC, you can download anything from the app store, or find it anyway on YouTube, when and where you want it.

Continue reading "Regulating free speech and belting the digital economy" »

Every step you take, every search you make, we’ll be watching you…

Google already knows more about our habits, interests, physical symptoms, loves, affairs, locations and intentions than our closest relatives and friends may know. The lyrics to the 1983 Police song Every Breath You Take seem prescient:

Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you
Every single day and every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay, I’ll be watching you

Adding “every search you make” would just about encapsulate Google’s new privacy policy that will take effect on 1 March. Enabling Google to know more about you. Much more. By marrying things like the geolocation information it garners from maps and Android phones, with our searches, Google+ and Gmail content (yep, they scan your email) they will get a seamless picture of us.

Continue reading "Every step you take, Google will be watching you" »

We’ve done it. We’ve finally ruined the Internet with our constant rage and all-caps rants. The vibe of the place has undeniably changed. We can all feel it.

It used to be a place for exchanging videos of animals doing people things and tricking Richard Wilkins into announcing celebrity deaths.

Now, it’s like being trapped in a shipping container full of knives and bees, or spending 20 minutes within a 15m radius of Deni Hines. Engaging with anything online has become an exhausting exercise. Every article, video and picture of George Lucas is accompanied by the ominous drum of sweaty fists pounding keyboards.

Continue reading "It happened. We’ve finally ruined the Internet" »

The interwebs are a cesspit of bigotry, bullying and racism, hate and snuff porn, and all things dark and evil, right?

Right. But, being a human place, they’re also full of wit and wisdom and things of beauty.

It’s hard to tell who’s winning, but there’s a bloody interesting skirmish going on. Twitter user @lizsinnott tweeted a screenshot from a Facebook page on which a bunch of racist nongs had posted racist rubbish about an ad for indigenous education.

Continue reading "Should we name and shame online racists?" »

Thanks to the high dollar, Australians have become the world’s most savvy online bargain hunters. Parcels with cheaper DVDs from the US, computer games from Hong Kong and books from Britain now arrive on our shores in the thousands every day.

Australian buyers obviously know how much they can save by shunning domestic retailers for their overseas competitors. Little wonder when, say, Steve Jobs’ biography is selling for $44 in Australia but for the equivalent of just $18 in Britain. Some British online retailers even offer free world-wide shipping.

What most Australians are probably unaware of is how much more they could save if it was possible to buy other goods internationally. Cars for example.

Continue reading "How are we ripped off? Let us count the ways…" »

What do women want? This question has vexed philosophers, feminists and talk show hosts since time immemorial (or at least since Mel Gibson started making bad romantic comedies).

The good news is that we now have a definitive answer – and it doesn’t involve equal pay, housework help or a nude frolic on a Northern Territory balcony.

As it turns out, nothing brings a woman more pleasure, euphoria or knee-trembling jouissance than… (anticipation-enhancing trumpet flurry)… chowing down solo on a salad.

Continue reading "You don’t win friends with salad. Unless they’re women" »

People often say that kids these days are “digital savvy”. Those people are wrong.

Kids today are definitely “digital” – some Gen Zers (see above) are even confused why printed magazines don’t interact with them like iPads – but that doesn’t mean they’re “savvy”.

They might know how to use technology. But just like drugs, alcohol, sex and relationships, that doesn’t mean kids know how to use it in a way that’s safe and appropriate.

Continue reading "Kids are digital, but that doesn’t mean they’re savvy" »

When it comes to first world problems, information overload used to be the number one cause of anxiety among young adults.

But those folks are a cagey bunch. They adapt. Now, they can carry on a conversation while checking their text messages, surfing the web and watching their favourite TV shows without even batting an e-lash. Their heads are right around spam filters. They can cope with rapid remote movement. Come at them, bro, and they’re ready to give you the millisecond of attention you deserve. Information overload? Pfffft. No sweat.

But now a new kind of anxiety is in town and it’s starting to unsettle this wired up, hooked in, broad band of tech heads. Across every office space, university campus, schoolyard and shopping mall there’s an underlying tension which froths and bubbles to the surface. And the cause? Too many good TV shows and not enough time to watch all of them.

Continue reading "Television: Drug of a nation and a generation" »

When Tim Berners-Lee launched the world-wide-web in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. At that time the web was a domain for practitioners only. Today it’s: “Here comes everybody.”

The web 2.0 enables communication and collaboration on a scale thought unimaginable only a few years ago. Today people want more of a say in everything we do - and that includes our democracy. Voting every few years is not enough for people anymore. What we’re talking about is how to bring our democracy into the 21st century and to align it better with our modern lives.

We have moved on, leaving our Parliaments behind. When the Berlin wall fell, so too did political divides. Yet our current democracy - Democracy 1.0 - continues to divide us. In our daily lives, at work and in our communities, collaboration is the norm. In Parliament, collaboration is the exception.

Continue reading "The system’s broken: Time for Democracy 2.0" »

Many years from now, a child will look up at his father and ask him for a tale from his wild and untameable youth. The man, whose eyes will scream a life without regret, will chuckle quietly and pat him gently on the head.

“Well,” he will say, “There was this one time I drank all this Red Bull and stayed up all night and wrote this algorithm that made Twitter users’ accounts spam other users’ accounts with a message telling them there’s a really funny picture of them online and they should totally click it - and then they did and it sent it to all their friends!”

“Lol,” he will add, as the boy shakes his head and punches him in the knee cap. Hard.

Continue reading "Hackers just slackers when it comes to being sexy devils" »

The right to digital access, should be a right we expect like a right to equality, or accessibility.

Recent debate about the price households will pay for their broadband as the National Broadband Network (NBN) is rolled out, has raised issues such as affordability.

As that debate continues, it is important to also focus on the need for digital inclusion to improve quality of life, and on extending opportunities - particularly in employment.

Continue reading "The digital divide is a denial of human rights" »

The bad manners of the internet are now turning up on the air waves and on the street to create one of the rudest political debates Australia has seen.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is being hit by the type of public nastiness which would have embarrassed and horrified most people a decade ago.

