Category Archives: Opinion/Blogs
Without balance that paywall will not stand | Unleashed
[The Drum Opinion/Tim Dunlop] As of Monday, The Australian online went behind a paywall. At the moment, you can sign up for a free “digital pass” that’s valid for three months, but after that, as the blurb says, they will “send you an offer”. [...]signing up for the paywall at The Australian brought home to me a point I made […]
Occupying the protesters’ time
[via - October 22, 2011 12:00AM] When dutiful police officers are called upon to forcibly remove or arrest their fellow citizens in a public place in an Australian city, authorities should have sound reasons for doing so and no plausible alternatives available. In a nation where open-mindedness and freedom of expression are central to the liberty we enjoy […]
Three Minute Thesis
[MeFi] The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition challenges higher degree students (PhD and MPhil) from Australia and New Zealand to communicate their research in three minutes to a non-specialist audience. Contestants are judged according to communication style, comprehension and engagement criteria. Here’s the 2011 Winner, Matthew Thompson (University of Queensland): Suspects, science and CSI. 3MT was established in […]
Wall Street Owns The Country
A speech by Mary Elizabeth Lease, circa 1890 This is a nation of inconsistencies. The Puritans fleeing from oppression became oppressors. We fought England for our liberty and put chains on four million of blacks. We wiped out slavery and our tariff laws and national banks began a system of white wage slavery worse than the […]
Scientist meets Publisher
[The Conversation/ Alex O. Holcombe] Scientists – myself (Alex O. Holcombe) included – are increasingly frustrated by the outmoded academic publishing system. The situation as it stands made sense in the pre-internet era, when one needed a printing press to distribute articles, but here in 2011 our antiquated approach looks absurd. Put simply, you shouldn’t have to pay […]
Opinion: Ten Lost Years
[Der Spiegel/Jakob Augstein] Ten years have passed since Sept. 11, 2001, and today only losers remain. Islam has been taken hostage by blinded ideologues. The West has betrayed its values in its struggle against terror, and we are now burdened with Islamophobes. Without 9/11, the crimes of Anders Behring Breivik and the rise of right-wing […]
Big Ideas: Beyond skills, towards wisdom
[Big Ideas] Has the teaching of skills triumphed over wisdom in higher education? Should the academies be honing the mind and nourishing the soul? Steven Schwartz is concerned that for too long wisdom has been left off the curriculum and he makes the case that it’s time to put it back in. Beyond skills, towards wisdom: The […]
Is Copyright Only For the Big Guys?
[TorrentFreak/Ben Jones] Over the last two weeks, two interesting copyright-related stories have appeared in online news reports. Both involve big media companies and small users, but not in the way we usually expect. In both instances, the large media companies “pirated” content instead of the users, and they seem to get away with it. This […]
This is not poverty … this is the cult of victimhood | ABC
Only two groups of people seem to be getting a kick out of the rioting in England. Firstly the rioters themselves, the nihilistic urban youth who are getting cheap thrills from looting shops, bashing bus stops, and burning down houses. And secondly middle-class radicals, trustafarians who live off daddy’s cash, who get a rush of […]
NASA, Juno and the LEGO figurines
NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched this morning and is en route to Jupiter (launch video). Equipped with microwave, ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light detectors Juno will investigate the origins, atmosphere, and magnetosphereof the Solar System’s largest planets over one year beginning with its arrival in 2016. Using its awesomesolar-powered technology Juno will show Jupiter’s magnetic field in detail never before seen. We probably won’t hear much from […]
Spock is not impressed
Spock Is Not Impressed, a new Tumblr blog featuring a very unimpressed Spock Photoshopped into various photos. Here’s a Spock template that you can use to add Spock to photos which can then be submitted to the blog. [via]
Catholic Church no longer adequately inspires many of our communities
(image: “Streets of Belgrade” via) Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Bishops of Australia Dear Pope Benedict and Bishops of Australia, We, the undersigned Catholics of Australia, write to you regarding our concerns for the Church. We ask that you consider these matters during the 2011 Ad Limina visit. As Christ’s faithful, we […]
Australia’s carbon tax — Hysteria and hype
Over at Digital Journal, Paul Wallis has posted an Op-ed that asserts: Australia’s governments have developed a very bad habit: a lack of modelling for policies. The new carbon tax, sadly, is no different. This major initiative has become a nitpicking session with political overtones and hysteria. [...] The sickening irony is that the carbon […]
Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling
Kembrew McLeod and Peter DiCola’s Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling is a fantastic and deep look at the business, art, culture, ethics, history and future of musical sampling. The authors — respected academics/writers/filmmakers — undertook to interview a really amazingly wide spectrum of people involved in music production, and what emerges is […]
Art is the only way to run away without leaving home
Lots of fun art links making the rounds this week, including Pollock and fluid dynamics and Giuseppe Arcimbaldo, proto-surrealist? Also popping back up, the classic Mr. Picassohead (quite some time previously) and still-stunning Tilt-shifted Van Gogh (previously). But art can be lucrative, and where there’s money, there arethieves (Picasso sketch stolen in San Francisco) and cheaters (previously) … and lawsuits. Need more art in your life? […]
