Archive for the ‘computers’ Category

Keep the Internet Open

Friday, December 5th, 2008

Innovation, Information, Evolution.

Sure I don’t want my internet speed to get slower and I certainly don’t want this Government Filter to fail us by being inaccurate. And who doesn’t want to see child porn removed from society but is this filter the answer?

This unrestricted information highway that we are surely taking for granted by now has created such innovation in our society and things are only just beginning. I try to keep up with it, but even I couldn’t articulate to you the positive impact of this Innovation. Here are some keywords though: Google (Stop there if you need to), YouTube, Blogs, Email, IM, Video Chat, Facebook. These things are connecting us in ways we never imagined and it turns out we still go outside even with these things. These things are informing us.

I agree that the internet makes it possible for the ‘bad’ stuff to be shared too and I can say for sure that there are things I do not want my son to stumble across, but I just googled the word ‘child‘ and was not presented with porn. Firstly this will be because google is not going to show me porn as far as I understand, but it also for me reflects that fact that google works on relevance. So what appears on your top 10 search results is a reflection on how people are using the internet relative to your search term. Is it not true that Einstein didn’t remember formulas because he thought it was silly to fill his head with things he could find in a book. For me the internet is like that. My knowledge over the last 5+ years is made up from google search results. This tool has been priceless like so many other features on the internet. The abilty to share information the way the internet enables us is helping us as a species evolve if not avoid our possible demise due to lack of climate change information. Governments keep climate change from us long before the internet came along. They have proven themselves able to do sure things. The open internet has been able to by pass them. This cannot change. The internet has become a tool for us to keep our governments in check and now they want to use it to keep us in check. Just when things were starting to feel a bit more democratic.

If we as a society cannot govern ourselves on what is appropriate or not for our children then it is a measure of how evolved our society is. There must be a more in-depth conversation that can be had beyond simply the idea of stopped these people from being able to share images of child pornography. Um… why are people sharing images of child pornography and isn’t it a bit late if we are stepping in at that point??? Our evolution is also at stake. There is so much goodwill on the internet that it far outweighs the bad in my opinion and good will win over evil in the end anyway. So many people on the internet are trying to empower each other not exploit. If you are seeing the internet in the negative light then it might just be a reflection of your overall world view. Too much 6pm news and Courier Mail. The world is a beautiful place with a wonderful species called human beings. There is more good in man than there is bad. If you don’t believe me check out www.ted.com.

Want to truly understand the internet. Read Lawrence Lessig’s book: The Future of Ideas. Please note that you can buy this book from a book shelf or download the whole thing for free from that link.

Nearly forgot to add a link to the Australian Campaign to stop this all from happening. No Clean Feed. Check it out.

Posted in alternative media, computers, peace, politics | 2 Comments »

Galaga stays a little longer.

Friday, September 19th, 2008

The guys at Arcade Tables have offered to leave the table for one more month and if you happen to purchase a table from them because of playing the one at Urban Grind they will donate $25 to our charity of choice. We choose Kiva. So if you have ever been curious to relive those fish and chip shop memories from your child hood you still have some time to try it out before it goes back.

Arcade Tables have been awesome to deal with. They are very professional and extremely helpful. It has been overall a great experience.

Posted in computers | No Comments »

Spread Firefox Please!

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Ok so I don’t use Firefox as my main browser because I am a Mac user but Firefox is a great browser for both the Mac Lovers and especially Windows users. It is more secure - those annoying popup windows that dial you in to other internet providers will stop. You will get less viruses. It is also a better browsing experience. It shows you web pages in the way that the designer intended. I do a bit of web design and Internet Explorer is the worst. All IE users should be downloading Firefox, you have no idea what you are missing. You may have even come to accept mediocre as normal and this could be spilling over into the rest of your life. It’s not worth it, set yourself free and make my job easier, because the more of you that use Firefox the less web designers have to care about coding for IE.

It is said that a web designer spends 20% of his time designer for every other browser and 80% of his time then getting that same design to work properly in Internet Explorer. I think we can all agree that the internet offers some really cool things, but they only got there because of designers putting the time onto these cool things. How much time is being wasted? How much innovation are we missing out on because Microsoft made a crap Web Browser that most of the world got sucked into using??? But I digress… this was not meant to be an IE bash, but who can resist.

Sometime tomorrow starts Firefox Download day. They are releasing their latest version (FREE) and trying to get the whole world to download it, increase there market share, free you from IE and maybe just make it into the Guinness Book of Records for the most copies of a software downloaded in a day.

Click on the image above to get all the details.

Posted in apple, computers | No Comments »

BAD - Designer Fight Club

Monday, June 16th, 2008

This should make for a great local event. As I understand it, the idea is to sit down 12 designers, present them with a concept and give them 10 mins or so to come up with a visual design. The best designers move to the next round until there is only one standing. This Thursday the students get to put the gloves on and next month the pros do it. Should be an interesting show. Urban Grind has provided free coffee cards (Davros designed them) for the event as door prizes. Speaking of prizes, there are some wicked ones up for grabs with the major prize being a fully spec’d iMac.

You can register and/or get more info here:
bigfish.tv/designerfightclub
Zoo Website

It’s not too late to register as a contestant but hurry!

Posted in art, computers, friends, local community | 1 Comment »