She has been called a liar to her face by a woman who constantly referred to the Prime Minister as Julia; Sydney radio figure Ray Hadley this week called her an imbecile; at anti-carbon price rallies she appears on banners as a witch or even a bitch.

Continue reading "Strap yourselves in, things are only going to get ruder" »

For the first time, the Federal Trade Commission in the United States will conduct an inquiry into Google which will not be limited to mergers and acquisitions, or violations of privacy, but fundamental issues relating to Google’s core search advertising business model.

This follows the European Commission probe which commenced late last year. The European Commission stated that it “will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services which are specialised in providing users with specific online content such as price comparisons (so‐called vertical search services) and by according preferential placement to the results of its own vertical search services in order to shut out competing services.”

Google has argued over the years that it does not manipulate search results and that its algorithms are designed solely to deliver the most relevant results to search queries; however it has fiercely protected its algorithm or secret black box.

Continue reading "Google’s license to print money is under siege" »

One of the justifications that the government uses for the roll-out of the $43 billion National Broadband Network is the desire by Australian householders to have access to better and faster landline services. However, a survey of the available data suggests that Australians are turning increasingly to mobile communications devices, and abandoning fixed lines.

Mobile phone services have grown rapidly over the last 10 years. At the same time fixed-line telephone services have stagnated. This growth in the take up of the mobile phone has coincided with a rise in the number of household consumers who do not access to a fixed-line telephone service. The choice of not having a fixed-line telephone service seems to be driven by age and living arrangements.

Younger adults living in group households are most likely to go without this service and older adults in family households are most likely to retain the land line.

Continue reading "The NBN will arrive just as we don’t need it anymore" »

Most of the time I use the internet to research stories, look up movies or stalk… errm, I mean keep in contact with friends using social media. If I’m feeling particularly exciting I might check out a YouTube video of a cat playing the piano or a panda sneezing.

My computer, on the other hand, is busy running around extorting people as part of an organised crime gang or working as a double agent for foreign governments. And in its down time it hires itself out as a mercenary.

And there is a good chance yours is doing this too.

Continue reading "Botnets: My PC is a zombified gun for hire" »

You may be surprised to learn that I’m in favour of an internet filter.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m a pretty wild kind of guy - I don’t always tuck my shirt in, cross one-way streets without looking both ways and occasionally don’t bother pre-heating the oven.

But despite my roguish charm, frequent viewings of Black Hawk Down and awkward attempts at skateboarding, I just can’t bring myself to support internet freedoms.

Continue reading "The bad stuff on the internet must be blocked" »

As the Aussie dollar has surged in recent months it’s clear that those buying online from overseas websites are enjoying amazing savings as compared to buying locally from bricks and mortar retailers.

In fact, online retailing is growing at a rapid pace and will continue to do so as long as the Aussie dollar remains strong. But it isn’t just the strong Aussie dollar that’s driving the rush to overseas online retailers.

The harsh reality is that a key reason Australian bricks and mortar retailers are finding it harder and harder to compete with online retailers is that retail rents in Australia continue to rise. Australian retail rents are some of the highest in the world and that’s bad news for local retailers operating out of a major shopping centre.

Continue reading "Why you’re getting ripped off in Aussie stores" »

As the planking epidemic enters its second week, some tough questions must be asked. Is the Government doing enough to prevent youngsters from lying horizontally on inanimate objects?

Should the Prime Minister use the next COAG meeting to secure sign-off from the States on a national anti-planking strategy? If so, what form should the campaign take?

It’s simply not enough for Julia Gillard to declare herself tough on planking and tough on the causes of planking. Maybe we need a well-funded advertising campaign, backed up with appearances by celebrities in the schools, to drive home some powerful anti-planking messages. Friends don’t let friends drink and plank. Re-think your first plank. Drink. Plank. Bloody idiot.

Continue reading "Tough on planking. Tough on the causes of planking." »

Remember the good old days, when lying flat was called sleeping?

Well, now it’s planking – a new craze that makes some people laugh and others seriously cranky.

‘Planking’ is lying face down in a weird location and posting a photo of your exploits online. Check it out on Google Images and you’ll find plankers lying stiff as boards atop basketball hoops, A-frame ladders, supermarket shelves, boom gates and railway tracks.

Continue reading "Plankers: Don’t take it lying down" »

Of all the things I’ve lost online, I miss my mind the most. On Friday I forgot a friend’s name for almost a minute. And this was an actual, real friend. Someone who’d been a guest at my house.

After a little Wiki work and web MDing on my phone I come to the conclusion that I probably had early onset dementia. The next day I mentioned my ailment to one of my friends - whose name I can recall because I see it every day in my Twitter feed (@juzzycullen). She told me she had the same problem and we agreed it was unlikely that we both had dementia.

We decided it less likely we’re suffering a digital-age DDoS attack on out brains. A personal Future Shock if you like.

Continue reading "HELP! I lost my mind online" »

One day, I will tell my four-year-old son that “there’s no place like home” and he will think I’m a genius.

The rest of you, however, will feel a sudden and overwhelming urge to pummel me in the face with a box of Hallmark cards and smugly present me with a “get well soon” card from the same batch.

But why are we taught to avoid clichés like the plague? What’s wrong with using the odd well-worn phrase?

Continue reading "Avoid this cliche-ridden column like the plague" »

Last week, Melinda Tankard Reist argued right here on The Punch that the “Pippa Middleton Arse Appreciation Society” set up on Facebook constitutes “virtual sexual harassment”.

She re-published some of the more hideous comments people had placed on the fan page, and claimed this is part of a trend that stems from our increasingly “pornified” culture:

When Karl Stefanovic let all the men present know in his Logie acceptance speech that his wife had “the best arse”, frequent comments were made that if a woman had made the same comments about a man, no one would mind. But a woman making a comment about a man’s backside does not carry the same weight or intent as the reverse. We don’t hear men being told to “shake that arse”. We do not hear of a man’s backside referred to as “booty”.

Continue reading "Ease up, we’re not all bum-obsessed trolls" »

I don’t usually write about myself, because I’m interested in issues rather than personalities. Some commenters - not speaking of you, James - frequently try to derail conversations by launching personal attacks, and the best response is to ignore these and concentrate on the topic at hand.

