A slippery snake

We were given to believe that our Prime Minister stood up to Beijing by not allowing its "flame attendants" to accompany the torch barer during the torch relay:

"The advice that I have got from the Australian Federal Police is that the physical security of the Olympic torch will be provided by Australian security officials only."

This certainly wasn't the understanding of the so-called flame attendants, and the AFP had to keep them at bay during the Canberra leg of the torch relay.

Questions are not only being raised about the fruitfulness of the 2020 Summit, but Kevin Rudd's honesty about the whole process that has been followed in conducting the talkfest. The summit report included under Top Ideas suggestions for one-stop community child care centres across the nation and the establishment of a community corps to assist graduates in paying off their HECS-HELP debt. These ideas were never discussed during the summit of supposedly the nation's 1000 greatest minds; they are Rudd's proposals, and he has mislead the public into believing that these policies received backing from our experts during this event.

Rudd has an interesting approach to handling difficult questions. When asked a question about his connections with Chinese businessman Ian Tang in parliament, he replied out aloud "I have no such recollection," and then finishes the sentence with "other than it being some sort of humorous conversation," so softly that it can be barely heard.

During parliament question time, he held out and quoted from a letter, claiming it was "addressed to you know who: it is the member for Flinders". This was a deliberate lie made to gain political points: it was not addressed to Liberal member Greg Hunt but his own minister Peter Garrett.

• From The Australian: All cheated as Rudd jettisons truth

Charge Bush, Blair and Howard with war crimes: Mahathir

It seems former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad still won't let go of his grudge against the West and he is more out of touch with reality than ever. He has called for US President George W Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard to be charged with war crimes. No, he won't attempt to bring them before The Hague, he will try them in absentia in a war crimes tribunal of his own creation. While the tribunal won't have any legal authority, he hopes to make some mark on history:

"The accused may disregard. There will be (other) people who will take it seriously, and historians will attach an epithet that they will not like. They will go down in history as war criminals."

The only thing that anyone would care to notice or remember is that Mahathir was the clown who set up this do-it-yourself war crimes tribunal.

Mahathir still doesn't get it. Those who have heard of him outside of Malaysia just see him as a corrupt ex-Prime Minister who dismally failed to influence the international community with his theatrical tirades against Australia and the West in general. Outside of Malaysia the convictions would just be received with amusement.

Australians might remember this outburst from Mahathir in 2002:

"This country stands out like a sore thumb trying to impose its European values in Asia as if it is the good old days when people can shoot aborigines without caring about human rights."

Howard, as always, gave Mahathir the harshest response of all: none. Mahathir was constantly seeking attention with his provocative rhetoric and he never got it.

The customer service of our telecommunications carriers, or lack thereof

The overall quality of our major telecommunications carriers' customer service is appalling. From a technical standpoint, their services are adequate, but what is the point in having a service without staff competent enough to deliver them? One would think that providing staff who are aware of and understand the available phone models, services, phone plans and management of accounts would not be that difficult, but unfortunately based on my experiences with our major carriers over the past decade the vast majority of the people I have dealt with do not even possess these basic skills, and this is no exaggeration. None more so than at Optus.

It has been over five months since I purchased my new mobile phone under a contract and Optus still cannot set up the billing on my plan correctly. At first, I had no Internet access, and after being made to do the rounds of their departments, the complaints department finally enabled my Internet access within minutes after fighting for over a week to get the company to take some proper action on this problem. Not only did the complaints department enable the Internet access on my plan, they apparently put me onto a second plan, so I was being billed under two plans simultaneously - one for the price of two.

To compound the problem, their staff can hardly be described as proactive, keen to use their initiative and take any responsibility when dealing with customers' problems. Clearly, there are issues in the management of their service to customers because all too often Customer Service and Technical Support have referred me to the other department even after it is explained that I am being sent back to the one that originally took my call. When asked why I am being sent back to the same department the answer is simply "I don't know". This is just downright silly. If one department has made a mistake, do you send the customer back not knowing if the same person is going to handle the call? Should you make them dial the number again? Absolutely not. The appropriate action is obvious if you use some common sense and courtesy: put the customer on hold, call the other department to find out what has happened, then decide on the right course of action. Otherwise, as has been my experience, nothing gets done.

I have taken my case to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. The dispute is presently at Level 1 and if a resolution isn't found within two weeks, the dispute proceeds to Level 2.

