Win a Grand Weekend in Melbourne
Expedia is running a competition to win an AFL Grand Final weekend in fabulous Melbourne (my beloved home city), valued at up to $9,600. The competition closes August 31 and is open to Australian residents. Click the image below to enter.
Good luck!
An article and an interview
About two weeks I had my first ever paid-for article published. “Are Videogames Conservative?” appeared in the September edition of The IPA Review (57:3).
Today, Libby Price, a presenter on Melbourne radio station 3LO, got in contact with me to do a radio interview. I managed to schedule a break in my Berlitz training so I could do the interview live from Ôsaka at about 16:40 Australian time. Thanks for the opportunity, Libby: it was great fun. Dad managed to tape the interview for me, and played it back to me over Skype tonight. It sounded really nice: a good, relaxed interview. Not bad for a first try.
First article, first radio interview. What a couple of weeks it’s been… And that’s even without considering my move to Ôsaka, and my new job.
Six, already?
Today, Apple released iTunes 6. This is the most gratuitous major version bump I’ve ever seen.
Sure, new iPods came out today that play video. It’s about time. And the iTunes music store also carries short films and TV shows now. But little has changed in iTunes itself. iTunes has played video for ages, and the store’s been selling music videos for some time.
And let’s not forget that iTunes got a major version bump from 4 to 5 just a week or two ago. To go to six, now, with so few changes in between, is just ridiculous.
London bombings: Ken Livingston speaks
A few of London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s words addressing the London bombers and their motivations are worth reprinting here:
Even after your cowardly attacks, people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfill their dreams and achieve their potential.
They come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that. And however many of us you kill, you will not stop their flight to our cities where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another.
Microsoft Student: It’s like, totally lame
Today Microsoft released a new software suite for students. It’s aimed at secondary-school students, and offers them resources to help them complete assignments in standard subject areas like maths, science and so on. Students would probably be best advised to get an Apple computer if they want to be productive, which would stop them running the aptly named Microsoft Student suite. Even so, it looks like a decent product. Just like the Xbox 360 looks like a decent product, and probably will be.
Microsoft’s been criticised recently, though, for not knowing how to do publicity properly. The latest edition of Edge, #151, compares Sony’s savvy launch for PS3 with Microsoft’s try-hard MTV special launching XBox 360. And with Microsoft Student, we see a trend emerging.
Microsoft’s flash-based product tour for Student is terrifyingly condescending. It features a hip dude, probably about 25, who goes on about how well Student helps him prepare reports and do things with “numberage,†in a voice that sounds like a simultaneous parody of both Pauly Shore and Keanu Reeves. (Keanu doesn’t need a link, since he still has a career going.) This relic from the 1990s has, for a side-kick, a girl with visible braces and an awful haircut who looks like a poster-child for unpopularity. Here’s a hint, people: the cool kidz down in the ‘hood are using Macs!
Come on, Microsoft! I’m sure today’s kids don’t need advice from Pauly Shore or Little Miss Dork. The best thing about the product tour is that people might get a few giggles out of it at Microsoft’s expense. Check it out, if you could use a few laughs.
And Microsoft… Someone, in fact probably several people, on your publicity team, need a swift and powerful kick in the ass that sends them flying out your front door and into the crisp Redmond morning. Like, jaa…
My grounds for supporting VSU
Today, the last in a series of emails I exchanged with Michelle Smith, Publications Officer of the University of Melbourne Postgraduate Association, about the relationship between identity politics and VSU (Voluntary Student Unionism). In today’s installment, I explain that one of the reasons I support VSU is because I believe it’s immoral to force people to pay for services rendered to others. This wasn’t intended to be the last word on the subject, but there wasn’t anything else to say after this. Next: Something on another topic…
My final email to Michelle Smith
Thanks again for your reply, Michelle. It’s a pleasure to read such thoughtful responses.
I have just one short thing to say, and it’s possibly where the source of our disagreements lies. I believe that it is immoral to coerce people into helping provide services or advocacy for others, and that to do so is destructive to the liberty of all. The only things I believe people are entitled to expect are the freedom to behave as they see fit (provided they coerce no other), and to have their own bodies as their property. People have no entitlement to assistance of any kind, whatever their circumstances, if that assistance must be extracted involuntarily. It is admirable that UMPA does provide products, services, and assistance that can’t be made to turn a profit or even to break even. However, under VSU, UMPA will not be able to force students to co-operate, and will have to rely on their generosity instead. This is as it should be. Start preparing convincing appeals to students’ sense of charity if you wish things to continue as they are at UMPA, but don’t try to trick them into believing that their own freedom of choice is a bad thing.
By the way, I consider the ban on UMPA mass-emailing postgraduates denies all its staff their entitlement to behave as they see fit. It also disadvantages students by preventing them from receiving direct email communications from UMPA even though they may (as I would) prefer that money, paper, and labour not be wasted on mail-outs.
I hope to hear that your colleagues approve of my reproducing your responses. If not, I invite you to post a comment to the entries appearing on my blog from Sunday, so that your point of view can be represented.
Sincerely,
Ben Hourigan
Apple on x86: a gamer’s perspective
In today’s WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs officially announced that Apple is beginning to switch its CPU-based products from the PowerPC architecture to x86. Online responses have been varied, commenting on what effect the move will have on Apple’s sales, Linux, and Microsoft. I haven’t seen any writing that’s been especially enthusiastic about it from a user’s perspective, but I think that’s because a few effects of the transition have so far been missed.