In this case, however, I can make an exception because the topic is me. It’s good to be recognised, even in a tongue-in-cheek way. Not just because it amuses me or inflates my ego, but because it means my message is being heard.

Of course, I don’t expect James to suddenly renounce the errors of his ways and become a born-again conservative, but then that isn’t my purpose.

Continue reading "Erick responds: I am just one voice" »

As you can probably guess it was me who hacked into the email accounts of ten senior federal ministers.

I hacked into Julia Gillard’s because I wanted to know what it was like to run a country, I hacked into Kevin Rudd’s because I wanted to know what it was like to run the world, and I hacked into Stephen Smith’s because…well, I just really wanted to get some sleep.

But what I found was deeply shocking and in yet another extraordinary exclusive I can now reveal their explosive contents for the first time…

Continue reading "EXCLUSIVE! I hacked the Government’s emails" »

As the National Broadband Network juggernaut rolls on, one has to wonder if any thought has been given to the obvious danger that the NBN may fail. NBN supporters assume that it will succeed. This crash through or crash approach is a very dangerous way to pursue government policy objectives.

In this context, failure can mean a number of things. For starters, the NBN could fail financially. This could include construction costs spiralling out of control where, for example, labour and skills shortages drive up project costs.

The NBN Corporate Plan itself reveals that at the height of construction up to 6,000 premises per day will be connected to the NBN. That’s a lot of premises and a lot of skilled labour which means lots of risk to the NBN. Any delay in connecting such a larger number of premises would delay completion of the NBN. Any delay would substantially increase project costs and threaten the financial viability of the NBN.

Continue reading "The NBN juggernaut could turn into a white elephant" »

While Japan 2011 will be remembered for the tragic earthquake and tsunami that swept a destructive path through coastal communities, it will also go down in history as a date with destiny on the nuclear energy debate following the fallout from the Fukushima reactor emergency.

Fears surrounding the ongoing crisis at the Japanese nuclear plant have seen it described as the “New Chernobyl”.

The immediate scale of the disaster may not be as dire as Chernobyl but, like the Ukrainian accident, its potential to set back for years the proliferation of nuclear energy as an alternative to carbon-based sources of power is equally as significant.

Continue reading "Online chatter goes nuclear" »

About 10 years ago in southern California a young fellow by the name of Ryan McPherson hit upon the idea of bribing homeless people with bottles of bourbon to fight each other, and to film the ensuing brawls for a series of movies entitled Bum Fights. The movies, four of which were made, were hailed as just the latest example of a sick society in irreversible decline.

Homeless groups said the movies encouraged violence against people living on the streets, as well as dehumanising and mocking them. Amid threats of legal action, the producers agreed to stop making the films, and were forced to pay compensation to some of the homeless men involved.

The idea of filming a staged fight between the homeless as a form of entertainment would be regarded by a normal person as offensive to dignity and decency. In Australia this week we’ve learned that a depressing number of people – tens of thousands of them in fact – will have a hearty chuckle watching a couple of kids laying into each other in the schoolyard.

Continue reading "A dumb, webbed-up nation cheers on the fat kid" »

The growth of the internet as an information and communications tool has always been tied intimately with the promise of connecting people beyond geographical and ideological boundaries, of expanding our knowledge through unprecedented access to multiple viewpoints.

This ideal is still embraced by some, notably in discussions of the “Twitter Revolutions”, but in a practical sense it’s as relevant as a physical Encyclopedia.

For most of us day-to-day internet use is fast moving away from providing individuals real choice, and ironically this is due to the “personalisation” of the web experience.

Continue reading "Big Brother is watching and he’s making you stupid" »

Online anonymity has been a hot topic on The Punch recently. Here, Lucy looks at the pros and cons of revealing your true self.

Many people will call you a coward - or worse, a bully - for hiding your real identity online. But unless you’re troll or an aggressive poster, most of the time that’s far from the truth.

Like a dress-up box for adults, the internet has become a place for people who want to engage in debate, throw around ideas, complain about their lives or just muck around - without their real name.

And there are several perfectly valid reasons for doing it.

Continue reading "Four reasons it’s OK to ditch your real self online" »

Pity me, your average single Aussie male geek.

We live in a world where oil prices are increasing, while oil reserves are falling; where the population is getting older, and criminals are getting younger, where sea levels are rising and fresh water supplies are falling, and where Dr Phil is still allowed on day time television.

And what have we got to help combat this phantasmagoria of horrors? Well, internet dating of course!

Continue reading "Single, male, geek seeks companionship" »

My school is better than yours - it’s the seesawing debate that never ends when it comes to the class divide over state versus private education.

Rather than helping to resolve the argument, the launch of the revamped My School website on Friday – for the first time allowing parents to compare funding levels for individual schools – has drawn criticism from both state and private school supporters and has only deepened the row.

Dispelling the old bang for your bucks theory, the site found the most elite private schools have at their disposal at least twice the income of the average government school, but their students do not necessarily perform any better in national tests than their state school system cousins.

Continue reading "MySchool 2.0 revives the private vs. public debate" »

The internet is emerging as one of the big heroes of the pro-democracy, anti-despot movement in the Middle East.

It’s regarded as being right up there with that courageous Gaddafi impersonator who’s been suggesting absent members of the Libyan army are simply retreating to rest and relax.

Thanks to the cybersphere, Arabic members of generation TXT are using mobile phone cameras to film political violence and then uploading the footage online.

This, in turn, is leading to more civilian fury and more amateur surveillance.

Continue reading "The internet: From revolt to revolting trolls" »

Even cute babies have ugly mothers.  That’s how it was in the Bonds Baby online beauty contest last week, when things got so nasty the police were called in.

Outraged by a computer glitch which interrupted voting for their precious widdle sweedies, spurned mums turned on other chubby-cheeked cherubs in the running.

“Bonds Australia not Asia” was the charming comment posted beside a photo of two-year-old contestant Lilli, who shares Asian and European heritage.  One baby copped “a child only a mother could love” and another was labelled an “ugly duckling”.

Continue reading "Children can turn mothers into monsters" »

Ever hooked up at the supermarket?

Not me. I did see Poh Ling Yeow there once - but as I live in Adelaide I see each of our four celebrities at least on a weekly basis.