Apartment tower complex to replace Cinema City in the Perth CBD

You may have grown used to seeing new apartments rising up everywhere you walk in the city centre, but there is one development that is about to commence that you will surely notice: a 27 storey apartment complex on the former site of Cinema City. Located just opposite the convict-built Perth Town Hall and adjacent to the Hay Street Mall, it will be an inner city lover's dream. The 150 apartments will be built on top of 7 floors consisting of a shopping arcade, restaurants, coffee shops, wine bars, office space, a gymnasium and swimming pool. Every apartment will have either one or two parking spaces in the basement, each worth at least $50,000.

The prices for the apartments start at $600,000 and construction is expected to be completed in March 2011.

• Equus
• Ian Burgoyne International Properties: Equus

Government's plan to censor the Internet will be a waste of money

The Australian government's plans to censor the Internet by blocking access to selected websites will achieve little except increase the costs of Internet services while degrading performance. Anyone with a basic understanding of how the Internet is constructed will tell you that any attempt to restrict users' access to sites across the globe will fail. The Internet owes its remarkable success to its decentralisation, open architecture and adaptiveness, and for these reasons it is futile to attempt to regulate users' access to data that is normally accessible by the general public.

The cliché "it is better than doing nothing" does not justify this dumb policy, because the time and money spent implementing the filter can be put to better use in other approaches to combating child pornography, such as law enforcement, where the perpetrators are actually identified and prosecuted, not ignored (of course, this would mean more money would have to come out of the government's own budget, rather than that of ISPs).

So, how easy would it be to circumvent the Internet filter? Here is one way it can be done in two simple steps:

1. Browse to an anonymous public web proxy hosted overseas, such as Vtunnel.
2. Enter the URL of the desired site and click Begin browsing.

Some will argue that this loophole can be overcome by simply blacklisting anonymous web proxies, but this is just one method and there are countless other ways that Internet filters can be circumvented, such as VPN, SSH and various other SSL-based tunnelling methods, as well as freely available technologies developed solely for this purpose. Furthermore, if anonymous web proxies were blacklisted, Australian Internet users would justifiably be outraged because it would be encroaching upon their basic right to online privacy, which unfortunately does not exist when traffic is unencrypted.

Most of the individuals who are determined to obtain or distribute child pornography via the Internet would be well aware of the severe penalties and shame for their crimes and would already be adopting measures to avoid detection, making it difficult to maintain up-to-date lists of sites providing such material. We do not know how much of this material is downloaded via server-based systems. Users obtaining child pornography through decentralised file sharing networks will be totally unaffected by filters that only target dedicated servers.

The intentions might be good (we should hope so), but the end does not justify the means, especially when the end will not be achieved.

Links

• Cerf sees government control of Internet failing - Reuters
• Free Anonymous Surfing, Free Anonymous Proxies
• HOWTO bypass Internet Censorship
• Rudd porn filter fails: experts
• Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy
• Wikipedia: Internet censorship - Circumvention

CNN rewrites elementary geography: Australia and New Zealand are in Asia

If you browse CNN's website, you will notice that stories from Australia, New Zealand and other nations in the Pacific Ocean are published under the section Asia.

CNN.com is the only website I know of that lumps Australia and Pacific nations under Asia. Other news websites, such as BBC News, will publish news about Australia under a section called Asia-Pacific instead. It makes you question CNN's commitment to responsible, accurate and factual reporting.

Rudd's commitment to Kyoto: more negotiations

The response from Peter Garrett, Australia's new Environment Minister, on questions about Australia's support for short term cuts to greenhouse gas emissions was all too familiar:

"I think that most importantly, we are committed to constructive negotiations. That is the important message here, we're committed to constructive negotiations."

Rudd leaves us in no doubt about our "commitment" at the Bali conference:

"The objective of Bali is to start the process of negotiations for the next couple of years to bring about a real outcome to deal with excessively dangerous climate change."

Rudd has ruled out endorsing short term targets for greenhouse gas emissions without even setting foot on Bali.

Until Rudd is serious about making a commitment to targets for greenhouse gas emissions, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol can be regarded as nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

This raises some doubts about how committed the Labor Party truly is to tackling climate change, an issue upon which it sought to differentiate itself from the Liberal Party in the last election campaign.