The only thing I’m unhappy about is that come 2006, I’m going to want to replace the 1.5GHz Powerbook I bought last November with one of the new Intel-based Apple laptops we can expect to see soon. On the plus side, that new machine is likely to be considerably faster, cooler, lighter, and less power-hungry than what I currently have.
Better yet, it’s going to have the same processor architecture that Windows and most Linux distros are compiled for. So while I’ll be mostly running OS 10.whatever, I’ll be able to dual-boot with an x86 Linux distro, and probably Windows, too.
This will make my life as a gamer much easier. I just gave away my x86 PC, since the beast of a machine was too heavy and too big to think about taking with me to Japan. So I’ll probably never finish Knights of the Old Republic, Planescape: Torment, and Legacy of Kain: Defiance, which I had on the go. It’s a shame.
But with a new x86 Powerbook, I will be able to play those games again, and not just on Windows, either. With OS X on x86, the way is open for a port of Cedega, which currently lets users play DirectX games on Linux, provided they’ve got an x86. Even Transgaming don’t port Cedega to OS X, I’ll still be able to run it under Ubuntu Linux. Of course, having x86 processors in Apple machines is also going to make it easier for developers to write OS X native ports of Windows games, provided they can wean themselves off their dependence on DirectX. Emulators written for x86 probably won’t suffer the performance hits they currently do on PPC, Virtual PC and so on for OS X will run Windows at close to native speed, and we’ll probably see an OS X port of VMware.
So if Apple keeps putting A-grade GPUs in their Powerbooks, they’ll soon be great work machines that double as gaming platforms. That will make me very happy, and it’s likely to make the Mac a viable choice for gamers for the first time ever. Smart move, Apple.
now playing: No Dancing from the album “My Aim Is True” by Elvis Costello
Server downtime
My web server has been down for most of today. And nary a word from my web host, not even once I could collect my email again. Not that I’ve been posting much lately, but if you tried to look and couldn’t, don’t worry, I’m still here. Or do worry, if you happened to go to one of those ridiculous anti-VSU … [coughs] … uh, anti-freedom rallies today, since … [whispers] I am not on your side.
In case you’re wondering who my webhost is, it’s World Super Host. And no, I wouldn’t recommend them. Not unless you like unexplained downtime with your dirt-cheap hosting.
Microsoft copies Ubuntu logo
The MSN Spaces service recently passed out of its beta phase. On visiting the service’s home page, regular readers of OSNews will likely recognise a shocking degree of similarity between the Spaces logo and that of distro-of-the-moment Ubuntu Linux. The similarity is obvious when switching between the Spaces and Ubuntu pages in separate browser tabs. In the sites’ favicons, the three circles representing human heads are in the exact same positions in both logos. There is also a blog within MSN Spaces that has been set up to show Ubuntu’s logo side by side with Microsoft’s ripped-off version. Have a look before Microsoft hears from Canonical’s lawyers.
Student unionism should be voluntary
With legislation to ban compulsory student unionism currently before parliament, student groups are protesting on the streets, on posters stuck around campus, and to the press to keep union membership compulsory. Even Vice Chancellors are expressing concerns.
I find it staggering that people would protest against their own freedom of association. Okay, if you appreciate the services and representation the union offers you, join it and pay the fee. But give yourself an out if you decide it’s not for you, and let other people decide for themselves whether they join and pay or not.
Admittedly, students can already choose not to join (for the record, I chose to be a member of what remains of Melbourne’s student union, and of UMPA. But they have to pay the fee whether they join or not. I would skip out on membership of the union if I wasn’t paying already.
The main arguments against voluntary student unionism (VSU) seem to be these:
- it is an example of the Howard government’s union-busting mentality
- it will rob students of a body that represents them
- it will result in less services being provided to students
I’m not going to argue with the first one. I think that the Howard government’s antagonism towards unions is appalling. Workers and their employers (or universities and their customers) should be entitled to fight their battles, in whatever groupings they choose, without goverment interference.
Whether or not student unions really represent their students is debatable. There will always be those who dissent from the opinion of their representatives, whether they voted for them or not, and those dissenting people are not represented. Voter turnouts at student elections are, to the best of my knowledge, typically poor. That’s fine: those who want to have a say can have it. Student representation is a good thing, but…
…there’s no way to justify forcing people to join an association in order to secure that representation. For me this is an absolutely clear-cut issue. If student unionists do not wish to let students choose whether or not to join their association and pay the associated fees, then they are against freedom and therefore in the wrong. (Note that as far as I am aware it is voluntary to join the association, but you have to pay the fee even if you don’t join). If student unionists wish to remain a voice in student politics after this reform (and it will go through), they will have to convince students that it is in their interests not only to join the union, student association or guild, but also to voluntarily pay the portion of their amentities and services fee (the whole amount of which is currently around $400 a year at Melbourne, some of which goes to the University itself). I have to say it: I don’t think they’ll have many takers. They might be able to claw some of their membership back if they lower the fee. Price competitiveness is one of the great things that can come from forcing organisations to respond to market pressures.
So, too, I expect both union services, and the private businesses that will appear on campuses to fill the space created by shrinking unions, will have to compete on price and quality of service to secure the patronage of students. Students will be likely end up being better serviced as a result.
I think the Howard government has been appallingly repressive throughout its time in office. Its treatment of refugees is especially atrocious, as is its attempt to mislead people into thinking there were WMD in Iraq (especially when there was a good reason for war: removing Saddam Hussein, a tyrant, from power). But it seems about to strike a blow against the forces of coercion. And that goes to show how sometimes people you think are awful can do good things nonetheless.