And beyond ``I like your paintings’’ (this was pre-Masterchef) there was nothing I could think of to blurt out in a supermarket aisle which wouldn’t have come across as lame (note to self, buy a copy of The Game:  Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick-up Artists).

Continue reading "A feast of options in online dating" »

Once upon a time there was a writer who lived in a cottage nestled among the hills. The cottage was near the river Internet, over which was a sturdy bridge, The Punch.

It seemed idyllic - and indeed it was, dear reader, until one day it became clear that the gurgling he could hear from his bedroom window at night was not the sound of water, but rather, deep under the bridge, in the comments section, the grumblings of a troll.

Continue reading "A journey into the dark heart of troll country" »

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and successive governments have failed to curb retailers’ increasing market power, which is why Australians pay more at the store.

Gerry Harvey may be one of Australia’s well known and most successful “traditional” retailers, but he has seriously misjudged the consumer support for online retailing. He is not alone in getting it wrong. Major retailers and shopping centre landlords have also been very unhappy with Australian consumers going online to buy from overseas websites.

Why are the major retailers and shopping centre landlords unhappy with the growth of online retailing?  Simply because online retailing offers very strong competition to the major retailers and shopping centre landlords. In the “old” days before the rise of the internet, consumers were basically forced to visit shopping centres and department stores to purchase products.

Continue reading "A cosy club: Why we pay more at the store" »

Change and innovation are always feared, and therefore always resisted. 

When the first ATMs were introduced, the banking unions fought against them because they feared it would mean the end of tellers (who can forget the lines we used to endure at banks in the bad old days). Instead, we saw the rise of electronic banking with the banks now involved in almost every transaction.  When the video player was first introduced, film industry experts predicted the end of cinemas, but today we are seeing a resurgence in cinema attendance numbers because the industry was forced to become more innovative, and now delivers a significantly enhanced customer experience via new developments such as 3D.

In recent weeks, some of Australia’s larger retailers have vigorously argued that the ability of Australians to buy online will destroy retailing in Australia, with thousands of jobs going off-shore, and that we need to tax the internet to “create a level playing field”.  This is despite the fact that less than 3 per cent of all retail sales in Australia are transacted online!

Continue reading "Why good retailers will survive the internet" »

Sometimes you’ve just got to laugh in the face of brazen hypocrisy and insincerity. It can be pretty funny, after all.

One of my favourites was last year’s public campaign from the ‘Alliance of Australian Retailers’ railing against the mooted introduction of plain cigarette packaging.

Their hilarious (but deadly serious) message was “It won’t work so why do it?” Which, for me, prompted two questions: 1. Shouldn’t that question have a comma in the middle of it? And, 2. If you’re so sure it won’t work, why are you wasting around $9 million on an ad campaign to try and stop it?

Continue reading "Astroturfing: It’s what the big retailers do to get their way" »

Rather than go in to bat for Australian consumers, local retailers are supporting a campaign to reduce competition and make us pay more. With that attitude, it’s little wonder so many of us are looking online when we go shopping. 

Electronics retailer Gerry Harvey kicked off the war against consumers last November when he called on the government to remove the GST exemption for goods purchased online from overseas.

He also revealed that lobbying of politicians to effect this outcome had been underway for some time. 

Continue reading "Big retailers are declaring war on competition" »

Besides liking to get their picture in the newspaper, the politicians of the world have something in common: They are struggling with the internet.

Not just how to set up wireless on their laptops, or how to clear incriminating sites from their browser histories, but how to regulate information itself.

In almost every country on earth, the free access to the world’s data is causing embarrassment, consternation and even panic. And the lawmakers are reacting.

Continue reading "Politicians struggling to cope with that interwebby thing" »

Will the NBN ever be financially viable? The short answer is most likely “No”.

If there were suspicions in the past, the release of NBN Business Plan on Monday simply acted to confirm the doubts over NBN’s financial viability.

In fact, the NBN Business Plan raises considerable uncertainty over such key issues as (i) the take-up rate for the NBN; (ii) wholesale and retail pricing of services; (iii) the impact of high speed wireless broadband on NBN’s financial viability; (iv) the time to build the NBN and (v) the projected internal rate of return for the NBN.

Continue reading "NBN: A potential national financial disaster?" »

500 years down the track I’m sure humans will still be talking about the invention of the internet, and how it revolutionized communication and all that jazz. Because it is pretty incredible when you think about it.

But there’s one aspect of our heaven-sent, super-human communication abilities which is becoming more of an issue and to be honest, pretty annoying.

I’m talking about the way that notorious whingers and complainers, have been given a new-found power to affect change where it probably isn’t really necessary.

Continue reading "The world is run by those who whinge the loudest" »

Julia Gillard and Stephen Conroy have just released the full business plan for the National Broadband Network, saying taxpayers would get a 7 per cent return on their $27.5 billion investment, and it would take nine years for the network to reach 10 million Australian households.

The business plan foreshadowed wholesale prices of $24 per month for the basic 12 Mbps, and $38 for 100 Mbps. But neither Gillard, nor Conroy, would speculated on what a fair retail cost for consumers would be.

The Prime Minister would only say that with greater competition would come lower prices for householders. What would you be prepared to pay for the standard or ultra-fast fiber packages set to be rolled out over the next decade?

Tragedy anywhere in the world tends to bring out a generosity of the human spirit in Australians.

But when it involves asylum seekers on our doorstep the feelings among many Australians can be cold-hearted and callous, even to the extent that some of them say anyone who chooses to sail thousands of kilometres in a rickety boat in search of a safe haven should expect to face death.

The loss of at least 30 lives when a boat packed with asylum seekers tried to reach the shores of Christmas Island in stormy seas last week unleashed a wave of blame and finger pointing among most comments to online news sites. Many showed little sympathy for the boatpeople.

Continue reading "Cold-hearted approach to asylum seekers" »

Julian Assange’s extradition to Sweden for alleged sex crimes is destined to become an ugly, inconsequential sideshow to history.

Wikileaks’ revelation that Saudi Arabia egged the US into attacking Iran over its nuclear ambitions? A footnote. Australian Senator Mark Arbib spying on his colleagues and countrymen for the US government? Grubby trivia, at best.