Editorial from AdelaideNow...: End this climate of uncertainty

The Evan Trembley Hoax

Here is another bandwidth waster that has been doing the rounds in Facebook:

Please look at the picture,(Above)read what his mother says, then forward this message on. My 15 year old boy, Evan Trembley, is missing. He has been missing for now two weeks. Maybe if everyone passes this on, someone will see this child. That is how the girl from Stevens Point was found by circulation of her picture on tv. The internet circulates even overseas, South America , and Canada etc. Please pass this to everyone in your address book. With GOD on his side he will be found. "I am asking you all, begging you to please forward this email on to anyone and everyone you know, PLEASE. It is still not too late. Please help us. If anyone knows anything, please contact me at: HelpfindEvanTrembley@yahoocom. I am including a picture of him. All prayers are appreciated! It only takes 2 seconds to forward this. If it was your child, you would want all the help you could get!!

[...photo...]

You can rest easy, because Evan Trembley is alive and well, as reported on Snopes.com.

You should always be suspicious of any message that asks you to forward it on to other people. Chain messages are a dumb way of appealing for public support in finding a missing person.

Investigating whether a chain message is a hoax is very simple. Just copy and paste the entire contents of the message into the Google search box. If it is a known hoax, any information about it is likely to be one of the first items to appear in the list of results.

Answer to the "What's wrong here?" puzzle

Recently, the following message has been forwarded from user to user all over Facebook:

Whats wrong here

AAA
BBB
CCC
DDD
EEE
FFF
GGG
HHH
III
JJJ
KKK
LLL
MMM
NNN
OOO
PPP
QQQ
RRR
SSS
TTT
UUU
VVV
WWW
XXX
YYY
ZZZ

Did you know that 80% of UCSD students could not find the error above? Repost this with the title "what's wrong here", and when you click "post ", the answer will be really obvious.

Judging by the number of posts to discussion forums about the question in this chain message, it has left many people bewildered.

Instead of staring at the pattern trying to identify an irregularity and giving yourself eye strain, consider what might have been the intentions of the author who created this chain message. The author claims that the answer will somehow be revealed if the message is posted again, which of course is nonsense.

There is no error in the pattern and the message is a prank. The author has created a chain message that spreads rapidly while perplexing users with a question that they cannot answer.

Dullsville: What is missing?

In the world's most isolated city with over 1 million inhabitants, some are making a 3300km journey to Sydney on the opposite side of the country seeking a change of lifestyle. While Perth, or Dullsville as it is dubbed, is seen as an ideal place to study by parents of overseas students who want their children to be free of the distractions typical of city life, we have to wonder how Perth earned this unenviable title and what is driving away young professionals who will give reasons other than just the better opportunities that are offered elsewhere.

Perth is a clean and beautiful city and many of its residents would not want to live anywhere else. However, there are also many who want to call some other place home. On most days the CBD becomes virtually a ghost town in the evening, and except for Friday and Saturday night, the majority of clubs, pubs and bars in Northbridge - Perth's entertainment precinct - are either closed or have few customers.

Many sense a lack of vibrancy in the atmosphere of this city, and upon careful consideration, the underlying reasons for this may not be as simple and obvious as they at first seem.

What Is Meant By Dull?

The meaning of dull depends on the individual's perspective. Some Perth residents will have no idea what the proponents of change are seeking that the city does not already have. The proponents of change themselves will have differing ideas on what is needed to make the city more vibrant. However, most of these people would like to see more facilities and changes to laws that are conducive to social activity.

Does Size Matter?

With 1.5 million inhabitants, Perth is indeed small when compared to the world's largest urban agglomerations:

Agglomeration    Population
Tokyo            33.6 million
Seoul            23.4 million
Mexico City      22.4 million

Size certainly does make a difference, and the larger cities do tend to be more exciting, simply because there are more things to see and do.

There are other factors that contribute to the vibrancy of a city, however. Take for example Gold Coast City, famous for its expanse of surfing beaches, high rise apartments and theme parks, such as Warner Bros. Movie World. It is home to just 550 thousand. Gold Coast City owes its success as a popular tourist destination to geography, which attracted investment in tourist and entertainment facilities.

However, you do not need good beaches to create an exciting city, and Perth has good beaches anyway (even though they are not ideal for surfing).

Food and Entertainment Facilities

What can you do in other cities but not in Perth?

There is always a pub nearby. The hard part is choosing which one to go to.

There are nightclubs to cater to a range of tastes, including dance, R&B, house, rock and retro. They are concentrated in Northbridge, the CBD and Fremantle.

There is a wide variety of restaurants reflecting the multiculturalism of Australia, including Chinese, Japanese, Thai, French and Italian, just to name a few.