The real historical weight of the Wikileaks saga lies within the undiscovered country of its endgame.

Continue reading "There will be a winner and a loser in the Wikileaks saga" »

Well, it was years in the making.

It has taken countless meetings, public submissions, reports, and years of debate, but on the incredibly long-overdue introduction of an R18+ category into the national classification system for video games, the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG, to you and me) has finally decided to take action…

… and they’ve decided to wait a little longer to make a decision.

Continue reading "You’ve got to harden up, gamers of Australia" »

If you are sympathetic to work of Julian Assange, stop and think: am I at risk of becoming a Fellow Traveller?

Many participants in a 21st Century, web-based community such as The Punch are likely to be too young to know what a Fellow Traveller is.

I’ll get to the political concept in a minute, but the key point is that Julian Assange is one, as are the multitude of “hactivists” fighting his battle at the moment.

Continue reading "WikiLeaks heralds the birth of Fellow Travellers 2.0" »

Shane Warne, bless him, has more than a quarter of a million followers on Twitter, and Liz Hurley just more than 41,000.

Presumably they also have email accounts, mobile phones, postal addresses and numerous other ways to contact each other. But in a generous gift to the public, perhaps inspired by the new openness a la Wikileaks, they carried on their flirtation in full view of anyone with an internet connection.

The day celebrities work out that when they write stuff online people can see it will be a sad day.

Continue reading "Shhhh ... nobody tell these people the internet is public" »

Meet 33 year old Swiss native Yvan Rodic. 

He’s the brains and discerning eye behind fashion street blog, Face Hunter and he’s been trotting around the world taking pictures of hip looking people since about 2006.

Surprisingly, he thinks Australians aren’t that bad when it comes to getting dressed, even Aussie men. But here’s the really big shock…

Continue reading "Sydney beats the pants off Melbourne in fashion" »

Since its inception in the 1990s, governments have long since recognized the democratising functions of the web.

But control has always seemed impossible, even for a tool created by government.

Attempts to curtail online freedoms have come off looking like a girdle on a Leviathan.

Continue reading "We’re killing the internet with our own triviality" »

Next time you update your Facebook status or send off an email without checking for spelling errors, think of the children and pick up a hard cover dictionary.

A recent study by the University of Manchester has found that thanks to our predilection for communicating online, we’re raising an entire generation of bad spellers:

“The increasing use of variant spellings on the internet has been brought about by people typing at speed in chatrooms and on social networking sites where the general attitude is that there isn’t a need to correct typos or conform to spelling rules, “ said Lucy Jones, the author of the study.

Continue reading "Long live the dictionary" »

The Gillard Government’s love nest with a fragmented bunch of Greens and independents has been barely consummated before it faces its first big lovers’ row.

The dispute over the recognition of gay marriage is not an easy issue to handle for a Government trying to project unity and conciliation.

Contrary to the post-election happy snaps of MPs giving each other group hugs, vowing to show a spirit of respect and solidarity, there’s nothing unifying about gay marriage.

Continue reading "Online nation divided over gay marriage" »

Update 6am: The ABC is reporting the non-disclosure agreement has been shrunk to just two weeks, making it impossible to see how the demand for seven years, or even three, was ever justified.

Details of the National Broadband Network business plan are apparently so secret that in order to see them you have to sign a seven year confidentiality agreement. But objections by cross-benchers have now forced the Government to more than halve the terms of that agreement to just three years.

If you’re confused it’s because the Government has embarked on a confusing strategy in a bid to solve its growing NBN business plan problem that will dominate the politics of the last sitting week. The Government is blurring the line between information that is commercially sensitive and that which is politically sensitive.

In a bid to pass the NBN legislation Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told cross-benchers they could see the see the mysterious NBN business plan, but they would need to sign a seven year confidentiality agreement. Greens communications spokesman Senator Scott Ludlam and other cross-benchers have politely told the Government to go jump. 

Continue reading "Conroy plays deal or no deal on NBN business case" »

The continuing insistence of the Government not to release its business plan for the National Broadband Network within the next week is hurting Stephen Conroy, aiding Tony Abbott and undermining the credibility of the project.

Stephen Conroy has suffered the political equivalent of an atomic wedgie over the NBN business plan at the hands of the Senate. Not many thought the Senate would be able to get the underpants all the way over head, but they did. Even Bob Brown joined in at one stage only to back off when he thought little Stephen had had enough.

For those who weren’t watching last night and today (can’t imagine why), the Senate passed two motions that demonstrate a majority of the upper house are opposed to delaying the release of the plan until after Parliament has finished sitting. So the Parliament is being expected to pass the bill without knowing whether the project will be commercially viable at some point.

Continue reading "Hiding the NBN business plan not a good political one" »

In today’s society, most Australians are pretty comfortable with sharing personal information, with at least one major caveat – that we clearly know what our information is being used for.

Understanding how the information that organisations collect from us is used is the key guiding principle of our Privacy laws. Our privacy regime is consent-based – if you understand why private and personal information is being collected and consent to the purpose for which it is being collected then that information can be used for that purpose.

Social media and the more successful Internet business models fundamentally challenge this notion – because commercial success is often predicated on knowing as much as you can about your individual users and being less than upfront about how that information will be used.

Continue reading "What is Google really doing with your personal details?" »

Dope, ignoramus, racist, communist, queen-kisser, Nazi, apologist, shill. Dunderhead, knucklebrain, fantasist, doofus, conspirator, idiot, and twit.

If you recognise these as terms applied to you before you’ve had breakfast on any given working day, then I hope your blog is going well.

The internet has turned insulting journalists into an art form. Now, why waste time on amateur, blunderbuss-style sprays of death threats and comparing a writer to animal genitalia, when you could make a cutting remark every time? In order to help make your sledging as effective as possible, The Punch asked some of Australia’s most widely-read online writers to share the one thing readers say in comments or feedback that makes them want to quit blogging. Their answers may surprise.

Continue reading "Hitting journos where it really hurts: a handy guide" »

Depending on which way you look at it, Australia can indeed be considered ‘the lucky country’ when it comes to internet censorship.

Our browsing has always remained the decision of the user, and an entire world of possibilities have been left open – happiness, whatever your definition, has never been further than a mouse click away.

While some of the options available on the internet are morally ambiguous, many of them are legal – you just don’t want to bring up the topics loudly at dinner parties.

Continue reading "The Net is already censored, and not by the government" »

It’s time to put an end to all this partisan negativity. At a time when people are looking to our leaders for vision, it is great to see a political party step up with a long-term vision for the nation.

I am referring of course to the Coalition’s decision to destroy the National Broadband Network and all who promote it and instead uphold Australian values by promoting a more leisurely pace of download.

While the public may be firmly behind the NBN as detailed in today’s Essential Report, I wonder how many have really thought through the implications of faster efficient broadband on their already busy and cluttered lives.

Continue reading "10 reasons why the Liberals are right about the interweb" »

It’s a very first-world picture of human misery: a packed airport terminal filled with thousands of delayed travellers.

There are frazzled parents at the limits of their patience, looking after bored kids giddy at being on their school holidays but frustrated at having nothing to do. Passengers milling around, trying to nap on a hard floor, anxious that the next announcement on the public address system will be the one that cancels their flight.

And all because of a computer problem.

Continue reading "Virgin blip gives a glimpse of total digital chaos" »

Well it looks like Katy Perry – pop chanteuse, novelty wig wearer, man-tamer and controversy stoker – has done it again. 

Entertainment news site TMZ reported yesterday that Sesame Street producers had pulled her recently filmed duet with Elmo. The charge? It’s too boobtastic.

In March, Perry filmed an ostensibly kid-friendly version of her hit song “Hot N Cold” with Elmo for the show’s upcoming season, to teach young viewers about opposites. Namely, up/down, fast/slow, stop/go, yes/no, human/muppet.

Continue reading "Reactionary boobs got Katy Perry pulled from kids TV" »

The headline is not a mistake. Escape goats exist - at least, they do in the comment threads of websites everywhere, including The Punch.*

The beauty of this term is that while being appallingly bad English usage in a narrow sense, it is a spectacular conceptual improvement on the very word it butchers. Who needs a scapegoat when you could have an escape goat?

I want an escape goat. Rather than resorting to blame any time there’s any sort of problem, just hop on this conveniently-positioned imaginary beast and ride off, leaving behind only the comical clatter of little hooves, and maybe a faint bleating sound. Baa.

Continue reading "Anonymous comments: why we all need an escape goat" »

One recent evening, my husband posed the question: If you only had three months left to live, what would you choose to read?

The discussion was travelling along perfectly well until he raised a name guaranteed to set me on a rant: Harold Bloom.

Bloom is a professor at Yale University and the author of many books including How to Read and Why.  That title alone makes me want to employ the great Dorothy Parker quote: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly.  It should be thrown with great force.”

Continue reading "Well read-head: Throwing the book at literary snobs" »

THE past two weeks of political dealing and card playing between the major parties and the Independents to form a minority government reminds me of Kenny Rogers’ ode to The Gambler.

The song’s chorus, in particular, sums up the quandary faced by the political gamblers:

You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table. There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealing’s done.

Continue reading "Independents took a leaf from Kenny Rogers’ book" »

I was interested to see that the Australian Electoral Commission has received complaints about political parties buying Google adwords in each other’s names: thus, when someone was searching on Google for “Julia Gillard” they would be served an ad for Tony Abbott.  And vice versa, someone searching “Tony Abbott” was served a Julia Gillard ad.

Of course, under these “sponsored links” the usual “relevant” search results would appear.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported Google’s response: “Both the Liberal and Labor parties have been savvy in adapting their search advertising tactics throughout the campaign including bidding on other politicians’ names.”

Continue reading "Google’s tidy profit from the political keyword" »

Did you hear the news about the stripper from the Gold Coast whose breast implants exploded while wrestling a crocodile? No? That’s probably because it never happened, and the story was never written. But rest assured, if it was a story, most of the traffic that goes through news sites in Australia would have read it.

It’s rather telling that days before a federal election, most of the news that the country seems to be interested in relates to sex, violence, and celebrity gossip. This isn’t an attempt to be judgmental about it at all - I’m guilty of clicking on the ‘interesting’ links as much as anyone else is – its simply an examination of the facts.

Let’s have a look at Sunday’s takings. In their top five stories, Australian news sites boast 10 stories out of 55 that are vaguely politics related, with half of those belonging to The Australian (which seems to be the sanctuary for those interested in politics). Other offerings include a top sex story at the Daily Telegraph (an alarmingly precise ‘I’ve had sex with 5000 men in 3285 days’), a similar enticement at news.com.au (worse ways to go with ‘”death by hooker” for sacked city banker’) and the colourful Adelaide Now temptation (‘bikie in bottle shop rampage’).

Continue reading "The news we want versus the news we get" »

The debate about whether Tony Abbott should or should not have been able to answer questions about peak internet speeds probably divides Australians into two classes: the digerati and the rest.

Most Australians are hooked up to the web now, and the unconnected are a dwindling band of Luddites, plus those who believe they’re too old to learn computers, or too poor to pay for access.

But among those who do have internet access, there’s a wide spectrum of different experiences.

Continue reading "Stop the world, I want to get off" »

I sent a rather indignant email to Bob Brown the other day. I followed it up with an equally frustrated voicemail.

Essentially, I berated him for not being the inspirational and credible figurehead that he has been for the environmental movement for decades. I questioned his lack of visibility in an election that arguably presents one of the most monumental and significant chances the Greens have had of becoming a very powerful political force.

Senator Christine Milne’s media spokesperson Tim Hollo replied to my accusations (charitably also acknowledging that he understood my frustrations) with the simple question: “Why is the media complaining about the fluff and nonsense and policy vacuum of this election campaign, talking about the Greens having the potential to hold balance of power but completely ignoring the Greens’ policy launches?”

Continue reading "Where’s Bob Brown? He’s campaigning, just on the web" »

THE internet has broken my heart in the past fortnight.

We had such a great relationship. She was funny, knowledgeable, sexually adventurous. She let me hang out with my friends whenever I wanted and bought me DVDs.

It took time, but it turns out she’s one of those crazy chicks and two of her most exciting attributes - WikiLeaks and Twitter - have gone south. Honeymoon over.