The cafes are plentiful. You see them everywhere you go in the CBD and Fremantle, and they can be found in many locations throughout the metropolitan area.

Aside from the above, the facilities exist for many other social activities, including watching movies on the big screen, pool, gambling and karaoke.

While Perth does have amusement and theme parks, it is debatable whether they can be considered world class. Perth would benefit from an amusement park with the same type of attractions as Disney Land in Los Angeles, but such a facility would not transform the atmosphere of Perth on its own, because it would not provide a regular social venue for local residents. The boost to tourism would be more significant, because it would encourage greater investment in the infrastructure and entertainment facilities that are needed to make Perth a more vibrant city.

Do the existing facilities just need to be bigger, better and greater in number in the capital of Australia's richest state? One would have to think not; presently, it is a meaningless proposition because on most nights almost all the social venues in the CBD are either closed or do not attract many customers. One would not describe the CBD as just dull six nights of the week; almost everywhere it is dead, eerily so. Visitors are left asking "Where can I get something to eat?". While there are restaurants (many of which only offer fast food) open in the evening, they are few and far between and lone visitors can be forgiven for not wanting to wander around the dark abandoned streets late at night searching for them. The few restaurants and nightclubs that are open for business tend to lie in obscure places where people are unlikely to find them on their own.

There are many restaurants and cafes open in Northbridge on every night of the week, but to get to these places one has to make a trek over the railway line which separates it from the centre of Perth's business activities. Some might argue that having a separate precinct exclusively for dining and entertainment is desirable, since it keeps the booming dance clubs and drunkards away from Perth's office blocks, but a lot of important business is done in restaurants and cafes outside normal business hours.

Shopping

Visitors might think that the exodus from the city centre at dusk is simply a lifestyle choice which fits popular stereotypes of Australian culture. It can be considered a choice, but not one made by individual retailers and shoppers.

The Retail Trading Hours Act 1987 was introduced by the state government with the aim of assisting small retailers against competition from larger businesses by restricting opening hours depending on the size, type and location of the business. Standard trading hours are as follows:

• 8.00am-6.00pm, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday
• 8.00am-9.00pm, Thursday
• 8.00am-5.00pm, Saturday

The Perth and Fremantle tourism precincts have expanded trading hours:

• 8.00am-7.00pm, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
• 8.00am-9.00pm, Friday
• 8.00am-5.00pm, Saturday
• 12 noon-6.00pm, Sunday

Small retail shops that meet a certain criteria may trade 24 hours of the day. The Act also allows 24 hour trading for filling stations. Retailers falling under the special retail shops category, such as pharmacies, video stores and duty free stores, are permitted to trade longer hours.

To the frustration of many consumers, the legislation has made many items such as clothes, electrical appliances and homewares generally impossible to obtain outside standard hours (or expanded hours in tourism precincts) because small businesses offering such products during these hours are simply not viable.

It is highly likely that the restricted trading hours of retailers would at least partly explain why other businesses such as cafes are legally permitted to remain open outside these hours but must close because they have too few potential customers. Consequently, there is little left to attract people into the CBD in the evening apart from a few convenience stores, fast food outlets and Internet cafes.

The Big Picture: Urban Design

Most of the discussion on transforming Perth that receives attention in the media appears to concentrate on the CBD and adjacent areas. It is easy for people to accept and appreciate the benefits of change in this part of the city. There is no question that the vitality of the city centre is important, but there are other issues that have an impact on the city's social structure.

The urban geography of Perth is characterised by urban sprawl and one of the world's highest dependencies on the automobile for transport. The highly segregated land use has resulted in suburbs featuring low-density, homogeneous residential areas serviced by large shopping centres. Urban sprawl is a phenomenon that became particularly evident in Australian and American cities after World War II and has been the subject of numerous studies.

Evidence exists that the car dependent lifestyle which is a fundamental characteristic of urban sprawl not only has an adverse impact on the environment, physical health and the economy, but also on social capital, or the benefit delivered by social networks. The only form of face-to-face interaction drivers have with people outside the car is road rage.

Reducing dependence on the private automobile is not a simple matter of increasing funding for public transport. Perth's urban geography has already made it one of the most costly cities to service in the world when measured as a percentage of Gross Regional Product.

Planning the city so that people spend less time behind the wheel and there is more space and money available for entertainment facilities and the services that support them can only make the CBD and surrounding suburbs more exciting places to live.