Continue reading "Internet, I think we should have a chat over coffee" »

Divorce can be a bitter and messy affair. Political relationships are no different, especially when the break-up has hinged on a power play for the highest post in the land.

When Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd met on Saturday for the first time since the Labor leadership coup they looked more like a divorced couple reluctantly brought together to iron out a settlement than a reunited team working together to win an election.

The body language between the pair in the pooled video and pictures from the closed-door meeting spoke plenty to many outside observers.

Continue reading "Body language: how readers saw the Rudd-Gillard photo" »

There’s a tendency in some circles to see disclosures like the Wikileaks publishing of 90,000 documents about the war in Afghanistan as an inherently good thing.

Many people – from all parts of the political spectrum – see the release of secret government information as desirable as a rule because it allows people to look into the inner workings of the state apparatus and its agents. This makes governments accountable. Others, more insidiously – especially in technology and new media circles – welcome events like this mainly because they involve the internet.

The Afghanistan war logs are a watershed moment in government control over intelligence data. It’s not that battlefield information was published – that’s nothing especially new – but that the release of the information was so huge and co-ordinated between three countries and on the web simultaneously.

Continue reading "Wikileaks: friend of the truth, enemy of the troops?" »

Look at your ad. Now look at mine. Now look at your ad. Now. Look. At. Mine. Sadly, this is not your ad. But what if your ad could look like this ad?

We all have fond memories of the Old Spice ad, don’t we? The Old Spice ad campaign ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ features former NFL player Isaiah Mustafa, in all his muscle-bound glory, telling the viewer that a real man would smell like Old Spice.

Appealing to both men and women, and now nominated for a Primetime Emmy, the ad has revitalized the brand, turning Old Spice from something your grandparents used to wear, to a smell for real men. But has it become old news already?

Continue reading "Old Spice - old news" »

If you are reading this then my job is half done; you’ve started reading this article.

Maybe the headline piqued your interest; perhaps the accompanying image caught your eye; or maybe you are just procrastinating at work. Either way, it’s an honour and a privilege to have your attention for this fleeting moment.

You see, your attention is becoming an increasingly valuable thing. At any moment of the day there are a multitude of entities vying for your interest; some will be trying to sell you a product or service, others will be trying to educate or inform you and some provide little more than a distraction.

Continue reading "May I have your attention please!" »

We are all familiar with the television debates between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition that occur in the lead up to a Federal election - but are Australians ready for online election debates?

Last month, NSW held what was billed as the first election debate on Twitter between NSW Premier Kristina Keneally and NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell with mixed results including descriptions of it being chaotic, and confusing.

The increasing “US Presidential” style elections in Australia, with the focus almost entirely on the personality of the leader, suggests that other important developments in the US will be taking place here.

Continue reading "Leaders could face up to voters with a full web debate" »

A statement by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy today appears to be a dramatic capitulation on his plan to introduce a mandatory internet filter to censor offensive websites.

It is a stunning turnaround for Conroy who has been so vigorously defending his plan in the face of fierce criticism from a range of quarters this year, including the US Government which took the unusual step of publicly airing concern about the Australian policy.

The legislation was due to be in Parliament by the end of the year but Conroy said today it was on hold, pending a review of the types of websites the filter will block and a number of other measures which address the long-standing concerns of opponents, including appeals for classifications and an independent review of censored content.

If a filter is now ever introduced it appears certain that it will not take the form that Conroy has proposed.

Continue reading "Has Conroy just rolled on the net filter?" »

“The internet’s completely over.” 

But don’t panic my Facebook friends – both of you – for this is the Gospel according to Prince who in the early 80s penned the hit ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, before he proceeded to do just that. 

The Prince of peculiarity, now a devout Jehovah’s Witness, revealed in a world exclusive interview this week with the UK Mirror that he’s closed down his official website and banned YouTube and iTunes from carrying or broadcasting his music.

Continue reading "The Purple Rain falls mainly on his brain" »

It seems that Google’s continued mishandling of the wi-fi snooping incident means it has a different interpretation of the phrase “cooperating with authorities” than what the rest of us would reasonably expect.

The New York Times recently reported that Google has given European investigators only remote access to data now stored in Mountain View, California. 

Data those investigators need to determine if Google breached various tough privacy laws.

Continue reading "Google should be made to tell us what it knows about us" »

Do any of you really care less about what the media thinks about itself? To all the philosophers out there, yes, I get there’s an infinite regress being set up here. I am, after all, in the media talking about the media talking about itself. But forget that for a moment and answer the question. I bet for most of you it’s no. But gauging from the readers’ commentariat of many online publications, for a small, but significant minority of media audiences, it’s a big yes.

What I want to know is: how did such a tedious trend take off? When did the media become obsessed with itself? And, more importantly, when did readers start to mirror this obsession?

Admittedly, I didn’t spend too much time researching the historical roots of this phenomenon. But I have a feeling that although it’s always been around, the media’s obsession with itself, and your obsession with this obsession, really took off during what the media likes to call the ‘Culture Wars’. I’m pretty sure I heard someone at a dinner party crammed with smug lefties say quite authoritatively that the phenomenon had something to do with the rise of a political movement called ‘neo-conservatism’ and the neo-cons’ need for an enemy against which they could define themselves.

Continue reading "You’re either with us, or with the cultural terrorists" »

An open letter to Mr. Greg Bartlett, Chief Executive St. George Bank. Dear Greg,

I used to like St. George. I liked his work against that dragon back in the day, I liked the fact that they let my footy team win the 1975 Grand Final, I like Julie Anthony – I’m pretty sure my mum has some of her records.

I don’t like your bank’s customer service phone line any more.

Continue reading "Your call is important to us, please don’t lose your mind" »

What stands out when looking at the internet presences of Australian politicians is that the system for getting them online is a complete mess.

Individual websites range in quality from passable to truly awful. Many MPs and Senators don’t have a site of their own, instead having cobbled-together pages featuring simple biographies and bad photos on their party site. Others, meanwhile, have all-singing, all-dancing multimedia experiences.

The kaleidoscopic variety of websites shows most MPs’ sites have been developed for them on a case-by-case basis. It must be costing taxpayers a small fortune.

Continue reading "The Punch guide to pollies online" »

Politicians who personally update their websites and social networking profiles have made headlines this year. Who is worth following for information, insight and entertainment as we head towards an election?

There’s no strict criteria for making this list, save for instant exclusion for MPs who doggedly link every update about a turned sod to a the successes or failures of government programs.

Some MPs have become adept at regularly updating their profiles or blogs and talking to voters on the web, and others are learning fast. Some have been included for showing promise and being colourful.

Continue reading "Politicians to follow and add as ‘friends’ this election year" »

Listed below are links to personal web pages for members of the Australian House of Representatives, along with their Facebook profiles, pages and groups, as well as their Twitter accounts.

The list is in alphabetical order. Some of the Facebook groups and pages have been set up by people not connected with the MPs and include fan pages. Websites marked (APH) denote MPs who had no retrievable web presence other than their contact page on the Parliament website.

The legend is:

Continue reading "Australian MPs’ websites, Facebook and Twitter pages" »

Listed below are links to personal web pages for members of the Australian Senate, along with their Facebook profiles, pages and groups, as well as their Twitter accounts.

The list is in alphabetical order. Some of the Facebook groups and pages have been set up by people not connected with the Senators but include official fan pages. Websites marked (APH) denote Senators who had no significant web presence retrievable other than their contact page on the Parliament website.

The legend is:

Continue reading "Australian Senators’ sites, Facebook and Twitter pages" »

The image below is map of Australia but it’s not just any map, it is taken from a social media website called ijustmadelove.com. Yes, it’s a map logging the location, time and date of where people have had sex.

It also allows them to detail what type of sex they had, whether it was inside, outdoors or on a boat and to rate it using a 5 star system.

It is, in many ways, a sign of the increasing trend within society to reveal more and more private information and explains why in 2008 Webster’s dictionary had to create a new word – “overshare”.

Continue reading "You just did what? The rise of the oversharers" »

You might think NSW Premier Kristina Keneally and Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell have a lot on their plates - like trying to come up with ways to get NSW out of the infrastructure black hole we’ve fallen into. After all, this week was Budget week in NSW.

But our two political leaders have developed a new hobby - taking pointless potshots at each other on Twitter. Is it dignified? No. Entertaining? Not really.

O’Farrell, whose Tweets you can see here, has taken to referring to his counterpart as KKK (geddit!). And Keneally, whose Tweets you can see here, uses it to flog dead political horses, like her assertion completing the Kokoda Track is no biggie.

Continue reading "As a state crumbles our leaders turn into Twits" »

In recent months, and especially the last week, there has been a noticeable shift in public sentiment against Facebook.

The controversy surrounding the company’s decision to change its privacy settings have been further amplified by the murder of 18-year-old Nona Belomesoff. As I write a Pakistani court has banned Facebook in the entire country over a page encouraging users to post caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

But since when did all this become Facebook’s fault? Why do we put such an onus on a corporation to act so responsibly with our details rather than questioning our acquiescence to handing over that information in the first place? Why is it we seem to be laying a portion of blame on Facebook for awful human behaviour rather than questioning where it grew from in the first place?

Continue reading "How it became Facebook’s fault" »

The internet offers a world of opportunities. But it also brings some new threats a lot of parents and young people don’t adequately understand.

The tragic murder or 15 year old South Australian girl Carly Ryan by a 50 year old Victorian man who travelled to Adelaide after grooming her on a social networking site brought home to many of us how badly our outdated laws deal with the new threats posed by the internet.

The fifty year old killer had pretended to be a 20 year old youth online in order to win over Carly’s confidence. With the support of Carly’s mother Sonya I introduced into the Senate a Private Senator’s Bill which would make it illegal for an adult to misrepresent their age while communicating with a minor online.

Continue reading "We need to be able to act when online alarm bells ring" »

What is it about our love affair with Google that we let them take wholesale liberties with our privacy, and sit back and watch what might be one of the largest data breaches in history go by without so much as a whimper?

After some prodding, Google recently admitted to European Privacy Commissioners that they had “mistakenly” collected the contents of communications between some computer users, as part of their “Street View” activities.  Mistakenly.  All around the world. For four years.

It goes something like this: specially equipped “Street View” vehicles criss-cross entire nations, taking photographs of our houses and streets, geo-tagging the location with both a GPS and also by “sniffing” for WI FI connections in the area.  That way, when a person uses a Google product to locate themselves (like Google Maps), and there are WI FI networks detected nearby, Google can triangulate the device and give you an approximate location.  Pretty cool, and nothing really too scary about that, even though there were privacy concerns raised at the time.  We trusted Google.

Continue reading "Google, the pot and the kettle" »

If you thought the Catherine Deveny-Fairfax-Twitter saga was over, think again. Another similar but less blockbusting sequel has unfolded which has already, uncharitably, been labelled Gerbilgate.

It began on Saturday night when columnist Miranda Devine became involved in a “tweet war” with a 20-year-old university student named Justin Barbour. Devine suggested that Barbour “rogers” gerbils.

In the wake of Catherine Deveny’s sacking last week, Twitterers have started baying for Devine’s blood – but before you make up your mind on this latest development, here is some background. (Justin Barbour’s reaction is below, too.)

Continue reading "Gerbilgate" »

The federal government has been told the National Broadband Network can be rolled out for at least $5 billion less than the original $43 billion earmarked. News.com.au has the story here, but a quick back-of-a-napkin calculation on what it means:

It’s been almost a week since he left the country. Quarantine has again been established. As racing heartbeats slow and those who lost consciousness reawaken, the Bieber Fever epidemic that swept the nation is fast becoming nothing but a painful memory.

For most of us, who hadn’t even heard of Justin before last week, headlines during his visit were confusing. Who the hell is this child on the cover of every newspaper? More to the point, why is Slash offering to take him to a titty bar? Does he need a feed? Is Slash going to burp him afterwards?

You might be surprised, or possibly more confused, to learn that Justin’s rise to fame occurred as a result of Youtube. Three years ago the cherub-faced twelve year-old posted a video of him singing at a local talent quest.

Continue reading "Meet the Aussie Bieber, and his YouTube stage mother" »